Dead Heat. Really.

The election is a cliffhanger.  Top GOP officeholders who are abandoning Trump does not mean GOP voters are.

Yes, despite everything Trump has done to disqualify himself, as judged by the media and by the respectable establishment of both parties and by a majority of women and by incumbent politicians in the GOP who need to disassociate themselves from Trump, Trump is doing very well with the people who really count: voters.

Politico Headline:   Reassuring to Hillary supporters

The progressive press is comfort food for the Hate-Trump voter.   You see headlines like "Death Spiral" and "GOP Abandons Trump" and "Polls Collapse."   Hillary supporters start thinking about the transition team and her first 100 days and whether it would be OK to send a message and support Jill Stein.

News saying "Hillary is Ahead!" puts Hillary supporters into a fool's paradise.  The race is very close right now.


Note that I am not saying something bad could happen to Hillary and it becomes close.   I am saying it is close right now, even with all the self destructive things that have hurt Trump which make a news cycle high water mark for Hillary.  If Trump does something really good or Hillary something sort of bad, then Trump will win bigger, not just narrowly.

Here is a more accurate headline, from this morning:

Despite everything, Trump is ahead in Florida

Despite everything stupid and self destructive he has done, he is approximately tied or ahead in enough states to become president.   He is firmly ahead in Ohio and Iowa, as he has been for a long time.


The outlier poll is the ABC recent poll showing Hillary Clinton well ahead.   The USC/LA Times national poll shows Trump ahead by one percent.   The IBD/TIPP poll shows Clinton ahead by one percent.   The USC/LA Times poll, whose re-sampling of the same 3000 people methodology, was superior in 2012 to the repeated random sampling system used by most other polls.   The IBD poll uses random sampling.   Call it a toss up, nationally.

Here is the poll results where it really counts, the battleground states:  

Battleground States: Trump is close in enough

There is an anomaly about this Trump/Clinton election:  unusually large numbers of undecided voters late in the calendar.  Voters aren't just now learning about the candidates; Hillary and Trump are the most familiar people in American history.   Voters know them.  They just cannot decide which one they like better: supposedly crooked Hillary or supposedly crazy Trump.  

This strange undecided factor shows up in states critical to the electoral vote:  always-close Florida, traditional manufacturing states (i.e. rustbelt) Ohio and New Hampshire, near-lily-white Iowa, and Nevada where Trump casinos are a household word.   Trump isn't 5 to 6 percent behind in polls in those critical states.   He is nearly even.

Trump could win, and might win even with the public mood almost exactly where tit is now.   If there are a couple of days confusion and dismay over Obama-care insurance costs and a few people decide to take the mystery-box-Trump rather than same-ol' Hillary then the national polls could move one or two percent which would give Trump enough battleground electoral votes to win and win big.

The discomfort prominent Republicans have with Trump leads one to a faulty conclusion, that there is great dissension among Republican voters.  Elected Republicans are forced to stand in public and accept or reject Trump mocking the disabled or saying he grabs pussies.  This is indefensible--in public.  So they bail on Trump.   Voters don't have to stand up in public and defend Trump.  They just quietly vote.  Trump is more acceptable to voters than he is with respectable Republican elected officials.   

Hillary supporters should not be fooled by headlines of "GOP Chaos".   There is in fact chaos at the top, but it doesn't matter at the ballot box.

Note:   Yes, this is TWO posts for today.  One on the presidential polls and just before this, one on the Alan DeBoer/Tonia Moro state senate race.