This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
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On this week’s Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan hit all the things you would expect about Election 2016, the attacks in Brussels and the announcements at the latest Apple event. They also talk a bit about fitness, #ManInTree, Waze, Obama in Cuba and more! Even a bit about events in the Nixon administration!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-03-24
Length this week – 1:51:13
 1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
 View Podcast in iTunes
 View Raw Podcast Feed
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Show Details:
- (0:00:00-0:02:52) Alex Prelude
- (0:03:05-0:14:21) But First
- Health
- Fitness
- Man In Tree
- (0:15:01-0:56:58) Election 2016
- Delegate Math
- Types of Contested Conventions
- Upcoming States
- California
- Virgin Islands
- Delegate Selection Processes
- Trump’s Lost Illinois Delegates
- Clinton vs Trump
- (0:58:02-1:06:19) Brussels
- Belgian Citizens
- Radicalization
- History of Terrorism
- Responses
- (1:07:36-1:19:56) Brussels Part II
- Overreactions
- Suicide Bombings
- IS Strategy
- Cruz and Trump on Brussels
- When it happens in the US
- (1:20:35-1:33:43) Apple Stuff
- No surprises
- Android codenames
- OS X codenames
- FBI vs Apple update
- (1:34:22-1:50:53) Lightning Round
- TV Series: Minority Report (2015)
- Obama in Cuba
- Obama in Argentina
- Nixon Administration on Drug War
- Rob Ford
New general election polls in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania since the last update but the one that makes a difference is Pennsylvania:
After a few months in “Weak Clinton” territory, the polling average in Pennsylvania returns to “Strong Clinton” with Clinton now leading Trump by 5.2%. That is just barely out of the “close” category, but you have to draw the line somewhere. For the categorization on ElectionGraphs.com, only states where the margin is under 5% are considered states that could go either way.
So, Trump’s “best case” where he wins all the close states gets weaker:
And since Pennsylvania was the tipping point in Clinton vs Trump, the tipping point moves toward Clinton as well:
With this change added, the impression of Trump peaking against Clinton in January and being on a decline ever since is reinforced. With a couple of exceptions, almost every change since then has been in Clinton’s favor.
It is almost as if the things that have propelled Trump to the top of the GOP race may simultaneously be turning off general election voters. Go figure. Who would have guessed?
The new overall summary of the Clinton vs Trump race is below:
If Trump wins all the close states, he still wins. This is still a race, and Democrats should not get complacent.
But things have not been moving in Trump’s direction for the general while he has been fighting for the GOP nomination… which is still by no means locked up. If Trump wants to win in November and not just in July at the Republican convention, at some point he needs to do the pivot to the general election. Right now it looks like the earliest that can really happen is June, and quite possibly not until July… assuming the nomination doesn’t go to someone else at a contested convention.
The longer it takes for Trump to get to the point where he can make a big change in direction to try to appeal to general election voters, the weaker he is likely to be in November.
229.3 days until polls start closing on election day.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
When I did my last update there hadn’t been any recent polls in either Arizona or Utah, but the results there ended up matching pretty well with the results of the few polls that came out since then. Namely, Trump won Arizona which was straight up winner take all, and Cruz got over 50% in Utah, so he got all of the delegates there.
So the net for the night was Trump +58, Cruz +40.
Adding in other delegate adjustments since the March 15th results we have a net change of:
Trump +62, Cruz +43, Rubio -3
So effectively, Trump got 60.78% of the delegates since the last update. He only needed 53.07% to improve his position.
So what does this look like?
The raw delegate count is now Trump 755, Cruz 466, Rubio 169, Kasich 144, Carson 8, Bush 4, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 1, Paul 1
Trump’s pace of delegate accumulation actually looks like it has accelerated, while everybody else has slowed down.
But the raw delegate counts are not the right thing to look at.
In percentages of the delegates so far, both Trump and Cruz improved. But of course Cruz is nowhere near the 50% line. Trump meanwhile is now at 48.74%. He doesn’t have a majority. Close. Very close. But not quite.
But % of delegates so far isn’t the right thing to look at either.
This is the real graph to watch. The percentage of the remaining delegates that Trump needs to win in order to get to the convention with a majority of delegates. This has been dropping in the last couple of contests.
Trump now needs 52.22% of the remaining delegates to win the nomination outright.
Now, some of those “remaining delegates” are 18 delegates who have already been selected as officially “uncommitted” delegates, and there will be more uncommitted delegates coming out of some of the states that have yet to vote. Probably a few dozen to as many as 100. These delegates are essentially like the Democratic superdelegates in that they can vote however they feel like and are not bound to the results of any primaries or caucuses.
If you wanted to calculate the percentage Trump would need without uncommitted delegates, it would be higher. But just like superdelegates are part of the process on the Democratic side, uncommitted delegates are part of the process on the Republican side, and to get a fair picture you need to include them.
You just have to realize that winning not only includes earning pledged delegates, but also convincing uncommitted delegates to vote for you.
It is a real possibility that we could get to the end of the primaries and caucuses in June without knowing if Trump has an outright win, or if he’ll come up short on the first ballot at the convention. It might end up depending on what those uncommitted delegates decide to do.
We are still right on the edge between a Trump win and a convention where nobody wins on the First ballot. And which way that goes may end up depending on the uncommitted delegates. What percentage of the uncommitted delegates Trump would need… if he even needs them at all… will depend on how he continues to do in getting pledged delegates between now and June.
But meanwhile, the pace of primaries and caucuses now slows down quite a bit. So there will be a lot of waiting before we know.
[Update 2016-04-01 17:15 UTC – Alaska gave back Rubio’s delegates after he asked, and Oklahoma finalized their results. Net change: Rubio +4, Cruz -2, Trump -3. This does not substantially change the analysis above.]
[Update 2016-04-04 05:43 UTC – Most of Colorado’s delegates will be determined next weekend, but the 6 representing the 1st and 6th congressional districts were determined this weekend, and all 6 went to Cruz. With this and the change above, Trump’s percentage of remaining needed to win is up to 52.83%. Adding this note here rather than doing a full post on those six delegates.]
[Update 2016-04-04 14:15 UTC – As of April 4th there were 28 “unbound” Republican delegates, with more to come soon. These are free agents like the Democratic superdelegates. I have started to track them individually when there is evidence of a known preference. So far, adding them in nets: Cruz +3, Trump+2.]
[Update 2016-04-06 02:01 UTC – Added in tentative evaluations of the uncommitted delegates from North Dakota. Net: Cruz +7, Trump +1, Kasich +1.]
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Since the last electoral college update there have been new polls in New York, Arizona, Utah and North Carolina. But the only notable change is in North Carolina:
With the latest polls, North Carolina moves from just barely Trump, to just barely Clinton. Either way, it is very close… and it has been bouncing back and forth since last fall. North Carolina is not necessarily showing any sort of trend here. Bottom line it is just a close state in this race.
But for the moment, this puts North Carolina back in Clinton’s column if everybody just wins all the states they are ahead in. So looking at the national picture:
The Clinton vs Trump “Expected Case” has been moving toward Clinton since January. With this update, Trump’s expected case is worse than it has been since Clinton vs Trump polling began.
Now, all the states in the “bubble” are by definition close. They could flip back. But this is starting to look like it might be a real trend and not just noise.
Right now, the expected case sits at Clinton 338, Trump 200… a 138 electoral vote margin for Clinton. For comparison, the Obama-Romney margin was 126 electoral votes.
There are eight states that are “close” right now. But seven of these eight are now leaning Clinton. And the one remaining state (Colorado) has only ONE actual Clinton vs Trump poll (from back in November), the average is still based mostly on how the state has gone in previous election years. It is certainly starting to look like most of the “traditional” battleground states are turning blue in this matchup. Again though, these states are close, and they might easily bounce back to Trump.
The range of reasonable possibilities is large here. Allowing all eight states to swing to one side or the other you get a range from Clinton winning by 156 to Trump winning by 70. Anything is still possible here.
But if Clinton vs Trump continues to look like the most likely combination, then we will probably also start getting more polling in the “Strong Trump” group of states. These have been very lightly polled and are still significantly based on previous election results, and the polls we do have tend to be older at this point. Given the trends in other states, perhaps some of these aren’t actually as “Strong Trump” as they initially seem. Or maybe they are. We shall see.
230.8 days until polls start to close. Things will be moving back and forth the whole time. Stay tuned.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Update 2016-03-23 18:18 to Fix Article title to Electoral College]
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner Sam and Ivan start with a rant about Daylight Saving Time, then they talk about third parties, Brazil, Syria, Seaworld and the Supreme Court before diving into Election 2016 and all the craziness there. Oh, and Sam’s 6 year old son Alex keeps interrupting this week, so there is that fun too!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-03-18
Length this week – 1:46:20
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
View Podcast in iTunes
View Raw Podcast Feed
Download MP3 File
Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:07:54) But first
- (0:08:59-0:28:25) But second
- New Snack? / Broken hand?
- Why alone?
- Feedback / Third Parties
- ALeXMXeLA.com
- (0:29:04-0:46:01) Mini Lightning Round
- Cutting the cheese
- Brazil Scandal
- Russians withdraw from Syria
- Seaworld Orcas
- (0:47:05-0:59:32) SCOTUS
- Certifiable Moderate
- Wall Breaking Down Already
- No hearings, unless Hillary
- Troll moves, crying
- (1:00:47-1:46:00) Election 2016
- Cheese in the Microphone
- March 15th results
- Uncommitted Delegates
- Rubio’s Delegates
- Delegate Corruption
- Trump encouraging riots?
- Convention Shenanigans
- Alex Clearing the shelves
- Carson and Christie
- Clinton still winning
- Obama vs Trump
In my last post on the Republicans I used current polls to try to guess the March 15th results. This was my guess:
Trump +226, Kasich +86, Cruz +36, Rubio +19
Results are not yet final in Missouri, and because it is winner take all in each congressional district as well as statewide, and it is close in most congressional districts, things could still swing there quite a bit. But for the moment, with the best estimates I had from Green Papers, the actual results from the 15th were:
Trump +229, Kasich +81, Cruz +51, Rubio +6
Cruz got a bit more than my predictions, Rubio a bit less. But basically using the polls a couple days out got things pretty spot on. So minus any big changes from Missouri or minor adjustments elsewhere, this was the expected scenario.
So time to look at some graphs, including some I don’t usually bother with…
In raw delegate counts we now have:
Trump 693, Cruz 423, Rubio 172, Kasich 144, Carson 8, Bush 4, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 1, Paul 1
Trump, Cruz and Kasich both look like they made significant improvements, but…
This is the percentage of delegates allocated so far to each candidate. Trump is just BARELY under the 50% mark. Only Trump and Kasich improved on this metric with the March 15th results.
But… looking at the much more useful “% of remaining delegates needed to win” graph…
Everybody except Trump got further away from the nomination after March 15th. In fact, all of them got a LOT farther from the nomination. In fact, almost all the candidates have now been mathematically eliminated from a first round convention win. We knew for a long time that Paul, Huckabee, Fiorina, Bush and Carson were headed there. But it is now official. But Rubio was also eliminated. And despite his “big win” in Ohio, so was Kasich. All of these candidates could get every delegate still outstanding… and still not end up with enough delegates to win.
Only Trump and Cruz still have the possibility of collecting a majority of the delegates before the convention. And Cruz just went from needing 62.14% of the remaining delegates, to needing 79.41%. This is a completely unrealistic number, even if it was a two person race between him and Trump. (For the moment, despite it being impossible for him to get enough delegates, Kasich is staying in, so we still have a three way split, which favors Trump.)
Trump needs 53.07% of the remaining delegates to win outright. Less than that will get us to a contested convention and all kind of chaos. But how likely is Trump to get those sorts of margins? So far of course he has only gotten 47.89% of the delegates. So he does have to improve on his previous performance by about 11%.
This sounds like a lot, but it is probably quite reachable. First, Trump will undoubtedly pick up some of Rubio’s supporters, they won’t all go to Cruz and Kasich. Second, there are a number of winner take all states coming up. Third, a lot of the states that are not winner take all are still winner take most.
Basically, the structure of the primary calendar is DESIGNED to help the front running candidate wrap things up. It is not unreasonable to think Trump will be able to do that. To stop it, Cruz and Kasich between them need to be getting more than a majority of the delegates despite the fact that neither of them has a realistic shot at an outright win. The only plan for those two is to force the contested convention, then win there.
Some places have tried to game out all of the remaining primaries and caucuses, and they conclude that we may in fact not know if we have an outright Trump win or a contested convention until the very last contests on on June 7th. That would be California, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota. And there is a possibility we won’t even know until after that, because although their numbers are small, some states and territories have actually elected uncommitted delegates, who like superdelegates on the Democratic side are free agents able to vote however they see fit. There is a posisbility (a small one, but non-zero) that these uncommitted delegates may be in a position to determine if there will indeed be a contested convention.
I won’t try to game out the rest of the season, but I will look at next Tuesday… Arizona, Utah, and American Samoa. As usual, looking at RCP for polls, and Green Papers for delegate rules. But guess what? As of today, there has been NO recent polling on any of these three. So we’ll use national polling, but eliminating candidates who have dropped out. So Trump 36.0%, Cruz 21.8%, Kasich 12.0%. Normalized to 100%, that is Trump 51.6%, Cruz 31.2%, Kasich 17.2%..
- Arizona is winner take all. Unless Cruz or Kasich are doing much better there than nationally, Trump gets all 58 delegates.
- Utah is winner take most. If anybody gets over 50%, they get all the delegates. If the estimates above based on national polling are right, Trump gets all 40 delegates. If he doesn’t hit 50%, but still gets a plurality, he is likely to still get almost all the delegates. We’ll estimate 40 to Trump.
- American Samoa might end up electing someone with a commitment, but the expectation given their rules is that all delegates will be uncommitted, so they will just stay TBD in my counts.
Now, either Arizona or Utah COULD go in a completely different direction. As I said, there has been no recent polling. So who really knows? But if Trump ends up winning both, he will likely get something close to 98 delegates out of the two states.
If that happened, that would put the total delegate count at:
Trump 791, Cruz 423, Rubio 172, Kasich 144, Carson 8, Bush 4, Fiorina 1, Huckabee 1, Paul 1
That would give Trump 51.20% of the delegates. He would once again have a majority of the delegates. Trump would then need 446 delegates to win outright. There would be 927 delegates left undetermined at that point. So Trump would only need 48.11% of the remaining delegates to win. Which given his history at that point seems quite reachable.
But continuing to block him might still be within reach. Cruz + Kasich would only need to manage about 52% of the delegates. Which might be possible if they could build on anti-Trump sentiment even in the face of Trump winning. If they can do that is a big open question though. The “I can’t win, and you might not even like me, but vote for me to block the other guy and cause a contested convention where the outcome is completely unknown” case may not be the easiest one to make.
But if Cruz and Kasich can make that case, then it is not over yet.
So then we start looking at North Dakota, Wisconsin, Colorado… and beyond.
Of course, if Trump loses Arizona or Utah, that all changes.
So we will have to wait and see… but if I had to put odds on it, I’m still thinking about an 80% chance that Trump just wins this outright. The structure of the contests themselves are designed to help the front runner, and that is Trump.
[Update 2016-03-18 06:21 UTC – As per Alaska’s rules, after Rubio dropped out they reassigned his delegates to the remaining candidates. Result: Trump +3, Cruz +2, Rubio -5.]
[Update 2016-03-23 01:43 UTC – The Virgin Islands updated their delegate results because the original slate of delegates (all uncommitted) did not end up qualifying under the rules (see here). The original delegates were replaced by alternates. The result for the counts was Rubio +2, Cruz +1, Trump +1.]
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Edit 02:27 UTC to add final bit about odds.]
Yeah, yeah, primaries. Another general election poll, this time in Pennsylvania. They polled a bunch of different candidate combinations, but the one with a significant change was Clinton vs Trump:
No category change. Pennsylvania stays “Weak Clinton”. But Pennsylvania was the tipping point state in Clinton vs Trump, so when Pennsylvania moves, so does the tipping point:
The tipping point goes from Clinton by 3.1% in Pennsylvania, to Clinton by 3.6% in Pennsylvania… which happens to be the same as it was just a few days earlier. So things just bouncing around a little bit. The trend since January on the tipping point seems to be away from Trump and toward Clinton… but there is lots of time yet.
238.0 days until the polls start closing on election day.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
Saturday brought Republican results for DC, Guam and Wyoming. The number of delegates coming out of this was small, turnout was tiny, and there had been no polling. But the results were surprisingly bad for Trump. Between these three we ended up with:
Rubio +11, Cruz +10, Kasich +9, Trump +1
This by the way is much worse for Trump than the model in my last post predicted, since it used national polls in the absence of actual polls for these three places.
There were also 9 “uncommitted” delegates selected yesterday. These people essentially become like the Democratic superdelegates, in that they are free agents at the convention. If I find out their preferences, I’ll assign them to the candidate they support, but for now they remain TBD. With all the contests so far there are actually 22 of these now. It will be interesting to see if they make a difference.
In any case, with only 1 of 30 delegates from Saturday, or 3.33%, Trump fell very far short of the 54.39% of the delegates he needed to be on the path to an outright win instead of a contested convention.
Trump now needs 55.49% of the remaining delegates to win outright. This number is getting high. And the gap between what Trump has done so far (42.96% of delegates) is getting larger. Nobody else got what they needed either of course, so everybody’s numbers got worse, not just Trump’s.
Of course, we still have some big winner take all and winner take most states coming up, so time to refresh the poll based predictions for Tuesday and see what they look like now. As usual, using RCP poll averages and delegate distribution rules from Green Papers.
Florida – 99 delegates – March 15th:
- Poll averages: Trump 41.4%, Rubio 23.3%, Cruz 19.7%, Kasich 9.6%
- Delegate estimate: Trump 99
North Carolina – 72 delegates – March 15th:
- Poll averages: Trump 35.6%, Cruz 23.8%, Rubio 13.0%, Kasich 10.4%
- Delegate estimate: Trump 31, Cruz 21, Rubio 11, Kasich 9
Illinois – 69 delegates – March 15th:
- Poll averages: Trump 34.3%, Cruz 25.3%, Kasich 18.3%, Rubio 14.8%
- Delegate estimate: Trump 35, Cruz 15, Kasich 11, Rubio 8
Ohio – 66 delegates – March 15th:
- Poll averages: Kasich 35.3%, Trump 33.3%, Cruz 20.0%, Rubio 5.8%
- Delegate estimate: Kasich 66
Missouri – 52 delegates – March 15th:
- Using only recent poll: Trump 36.0%, Cruz 29.0%, Rubio 9.0%, Kasich 8.0%
- Delegate estimate: Trump 52
Northern Marianas – 9 delegates – March 15th:
- No polls, using national avg: Trump 36.0%, Cruz 21.8%, Rubio 18.0%, Kasich 12.0%
- Delegate estimate: Trump 9
The main difference from the estimate a few days ago is that now Kasich is ahead in Ohio, and wins the 66 delegates there. This makes a big difference.
Adding these up:
Trump +226, Kasich +86, Cruz +36, Rubio +19
Trump would get 61.6% of the delegates on Tuesday. Which even without Ohio would be above the 55.49% he needs to be tracking toward a clean win.
The new totals would be:
Trump 690, Cruz 408, Rubio 185, Kasich 149, Others 15
Trump would have 47.7% of the delegates. Still not a majority.
When you do all the math at the end of all that, Trump would need 53.37% of the remaining delegates to cleanly win a majority of the delegates. That would still be a substantial improvement from what he had been doing so far.
But there would be more winner take all states coming up. And Cruz, Rubio and Kasich would be so far behind that the scenarios where they would catch up would be extremely far fetched. None of them can win outright. At best they can block Trump. Do all three of them stay in? Do their donors continue to support them in a bid where the only real goal is a contested convention? Can they really keep blocking him from getting a majority of the delegates through a long slog from now until June 7th?
The “Trump wins Florida, but loses Ohio” scenario is the one where it would be premature to say either “Trump will win this outright”, or “Contested Convention”. Instead, we’ll still be hovering between those possibilities, waiting for more states to weigh in.
This might go on awhile.
Finally, as I did with the Democrats earlier, a quick look back, comparing Trump today with Romney in 2012 and McCain in 2008.
First, just looking at the percent of delegates they had as the race progressed:
You can see that Trump is behind where either McCain or Romney were at about the same point in the race. But as I’ve said many times, percentages of delegates so far is the wrong way to look at things. Instead, you want to look at the % of the remaining delegates that are needed:
You can see that at this point in the race, both Romney and McCain needed less than 50% of the remaining delegates to win. Trump is way behind that pace. But it was also not until right around now in the races that McCain and Romney really started to pull away. Trump has a harder road here, but with a handful of big winner take all states it is not too late for him to start a downward dive to a flat out win.
But if his line doesn’t manage a full on turn downward, eventually it will curve up, and we’ll end up at the contested convention.
Ohio is close. We will have to wait until Tuesday to see how this thing is going…
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
[Edit 22:17 UTC to add sentence about other candidate’s numbers getting worse, not just Trump’s.]
[Edit 22:32 UTC to add link to the post on the Democrats.]
This week on Curmudgeon’s Corner, Sam and Ivan talk about Sam’s son’s trip to the doctor, they respond to a bunch of listener feedback, talk a bit about Apple and Nancy Reagan, and then finally jump into Election 2016. Within that topic they cover the charges of Trump inciting violence, the delegate math, what might happen at a contested convention, explanations for the Sanders win in Michigan… and more!
Click below to listen or subscribe… then let us know your own thoughts!
Recorded 2016-03-12
Length this week – 1:38:06
1-Click Subscribe in iTunes
View Podcast in iTunes
View Raw Podcast Feed
Download MP3 File
Follow the podcast on Facebook
Show Details:
- (0:00:10-0:16:37) But First
- Delayed Show
- Agenda
- Alex Doctor Visit
- Alex Test Results
- (0:17:25-0:43:53) Feedback!
- Feedback Format
- Jenn on which nomination process Sam should do
- Bruce on which nomination process Sam should do
- Richard on a show format suggestion
- Jon on Gary Johnson
- Matt on Kanye
- Edward on Trump
- (0:44:32-0:57:47) Mini Lightning Round
- Alex’s iPad
- Alex’s YouTube Channel
- Upcoming Apple Event
- Snowden on Apple vs FBI
- Nancy Reagan
- (0:58:28- 1:36:24) Election 2016
- Trump inciting violence?
- Trump salutes?
- Delegate Math
- Contested Convention
- Sanders Michigan Win
- Ivan’s Vote
Since my last Electoral College blog post there have been new polls in New York, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania. There were notable changes for two candidate pairs. But for both of them, the news was mixed. Lets take a look:
Clinton vs Trump
With some strong polls from last fall rolling off the average, Florida flips from “Weak Trump” to “Weak Clinton” with the state now sitting at a 1.8% Clinton lead. This is still a very “close could go either way” result, but it puts Florida on Clinton’s side of the fence so she gets Florida’s 29 electoral votes in her “Expected” case:
Florida is a big state and makes a big difference. The expected result is now a 108 electoral vote win by Clinton. But it is important to remember that given all the close states that could easily move, anything from Clinton by 156 to Trump by 70 is very easy to imagine given the current polling.
But there was movement for Trump in the other direction too. He improved in Pennsylvania, and while it didn’t change the status of Pennsylvania (Weak Clinton) it did move Trump’s tipping point:
After a very brief dip lower, Trump’s tipping point pops back up to being behind Clinton by only 3.1%. Remember, the tipping point essentially represents how far ahead or behind a candidate is nationally, but adjusted for the effects of the electoral college.
So Trump’s “expected” result gets a little bit worse, but the amount he has to move polls to flip that result to a win gets a little smaller.
Clinton vs Cruz
While Trump was weakening in Florida, Cruz’s poll average was improving in Ohio. He is now behind Clinton by only 4.0%. She still leads, but this is close enough for me to consider Ohio a swing state and a possible pick up for Cruz, which improves his “best case”…
Now if Cruz wins all the states he is ahead in, plus flips Nevada and Ohio where he is close… he loses by only 48 electoral votes.
But still, it is an improvement. And Cruz has been on an improving trend for about a year now. If it continues, he might eventually be competitive.
On this metric anyway. As with Trump above, his tipping point also moves, but in the opposite direction:
Cruz’s poll average in Florida dropped a bit. The category didn’t change (Strong Clinton) but the movement did cause Cruz’s tipping point to go from 6.0% behind Clinton to being 6.4% behind Clinton.
Either way, Cruz continues to be far behind Clinton when you look at things based on state level polls. As I have discussed here before, looking at national polls makes this matchup look much closer. It is unclear at this point if this is exposing an actual divergence between the popular vote and electoral college due to the regional distribution of candidate support, or if it is simply that there haven’t been enough state level polls of this matchup to catch up with recent changes to support levels. If Cruz becomes the Republican nominee, this would eventually become clear.
Of course, looking at the delegate race that doesn’t look too likely right now, so we may never know.
241.8 days until polls start to close.
Note: This post is an update based on the data on ElectionGraphs.com. Election Graphs tracks both a poll based estimate of the Electoral College and a numbers based look at the Delegate Races. All of the charts and graphs seen in this post are from that site. Additional graphs, charts and raw data can be found there. All charts above are clickable to go to the current version of the detail page the chart is from, which may contain more up to date information than the snapshots on this page, which were current as of the time of this post. Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or like Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates or to join the conversation. For those interested in individual general election poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as they are added.
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