AJC posted the latest state poll showing Clinton within 1.4% of Trump, well within the margin of error. Just how many states is Trump going to lose?
To Donald Trump,
Just keep doing what you are doing.
Take pointers from carpetbagger and two time loser Scott Brown, Makes sense.
Bankrupt the United States, bringing on a meltdown of the global economy. Why not?
Cut out payments for US troops abroad while allowing S. Korea and Japan to build up nuclear arsenals? Sure.
Keep it up!
Please share widely!
I’ve seen one poll with her up in Utah and I think I heard Mississippi is not a slam dunk for Trump.
If you want to say Georgia is tied you have to concede that the same polls by the same outfit show Trump leading by 4 points in Ohio. Way more than Romney ever did at any point in his 2012 race. And they show Florida and Pennsylvania statistically tied. If Trump carries OH, FL, and PA he just needs one more rust belt state to win the presidency.
In YOUR link Trump is up by a little a bit in ONE state that we all know is a swing state. I think it is MUCH more significant that he is struggling in what should be a reliably GOP state. Seriously, your negativity is looking more and more like concern trolling by the day!
It is hard for these polls to settle while the primaries are still ongoing. I sure JC is thinking, “Yeah, Dukakis had a big lead, too, lets not be complacent.”
It looks to me like the movement conservative Republicans, who dominate in the South, are leery of trump, while the moderate-but-nationalist voters, who are more prevalent in Ohio and PA and who vote Republican anyway, are not.
In addition, it looks like the “business” Republicans are more than a little horrified at Trump, perhaps because of the mass deportations and proposed massive tariffs. Does Clinton stay more-or-less sane, and try to peel these folks off Trump, and thus score a massive win, or does she keep to the hard left turn from the primaries, in order to placate the Bernie people? Complicating things further is that it seems possible that a sizable chunk of the Bernie voters won’t vote for her anyway under any circumstances, and may vote for Trump because of his anti-trade, pro-tariff views.
Muddy waters indeed.
He also did not fight back, a mistake I am confident Clinton will not repeat.
We are saying the exact same thing. Complacency and certainty are not options this cycle. I’d be worried if Kasich was the nominee, worried if Bernie was despite the good polling now, and Hillary could take a Coakley cruise with Cruz as their nominee and still win.
With Trump it’s a giant question mark, and all of these “we got it in the bag posts” can be refuted with the way the GOP primary played out and the trend lines of the electorate, particularly on trade, the economy, and corruption in government. Trump is perceived as better on those issues at present, which is cause for my genuine concern, not trolling in the slightest. It helps that I have no affinity for any of the candidates at this point, and can dispassionately discus their strengths and flaws.
Do you have polls to show that Trump is trusted more than Clinton on the issues that you mention?
I hear your concern. Maybe I’m just not seeing them — can you clarify what you mean by “these ‘we got it in the bag posts’ “?
The positions of Donald Trump on the three issues you cite — trade, the economy, and corruption in government — is, literally, all over the place. On trade and the economy, when he has made proposals they are unmitigated disasters.
I agree we should be concerned. I have enough respect for ALL the voters that I remain optimistic that telling voters the TRUTH about the consequences of Mr. Trump’s proposals (and offering viable alternatives) is good enough for Ms. Clinton to carry the day.
I’m not arguing complacency. I’m just not ready to concede Rome to the Vandals.
I wouldn’t go as far as “in the bag”, but our task should not be too difficult if we stick to it. I DID after all caution earlier in the primary season and before voting started against rooting for Trump to be the GOP nominee since in our system the nominee of either major party has by definition a decent shot at winning.
I also have some concerns about matchups– Clinton has been very good over the years at beating up on the VRWC, which is why I support her. But Trump is not that, he is something else– just a serial bullshitter, completely unmoored to anything like facts or even ideology.
That leaves the wonderful “corporate pro-Clinton media”: “Clinton says that the sun is star fueled by nuclear fusion; Trump disputes that and says that the sun is a magic disk resting on the firmament to make his hairdo sparkle” and four days later an ignored rebuttal on politiFact or something.
Clinton is a smart politician who is skilled at staying on message, etc., but Trump is an ill-disciplined mess. I’m not sure that the Dem candidate will have any more success than any of the GOP dipshits at controlling the news cycle, which means the campaign is going to have to be faster on its feet than any other campaign has ever been, ever.
In sum, while Clinton is the best person to take on a GOP Congress, and has a lot of advantages, the matchup with Trump presents some issues. This first week or so kind of shows that they have an awful lot of work to do, soon. (It also makes me think that the Sanders campaign is an unwitting agent of Trump at this point.)
We have allowed the GOP mantra of “privatization” and “deregulation” to remove ALL semblance of discipline, objectivity, and fact from the mass media, rendering it worse than useless in keeping the public informed. The loudest voice among the media shills is Fox News — and more than fifty percent of the public relies on this source for their “information”. We have simultaneously destroyed our education system, so that vast numbers of voters are nod in agreement when Glenn Beck or some other Fox talking head says that the Trumpist claim that “sun is a magic disk …” is accepted by umpty-ump percent of the voters and that makes it so.
Let’s also not forget the role played by a significant number of “religious leaders” who will find and cite biblical chapter and verse in support of the Trumpist nonsense.
This is worse than the blind leading the blind. I suggest that we are, among other things, in the midst of a live demonstration of just how powerful our totally unregulated mass media ARE.
A key aspect of GOP dogma is the article of faith that absolute, unfettered greed released from ANY government regulation will somehow (no doubt because of the grace of a beneficent and Republican deity) result in the triumph of truth, fact, and goodness.
It will be an “interesting” time, indeed.
“Pride breeds the tyrant violent pride”
And even a two time loser like Brown scores the biggest upset in local political history. Be careful what you wish for.
We were all having a great time laughing at Scott Brown a week before he defeated Coakley, screwed up the Democratic Senate majority, and nearly prevented the ACA.
I was the only one consisting warning us about Brown on the forum back then, and everyone called me a Chicken Little or closet Republican. I saw that victory coming before others did, and I am making a similar warning today about Trump. He is a better campaigner than Clinton, he is channeling the broader electorates anger, and he is a chameleon who can get away with changing his positions thanks to a compliant media. And that media by covering it as Coke v Pepsi rather than Coke v sewer water will do a massive service on his behalf.
He is definitely beatable, and he isn’t looking strong today, but it’s a long campaign and a far more fluid and unpredictable electorate than years past. Arrogant and misleading posts like these will not help elect Hillary Clinton President.
…and just to be clear, nobody is suggesting the Dems not campaign or that Hillary sleep through the next six months.
Three weeks before the elections I was hearing about how Coakley was going to lose. But as many people have rather intelligently noted, Clinton is no Coakley.
He is a formidable foe who defeated one of the best crops of Republican candidates in several cycles.
By comparison Brown was a serious candidate and a serious Senator. Trump is a clown and it’s our job to point out the obvious between now and November.
Mr. Trump is a formidable clown.
I agree and, frankly, I STILL think there’s a fifty-fifty chance he’s pranking at LEAST the GOP if not all of us.
Scott squandered his moment, and it aint coming back.
the opportunistic, narcissistic sociopath would be the perfect running mate for the demagogic, narcissistic psychopath Trump! A marriage made in hell.
Fred Rich LaRiccia
May 10, 2016 – Clinton-Trump Close In Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Quinnipiac University Swing State Poll Finds
Hillary has never been the Dem nominee for POTUS.
In this case, with these two candidates, I don’t believe it does. If Clinton takes 350+ EVs, she will be discounted immediately because she ran against the most flawed POTUS candidate in the modern era.
If GOP voters stay home completely (rather than just blank Trump), the downticket will matter quite a bit. Dems could pick up the Senate and who knows, maybe the House. But if we don’t see that kind of downticket impact, and the end result is Ms. Clinton in the White House, a 52-GOP Senate and a GOP Speaker of the House, will it really matter if Team Blue gets 280 EVs or 350 EVs?
Assuming a significant Trump EV loss, can they keep the Senate?
They need to hold most of the five most vulnerable, and they’ll probably try to do that with money and negative attacks. Trump’s going to be campaigning in some of those states though- we’ll see how his polls are in the fall.
The LBJ/Johnson blowout gave him two years to pass a sweeping agenda before being mired in Vietnam and race riots which gave the GOP a good 1966 midterm (including our own Ed Brooke). By 1968 the country was 50/50 again, unaffected by the Goldwater loss. By 1972 the Nixon blowout over McGovern, to date the worst EV performance of any candidate (excluding our own state!) which has no bearing on Congressional control, neither did the 854′ route of Mondale.
The major difference is ticket splitting was more common in that era and both parties had more ideologically diverse coalitions. The GOP also did far better in the urban north than it does today. Southie and North Cambridge sent the Gipper to the White House again along with two of his staunchest opponents in Congress in Joe Moakley and Speaker O’Neil.
While that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore, Trump and Roger Stone are betting it does. That they can win a white working class majority and make a real play for PA, OH, MI, WI, FL and even keep NY competitive. It will only happen if Hillary moves so far to the center-right that she alienates minorities as well as liberals. I am cynically convinced both will come out to defeat Trump, but I would rather bank on a more cautious strategy that protects the Obama states.
LBJ was a Democrat. So was more than two thirds of both the Senate and the House. LBJ was able to pass a sweeping agenda not because of his EV totals, but because of the Democratic totals in Congress.
And while the 1966 elections helped Dems in Congress, it wasn’t overwhelming in the Senate. The Dems picked up 3% in the Senate and 9% in the House, moving each body from strong majority to supermajority.
Many of those majorities were full of Southern conservative Democrats who actively opposed expanding civil rights, the welfare state, or both. But I believe I was agreeing with your broader point that EV totals don’t affect a president’s agenda. And I think you helped prove it with this comment.
the single polls are often very not useful. Aggregates of polls are much more accurate. To some extent, Sam Wang disagrees:
The polling and prediction game has amped up since we all started thinking about polls, which try to describe the electorate. The prediction/probability math is harder, and you need to be able follow the mathematical argument, but if the election were held today, the probably of a Clinton victory is very high:
I have never predicted a Trump popular vote victory. He will lack the money and manpower to compete in every swing state. He will surrender high Latino states to Clinton like NV, CO, and NM to focus on a white working class strategy in WI, PA, OH, and MI while working transactional politics in Florida and possibly wooing other constituencies there (exile community and possibly Israel with Adelson’s help*). He needs any combination of 3 out of 5 or 4 out of 5 of those states to win. Decent chance IA is in play too if he puts Joni Ernst on the ticket.
*I am pro-Israel but anti-settlement, Adelson is pro-settlement as are a decent number of high powered Floridian donors who funded Marco and Jeb. They happen to be rich and happen to be Likudnik.
Hillary calls him “anti-women” and he brings up Monica and all the others.
Hillary knocks his private jet and he points to her hundreds of millions, $600 haircuts, $50,000 a week vacations.
Hillary points to his lack of support for labor, he points out that labor has not been treated with respect for 40 years, much of that time with a Democrat (and her husband) in the White House.
Hillary points to his remarks on abortion where he flip flopped. Trump points to one of a fee dozen flip flops by the secretary, this past year alone.
She points to his low approval ratings and he points to hers.
Point/Counterpoint with the objective on HIS part being to blur any differentiation between the two and thus, discourage voter turnout of Democrats and independents.
The question is whether Hillary has the stamina and repertoire to keep up.
There are three categories of oppo ads that virtually write themselves:
Those with footage of Trump saying nasty things about various demographics
Those that show him saying contradictory things within the same campaign (and I strongly disagree that there is equivalence with Hillary here)
Those that show many GOPers, including possibly his running mate, saying some pretty nasty things about him
This is going to be fun to watch and ultimately I really do think we hold most of the cards.
Who do they appeal to in a general? A solid majority of Americans of all parties loathe both of these nominees and distrust them. You have to convince them that you feel their economic pain and have an actual plan to fix it. Bragging about laying off coal miners isn’t going to cut it. The people want a champion, not a technocrat.
They are also going to be concerned about national security and it really bothers me that on the economy and dealing with terrorism that Trump scores higher than Clinton. She needs to get aggressive on both deficits.
Partisan Republicans, that’s who. Since when do partisan Republicans give two shaving cream cans about being nasty to any demographic other than white Christian men? They do not,ever. General election voters are a different group than GOP primary voters.
I am also not convinced that there is some massive populist wave this year. HRC is no populist firebrand, and trying to pretend to be one would be a mistake. Besides, going populist and running away from a popular two-term president is a terrible idea– ask Bob Shrum and Al Gore.
Trump did well because he is anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim, both issues that appeal to a certain part of the GOP base and upon which GOP elected officials routinely squish, because the donor portion of the base so require. Trump has thus exposed a fracture in the GOP that was previously papered over. I’m not so certain that Trump is thus some populist crusader as he is the chickens coming home to roost.
Sanders has done better than expected, but breathless media aside, he hasn’t really done well. The race was over on March 15. The “pro-Hillary corporate media” reported yesterday as a “big win” for Sanders even though he fell further behind the pace he needs to actually win. The only reason that the campaign isn’t being reported as the political equivalent of “garbage time” in football is because “big win!” is more exciting, even if untrue.
The unfavorability ratings are concerning, if unsurprising for someone who has been Enemy #1 of the right wing for 25+ years. (It has been frustrating to watch the Sanders campaign pick up where the House Judiciary Committee left off in 1998, while complaining about how unfair it is that Clinton tried to win, even though the Clinton campaign never really went after him hard, at all.) I do, however, think that when you mention this, you also fail to mention that the GOP nominee is far, far more unpopular.
I could argue it piece by piece, but just and example “anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim” is not limited to Republicans and there is a significant number of Republican women that have views. It’s not a “men only” party.
I can’t speak to populism because I’m not one. Perhaps someone else can address that.
Hyper partisan Republicans were voting for Cruz. Cruz won self described social conservatives, Trump won self described moderates, independents, liberals and plain old conservatives. 20,000 unenrolled in MA, 67,000 in PA. All to vote for Trump. Nate Cohn and Molly Ball have pointed out how it’s not been the Tea Party conservative but the “Sams Club” Relublicans down south and the “Rockefeller” ones in the northeast and Midwest that gave him the victory. Like Scott Brown he is getting a lot of rank and file union support that abandoned Romney and McCain.
He doesn’t lie when he says that, he got more popular voters than Romney or McCain showing he broadened it rather than winning over a narrower slice like you are arguing.
I was curious to see what the mood on BMG was pre Brown.
I concur that you were cautious about that day, and 2-3 weeks before the “Coakley will crush him” sentiments were rampant here. Only a week before, when the polls had Brown up, were people starting to panic here.
I agree with you about his support, and I think the race will narrow over time.
People who vote in that primary are voting for an entertainer. His vote totals I’m pretty sure are buried by those of at least one and maybe even both Dem candidates.
How many times do those guys have to fail until you recognize that it won’t work?
They big time pulled their punches. Trump wasn’t entirely wrong when he called Bush low energy. Besides, I have lost count of the number of times I have pointed out the GOP primary and general electorates are two very different beasts. The ads appeal to women, minorities, independents and even a few reasonable Republicans. Just as an example we can with relative ease turn the traditional Dem-favored gender gap into a gender canyon.
Anybody who doesn’t see HRC as a champion hasn’t been paying attention. Just today as Trump continued his campaign by Twitter insults, Clinton was laying out a plan to make child care more affordable. She is also a national security champion whereas he is a loose canon that could endanger us. She already HAS the message and no doubt she will have to repeat it time and again, but at some point the voters need to choose their path.
That’s her disapproval rating at the last poll. And that’s around the same percentage of Americans who don’t think she has their back or is looking out for them. You can’t tank Trump’s numbers any lower with a negative ad blitz, she has to attack Wall Street more publicly.
In any case, it’s all bupkis until August and we will see then. I have no idea how any of this will turn out, neither do you, and neither do the candidates. This is the most volatile American electorate since 1968. And we are in for a similar realignment on both sides.
Disapproval is not the same as “not seeing as a champion”.
It seems to me that some number of those voters might be see her as a champion and dislike her anyway. As you say, none of us really know.
Some voters don’t like her because of her gender. Some don’t like her because of her party affiliation. Some don’t like her because they’ve been told to not like her for decades.
I know it’s hard to believe, but there ARE people who feel that making child care more affordable is a bad thing. There are people who feel that women in the workplace are taking jobs away from “deserving” men. This is approximately the same logic as those claim that immigrants take jobs away from “deserving” men. Donald Trump is explicitly pandering to all of those.
Other than continuing to tell the truth, I’m not sure how many of these voters Ms. Clinton will gain WHATEVER she does or says.
…that 56% (or more!) are not paying attention. There’s generally a whole swath of the electorate that doesn’t tune in until Labor Day. Besides, just because a majority of voters believe something doesn’t make them right. It just means we have to keep our message on a repeat loop.
She refused a debate with Sanders unless he “toned it down”.
I don’t think we hold the cards on this one. “We” have been saying for months now that Trump will never make it, he’s not doing it right, his support will hit a ceiling….and it never happens. It gets stronger.
He is mounting an asymmetrical campaign against a very rigid campaigner.
The sad truth is that Hillary would do so much better if she had more self confidence and escaped the paranoia that paralyzes her. I wish I could just sit her down for an hour and coach her. Her fixation on money, on campaign funding, it’s all a vicious circle. If she was not so dependent on big money, on super pacs, on money from the elites, money from “people” would flow like water. But she holds tight to the dark side because of its wealth and in doing so, alienates so many of us.
…first from momentum and now of course being the last GOPer standing, but I’m still not sure he will get many more votes than he has already banked from the primary.
…Newt Gingrich is being floated as a possible running mate.