The bad news for Trump starts
For all the Trump supporters who say he will beat Hillary in the General election: a reality check. Trump has a long climb ahead. The fact that he starts out this far behind a serially corrupt person is bad news indeed.
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And to put any stock in any poll one should be able to see the questions asked. We are to believe that Trump loses to Hillary on immigration? Really? I would definitely want to see the question. And then who is doing the "interpreting" of the results?
And his ground game is anything but organized. He's been relying solely on his name-recognition factor and large-audience speeches - he hasn't spent near the time in personal venues most other candidates do. Now one can say that since he is the presumptive nominee at this point that what he did worked, and that may be true, but what it tells me is that the man is too lazy to secure a win in the General election.
i cannot prove anything, but i would be willing to bet a deal has been cut between HillaryBeast and ObamaScary...she will not be indicted...Obama wants to serve as a Supreme Court Justice...
with a $20 trillion debt and a $200 trillion entitlement debt, neither one is going to reverse the slide to bankruptcy...
i just try to stay under their radar and prepare for what is coming...
All I can realistically say or do is to URGE anyone considering voting Democrat to stay away from the polls in November.
The other problem I see is the same problem I had with McCain - the focus that it is support of the party rather than support of principles. I will freely admit that I am a values voter, and when I look at the values of Donald Trump, they don't match up to mine. Trump is 90% of Hillary Clinton - which means only 10% of me. And that is the sentiment of a lot of members of the Republican Party who have been pointing out Trump's progressive values from the beginning.
Is the election already decided? Of course not. There are still six months of endless TV ads and the possibility of a Federal indictment of Hillary still to play out. No conclusion is forged in iron at this point, but the fact that he starts this far down right off the bat is not good for a campaign that really hasn't put hardly any effort into actually campaigning.
A couple more factors that play in:
1) Likeability. Hillary's numbers are a net negative, but Trump's are even worse.
2) Name recognition: Both Hillary and Trump have 100% name recognition. That means that they have no opportunity to make a fresh impression, but must work hard to overcome the negativity attached to their names.
3) The Republican candidate pretty much starts in a huge hole with respect to the Electoral College.
And that's before we even get to demographics...
Trump's best chance is going to be if Hillary gets formally indicted. Barring that...
People tend to outgrow them as they grow up.
First, notice that the focus is on "favorables" - as opposed to "If the election were today, for whom would you vote?". This is a common tactic for avoiding the answers in those polls - of which Trump has gained and begun to outpace Hillary in. You always have to get the questions asked in a poll to make any sense of it.
The second major hole is failing to account for the failure of polls to predict Trump's victory margin. Given the stigma associated with being a Trump supporter, right or wrong, there is reason to believe many won't "admit to being a supporter" in a poll, but in the privacy of the voting booth they pull the lever for Trump. This is one of the explanations which actually makes sense as to why Trump has been doing much better than expected in votes vs. polls.
If this effect exists outside of the GOP, and there is good reason to expect that if it exists inside it also exists outside, then the Trump v. Clinton polls are likewise inaccurate in the same manner. But how much off would they have to be?
Between 5 and 10%. If you look at the work done by the NY Times on what it would take at the general level, 5% means Clinton would likely win by 15 electoral votes. 10% means Trump by 35. So I estimate that depending on how it played out at the state level, Trump only has to be under-represented in current matchup polling by about 7%. He has consistently beaten that fairly easily of late.
Remember, this isn't about the popular vote - it is about the electoral college. When you look at the electoral map over the last several years you learn some interesting things. In a sense the deck is already stacked in Clinton's favor. If she ran as a Republican she'd be in the same starting-behind position as Trump.
This race will definitely be one for the swing states unless Trump can flip a major state or two. I doubt he can do that, but he may be able to get key swing states. The margin is much closer than many think, or would like it to be.
Trump has proven to be one who does not follow the patterns we expect. He consistently beats polls, and so much "analysis" is based on these numbers. It stands to reason that placing a lot of weight on something which can't seem to accurately gauge support for one candidate will result in said predictions not being very accurate.
I am often reminded of Helen Chenoweth. She was widely unpopular due to her statements, often off the wall and almost always off the cuff. Yet she kept getting elected. I as astounded by this and did my own polling back then. So many people who didn't like her, or her positions, still voted for her - even from the Democrats. Why? They knew what they were getting and didn't hide what she thought.
At some level this is refreshing and thus appealing to a public so used to what are now common political traits of doublespeak and wavering. It allows people to have some hope that things can be different - that if we elect people like that enough, even if we disagree with them, "someone" will get the message we want people who are who they say they are.
That brings us into something few are realizing about Trump v. Clinton. Clinton is literally running a "with the candidate" race. Trump is running a "candidate with me" race. By that I mean Clinton's motto is actually "I'm with her", but Trump has his supporters thinking he is with them. This is a crucial difference.
This style of campaign is what Reagan, William Clinton, Bush the 2nd, and Obama ran. There is a significant psychological pull to believing someone is "with you" rather than you being "with them". During Obama's first race I noted and commented frequently that he was running an effective tabula rasa. He avoided saying much beyond vague emotions and let people assign to him what they wanted. In this way he made people feel he was with them.
Trump is largely doing the same thing. He keeps his statements and positions as general platitudes such as "Make America Great Again". This exposes another key differentiator between the two styles of campaign: "with me" is emotional whereas "With him/her" is not. Humans tend very strongly to make emotional decisions over rational ones.
The more he can play to the emotions of the voters, which Hillary has and will struggle with, the more likely the is to effect that small ~7% increase over existing poll - assuming he doesn't already have that made up. A lot can happen between now and November, and Hillary doesn't have the easiest paths either. There are several wild cards that can throw her campaign into a tail spin regardless of Trump.
She may have to speak with investigators in a criminal investigation over her email shenanigans, or even face indictment. Her husband may rise to Trump's baiting and say things that torpedo his wife's campaign. She herself can start saying things that lower her chances - you know getting off the reservation as it were.
Still there are other choices. NOTA is one to ensure there is no majority much less a landslide or a mandate and demonstrate a complete lack of confidence or trust. Gary Johnson is another one if the purpose is getting that party up over 10% but without a coalition that's unlikely. Of course the real battle ground is in the 110,000 precincts.
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