I will leave my commentary for the explanations of the numbers this week. Let's jump straight to the digits. States that have changed position are in italics and underlined. If they are red, they moved towards Trump and if blue, they moved towards Clinton.
Solid Trump (more than 95% Confidence of Victory [CoV]): ND WY ID WV OK AL NE KY KS UT LA TN SD AR TX AK MT MS IN
Total: 145
Leaning Trump (between 50% and 95% CoV for Trump): SC MO GA AZ
Total:46
Leaning Clinton (between 50% and 95% for Clinton): IA NV NC OH OR FL
Total: 85
Solid Clinton (more than 95% CoV for Clinton): MN ME CT NM PA MI VA DE WA NH NJ WI CO NY MD CA IL RI VT HI DC MA
Total: 262
The current count:
Clinton 347
Trump 191
The changes that look temporary: Utah went to solid Trump on the strength of a single poll from the only company putting Trump in the lead. Even Trump on the stump knows Utah is going to be tough. Trump is the stereotype of what Mormons think non-Mormons are like.
Missouri had a couple polls with Trump up by 10 in July, now his lead is 1 or 2. South Carolina is polled for the first time and Trump is up by 2. Prior history says these are comfortable wins for the Republicans. If Trump is truly struggling in those states, Clinton's electoral count could climb past 400, a number I still consider beyond reasonable expectations until serious evidence proves otherwise.
Iowa and Ohio are battleground states that made moves towards Clinton. North Carolina went from solid Clinton to leaning Clinton. They all deserve to be battleground right now. Again, evidence might prove otherwise over time. It should be noted that right now, Pennsylvania is NOT a battleground, but instead a regularly polled state where Hillary Clinton has had a comfortable lead for about a month.
The changes that looks permanent: Wisconsin is solid Clinton now and it will likely stay there. I know I have at least one reader who will be happy about this. New Hampshire is now solidly Clinton based on all the three polls taken in August. I'm starting to believe it's really in the Clinton camp, which is a little odd. Vermont and Hew Hampshire are neighbors and are usually worlds apart. Vermont is the hippie state, while New Hampshire is the "Get off my lawn!" state.
And now the odds if the election were held today, based on 32,768 possible outcomes in the fifteen closest states in terms of expected value. (Note: a lot of these fifteen states are not truly battleground, they are just the closest to being competitive.)
The fifteen states that have the most sway:
GA NC OH FL AZ IA NV MO SC OR MN IN CT PA ME
Current probability of victory if the election were held today:
Clinton 99.97%
Trump 0.03%
In the words of the comic books, this is not a hoax, this is not an imaginary story. Trump's odds in an election held today are 3 chances in 10,000 or 3,332 to 1. I knew that moving Wisconsin out of the leaning Clinton column could make a difference and sure enough, it did. My best guess is that Oregon belongs in the Solid Clinton column as well.
In closing, don't let anyone tell you this is close, even if his name is Nate Silver. Right now, this is an ass-kicking and Hillary Clinton has room to improve.
Another report next Sunday.
My prediction is that Trump and Trump surrogates will be all about the 'election is rigged' claims in the upcoming week.... In between Trump spraying ill-focused grade school insult in any direction, including his own supporters and maybe his family...
ReplyDeleteToday's tweets are completely focused on the "dishonest media".
DeleteRigged elections is the talk of people getting drubbed in late October, or saved for after the election. When Arianna Huffington was on the right, she claimed that "widespread voter fraud" was the reason her husband lost his Senate bid in California. Even after she had her conversion, I've never trusted her.
No effing way is OR going to go for Trump. There are indeed lots of mouth breathing morons on the dry side (where that Sheriff took up with the Bundys) and there are even plenty in the Willamette Valley. But both the seats of Sens. Wyden and Merkley are pretty solid D. Four of the five U.S. Representatives are safe D seats. OR has voted for D presidents since 1988. There's just no way a Republican, any R, can prevail in a statewide race. Even with all those mouth breathing morons, both chambers of the legislature have been Dem since 2012. Dems have a nine point edge in registered voters.
ReplyDeleteObama beat McCain by 16 points, and even with the large Mormon population best Rmoney by 12 points.
Also, the MBMs are rapidly gravitating away from identifying with the R party, moving towards libertarianism. (Again, there was a fair bit of support for the Bundys - even most of the MBMs who weren't on board with that little insurrection said they thought the complaints of the Bundy crew were meritorious.)
IOW, no effing way does Trump take OR.
Oregon is leaning Clinton due to being polled exactly once in early July by a Republican pollster. The next pollster to go there will very likely change the odds in Clinton's favor.
DeleteI don't get to skew polls and I accept any polls listed by RCP or Pollster. My only bar to entry is if the sample is listed as Adults instead of Registered Voters or Likely Voters.
you going to include the Breitbart/Gravis poll?
ReplyDeleteThat was a national poll. I ignore them. I do use Gravis polls if they are published on RCP or Pollster state polls of the Senate or electoral college.
DeleteYour archenemy Nate now has Clinton at 86% to win the election. He must be reading your blog...
ReplyDeleteI seriously doubt he reads this blog.
Delete