Stephen Green:
Let’s get ready to ruuuuuuummmmmmmmmmmble!
Most of the convention noise should have filtered out of the polls by now and it’s still too soon for the polls to have registered the new noise. By that of course I mean Hillary Clinton’s “unintentional” campaign appearance with the gay-hating, Taliban-loving father of the Pulse nightclub terrorist right behind her, and Donald Trump’s allusion of “Second Amendment people” to potential assassins. And then there’s Clinton’s “shocking pay-for-play scheme,” except that as Jane’s Addiction warned us almost 30 years ago, when it comes to Hillary, nothing’s shocking.
If you’ll remember, our base map last time around was RCP’s poll averaged result, with all Leaners removed — just showing Trump and Clinton’s Solids and Likelies. Five weeks later and there’s only one small change to the base map: Trump seems to have nailed down Nebraska’s stray EC vote, giving him all five of NE’s semi-splittable votes.
The bad news for Trump is that with 13 weeks to go, he still doesn’t have a lock on the southern tier of red states. The bad news for Clinton is that she still doesn’t have a lock on the northern tier of blue states. But when we look deeper, you’ll see that the bad news is mostly Trump’s.
Let’s add RCP’s Leaners in to see what I mean.
There are a few changes from last month’s map, but two of them may prove vital. Clinton has shored up Maine’s stray split EC vote, which balances out Trump’s similar gain in NE. Trump has slipped in Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina. Wisconsin has slipped out of the Leans Dem column, but Pennsylvania and its treasure trove of 20 EC votes has slipped in. So have Virginia and Colorado, even though just five weeks ago I said that I personally wouldn’t try to call those states yet, “even under the kind of duress involving an ISIS propaganda video crew, my most tender bits, and a finishing hammer.”
CO and VA could prove decisive in Trump’s attempt to turn enough of Obama’s blue states red to beat Clinton.
If we filter out polls of registered voters from 270toWin’s collection of recent surveys from Virginia, the remaining likely voter polls give Clinton an average lead of 44-39. Colorado’s likely voters give similar answers.
In our first go around, I showed you how Trump could win by making an endrunthrough the Rust Belt, where his economic message would seem to play best. So far at least, that message hasn’t been resonating outside his core supporters.
The media had been following Donald Trump for over a year, yet, in Hillary’s behalf they are pretending they hadn’t noticed how Trump ignores the 1001-and always-growing number of ”laws” of Political Correctness (PC).
They pretend Trump hadn’t already destroyed that small Overton Window that the PC crowd insists all candidates stay inside.
But, despite that pretense of horror, outrage and disgust, Trump is holding this line.
He will absolutely not confer saintly perfection on a victim.
(Mr. Khan.)
He absolutely will not promise to forgive 100% of all college debt. (Over $1.3 TRILLION.)
He absolutely will not tell blacks that their lives matter in exclusion of ALL people.
He’s not going to play in the PC playground.
But he will protect our 1st Amendment rights.
He will protect our 2nd amendment rights.
He will send back to the states many things the Federal Gov’t has said it under their purview. (Education, gay marriage, if possible, bathroom standards….)
He will place into nomination SCOTUS choices who are all in the pattern of Scalia.
He will remove executive orders and memos.
He will deregulate some of the almost $1 Trillion in new regulations imposed by Obama.
He will enforce our border, as per the US Constitution.
Hillary is just the opposite an everything I just listed.
It boils down to that choice.
@Nanny G:
“But he will protect our 1st Amendment rights.
He will protect our 2nd amendment rights.
He will send back to the states many things the Federal Gov’t has said it under their purview. (Education, gay marriage, if possible, bathroom standards….)
He will place into nomination SCOTUS choices who are all in the pattern of Scalia.
He will remove executive orders and memos.
He will deregulate some of the almost $1 Trillion in new regulations imposed by Obama.
He will enforce our border, as per the US Constitution.”
The problem is Nanny, that’s all happy talk, political fluff with no legs.
Both Hillary and Trump are liars. There’s no reason to believe that Trump would achieve or even be interested in these objectives. You are spouting wishful thinking as if it were factual. When you toss in things like his interest in our free speech and disregard what outrageous executive orders he’d put in place himself, it makes your assessment even more unhinged.
The electoral votes are snowballing towards Clinton. With the WH, so goes the Judicial Branch. The Senate was already going to be an uphill battle for Rs and appears to be a Dem flip.
One would think that with a 32 seat advantage in the House, Rs would be safe but Hillary is ahead in 54 Republican-held House districts, while Trump is ahead only in 3 Democratic districts. And then there are predominantly black and Litino red districts that may no longer be inclined to vote for their Trump supporting representative.