I can’t even begin to process this all
First, Clinton IS pulling back from Ohio. CNN has the story others are reporting:
http://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/09/25/ip-jeffs-notebook.cnn/video/playlists/inside-politics-highlights/
CNN, Trump +1 in CO (CL +2 in 2 way), Clinton + 1 in PA (+3) in 2 way
National: Bloomberg +1 Trump, Franklin Pierce +2 Clinton, Quinnipiac Clinton +1
Big takeway: Trump has broken through 45 in 2 way races, and PA is now essentially tied.
My national estimate
The state summary updated this morning
So this is about as bad as it gets, really.
I have tried to say here why VA, PA and CO were so important. In early September polling began to suggest that Colorado had closed. The VA polling is ambiguous, but still looks good. PA has looked the strongest of the three.
Morning Call is out with a new poll showing Trump down 2. Earlier in the week they had Clinton up 8 – so hopefully this is a blip.
To analyze the race I use this sheet.
At this point Trump has managed to take the lead in 4 Obama states: Nevada, Iowa, Ohio and Florida. Clinton is only close in 1 Romney state, North Carolina, though Arizona and Georgia are in play. Note though that the Clinton margin in MI and WI is now less than the Trump Margin in AZ and GA
If the election was held tomorrow and PA was really this close, you would have to say it was 50/50 at best.
Kyle Kondrak of Chrystal Ball notes widespread rumors Clinton is moving resources out of Ohio.
Just gets worse and worse.
Yougov: Clinton + 1 in Colorado. Last 3 numbers in Colorado: Clinton +1 (YouGov), Tied (Quin),+9 Co Mesa U, Never polling before, Emerson Trump +4, Ipsos Reid Trump +3
VA Yougov confirms it is safe (Clinton +8
Is Maine in play? UNH shows Clinton up on 3. Prior numbers in Maine are Clinton +5 and Clinton +3. It would be surprise if New Hampshire is not close given these numbers.
Again, look at the chart. Trump is putting blue states in play.
Dukakis was the last Dem nominee to lose PA. By 2.5 percentage points. The closest race since than was in 2004 when Kerry won it by 2.5% points. Don’t know what could be dragging her down in PA, but recently noted that a lot of money was going into Toomey’s campaign and I have yet to be convinced that McGinty is a strong challenger.
If this poll is right Trump is expanding the playing field in way Romney never did.
IF this is right.
Well, Romney had a tough opponent who was also an incumbent.
irrc last year you dismissed the possibility of Trump winning the nomination. In the abstract that seemed implausible, but it became clear to me soon enough that none of his opponents could consolidate enough support from the other candidates to beat Trump’s high natural base (of morans).
It’s like in the abstract, Trump should lose by at least ten percentage points. But by that much to Hillary?
A scary thought. Perhaps Trump has found Rove’s millions of missing white voters.
The equation:
IS
Alienation of Hispanics +
College Educated Women +
African Americans
LARGER OR SMALLER THAN
Increase in working class whites+
lack of enthusiasm in Dem base which creates turnout problems
I stopped laughing at Trump about 2 weeks ago. Nate is right – this is real – Trump has put in play states that weren’t even in 2004.
I still think he collapses.
But truth be told I am scared shitless.
“Working class whites” is too narrow and one of the reasons why Democrats have been underestimating Trump. He’s crude, low-class, and obnoxious.
They are the majority. And college education has little to do with taste. Look at the crap Americans watch on TV.
Me, election night 1968, how will we ever survive four years of Nixon? (Hey, I was young and not imaginative enough to consider a second term for the crook.) Reagan, very scary, but somehow he was kept on a short leash. GWB was probably the scariest prospect to me because he had no opposition from the right, including the MIC, and his GOP gang was more extreme that his daddy’s gang. Then learned soon enough that Congressional Democrats had become spineless in the prior decade.
I find both options appalling and scary. If Senate Democrats grow a spine and learn to say no (and they owe the people that much for foisting such a horrendous nominee on the party), Trump won’t get much done that also wouldn’t be done by Hillary. Not that he’s inclined to do much other than prance around and shoot his mouth off. Hillary will get more stuff done. None of it good. And frankly, her and her close associates desire to topple Russia is very scary. Perhaps, if Trump wins, the DOJ will get their asses in gear and indict him on various criminal charges before the end of the year. That would set up a constitutional crisis because it’s unknown what the electors could even do in such a situation.
We’ll see how much game Trump has on Monday night. Hillary’s task will be to remain standing.
No one scared me more than Reagan. And in fact we know from the Soviet archives how serious it all was. That in 1982 the Politburo concluded the US was trying to build a first strike ability as a prelude to war. It was the most serious moment in the cold war since the Cuban Missle Crisis.
A Trump Presidency means tax cuts, conservative court appointments, and a serious and probably doomed attempt to renegotiate trade deals. I suspect we will attack Iran – which will probably drive up the price of oil and push us into a recession that is overdo anyway.
My guess is there will be a reaction in the minority community, and a rise in the BLM movement.
It isn’t the end of democracy or some harbinger of end times. Bad stuff – and as always the poor will fare worse but will be little noticed.
The real question is whether Trump agrees to cuts in entitlements. He has said he won’t and if that is true he is arguably less scary than Romney.
It will mean the end of the New Deal idea of economic regulation of corporate power, and the end of all environmental regulation, as state attempts will be ruled unconstitutional (are are essentially ineffective anyway). It will end the Paris Accords and cement the collapse of the 10,000 year old stable climate. Obviously McConnell abolishes the filibuster on day one, as he is not going to allow Dems to pull what he pulled with the hapless Obama.
With complete Repub control of the gub’mint, there will not be much enacted in the past 70 years that that won’t be repealed or wildly altered, and there will likely be much conservative social legislation (the War on Women, etc) as the main “positive” legislative activity. Oppression and retaliation against illegal aliens also a given, with the only question being the level of opposition by the federal courts. But Repubs will quickly have 5-4 control of the Court, obviously. It will all be up to Kennedy until we awake to news of death of Ginsburg.
It may be that Trump agrees to less sweeping modifications to entitlements, as his base of white identity devotees understand that this is essential to them, but the plutocrat-controlled Repub Congress will demand some significant alterations after 60 years of effort. A substantial conventional military attack somewhere is a certainty (Iran, the ISIL statelet) and a nuclear strike somewhere also likely unless the generals mutiny. Despite the bromance, US Russia relations will deteriorate quickly as a result of mutual miscalculations.
Domestically there will be nothing left standing. A Conservative Armageddon.
It’s all far more dynamic than your scenario allows for. Trump could become president, but contrary to his fantasies and liberal fears that he will lack the power to be a dictator. (Should note that among the alt-right electorate they feared an Obama dictatorship as much as Democrats fear a Trump dictatorship.)
First, Trump will hold no more than a quarter of the House and Senate. McConnell loathes those yahoos and Ryan can barely tolerate them.
Second, the GOP leadership in congress don’t have much of a clue as to what Trump would actually do. A given that he’ll maintain and quite possibly increase the level of deportations under the Obama administration. A difference will be that Trump will brag about them; whereas, Obama let it happen more quietly and in the background. Immigration from certain countries will be made much more difficult and travel to and from those countries won’t be as easy. The San Bernardino mass killing and Boston and NYC bombings gives Trump leverage on this.
Democratic filibusters of Trump/alt-right proposals will give McConnell cover. He knows what happens to his power when a GOP POTUS is allowed to run amok. So, he keeps the filibuster and it’s not that easy to get rid of anyway. Plus, he won’t want to roll over and confirm the two-bit shysters that Trump expects to bring with him and those that would normally seek to work for the GOP POTUS will be in short supply because it’s not likely to be a good career move.
TPP/TISA — Trump first has to shift from his publicly stated opposition. It’s one of the few positions that he’s taken that’s more clear than mud. Once he does that, which members of Congress line up with him? Republicans have so far gotten a free ride on this one; secretly for it but publicly opposed because it could only pass under Obama with their support. It’s equally thorny for congressional Democrats. Supporters could hide under Obama’s coattails in part because until just recently it wasn’t a high profile issue. So, it will be up to Chuckie to display his real colors. I’d say that the odds are better for passage under a Hillary presidency, but those that vote for it, will be vulnerable in 2018 and probably 2020.
Entitlements — Grand Bargain — Trump would demand a ten-page bill and Hillary would present a 5,000 page bill. The public won’t stand for either, but the ten-pager will shorten the amount of time that Democrats/liberals will have to spend debating it.
Trump isn’t interested in the war on reproductive rights. He’ll give lip service to those single-issue voters, but as they aren’t the majority in federal office and as long as it remains a minority among the electorate, he won’t have to do anything more on this.
Those that operate the US national security state are collectively far crazier than is safe for us and the world. However, they aren’t Joe McCarthy type crazy and they are quite able to push back on a CIC that is that crazy. Cheney didn’t get to unleash his “shock on awe” on Tehran did he? Pathetic that a leftie has to look to the Nat-Sec folks to protect us from a WH maniac, but that’s where we might be.
Reagan succeeded at being a fake POTUS for eight years, but in part because he didn’t do enough to expose himself as a hollow shell and political elites, including the media, gave him lots of cover. Trump won’t have the latter and once in office, they won’t refrain from exposing him as a nincumpoop.
I’m trying to game out whether a Trump Presidency might be, in the long term, more damaging to the left or less damaging.
On one hand, the right-wing will definitely get more radicalized and crazier. Police brutality will spike. And we will discuss cutting entitlements. Trump already said the minimum wage was too high; that’s a mighty big tell.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton would not be able to get anything done. 2018 would be for the Democratic Party what 1934 was for the Republican Party. The right-wing would probably not get as crazy, but they definitely would be politically stronger. 2020, between gridlock, economic stagnation, and her guaranteed warhawkery we’d be like Landon was during the Roosevelt years; completely and utterly fucked. And in time for a new round of gerrymandering.
On the other other hand, a Trump Presidency would also allow the dumbasses and lickspittles who foisted the failed policies and candidates of Obama-Clintonism to regroup. They wouldn’t have to keep answering for the suckassitude of their chosen candidate as she continued to drive the country into the ditch. A Trump Presidency would, after the shock of the election and the requisite hippie-punching wore off (well, the worst of it), allow sites like DailyKos and Balloon Juice to worm their way back behind the Marxists and leftists and pretend to be for human actualization again.
On the other other other hand, by December it may be too late for them to put the masks back on. The number of Democratic Partisans whom I have permanently lost all trust in is pretty long at this point: Joy Reid, Josh Marshall, Neera Tanden, Propane Jane, Jonathan Chait, Paul Krugman, John Lewis, Jill Filipovic, Joan Walsh, Michelle Obama, Armando, Kos… they can start opposing Trumpism all they want, but I will never give them the benefit of the doubt, ever. Paul Krugman goes ‘this is why the Ryan budget sucks’ then I go ‘okay, but what did James K. Galbraith say’?
I don’t think it can be gamed out. Too many different players and groups that their responses aren’t easily predictable. Throw in an historical curveball or two and possible outcomes multiply considerably.
What we have at the moment is a huge public faction that is hungry to be back in power after eight years. They’re also simplistic because in the aggregate they’ve held have or more of the power. But they went with their desperation and nominated a jerk in an election cycle that didn’t disfavor them as the last two did.
General rule is when hungry partisans get the win that appeases them even if the subsequent actions by the winner fall way short of what they expected. They’re too invested in that person to pull back from or challenge him/her. That’s not fertile ground for further extremism.
Partisan voters/voices have become (perhaps maybe always were) invested in only the person of the President and not the policies. Bernie got some flack in this election cycle for having suggested that Obama should be challenged for the 2012 nomination. (I don’t know if he did or didn’t make such a statement.) But based on policy, he should have been challenged.
Among the Democratic Partisans that you listed and excluding Michelle Obama), only Krugman managed not to display who and what he/she really is during the Bush/Cheney era. Stopped reading/listening to the others long before then. But Stiglitz has been my go-to economist since at least 2006 because when he speaks, it’s clear what Galbraith would say.
This is an election about maniacs longing for a nuclear powered 19th century and liberals longing for the 1990s. What’s interesting at this time is that after a nearly forty year assault on the left by both parties in the US and UK, the left is gaining with the people. But leaders are needed.
As soon as Hillary Clinton secured the Democratic nomination, Conservative Armageddon was inevitable. The only question is whether it occurs in 2016 with a vague, if slim possibility for a counter-attack, or if it occurs in 2020 after four years of them gathering strength and completely kills all chance of recovering.
From a purely selfish perspective, I, personally would like for Armageddon to happen in 2020. I’ll have enough years as an electrical engineer under my belt and enough proficiency in Japanese and Spanish that I can get the fuck out of this doomed country.
I’m guessing that a lot of other liberals feel that way, too. That, or they’re like the frog that’s being boiled in the pot of water while a few hungry snakes are on the floor. They can either jump out NOW and almost (but not assuredly) certainly get eaten or they can sit in the pot and hope that a fuse blows or lightning hits and they can just hide in the pot. Because if they don’t, they’re going to have to try avoiding the snakes anyway, but only after they’re exhausted and hurt from 1st and 2nd degree burns.
I’m convinced the health issue combined with all the other problems – a terrible candidate running a campaign badly – is bringing her down and it won’t turn around. everyone knows someone with parkinsons – not that that’s what she has, but that’s what her health problems look like. the voter on the street perceives i as someone [dnc, HRC campaign] is trying to put something over on the citizens. there aren’t enough of us who are voting the party not the candidate.
Looks like the health thing was more damaging than I realized.
WaPo/ABC found only 52 percent of registered voters agreed that Clinton is in “good enough overall health to serve as president”. Fast Food Freddy scored 73.
Yea ABC did find that.
I am more worried about the movement.
Morning Call shows a 6 point swing in a week.
ABC shows a 6 point swing since 9/9
My worry is Charlotte may be causing a shirt. Way too early to know, and there was some pretty good national polling 4 days ago.
My worry is Charlotte may be causing a shirt.
If history is any guide, Charlotte has just put NC more firmly in the Trump column. I say if because the run to the GOP whenever there is a racial conflict effect doesn’t appear to be as potent as it once was. But in 2016 and in NC, a small effect is all that’s needed.
It’s in the realm of predictability like gun sales increase in the immediate aftermath of every freaking mass shooting. Yet the rate of gun ownership by household continues to decline.
And that 36% aren’t all Republicans.
Take NC off the table and if FL, OH, NV and IA are gone CO will be decisive, period.
WI isn’t looking great either.
Interesting Charlie Cook piece from this summer…”In order for Trump to win with white working class voters alone, he’d need to get at least 70 percent of their votes. And, at this point, there’s no empirical evidence that I’ve seen that he’s doing that.” (http://cookpolitical.com/story/9654)
Saw today on billmon that Trump is getting 74% of non-college white voters.
The “conservative” white identity/racialization strategy of the past 8 years appears to be on the brink of succeeding. Should Trump win, it will be all about managing their expectations, the rest of the country be damned. Balancing the demands of the plutocrats with the class they effectively destroyed will be a bit of a balancing act, haha.
Fladem, thanks so much for your wonderful and informative diaries. This is essentially unknown info to most people, with even my politically informed friends maintaining Clinton is not in the slightest trouble whatever. Financial markets either still think she is a certain winner or they are unworried about Prez Trump. My guess is the former.
Looks like some kind of a bandwagon effect is underway with the critical apolitical, low info, pox-on-both-their-houses voters in the rust belt. They seem to be abandoning the multi-racial party, just as we saw so clearly in the midterms. Not gonna matter much what HRC says at this point, and she has found precious little to emphasize. Or rather she talks or tweets about everything, so the campaign is effectively about nothing to the low info voter.
The strategy appears to be hoping Trump will be given enough rope to hang himself at the debate. He will have to talk quite a lot, certainly not a real strength of his. But if he actually is now in the lead in enough states to get his 271, why not just stand up there, act calm, say little and look “presidential”? That really should not be an impossible assignment, even for Der Trumper.
And at some point the specter of a Trump electoral college win, popular vote loss may come into the picture, given that he will lose quite a few of the largest states very badly (one continues to hope…)
I am glad someone finds them interesting.
My work still shows a 2 point Clinton lead. But Trump is starting to breach the blue firewall in places like Maine and Michigan.
I am worried.
I still think we win.
count me in also, finding them interesting
Worry worry worry worry worry worry!!!
“She’s a bad candidate!!!
“The American people are lowlifes!!!”
“I never imagined it could get this bad!!!”
And so on and so forth.
I got news fer y’all.
It goes like this:
You let this happen!!!
You!!!
The supposed conscience of the Democratic Party!!!
You!!!
The so-called “progressives.”
You!!!
You arrogant, entitlement-engorged, white, middle class, college educated leftinesses.
You!!!
You surrendered ground when the Little King…Kos…showed his true centrist colors in the early years of this century and became the Matt Drudge of the leftiness class.
You!!!
You continued to support Obama after it was plain to see that he was a PermaGov plant through and through, when he did the exact opposite of almost everything that he promised to do as the “Hope and Change” Peace President.
You!!!
You did not support Bernie Sanders when he ran a campaign based on real idealism and then you mercilessly bashed him when he tried to salvage some part of what he had built by endorsing HRC.
You did not try to draft Elizabeth Warren.
You let the DNC run its inside, DCr centrist game “One ore time once” as Count Basie used to say.
You!!!
Why didn’t Elizabeth Warren get involved in the primary campaign herself?
Why didn’t she endorse someone?
Because she’s a savvy politician, that’s why. She knew the DNC game was fixed from the get-go and decided to wait it out and come back strong after whatever debacle occurred. (A Trump predsidency or an HRC one. Scylla and Charybdis. Both debacles-in-waiting.)
When the few voices on this blog and elsewhere began to warn you to wake the fuck up, you trashed the bringers of that message.
And now here you jolly well are, weeping your leftiness crocodile tears.
You!!!
I will say it again…Wake the fuck UP, goddamnit!!!
You!!!
AG
LOL Justin Trudeau, the charismatic Canadian neoliberal, is attracting the hairy eye-ball from environmentalists and First Nation members. Will his policies be even worse than Harper’s from the failure of the left to police him?
I think the word you’re groping for is ‘we.’
Yiou write:
No, Steggies.
It isn’t.
I have preaching for nearly eight years to a leftiness choir that is totally absorbed in staring into its smartphones and listening through earbuds to PBS-style/MSNBC-style/dKos-style/DNC-style/mainstream pro-Dem-style blather. I originally supported HRC over Obama because I figured that…bent as she was…at least she had some idea of how the levers of power work in DC, while Obama was basically just another DC freshman. And when he beat her and then won the presidency I had a brief fling of hope that his obvious intelligence, his equally obvious eloquence and his background as an African-American might somehow tip the balance of power in the White House into something more…humanitarian.
This lasted about a month as I recall, and then I realized that the Chicago-based black activist Adolph Reed Jr. was absolutely correct in his clear-eyed assesment of Barack Obama way back in 1996:
20 years later?
Riots in the streets over conditions in the black ghettoes.
A totally Big Corp-owned DC establishment and its major
propaganda….err, ahhhh, I mean media…assets.“Zombiefied” murderers roaming the streets of the U.S., blowing people up at random and shooting them at a nearly weekly rate now.
A cold-war-style showdown threatening to blow up in the Middle East and/or Eastern Europe.
And two equally bad candidates vying for the highest office in the land.
I have tried to get y’all to see what is happening.
Try, try again…I do keep trying.
As Tonto said to the Lone Ranger when they were hopelessly besieged by a bunch of pissed-off Native Americans:
Like dat.
Who “we,” Steggies?
“Tonto” means “fool” in Spanish.
I ain’t no fool, Steggies.
Bet on it.
AG
Well, I’m pleased to hear that your hands are unsullied. The Last Honorable Man, and I get to meet him.
i’m glad to see him admit it.
AG has been preaching at us for a long time, with a message composed of catchphrases and bullshit, proving his points by endless repetition of them. He has no ideas to offer but insists that we’re the problem for not appreciating his brilliance.
The 538.com Now-cast – “who would win the election if it were held today” – currently has the likelihood of a Trump victory at 54.9% – slightly below his July 27 peak of 55.4%.
Which reminds me of the story that, while filming Khartoum, Laurence Olivier struggled with Charlton Heston’s limitations as an actor. Various coaching approaches having failed, Olivier was reduced to saying, “Charlton… be better.”
Appears that CD 2 is going for Trump in a rather big way. So, that adds one ECV to his total.
Can’t see a plausible way where it could end in a 269 tie and ME-CD2 deciding the outcome. Thus, it’s interesting but not important.
If Trump wins NH, NC, FL, IA, and NV but loses CO, VA and PA ME-2 would be the difference between a tie and a Trump win.
Last poll out of NH was pretty good for Clinton, but if she only leads by 3 in Maine there is no way NH isn’t very close.
No, that would put ME-CD2 in the position of making it a 269 to 269 tie. iirc this would be the first time that ME ends up with a split ECV. Trump has been working Maine (and CO), much to the earlier amusement of Dem partisan observer/writers.
Trump has probably held twice the public events that HRC has held (and the average capacity of his venues may be twice that of HRC’s). HRC sends out more surrogates — as if people actually want to see and hear Chelsea Clinton. That’s a factor in the current polling.
I get a different result from 270towin.
Me-2 and ME-1 are not close so at this point ME has 2 EV’s left.
Oops — you’re correct; didn’t realize that the 270towin map wasn’t including all the NB ECV in the GOP column. NV, IA, OH, NC, FL, NH, and ME CD2 in Trump’s column gives him 270.
Am inclined to see CO shift for Trump before NH would.