All the Momentum is with Trump

The polls have been swinging wildly this year. That’s why Nate Silver, at FiveThirtyEight, developed an average of polls, and a “polls-plus” number, which adds certain other details, such as historical norms. The Washington Examiner notes that just one month ago, Trump had as little as 3% chance of becoming president, based on the numbers.

Newsmax now reports that Trump’s chances of winning are at a high for the year—44%. That’s still less than 50-50, but if that rate of improvement were to continue, he could win in a historic landslide.

Noted statistician Nate Silver gives Donald Trump a 44 percent chance of winning the election. Silver, founder of FiveThirtyEight.com, has Trump losing the election by a hair, using his Polls-Plus Forecast that takes into account polls plus historical data and the economy.

The results of Silver’s model:
Clinton: 55.9 percent chance of winning; Trump 44 percent;
Clinton: 46.5 percent of the popular vote; Trump 45.1 percent;
Clinton: 278 electoral votes to Trump’s 259.5.

Silver has Trump winning the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, North Carolina and Nevada. Silver has Clinton taking Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin and New Hampshire.

Trump’s rise has put many Hillary supporters in a panic. In fact, some are already writing “pre-post-mortems,” according to Breitbart.

The Huffington Post is no longer buying the idea that Hillary Clinton will coast to victory in November — and it has already made a list of “where Democrats will point the finger if she loses” to Donald Trump.

And it’s not from volunteer contributors; the byline includes Global Editorial Director Howard Fineman and editors Jason Linkins and Lauren Weber.

If Donald Trump [wins], no one who lost the battle will want to admit it was Hillary Clinton’s fault. It will have had nothing to do with, say, “transparency” or calling bearded villagers “deplorables” or the Iraq War vote or the simple fact that middle-of-the-road Clintonism ran out of gas as a public philosophy.

The last paragraph was Breitbart quoting a Huffington Post article, which lists why “she lost.”

1. The Media
2. The Russians
3. Millennials
4. Bernie Sanders
5. Bill Clinton
6. Sexists
7. Obama People
8. James Comey
9. Debbie Wasserman Schultz

The above reports are based on statistics from FiveThirtyEight.

Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the White House are still near an all-time low in the FiveThirtyEight forecasts. . . In only three of the 16 polls has the race shifted in Clinton’s direction. It’s moved toward Trump in 10. Indeed, the average poll has moved 2.8 percentage points toward Trump.

. . . there’s also solid evidence that Clinton is still in decline. The Maine People’s Resource Center survey was Clinton’s worst of any telephone poll in the state this entire cycle, and she has lost ground in North Carolina since the end of August, according to Public Policy Polling. Clinton was also well down in the Fox News surveys of Nevada, North Carolina and Ohio released late Wednesday, though we don’t have previous Fox News polls from those states to compare these results to. . .

Clinton is in worse shape in the Ipsos tracking poll and the Rasmussen Reports weekly survey, and the Google Consumer Surveys and YouGov polls show her steady.

The Washington Examiner puts it in stark relief.

The latest vote projection from elections guru Nate Silver has Republican Donald Trump just six electoral votes short of winning and one point away from equaling Hillary Clinton’s popular vote.

The newest Five Thirty Eight survey Trump at 264 and Clinton at 272, two more than needed. It’s the closest in recent weeks.

electoral-popular-bar-chart

What’s more, he has the popular vote within the margin of victory, Clinton 45.4 percent to Trump’s 44.3 percent.

chance-winning-pres

Fox News reports that a Fox News poll puts Trump ahead in three key states.

Trump is helped by strong support from working-class white voters, while Clinton is hurt by a lackluster performance among younger voters and women.

NEVADA:
Independents back Trump (42 percent) over Clinton (23 percent) and Johnson (21 percent). The Democrat is trailing expectations among women and younger voters.

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Those under age 45 are almost equally likely to back Clinton (42 percent) as they are to back Trump (39 percent) — and Johnson garners double-digit support (11 percent). Women in Nevada backed Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 16-point margin in 2012, according to the Fox News Exit Poll. Clinton’s up by just six points.

NORTH CAROLINA:
Whites back Trump by a 31-point margin (58-27 percent), while blacks support Clinton by 82 points (85-3 percent). Independents favor Trump (41 percent) over Clinton (24 percent) and Johnson (14 percent). And while voters under age 45 prefer Clinton by 46-32, Johnson gets 11 percent of them.

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Ninety-five percent of Trump supporters and 90 percent of Clinton backers feel certain of their vote choice.

OHIO:
Trump’s edge over Clinton comes mainly from independents (+20 points) and working-class whites (+26). Clinton’s up by just three points among women. Obama won them by 11 in 2012. Most of Clinton’s (89 percent) and Trump’s supporters (88 percent) are certain they will back their candidate.

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“Trump has been much more disciplined in his comments recently and is almost certainly benefiting from keeping his attacks focused on Clinton as opposed to other Republicans or Gold Star families,” says. . . Chris Anderson, who conducts the Fox News Poll. Meanwhile, Clinton trails Trump by two points among voters living in union households. That voting bloc went for Obama over Romney by 23 points in 2012.

Huffington Post may be premature in it’s post-mortem, but at this point, it appears that all the momentum is with Trump.


Goethe Behr

Goethe Behr is a Contributing Editor and Moderator at Election Central. He started out posting during the 2008 election, became more active during 2012, and very active in 2016. He has been a political junkie since the 1950s and enjoys adding a historical perspective.

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