This is the first of my monthly series of the Communities Dominate blog Election Scorecard. We are at the start of the actual campaign between the two major party candidates, Hillary Clinton, the Democrat and Donald Trump, the Republican. They have been ‘shadow boxing’ up to now. But in the second half of July, both sides picked their Vice Presidential candidates and held their Conventions. We have now enough data to see the full race, all the elements of it, and can make a first evaluation of both sides. This is my attempt to be a comprehensive survey of the race, and I intend to update this every month until the election on November 8. I will use as much empirical data as possible, plus then various observations and my own best evaluations of the other aspects of the race. First lets do a numerical summary of where the race stands:
NUMERICAL SUMMARY
As of 31 July, 2016, immediately after the VP selections and Conventions, the race measures stand as follows:
POLLING AVERAGE: +1.1% advantage to Hillary Clinton (RCP average)
(note only one poll out fully after Democratic Convention, has race at +5.0% for Clinton)
ELECTORAL COLLEGE STATUS (RCP): 322 Clinton vs 216 Trump
Battleground Current status (RCP):
Hillary Clinton leads polling in: AZ, CO, IA, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI
Donald Trump leads polling in: FL, GA, NV
Campaigns or SuperPACs have ads on TV in:
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air in: FL, IA, NH, NV, NC, OH, PA, VA
Donald Trump TV ads on air in: FL, NV, NC, OH, PA
(Bolding indicates states where both campaigns are on the air)
(Note above based on Kantar reported numbers & bookings & recent comments by both campaigns)
FINANCIAL RACE Month of July:
Hillary Clinton raised $36.2M from supporters; has $44.4M in bank
Donald Trump raised $22.9M from supporters; has $20.0M in bank
Democratic forces in total raised $146.3M; have $139.2M in bank
Republican forces in total raised $81.1M; have $61.1M in bank
(totals include the campaign numbers of the above, plus SuperPACs and the party funds)
STAFF End of July
Clinton Campaign has 651 full-time staff
Trump Campaign has 74 full-time staff
REPORT CARDS:
Clinton as Candidate: 4.0 (grade of A)
Clinton on Issues: 3.6 (grade of A-)
Clinton Campaign: 4.0 (grade of A)
Trump as Candidate: 1.3 (grade of D+)
Trump on Issues 2.0 (grade of C)
Trump Campaign: 1.1 (grade of D)
The Trump campaign has a bad candidate, running on bad issues, with a campaign that is horrid. He faces a great candidate, running on great issues, and on a campaign that is brilliant. This is not going to be a close race. It cannot be.
COMMUNITIES DOMINATE RATINGS
In the early primary race I posted my evaluations of the contestants in both primary races, looking at strengths in areas like fund-raising, debating, polling, etc. For the General Election 2016 I will post 4 ‘report cards’ of my ratings based as much as possible on independent metrics but also often on my own personal evaluation. These will allow comparisons not only of the two competing campaigns, but also to see how they performed compared to the previous month.
I will be using the US school grading scale, where A is excellent, D is poor (and there is no E, but F is failing). In mathematical conversion, an A is worth 4 points, B worth 3 points, C worth 2, D worth 1 and F worth 0 points. For non-Americans, they will understand how the numerical values will be thus derived. There is a ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ grading also, which adds or subtracts one third of a point, and I may use such grades if needed, ie a B+ would be worth 3.3 points or a C- would be worth 1.7 points.
Note that all grades are ‘graded on a curve’. The race will be a two-person (or possibly becoming a 3-person) race. I will not grade current candidates against those politicians who have dropped out of the race (comparing them to say Marco Rubio or Bernie Sanders). I will not compare them to previous candidates (like say Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan). And I will not compare the top of the ticket to the VP choices (Tim Kaine and Mike Pence). While Hillary Clinton is the second least liked candidate to ever run for President in any year as far as Gallup has measured candidate attributes (and Donald Trump is obviously the worst) I will be assigning Hillary the A grade on ‘likeability’ because she is the BETTER OF THE TWO FINALISTS. Even as she is historically incredibly poor on this metric, would have scored an F on any other year, she gets an A because we have to ‘grade on a scale’ - the comparison is not against a hypothetical idealistic candidate, the comparison is Hillary vs Trump. And because Trump is the worse of these two candidates, it means Hillary is better on this attribute - and thus she gets an A. The question then becomes, how do we rate TRUMP against Hillary on this metric. As you will see, compared to Hillary, on likeability, Trump scores a B. Again, we are scoring on ‘grading on a curve’ and we will not force each scale to have an A and an F, but we force each grade to yes, have an A. Whoever is the better of these two choices will always get the A (and if Johnson climbs into the race, I will then adjust to allow his measures to be considered too).
In general one could say, a Presidential race has five sets of variables. First there are the candidates. Then we have their political positions and third we have the campaigns (their resources such as fund-raising and staffing, plus the tactical decisions of deciding where to compete, and what kind of assets are deployed there, etc). I include the VP choice on the ‘campaigns’ as nobody really votes for the VP ahead of the President but they do impact the race, somewhat. These three items all are in the control of the campaigns. Then there are outside issues, beyond the control of the campaigns but which may affect the campaign, such as say a foreign policy incident, a dramatic change in the economy, or for example a terrorist incident. And lastly there are of course the voters.
CANDIDATES
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Likeability . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Likeability . . . . . . . B
Competence . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Competence . . . . . D
Temperament . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Temperament . . . . F
Public speaking . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Public speaking . . F
TV interviews . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . TV interviews . . . . C
Debating . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Debating . . . . . . . C
GRADE POINT AVERAGES ON THE ISSUES (that matter to moderate/undecided voters)
Hillary Clinton 4.0 (A)
Donald Trump 1.3 (D+)
(Note Trump has two failing grades: temperament and public speaking, as well as 1 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has a perfect score of all A's)
Gallup Favorability vs Unfavorable (July 28):
Hillary Clinton +38% / -57% = -19%
Donald Trump +36% / -59% = -23%
The two are the most disliked candidates ever to run for President on a major ticket. Hillary Clinton’s unfavorability is -19% the worst measured against anyone who had run before this year, but Trump manages even more dismal ratings. Note that the Gallup poll was conducted only covering the middle of the Democratic Convention and before Hillary Clinton’s speech. Still, the trend seems to have just peaked and started to move in her favor. Her highest unfavorability was measured during the Republican Convention at -58% when for one poll the two candidates were equally disliked. That was also historically the best rating Trump has had, his unfavorability has again climbed after his Convention ended. The reason I grade Trump with a B, is that their relative difference is only modest. We will see if Trump’s favorability sinks, then his score would also dip in coming Report Cards.
On Competence, there is no question Hillary is the most experienced candidate ever to run for President, as Marco Rubio said. Or how President Obama said in his speech at the Convention, Hillary is more competent than Barack himself was when he was nominated, as well as more competent than Bill Clinton was - to which Obama jokingly apologized to Bill who was in the audience and laughed. But the vast pouring of support by over 100 foreign policy and national security leaders from both sides of the aisle, sing loudly the praises, that Hillary is definitely qualified. The Republicans may want to question her ‘judgment’ (on which score again Trump would sink far worse) but on experience, Hillary is clearly the most qualified candidate not just this year, but of anyone at least going back to Dwight Eisenhower. Even if we graded against all past candidates, Hillary would still score an A on this attribute. On Competence Trump is almost disqualifyingly incompetent. He gets a poor grade D but not an F, because he HAS run several giant Billion-dollar construction projects and run hotels etc. He has run many of them poorly, including six to bankruptcies, but he ALSO has employed thousands and while he often has been convicted of discriminatory practises, of underpaying and not paying his staff and suppliers, and of hiring foreign labor to undercut local salaries, etc; that is still all some type of somewhat-successful business competence. Perhaps not the ideal type of competence for a businessman to attempt to run for President (compare to for example how much more ethically and far more successfully fellow New York Billionaire Michael Bloomberg had built his business) but it still is some achievement.
Temperament was an attribute I was not expecting to include in the Report Card, but Trump has made this such a major issue, we have to include it. Trump’s childish obsessive temper tantrums which include such outrageous and deeply disturbing behavior as the attacks on the Judge Curiel (the US born Judge who has Mexican parents); the requests to have Russia hack into the email servers of Trump’s political opponent; and the attacks on the family of a fallen US soldier. Trump has a dangerous temperament that suggests a hair-trigger and a wafer-thin skin. The office of the President is often faced with global crisis where information is not immediate and not clear, and may change drastically over days or even weeks. As John F Kennedy thought of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nearest moment the planet was to a nuclear war, the main factor that kept the world from that nuclear nightmare, was the cool heads and patience on both sides during a crisis that lasted over a week. Trump cannot go hours without lashing at anyone who pokes a Tweet at him. Hillary Clinton showed her temperament in the 12 hour grilling of the Benghazi witch-hunt (a Congressional commission which some Republicans admitted was set up only to damage Hillary’s favorability). If there is a politician who can take attacks and still hold her calm, its Hillary. Even against most historical comparisons, she would rate an A. And Trump, he is by far the worst candidate on this scale. The rating of A for Hillary and F for Trump does not do justice for how poorly tempered he is.
A candidate is not just the internal person, how good or bad they would be as a President; for a Presidential election, it is also about ‘selling’ that candidate. The candidate has to appear at mass audience events and rallies, do TV interviews and debates. Some candidates are great at campaigning and better at that than actually governing - compare W Bush to his dad, George HW Bush. Daddy Bush was not very good at campaigning but a better executive; his son W Bush was far better at the showman to campaign but then a disaster at governing. And here we do have a showman in Trump and a boring ‘technocrat’ in Hillary Clinton. You’d think Trump easily dominates Hillary on all promotional attributes. But we’ve now seen both, and we know how this goes.
On public speaking, if you put Trump in front of Teleprompters, he will deliver a speech that he has not authored himself, in a wooden, cumbersome way, often interjecting his ad-lib repeats of various lines. That makes it sound like Trump was a moron. But even so, when forced to read a ‘proper speech’ with Teleprompters, Trump does a weak job. That is Trump at his best. When he is without a Teleprompter, he is a total train-wreck. His random remarks at any recent public speaking event could be run in their entire length, unedited by Hillary Clinton and it would help the Clinton campaign. Yes, Trump is so bad at this, he hurts himself when he speaks at his rallies. There was a modest attempt of discipline just before the Republican Convention when Paul Manafort seemed to be temporarily in charge of Trump and forcing some discipline. But after the Republican Convention fiascos in Cleveland, it seems that Trump has stopped listening to Manafort and now his public speaking is, at best goofy and hilarious. As a Candidate, Trump speaks to his loyal lunatic supporters without reaching to anyone undecided or Independent in the middle, while actively repelling some from his base. Hillary? She’s no Obama, she’s no Bill Clinton, she’s no Elizabeth Warren. But she will deliver a well-rehearsed speech and do it adequately well. This is a binary choice, the better of the two gets the A, and Hillary scores the A. To put Trump into that quite modest context where Trump is really not facing the most fierce public speaking rival, he still manages so poorly that he gets an F.
On TV interviews the situation is not as bad. Trump got over $2 Billion dollars worth of free publicity in the primary season, where a rival who might run $100 million dollars of TV ads, was totally crushed in the airtime wars. But current TV visibility is now based on ‘fairness’ where most networks try to give equal time for both sides. Fox will always give Trump more and similarly MSNBC will do that for Hillary. But of the four moderate networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN - the race is even. A Media Matter survey for June of total TV interview air-time found Trump leading Hillary by 2 to 1 in total time; but that was only because of the enormous visibility given to Trump by Fox. When Fox and MSNBC are removed (talking mainly to base voters already fully committed) the four other networks had nearly even total time between the two. Trump’s only advantage he had in the primary race is now neutralized.
Then it comes an issue not of quantity but quality. Whenever Hillary Clinton is on TV, she stays on message. When most of her surrogates are on TV, they tend to be promoting her issues and mostly get to stay on the positive side of issues about Hillary (or on Trump’s latest mess). Meanwhile Trump, every time he is in a TV interview, he seems to get into more idiotic nonsense like in the Mike Pence joint interview where Trump said it doesn’t matter that Pence voted for the Iraq war (a criticism Trump has raised against Hillary repeatedly, even though Trump himself was also for the Iraq war initially). Of just now, over the weekend, Trump said that Russia will never invade Crimea, and Trump was so certain he underlined that conviction three times with “You can mark it down. you can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want.” He was then told that Russia is already in Crimea. Trump in TV interviews is a turbo-charged gaffe-machine. Again, his TV interviews could be run in continuous loop by the Hillary campaign and it would only help her. Now, the Trump surrogates spend most of their time trying to defend the indefensible, rather than advancing Trump’s messages.
As a TV interviewee, Hillary is reserved and seems calculated, and comes across at times like she’s got something to hide. That is true. But Trump comes across as a petulant child, an overbearing bully, and utterly incompetent. He makes Sarah Palin’s interviews seem like interviewing a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. That said, the TV interviewers have not yet figured out how to control Trump. He just interjects his maddening ‘Excuse me, excuse me’ and then pushes onto his silly statements, ignoring questions and babbling onto whatever comes next to his tiny mind. So Trump kind of ‘wins’ in many interviews where the TV interviewers are made to look like incompetent morons. So while Hillary gets the obvious A on this grade, Trump gets a C, because he can overpower interviewers and steal the situation.
As to debates. We saw in the 2008 season and now the primary race, that Hillary is one of the best debaters in politics. She is not the most polished like say Obama was, but she is so prepared, she knows every detail and pounces and destroys rivals on the issues. Trump in his primary debates survived many rounds by the rivals being intimidated and because the field was so wide, all rivals thought ‘the other guy’ should go attack Trump. Then Trump cancelled on two debates of course, being the coward he is (both with the moderator Megyn Kelly who utterly skewered Trump in the other two debates she moderated). But Trump can counterpunch, he can attack and he can play a live audience. Trump is experienced in reality TV situations and is not as bad a debater as his reputation suggests. So as a comparative rating when I give Hillary the A, I give Trump a C.
ISSUES
Probably most voters vote for the candidate more than the issues. Like this year that will be even more true than usual, because of the strongly polarizing people on the top of both tickets. But issues do matter. Here is my gut feeling ratings of where the major issues are and how the candidates are viewed:
ISSUES BY CANDIDATE
(Rated by the opinions of moderates/Independent & undecided voters only, excluding partisan supporters on both sides)
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Terrorism . . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . . Terrorism . . . . . . . A
Foreign Policy . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreign Policy . . . F
Taxes . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Taxes . . . . . . . . . C
Economy . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Economy . . . . . . D
Gun Control . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Gun Control . . . F
Education . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Education . . . . . D
Family issues . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Family issues . . . D
Womens issues . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Womens issues . C
Minorities . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Minorities . . . . . . F
Employment . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Employment . . . . B
Religion . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . . . Religion . . . . . . . A
Environment . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Environment . . . . D
Crime . . . . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . . . Crime . . . . . . . . . A
(above are all subjective grading by Tomi T Ahonen, included based his guess of what issues are likely to be most relevant to voters in 2016, in no particular order; and graded based on recent political views and the opinions of those expressed in moderate publications and by moderate pundits and experts. Future Report Cards will reflect any polling done on those issues)
GRADE POINT AVERAGES ON THE ISSUES (that matter to moderate/undecided voters)
Hillary Clinton 3.6 (A-)
Donald Trump 2.0 (C)
(Note Trump has three failing grades: Foreign Policy, Gun Control and Minority issues, as well as 4 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has no scores worse than C passing grade)
Perhaps the single biggest issue is the Supreme Court. It is driving partisan voter activity on both sides, there is no obvious ‘advantage’ for either side because Republicans want a conservative Justice, and Democrats a moderate Justice; and nationwide there is no clear preference one way or the other. This may evolve into more of an issue as the Campaign continues into the next months.
CAMPAIGNS
Part of winning is the candidate. Part of winning are the issues. But part of winning is the Campaign. A losing candidate with bad issues, but an excellently-run campaign can win, as we saw in the W Bush 2004 campaign against John Kerry. The Campaign consists of fund-raising - in the US election money plays a disproportionately large part governing everything from TV ads, to travel budgets, to campaign staff hiring, to polling to data analysis. But the Campaign also means surrogates, the TV ads, the electoral map, etc. And I will include the VP here in this section, because the VP really does not matter much in most races except perhaps modestly in winning the home state of the VP.
CAMPAIGN SCORES
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Fund-raising . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Fund-raising . . . . . . C
Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . D
Management . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Management . . . . . . F
TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . D
Surrogates . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Surrogates . . . . . . . . D
Big Data operation . . A . . . . . . . . . Big Data operation . . D
Vice President . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Vice President . . . . . C
GRADE POINT AVERAGES ON THE ISSUES (that matter to moderate/undecided voters)
Hillary Clinton 4.0 (A)
Donald Trump 1.1 (D)
(Note Trump has one failing grade: campaign management, as well as 4 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has a perfect score of all A's)
FINANCIAL RACE Month of July:
Hillary Clinton raised $36.2M from supporters; has $44.4M in bank
Donald Trump raised $22.9M from supporters; has $20.0M in bank
Democratic forces in total raised $146.3M; have $139.2M in bank
Republican forces in total raised $81.1M; have $61.1M in bank
(totals include the campaign numbers of the above, plus SuperPACs and the party funds)
STAFF End of July
Clinton Campaign has 651 full-time staff
Trump Campaign has 74 full-time staff
TV ADS INTO AUGUST
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air in: FL, IA, NH, NV, NC, OH, PA, VA
Donald Trump TV ads on air in: FL, NV, NC, OH, PA
(includes both the actual Campaign and related ads by SuperPACs and others)
(states in bold are states where both sides are on the air)
The two campaigns could not be more different. The Hillary Clinton campaign is like the US Marines, a fierce, highly-trained professional fighting machine armed with the latest tech and drilled to perfection, driven by high tech. They are faced by the Trump campaign which in this analogy - with all apologies to all scouts (I am an Eagle Scout myself) a girl scout troop selling its cookies. The Trump campaign is massively understaffed, underfunded and misguided.
The two Conventions illustrated how well MANAGED and well PLANNED the Democrats and Hillary’s machine is. Everything went like clock-work. Trump promised superstars, his biggest star was Scott Baio who played a supporting role in the 1970s sitcom Happy Days (where Fonzie was the superstar). Hillary’s actor superstars started with the woman with most Oscars ever, Meryl Streep. Where Trump promised athletics superstars like Mike Tyson, his biggest sports star was a lowly ranked golfer. Hillary had Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Where Trump’s top music act was Ted Nugent, Hillary had Katy Perry. Where rock legends like Queen and the Beatles protested about Trump using their music, Paul Simon played live for Hillary. Trump’s promise of a Hollywood gala was of course, like everything with Trump, mere promises and no deliveries.
The endorsements sing the same story. Never before in the modern TV era has a party had a Convention where a living President has not spoken on behalf of the nominee. But Trump managed this. Neither of the two living Republican Presidents spoke for Trump; they did not even appear or visit the Convention. Meanwhile all three living Democratic Presidents spoke to the Democratic Convention endorsing Hillary. Neither of Trump’s two strong rivals last in the race, endorsed him and one of the two (John Kasich) did not even speak at the Convention. Ted Cruz’s speech was seen as an encouragement by Cruz that his voters should not vote for Trump (‘vote your conscience’). Hillary’s main rival Bernie Sanders spoke last on Day 1 and gave a powerful endorsement.
The themes of the Democratic Convention were highly choreographed, with interlapping speeches without much overlap. The Republican themes were a hodgepodge and speakers repeated each other and spoke on topics of the wrong date (like Chris Christie’s attack on Hillary, about foreign policy, was not on the day of foreign policy attacks). The Trump Convention visuals were various signs of Trump-Pence or often just huge banners of Trump (a cult of personality) while Hillary’s Convention had regularly changed signs with each daily theme recognized, and new signs distributed into the audience such as ones celebrating Bernie or President Obama for their speeches. The ‘second tier’ speakers from the party for Trump were often bottom-barrel losers who would be out of the spotlight by now, like Newt Gingrich, Scott Walker, Rudy Giuliani and Sheriff Arpaio. Hillary’s Campaign had upcoming political superstars in key speaking slots like Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken and Xavier Becerra. (I have a longer analysis of the Conventions below).
The most revealing aspect of the Conventions is what it tells of the MANAGEMENT of the two Campaigns. This is the largest ‘campaign event’ that the Campaign has to arrange, a four-day extravaganza. It is also an ‘easy’ project, because almost all aspects can be controlled by the Campaign, like selecting speakers, topics, music, previewing speeches, etc. The Trump Campaign was a disaster, starting with Melania Trump delivering a speech partly plagiarizing Michelle Obama’s similar ‘speech of the Presidential spouce’ eight years before. Not only is this a sign of gross incompetence by the Campaign, how it was dealt with - allowing the story to overshadow the Convention for 36 hours out of the 72 hours that the Convention ran - was a sign that the Trump Campaign is not managed professionally.
Contrast that with a similar Campaign-publicity-threatening crisis that hit the Democratic party just before the Convention started. The Wikileaks story that compromised Democratic Party leader Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. The party immediately apologized, and after the slightest uncertainty about the exact fate for her, she was fired and did not appear at the Convention stage. The whole Convention was a series of similar differences. The Trump acceptance speech was leaked hours before he was to deliver it. This was unintentional and helped form the consensus opinion that it is a dark, negative speech, even before he started speaking. The Hillary Clinton speech was given to reporters just before she started speaking, as is the way to do these things, so the live commentary is roughly in synch with the speech as delivered. A total contrast of one Conference run perfectly, and the other run worst of any major party in the TV era. A large array of conservative and Republican commentators agreed that in terms of running a Convention, the Democrats were perfection in this cycle (and Trump a disaster). People do not vote for someone based on how the Convention was. But this tell us - as analysts - something critical about the CAMPAIGN. The Hillary Campaign is running like clockwork. The Trump campaign is run like a chicken coop with a fox loose inside it.
One of the signs of the skill and preparation of the management is a clear signal and funding of the battle now for the general election. The release of funding for hiring and TV ads. Hillary’s campaign is on the air in TV ads in Florida, Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. They also were on the air in Colorado but now have pulled those ads, because Colorado is now safely in their grasp. With the Tim Kaine selection of VP, its likely Hillary will soon diminish the Virginia effort. Hillary’s campaign is regularly telling supporters that they are hiring new staff, which she has at least said in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Contrast to Trump. His supporting SuperPACs are on the air in TV ads in Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They also were up in Virginia (that is now being ended). But none of this is Trump’s own money. Trump’s campaign had not as of last week, authorized ANY new expenditures for hiring staff or of TV ads. They are still re-evaluating their target states, which once included 17 states such as New York, Michigan, Minnesota etc, but now the latest reporting over the weekend suggests they will play a very tight ‘map’ of only Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and North Carolina (even conceding Colorado is lost, in addition to Virginia being lost). But the signal to us, as analysts is, that with 100 days left in the race, and Hillary spending 2 million dollars per day and running 20,000 TV ads per month, the Trump campaign has not even yet gotten to the point of deciding WHERE to spend their limited campaign funds.
On the fund-raising, we need to keep in mind that Trump is ramping up his fund-raising. The money he was able to raise in July may not be indicative of the real ability. However, the repeated rejections of Trump for example by the biggest donors of the Republican party, the Koch brothers Billionaires (who are friendly with Trump’s VP, Pence) suggest Trump has problems. Earlier reporting from June told us that Trump is too lazy to call rich donors and the Trump SuperPAC has complained that this in turn depresses their income too. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton is merging the Clinton fund-raising machine wtih the Obama fund-raising machine from 2012, and working at least in part, together with the Bernie campaign. Meanwhile Trump has continued his feuding with his last rivals, Kasich & Cruz and is not poised to get their supporters to fund Trump any day soon.
On Campaign surrogates the race could not be more lopsided. The Trump campaign cannot even get its own rivals to campaign with him (Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and John Kasich). His own party past Presidents will not campaign with him, will not endorse him, and are not even willing to say they will vote for Trump (Daddy and W Bush). Trump’s own party preceding Presidential candidates are not endorsing Trump nor supporting him (Mitt Romney and John McCain). And many sitting Senators, Governors and Members of Congress refuse to be seen with Trump. A few have gone as far as to say they will not vote for Trump and at least one sitting Republican Senator has already run TV ads against Trump. On Hillary’s side she got endorsements from all three living Democratic Presidents (Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama). Both Bill and Obama spoke in the final major speech of the Convention days 2 and 3, powerfully endorsing Hillary. Both will campaign with and for Hillary. Bernie not just endorsed Hillary, he gave the last speech of Day 1 again strongly expressing his support of Hillary. He is going to campaign with her and for her. The past Presidential candidates of the Democrats have endorsed Hillary (John Kerry and Al Gore). The most popular politician in America, Michelle Obama gave a powerful speech fully endorsing Hillary and will no doubt campaign for her and with her, as did sitting Vice President Joe Biden. The top tier of Democratic political talent is all aligned with her, from Elizabeth Warren on down and all Democrats want to be seen with her (differing from 2012 when many Democrats were hiding from Obama in that tight race against Romney). The rock star and popstar and Hollywood star talent is utterly lopsided in Hillary’s favor. Even Silicon Valley found a list of over 140 leaders who came out against Trump and for Hillary.
On the VP choices (more about them below), Tim Kaine does bring the state of Virginia into the Democratic win column, the Trump campaign is almost conceding this state already now in August. On the other side, Mike Pence does not even guarantee his home state (he is highly unpopular) and Indiana is not a battleground state, while Virginia is. Indiana should be safely ‘red’ voting for the Republicans in most recent elections. Tim Kaine is an appealing choice to Hispanics as he worked as a missionary for a year in Honduras and speaks fluent Spanish. Mike Pence doesn’t bring any new constituencies to the ticket but he repels the gay community. Kaine appeals to moderates in the middle, Pence appeals only to extreme right wing voters.
Lastly on the data mining of voters, and targeting and get-out-the-vote operations. Obama revolutionized this with his ‘Narwhal’ system built in 2012. Against it, Romney deployed the ‘Orca’ system which was utterly outclassed. The precision data system can help target campaign activities similar to how a radar can target artillery and missiles in combat to devastating accuracy. Ted Cruz’s Campaign Manager (not his data boss, his total Campaign Manager) said that if one side has a big data based modern data operation, and the other side does not, it means that side gains about 2 points in the final election ballot count. A bonus of 2% more. If the race was 50/50, and one side has a big data system and the other doesn’t, that side wins 51/49. In a tight race this can be the difference between winning and losing, as we saw in 2012 with Narwhal against Orca.
Trump has said he doesn’t believe in data driven campaigning. He wants the campaign to be about him, about Trump’s magnetic personality. Hillary’s campaign is run by the people who were with Obama in 2012 and saw the power of data. They are data-obsessed. They have used data already in the primary race but we just learned last week, that the Hillary campaign up to now, has NOT been exposed to the power of Narwhal. Obama had kept that system away from the rivals in the primary race, and only now, that the Convention is over, is it handed over to the actual nominee. A data system that cost 100 million dollars to build in 2012, that was developed with 120 data professionals, that delivered at least 2% of the 5% victory margin Obama had in 2012. A data system so big, it was one of the twenty largest databases on the planet, on a massive parallel processing system distributed over hundreds of high-power computers linked via cloud computing. It has the voter data of every US voter in the 9 key battleground states on 5 scales each voter rated on a 100 point scale. It was in 2012, and still is today, the most thorough consumer data system ever built. And now Hillary will use that system to expand it to the 12 states now in play, and adding and updating info to it. That system was built over 18 months. Even if Trump hired 200 data professionals and threw 200 million dollars at a rush-project, he could not duplicate Narwhal now, in the last 3 months left of this campaign. And Trump doesn’t have that kind of resources anyway. If you want to study Narwhal more, read this article.
Trump is not totally blind. They use ‘demographics’ and have been buying some mailing lists (so they sent fund-raiser emails for example to Australia, Finland and Britain, begging for money, which is strictly illegal in the USA). Their data-mining operation is outsourced partly to a company that sells a commercial simplified application of Obama’s 2012 system. But this is the difference of having a small private motorboat radar, compared to the Aegis radar on US Navy cruisers. Certainly Trump’s data operation is better than nothing, but it is even more behind the race than where Romney was in 2012.
THIRD PARTIES
We have two candidates hoping to make a significant third-party run. Gary Johnson the Republican ex-Governor of New Mexico is running on the Libertarian ticket, and Dr Jill Stein is running on the Green Party ticket. The US debates commission has set the limit at 15% in national polling to be included in the televised debates, and currently Johnson is polling at about 8% and Stein at about 3%. It seems unlikely Stein can make it, but Johnson may gain support in particular from disgruntled Republicans and his support could grow. If he can’t make it to the debates, his final election support is very likely to be well below what the polling suggests.
OUTSIDE EFFECTS
The race is not just the candidates, the issues and the Campaigns. Also the race can be impacted by outside effects, and in this cycle, especially any ISIS related terrorism. So lets look at the outside effects and how they are in play now at the start of August
OUTSIDE ISSUE SCORES
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
8 Year Cycle . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . 8 Year Cycle . . . . . . A
Obama approval . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Obama approval . . . C
Economy . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Economy . . . . . . . . . B
Terrorism . . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . Terrorism . . . . . . . . . A
The 8 year cycle is a strong force that makes most elections swing from one party to the rival every 8 years. Since WW2, only twice that cycle was broken - by Carter losing his re-election in 1980 and by Daddy Bush extending a third term after popular Reagan. But while this is a strong cycle, it is not a perfect cycle. It can be beaten. I thus give Trump the A and Hillary the C on this scale. I will not be adjusting this grading. It is something which is in play, which favors Trump but will not change.
The incumbent President’s approval rating is a significant factor in that candidate’s or his/her party’s success in the election. When Reagan was popular, he got his successor Daddy Bush elected inspite of the 8 year cycle in 1988. When Bill Clinton was not as popular, he was not able to get Al Gore to do the same in 2000. Unpopular W Bush was not able to get John McCain elected in 2008. And unpopular Jimmy Carter and unpopular Daddy Bush both lost their re-elections. Obama is the most popular incumbent by July of his eight year and this is helping Hillary. I rate it the same effect as the 8 year cycle but in opposing direction, so they cancel each other out.
Of the outside environmental factors, the economy is ok but not great. That favors Hillary but only slightly (hence Trump gets the B). Meanwhile terrorism is a concern but most of it is abroad still so right now, its not dominating the news, hence Trump gains but only modestly right now (hence Hillary gets the B). These two also cancel each other out for the start of August. We’ll see how that goes into the coming months. Also note, any new issue may emerge, a natural disaster, a foreign policy crisis (Putin, North Korea, etc) or a worldwide economic crisis or something like that. Any such matter will be added to the outside effects if such item emerges.
VOTERS
I want to mention a few items of voter preferences. The 2016 season will feature the most extreme demographic divisions in voter support ever seen. The gender gap has been about 10% in the recent years for Democrats, but the reason why this is even more damaging is that there are more women than men, and women are more registered than me, and women vote more than men. In the past few elections, women have been 6% more of the final electorate than men. This year the female vote will surge because for the first time in history, American women can vote for a woman on the top of the ticket. Many ‘lazy’ voters will show up specifically among women, so the total female vote will surge. Even if it surges by only about 10% over its normal amount, that would mean women will have an 11% gap in their NUMBERS over men. That's before we consider a gender GAP among voters, which will also be larger for Hillary against Trump than any recent gender gap ever measured. A Pew survey across various demographics in June found Hillary up by 16% over Trump in the gender gap among female voters.
Among minorities the race is even worse. The Mitt Romney ‘autopsy’ after the 2012 election loss, conducted by the Republican party said the Republicans must improve their standing with women, with the youth voters, with blacks and with Hispanics (they did not; in the interim years, the party has taken positions consistently against all of those groups while the Democrats have taken positions defending those groups). In Trump the Republicans nominated the candidate with the worst reputation among all four groups. Against him, the Democrats nominated their candidate on their side who was best on three of the four demographics (Bernie being better among youth). The Republicans clearly studied what went wrong in 2012, and what they had to do to prevent another election loss. Then they went and did the exact opposite. It seems like the Republicans picked Trump expressly to have an even more disastrous election loss in 2016, than they had in 2012.
So lets study. In the Hispanic vote, Romney’s ‘self-deportation’ statement sunk his chances and he scored the worst Hispanic support of any nominee as far as Exit Polls have been conducted. Romney only got 27% of the Hispanic vote (McCain got 31% four years prior). The Republican autopsy said in 2016 the Republican nominee will not win the White House unless the party gets 40% of the Hispanic vote. The latest mid July poll by Univision of 1,000 registered Hispanic voters found that only 19% would vote for Trump. He is the single most disliked politician by Hispanics ever measured. (Note this is before the Conventions and VP selections where Tim Kaine is likely to serve to swing some more Hispanics to vote for Hillary and against Trump).
How about the blacks? Against the first-ever black Presidential candidate, its perhaps not fair to consider how badly Romney did (6%) or McCain (4%). But now that Obama is no longer on the ticket, and its two whites against each other, perhaps Trump can do better. Or perhaps not. A July poll by NBC and Wall Street Journal of voters in vital battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania found that Trump’s support among blacks was zero. 0%. Yes. The support is zero. In both states. Zero percent. Even Romney and McCain got a few percent. Trump has truly hit rock bottom. No candidate on either side has ever hit zero in black support. Trump is that toxic.
Trump is only aiming for white male voters. And less-educated ones at that. The typical Fox viewer. The single best metric to identify a Trump voter is ‘do you believe Obama was born in Kenya’. Those who believe this myth, they are Trump voters; and those who know he was not, they are Hillary voters. Its the single easiest measure of the two rivals. The informed intelligent better-educated voter is for Hillary. All demographics except white men, are for Hillary. And even among white men, the Trump voter skews to the least educated blue collar Fox viewer.
The initial Campaigns on both sides play true to form. Trump feuded with a judge who is a US born American but whose parents came from Mexico. Trump’s supporters and speakers at their Convention claimed Black Lives Matter to be a terrorist organization. Trump paraded a series of politicians hated by women and the youth. Trump started a new feud with Muslim parents of a fallen war hero. The American Nazis, KKK and White Supremacists all celebrated the themes and speakers and positions of the GOP convention. Meanwhile the Democrats featured a rainbow of speakers of every demographics, took the position to give amnesty to undocumented Hispanics, supported Black Lives Matter and parents of blacks killed by cops, and featured women after women including leaders such as Cecile Richard of Planned Parenthood in a key speaking slot. If the Republicans really continue on this mad demographic strategy, it is exactly as Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said, there are not enough old white angry men to get anyone elected.
ELECTORAL MAP
ELECTORAL COLLEGE STATUS (RCP): 322 Clinton vs 216 Trump
Battleground Current status (RCP):
Hillary Clinton leads polling in: AZ, CO, IA, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI
Donald Trump leads polling in: FL, GA, NV
Campaigns or SuperPACs have ads on TV in:
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air in: FL, IA, NH, NV, NC, OH, PA, VA
Donald Trump TV ads on air in: FL, NV, NC, OH, PA
(Bolding indicates states where both campaigns are on the air)
(Note above based on Kantar reported numbers & bookings & recent comments by both campaigns)
In May Trump was promising a silly map that he would put California in play and he’d do well in New York and New Jersey etc. Trump wasted 3 weeks in California (the state hated him so much, the polls moved AGAINST him). One of Trump’s few new hires in June was a pollster for New York. In July Trump met with the Congressional Republican caucus in a closed-door meeting where he showed his map - it didn’t have California or New York of course. But it had 17 states including wildly optimistic target states that have’t voted Republican in ages like Minnesota and Michigan. Now we heard Alex Castellanos, who works with a SuperPAC supporting Trump, that the race down to four states. They need to win Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania (all states that Romney lost) and defend North Carolina (which Romney won but was very close and now Hillary is ahead).
That SuperPAC has TV advertising for Trump in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania and considers going on the air in North Carolina. Castellanos admitted that Virginia and Colorado are lost causes. Trump has been campaigning in Pennsylvania and Ohio (Hillary is there now) but Trump still wastes trips to places like New York and Maine. Hillary meanwhile has such a rich stable of surrogates, she has scheduled stops for Bill Clinton to go campaign in Utah !!! Utah is as red a state as there exists, yet recent polling suggests Trump may lose Utah.
The Wall Street Journal just reports today on the immediate campaign trail which tells us about the two Campaign’s real belief of where the actual race is. The only resource that cannot be expanded, is the time of the Candidate. Hillary was just campaigning in Ohio and Pennsylvania over the weekend. She goes to Colorado and Nevada plus stops by in Nebraska, where one Congressional district voted for Obama in 2008 and she hopes to pick up that same district now. Trump was not on the campaign trail on Sunday, but he will be in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Maine (Maine also allows the splitting of the vote like Nebraska, so he could pick up one electoral college vote in Maine).
So the surrogates? Kaine was in Ohio and Pennsylvania and will be in Virginia, Florida and North Carolina this week. Pence is in five states (unfortunately WSJ doesn’t say which five except) including Arizona. Arizona should be a safe state for the Republican ticket. That Pence wastes a day in AZ says they are worried AZ may flip to Hillary.
Eventually I hope to see the kind of campaign stop summaries that we got in the primary races. But for now, it seems clear that Trump is playing defense and Hillary playing offence. We’ll see how this shakes out in the next Report Card after the month of August.
RACE COMMENTARY: JULY
I will comment now on the two big events of July, with what happened from when the two candidates clinched their nominations. The two big issues on both sides that far exceed the impacts of other things, are the two VP selections with their related roll-outs, and then the two Conventions.
THE VICE PRESIDENTS
Trump selected Mike Pence, the current Governor of Indiana (not a battleground state). Pence was never Trump’s first choice, and is so far down to the bottom of the barrel, that we know Trump had at least 12 people he preferred ahead of Pence. Lucky number 13. A man once thought of a Potential Presidential front-runner, Pence had no chance even to try to run in the widest field the Republican party (GOP, the Grand Old Party) had ever had, where extremely unlikely long-shot dark horse candidates like former New York Governor George Pataki, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum and fired CEO of Hewlett-Packard, Carly Fiorina all felt it worth their while to try to run. Pence was worse than all of these. In his home state he is currently so unpopular he was expected to lose in a re-election bid. Note that Indiana is a reliably ‘red’ state that votes most elections overwhelmingly for Republicans. The sitting Republican Governor was expected to lose his home state re-election. Pence’s signature achievement is a law that allowed discrimination against gays, that caused immediate massive protests and caused huge economic damage to Indiana before the law was rapidly changed. That was the man Trump was forced to pick, because so many better choices said no to Trump.
Trump and Pence are not a natural pairing, Pence has a long list of positions where he differs with those of Trump, starting with free trade and Trump’s proposed Muslim ban. Trump admitted that he selected Pence to try to repair the large rift in his party, and Pence is supposed to help bring the right wing of the party to support Trump. That mission, however has already been marred several times by Trump signalling in the roll-out of Pence that Trump doesn’t much care for Pence nor is he about to be listening to Pence or modifying any of Trump’s views to align with those of Pence. Their first TV interview was cringe-worthy with Trump essentially ignoring his running mate and dominating him in answers, etc. The whole roll-out was total amateur hour and embarrassing from leaking Pence’s name, to Trump claiming on TV interviews after the name was leaked that he had not yet made his ‘final final’ choice, to a sexually suggestive logo, to what can only be described as sad introduction event to an audience which included random people recruited from the street. The introduction was held in a modest-sized meeting room in Trump Tower (in New York, not a battleground state) and Trump spent most of his long speech supposedly introducing Pence by bragging about himself and meandering to bizarre other topics.
Hillary Clinton’s choice for VP is Virginia’s (a battleground state) former Governor and current Senator, Tim Kaine. A moderate Democrat who is highly popular and considered very competent and highly respected. Kaine is seen as someone who has worked relentlessly for decades on issues dear to Democrats, including fighting for housing for the poor, taking on the gun lobby successfully and before his political career, Kaine spent a year as a missionary in Honduras. He speaks fluent Spanish and is a devout Catholic, but he still supports a woman’s right to choose. Kaine was on everybody’s lists right from the start as a probable VP pick and gained immediate broad support.
The Kaine roll-out was conducted flawlessly, starting with a huge rally at a university in Florida (a battleground state). The speeches were very well written, Hillary’s introduction speech only focusing on Kaine, and Kaine’s speech talking about Hillary, himself and Donald Trump. Kaine spoke Spanish for a part of the speech to a student audience where half at least understood Spanish. Hillary first revealed her choice via SMS text message and on Twitter (the campaign is actively collecting mobile phone numbers of supporters, like the Obama team did in 2012 and 2008, so far the Trump campaign does not seem to want to do this, similar to how also Mitt Romney in 2012 and John McCain in 2008 didn’t bother). As my readers know, SMS alerts are a powerful voter-activation tool on election day but for that to work, the campaign needs to collect those mobile phone numbers and permissions.
Comparing the two campaigns, Trump was not able to select his favorite choices, who turned him down. Nobody on the Democratic side that was rumored to be on the short list, was in any way signaling that they would not want it. Trump’s roll-out of Mike Pence was a total Keystone Cops fiasco. Hillary’s roll-out of Tim Kaine was run like the clockwork of a smooth-running Swiss watch. These two events would signal the competence and preparation of the two campaigns, seen next in the Conventions.
CLEVELAND
The Republican Convention in Cleveland will probably be remembered for the plagiarism in Melania Trump’s speech. Not just taking several passages of a previous speech but this was the wife of President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama’s similar Convention speech of 2008. A speech by the opposition. And worst of all, the section was about integrity and honesty. But plagiarism does happen from time to time even to the best of the speakers, when several people work on speeches and someone cuts corners. That is when any professional Campaign Manager immediately admits, acknowledges and apologizes for the incident; and fires the speech-writer responsible. Trump’s clown-show Campaign did none of that. For 36 hours they tried to claim that there was no plagiarism, and that this was a story planted by the Hillary Clinton campaign (???). Had the Campaign taken responsibility immediately, the story would have not taken much time, but because the incompetent campaign kept denying obvious plagiarism, the story was overshadowing the first three days of the Convention. In the end a speech-writer released a statement admitting to the plagiarism but was not fired. However, because of the added scrutiny it was also discovered that Melania Trump had a claim of a college degree which does not exist, and other discrepancies such as an inspirational quote she had tweeted that was not her own, but also plagiarized.
The Republican Convention had been billed by Trump for months that he’d have big celebrities, not just politicians. He would have movie and TV stars and major athletes and sports personalities. One by one people he mentioned turned Trump down and the biggest movie or TV star he ended up featuring was Scott Baio, best known for being a second line star in 1970s hit TV sitcom ‘Happy Days’ where ‘the Fonz’ ie Fonzie (played by Henry Winkler), was the star. Of the major athletes promised, Trump managed to find a mid-ranked golfer. Major stars promised like boxer Mike Tyson, football coach Mike Ditka, boxing promoter Don King, etc, did not feature on the agenda. One of the stars of Duck Dynasty did speak as did a previous soap opera actress who has long since quit acting. The top musical star was Ted Nugent. But several major rock artists complained about Trump using their music without permission, like Queen and the Beatles. Also the owners of the movie theme to Air Force One said Trump used their music without permission.
For its actual political speeches, no living US Presidents spoke at the event (this has never happened in the modern era). No living US Presidents even attended the event. No living candidates who had been nominated for President even spoke or appeared at the Convention. Most of the sitting Senators and House Members of Congress did not show up, as also most Governors avoided Trump’s event. The current sitting Governor of the state of Ohio, the host of the event, John Kasich did not attend the Convention but to underline his displeasure with Trump, he was available for press interviews in the same city of Cleveland at the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. Trump’s top speakers were Newt Gingrich and Chris Christie, with many C and D level Republicans. What Trump did do, was have six of his family members speak plus several employees at various Trump companies, plus several of Trump’s business partners. There were 10 Billionaires speaking at Trump’s Convention.
For the event organization, the speeches were not coordinated, even the speaking topics were not in any kind of logic or pattern. For example the safety and security day was Day 1 with focus on things like foreign policy and terrorism. But then Christie spoke on Day 2, with an indictment of Hillary Clinton’s reputation in .. foreign policy. Speakers often repeated items and topics that others had just covered, etc. On other Campaign organization issues, Trump’s main speech was leaked out hours before he delivered it - unintentionally. Trump himself ‘counter-programmed’ himself onto other TV shows while his Convention was on the air, including stepping on some of the most compelling speakers like the woman blaming Hillary for the death of her son in Benghazi. The final speakers were not in any way powerful to leave on a highlight, Dr Ben Carson finished one day invoking bizarre convoluted connection of Hillary Clinton to Lucifer. The Convention was one amateur mistake after another. It did not leave any message of the Republicans standing for anything except an obsessive and petty hatred of Hillary Clinton, on long-since debunked myths. The party stood for nothing. If anything it was a four-day celebration of how rich and successful Donald Trump himself is, who then proposed himself as the ‘savior’ of America which is so much in ruin.
Trump’s speech the highlight ending of the Convention was the darkest and most negative speech ever measured. The Economist did a word count and compared it to speeches of past Candidates of both sides and it was not even close. As Hillary would mock Trump a week later, Trump had taken Reagan’s Shiny City on the Hill, and turned it from Morning in America, to Midnight in America. The Convention is an informercial about a party and its nominee. What do they stand for, what do they propose, who they are, and a celebration of their talent. Yes, they also attack the opposition but that is not the main focus. Trump’s Convention did not show what the Republicans are for. And many of Trump’s positions, and several of his speakers, were against traditional Republican positions. It did not showcase the best in Republican talent, that was absent. The people with key speaking roles are among the most discredited or most hated politicians who normally do not get a voice anymore like Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich. Of the younger upcoming talent, only the most extreme was on show like Tom Cotton and Scott Walker, or else the least liked like Rick Scott and Sheriff Arpaio. This all shows the worst of the Republican party, not its best. But paired with that message were 10 Billionaires, a bunch of Trump’s privileged kids (who did put on a really positive spin on their dad, obviously each jockeying for preferred position in Trump’s will). And a wife who so admires Michelle Obama, she plagiarizes the passage about integrity from Michelle. A Convention that can only be called a dumpster fire.
Conventions are the first exhibit of what a potential President would prioritize as issues, who the President is considering for Cabinet positions, and HOW the President’s team is able to ORGANIZE things. How competent they are. This Republican Convention was by all fair evaluations on the left, center AND right, the worst ever. Trump himself, after the TV audience ratings came out - is already bailing on the responsibility saying he was not involved, he only showed up to speak. It was the Republican party’s fault. So even Trump who has never made a mistake in his life and never apologizes, has noticed his Convention was a train-wreck. To make a bad thing even worse, was that immediately after the Convention, Trump renewed his feuds with Cruz and Kasich, restarting the JFK assassination conspiracy nonsense (even insisting the National Enquirer should have a Pulitzer prize for excellence in journalism. Non-Americans do not recognize this publication. It is a joke. They publish regularly stories of UFO abductions and Elvis sightings on their front page). And Trump threatened to launch SuperPACs against both Cruz and Kasich. This is his idea of how he can unify his fractured party? And that he can somehow win if his party is not unified?
PHILADELPHIA
The Democratic Convention was planned to perfection. We’ve now seen it, and do not first consider the disruptions and protests that were so prevalent on the first day. Ignore the protests. Consider the ORGANIZATION of this event in Philadelphia. It was a meticulously planned celebration of the modern Democratic party. It had powerful themes, from unity on the first day, to an optimistic future on the last day. It had the very best of Democratic party talent. And the Convention was very VERY cleverly designed to hijack several Republican themes that Trump has trashed or left available to be grabbed, from patriotism to national security to business to government fiscal responsibility. In terms of the PLAN and preparation the Convention was a juggernaut.
It then was sabotaged (cleverly) by the emails released by Wikileaks who obviously are siding against Hillary (I have a hard time imagining they actually prefer Trump as President). So the Wikileaks emails dump came just for the weekend, to overshadow Philadelphia. At first the Democratic party tried to ignore the rising storm but the Bernistas were quick to pounce and Trump of course fuelled their fires, yelling that here is the proof that the Democrats had rigged the system against Bernie.
But consider the two big start-of-Convention disasters faced by the two sides. How Trump team dealt with obvious blatant plagiarism in Melania’s speech (try denying for 36 hours, and nobody ever fired). Or how the Democrats dealt with their crisis. Immediate ownership, this is unacceptable, and by Monday, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz was fired and would not be allowed to speak to the Convention. That meant the story would not grow and get even worse. But the damage was already done and the simmering frustrations of Bernie-or-bust hard-core Bernistas were now agitated to loud vocal protests for the Convention. What was planned to be a great unified Convention was now wrecked. It was not wrecked by Hillary inflammatory comments like how Trump feuded with Kasich and Cruz etc. It was not wrecked by incompetent speech-writing like Melania’s speech. It was wrecked from the outside (Wikileaks, and very likely a Russian KGB email hacking connection; Putin most definitely does NOT want Hillary as President).
So a day that was designed to be the most liberal of the four days, with progressive speakers like Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker, plus of course Bernie Sanders, was now a day of audience theatrics and loud boos and protests. Nearly half of the delegates were Bernistas. What could have been incredibly powerful uplifting liberal-progressive speeches now were damaged by a hostile audience. Even Bernie was booed by his own troops, repeatedly. Had the audience been ‘normal’ with yes, still some disappointment about Bernie losing, Cory Booker’s brilliant speech of a Democratic party vision, a progressive upbeat inclusive political vision, would have been heralded as one of the best of recent history. Instead he had to push it through repeated audience hostility and maintain a forced smile. Elizabeth Warren’s speech was bizarrely even worse received, while she delivered the most deliberate attack speech on Trump of the day. Warren was their choice as VP and this was her keynote, and yet the audience yelled repeatedly ‘we trusted you’. She was clearly rattled, and didn’t get into her speaking rhythm. An attack speech that should have had the room howling and cheering her and mocking Trump, turned instead into one attacking Warren instead.
But much as the day was indeed powered by raw emotion and anger and frustration of the Bernistas, the eruption of emotion and release of that anger, did help heal the party later in the week, and I think two vital pieces were both female speakers. Comedienne Sarah Silverman, who was a vocal Bernista, spoke about the need of Bernie supporters to now turn to support Hillary, like she had. And because Paul Simon’s singing preparation was slightly delayed, the duo on stage at the time, Sarah and Al Franken, were asked to stretch their speech a bit to fill time, we had Sarah toss in that ad-libbed line, to Bernie-or-Bust supporters, you’re being ridiculous. This is something no Democratic party member could have said but one of their leaders, a fellow Bernista, and an outsider, that helped wake many up, that actually, this battle is over, we have to unify. And then the other soothing female speaker of the day, was the best balm to an angry base of liberal Democratic voters. FLOTUS. Michelle Obama’s speech was the best of the Convention (again, she was slightly better than Barack’s speech, same thing she did in 2012). A beautiful uplifting speech about values of being an American, and of progress and an improvement in HER life as a black woman and mother, what she had witnessed and how much she loved America for it. I can’t help but imagine how euphoric that Convention hall had been, had they not been so agitated, and had taken in a fully enthusiastic Cory Booker on these same themes a bit earlier.
From Day 2 the Convention was healing and by the end of Day 3 the party was as unified as a Democratic party can ever be (it will never be totally unified, its such a wide tent). A cavalcade of incredible speaking talent (Bill Clinton, Barack Obama), and yes, even the third living past President who is a Democrat, Jimmy Carter greeted the conference via video. Joe Biden, Jennifer Granholm, Michael Bloomberg, etc. Powerful speeches, memorable lines Bloomberg saying he’s a New Yorker and he knows a con man when he sees one. Four very effective persuasive tools were used repeatedly. Short videos, with Trump’s own words were shown often to illustrate what the opposition had actually said. Comedy was used repeatedly to ridicule the opponent, to diminish Trump. Private citizens of usually completely ‘not remarkable’ ‘success’ performance were brought in to testify on Hillary’s character, a disabled woman, a small Hispanic girl with her mom who doesn’t speak English, many victims of gun violence, etc. And lastly, but very powerfully, some Republicans who came out in public to say, they can’t vote for Trump, while they’ve voted their whole life as a Republican they now are voting for Hillary.
The Republican Convention was as if it was intended to ‘sell’ Trump for an investor (and perhaps, to a reluctant investor who knows Trump has had a series of bankruptcies). It was about Trump, and it was about Benghazi and emails when it was about Hillary. The Democratic Convention was about injustice, about inclusion, about jobs, about the military and national security, it was about police and about the victims, it was about education and housing and hope and a better future. And it showed that Hillary had spent a lifetime working for families and kids especially, and for women. And it showcased the best of Democratic rising talent, plus the best of their superstar talent some who will be moving onto their semi-retirement (like the Obamas, Joe Biden etc). When it came to Trump, it was not just one or two things. His words came on every day, showing YET another way in which he is vile and repulsive and says nasty things and stupid things. His record came out about everything from Trump University to his bankruptcies to his dangerous views about world peace. But the single most powerful lasting image from the Convention was the father of the fallen Iraq war soldier, a Muslim immigrant-turned-American Citizen, who asked Trump, have you even read the Constitution, I will gladly lend you my copy. Conservative and Republican leaders have been admitting in public by the dozens that the Democratic Convention was one that spoke to them, and that one father with the Constitution is a message that resonates deeply with Republican voters.
The star-power that Trump promised, did not materialize in Cleveland but it was on the stage in Philadelphia. From 3 time Oscar winner Meril Streep, to NBA legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar, to popstar Katy Perry. Excepting for the disruptions of the Bernistas that diminished as the Convention went along, the rest of Philadelphia was like clockwork. A supremely powerfully built argument. To unify the Democrats. To present to the nation a call to action from minimum wage to climate change to gun laws. To talk to moderates and independent voters, showing a positive upbeat view to the future, celebrating the last 8 years of achievement inspite of how bad the situation was when Obama started, and contrasting to the Republican candidate and party, with no solution but hatred and division. And then the direct, sharp appeals to certain voter groups among Republicans - national security and military voters, the business and fiscally conservative wing, and even a compelling and very touching appeal to religious voters. With only about 10% or 20% changes, the last day of Philadelphia could have been a ‘standard’ day of a past Republican Convention for say John McCain or either of the Presidents Bush. A centrist and very patriotic day.
There has never been a Convention with bigger speaker star-power as the one the Democrats staged in Philadelphia, and even with superb speeches by superstars Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, the best speaker was neither of those, it was Michelle Obama. And even after three days with such supreme speaking talent, Hillary’s own speech was that good, and delivered that well, to a loving audience embracing her so strongly, that she did not feel in any way overshadowed and Hillary leaves Philadelphia with a huge wind at her back.
Will Ted Cruz campaign for Trump? Of course not. Will Bernie campaign for Hillary, clearly yes. Will either of the Bushes campaign for Trump? Of course not. Will Bill Clinton and Barack Obama do so for Hillary, obviously and eagerly yes. Will a WIFE of a Bush or Romney or McCain campaign for Trump. No way, and none would fill a stadium like Michelle. But will FLOTUS hit the trail for Hillary? Yes obviously she will. How about the second tier of talent. Will John McCain or Mitt Romney or John Kasich or Marco Rubio or Carly Fiorina hit the campaign trail with Trump? No. But what about Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker and Al Franken and Jennifer Granholm and just about any Democrat? They will love to be part of this juggernaut. Oh, and on message? How much do you think Chris Christie or Newt Gingrich or Mike Pence enjoy explaining to the media what the latest stunt by Trump means, when he says he wants Russia to spy on Americans, or when he says a fire marshall doesn’t know about fire regulations or when suddenly ‘Presidential’ Trump says he wants to hit physically Michael Bloomberg so hard, his head would spin. Meanwhile does Michelle Obama or Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders feel comfortable defending Hillary’s positions on equal pay for women or raising the minimum wage or ending Citizens United. Hillary stays on message, and after Philadelphia, all Democrats know perfectly what IS this year’s election message. Everybody is on board. To contrast the two, the Democratic Convention in Philadelphia was not just perfection, it was the best Convention ever staged; and meanwhile in Cleveland the Republicans not just had a disaster, it was the worst Convention of the recent era, back to the ones in the 1960s which actually physical violence.
MY FORECAST
The current polling is not yet settled into the full post-Convention situation but clearly both sides received a polling bounce. The Trump bounce is now being cancelled and likely even exceeded by the Hillary bounce.
The race in early July before the VP selections and Conventions was suggesting a race of about +5% for Hillary. Since then her campaign improved her position with her VP choice while Trump didn’t. Since then her Campaign staged a powerful Convention while Trump didn’t. Since then the Democratic party has become far more unified, while Trump seems to want to make his party ever more divided. I cannot imagine that after all this, the race could remain ‘only’ at a level of +5% for Hillary, by about mid August. The race should settle at or near +10% for Hillary around mid-August. But then with the Olympics dominating the news, likely the race will be frozen to the end of the month. I expect the end of August to have the race at near +10% for Hillary. If so, it will be the worst position any Republican candidate has ever been at that point in time, in the modern era of polling and TV coverage.
I believe that the demographics will feature a strong surge of female voting and a mild surge of Hispanic voting. The black vote will remain at roughly the 2012 level but not as high as the 2008 level. The youth vote will not be as high as either of the 2008 or 2012 elections but will still be above its historic averages. Hillary will have historic gender gaps and minority voting advantages. The race which is at about a 10% race in August, will fall to a 15% race after the first debate (Trump may chicken out of that debate which would result in the same damage). And as the rats flee the sinking ship, a 15% race in early October turns into a 20% rout in November. BUT.. there are the 3rd party candidates. I am now revising my previous forecast, to include the two third party candidates and I forecast this outcome:
FORECAST OF 2016 ELECTION (as of 1 August 2016)
Hillary Clinton, Democrat . . . . . 53%
Donald Trump, Republican . . . . 35%
Gary Johnson, Libertarian . . . . . . 9%
Jill Stein, Green Party . . . . . . . . . 3%
Forecast by TomiAhonen Consulting at Communities Dominate blog 1 Aug, 2016
The above forecast may be freely shared
Electoral College Vote based on the above:
Hillary Clinton, Democrat . . . . . 448 EV Votes
Donald Trump, Republican . . . . . 90 EV Votes
Hillary Clinton wins: AK AZ CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA IL IN ME MA MD MI MN MO MT NC NH NJ NM NV NY OH OR PA RI SC TX VA VT WA WI
Donald Trump wins: AL AR ID KS KY LA MS NB ND OK SD TN UT WV WY
(Note Hillary Clinton wins every battleground state Obama won, plus NC, AZ, GA, MO, IN, TX, AK, MT, and SC)
So I am predicting an 18 point landslide crushing defeat for Trump but also, a 9 point good showing for Johnson, meaning Trump will lose dramatically in the Electoral College. To put this in context, Walter Mondale lost to Reagan in 1984 by 18 points. Walter Mondale was essentially exiled from politics. He still lives today but nobody cares about what he thinks or wants his opinions on anything. If Trump loses by 18 points and brings a disaster with it that also flips the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court to the Democrats, he too will be exiled and that may be his worst nightmare. Not the loss, but its aftermath, when nobody will ever want to hear his views on anything again.
This is my first measurement of the race of the General Election of 2016. I will revisit monthly. And before you laugh too hard about how this forecast went, please remember, I was among the first in the world, in August of last year, to say Trump can win his nomination (I calculated the primary math here, you won't find many who said in August Trump could win) and I predicted the Trump primary victory in January, before any state had voted, so accurately, I had the top 3 finishers in the race AND the right sequence AND I had the number of states Trump would win, off by only 1. My GOP forecast even pinpointed correctly the dates when his rivals would be eliminated and the date Trump would clinch. As to Presidential elections, I got the 2012 election so precisely, I was off by one state. (That's exactly as accurate as the legendary Nate Silver of 538 blog). And I predicted most of this year's election (as seen so far, including issues such as Obama's rise in popularity and Hillary Clinton's huge fund-raising edge) as far back as October of 2014. But I will also keep you abreast of where my thinking goes. As we learn more about this race, I will also discuss any changes to my forecast. Currently? 18 point landslide election drubbing. Hillary wins 36 states and territories; gets 448 electoral college votes, where Trump wins 15 and gets only 90. But currently I do not see Johnson picking up any states (that may change, if for example Mitt Romney perhaps endorses Johnson and Utah might go for Johnson). Stay tunes and stock up on your popcorn. Also note, we have a very smart discussion panel here among my readers, so please do also engage with us in the comments.
@Tomi
Maybe dislikeability could be added to in addition to "Likeability"?
Regarding this "A data system so big, it was one of the ten largest databases on the planet, on a massive parallel processing system distributed over hundreds of high-power computers linked via cloud computing" I really really doubt that it was in top 10. Maybe a reference would help here?
Posted by: paul | August 01, 2016 at 11:47 AM
@Tomi
I meant something like this
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Likeability . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Likeability . . . . . . . B
Dislikeability . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . . Dislikeability . . . . . . . D
Competence . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Competence . . . . . D
Temperament . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Temperament . . . . F
Public speaking . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Public speaking . . F
TV interviews . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . TV interviews . . . . C
Debating . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Debating . . . . . . . C
Posted by: paul | August 01, 2016 at 12:03 PM
Hi paul
It was. I reported in depth back in 2012 about it (this blog is the best source of public-domain stories about the data wars of 2012). But when you read the blog, the links were not in yet. Sorry. Thanks for being here so fast, but now the links are in. Go ahead and follow the links, you'll find the info.
As to the chart, I understood yes, haha. BUT its the SAME characteristic. Its just incredibly bad for both - but even there, for moderates uncertain of either, they will find Hillary incredibly undesirable - but then Trump being even worse. It doesn't matter how low we set the 'ceiling' where the A has to be given to one candidate, it still has to be there. And then we can't do that measure twice (positive and negative). I hear you, but that is measuring the same factor twice.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 12:49 PM
Hi Deyan
I removed your 'comment' as it was clearly link-bait. If you want to say something, say something. Don't come to my blog to try to drive traffic to your blog
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 12:51 PM
Hi everybody
Just as I posted this, CBS came out with their poll post-Democratic Convention with +6% for Hillary in 2-way race and +5 in 3-way race with Johnson. CBS had it as a tied race before the Conventions; a -1% for Trump after his Convention and now a +6% for Hillary, meaning a +7% gain in her bounce.
The RCP average is at +2.2% and the three polls out since the DEM Convention ended show a +5.3% race currently.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 01:15 PM
Hei Tomi!
I looked to the link which you posted and the best I could find was this "Project Narwhal - mind you, this is a temporary project arguably for one election - ranked in the top 20 largest consumer/customer databases ever made.." (from: http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2012/12/the-definitive-article-on-numbers-and-performance-of-narwhal-vs-orca-obama-vs-romney-datamining-and-.html ) whilst in your current post is reference to "top 10". Is there a typo?
Still I am not convinced that 175 million records in a database in 2012 made it in top 10 or top 20. For example, public databases containing genomic/biological info have much more than that. For example, only ONE human genome has 3 billion "letters", 10 million SNPs, 40K genes and usually a genomic database contains several individuals. See for fun: http://cancergenome.nih.gov/abouttcga/overview/howitworks/sequencingcenters
Posted by: paul | August 01, 2016 at 01:27 PM
Tomi
What would be the effect of Trump NOT showing his taxes and NOT showing up at the debates?
That is what I expect. He will come up with some excuses to skip all the debates and to NOT show his taxes.
Posted by: Winter | August 01, 2016 at 02:13 PM
I can not wote in the US election. But I guess much can happend in the world that can have a impact the election.
Some more terrorist attack in Europe for example, some more deleted E-mails from Hillary thats suddenly will be showed etc..
Who will Bernie Sanders fans wote for or not.
But I will follow the campaign of course.
Posted by: John A | August 01, 2016 at 02:42 PM
Hi paul
Yeah, sorry, corrected it now. Top 20 yes not Top 10. But bear in mind, its by far the largest CONSUMER database ever made, by far larger than anything like say banks or credit cards - or even TELECOMS databases (next largest in existence, which contain FAR more data than say tax authorities). But this system had not just names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, facebook etc; it has their likes & friends and networks; it has their media consumption data etc - this already makes it TONS more than what say a Facebook could ever hope to have. THEN we get the scoring. When I wrote that, I thought they had 2 scales of 100 point measures for every voter. Later we found out they actually had 5 such scales. The detail of US consumers is incredible and when they said, we know how you voted - they really do. Unless you played some silly prank in your vote, for 99.9% of consumers, they DO know how you voted in 2012.
And THAT is powerful powerful powerful data for 2016 (they also know for all how they voted in 2008 haha). And the SYSTEM that can generate that level of info is, to elections, what radar is to airplanes and ships for navigation. Yes you can use binoculars but gosh you won't want to try to navigate in a fog or inside a rainstorm without radar
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 03:47 PM
Hi Paul
As you so patiently waded through that long article haha and really are interested, here is my follow-up where we have more details we discovered since 2012, about the systems
http://communities-dominate.blogs.com/brands/2015/12/lots-more-detail-about-narwhal-big-data-machine-performance-in-obama-2012-campaign-including-several.html
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 03:49 PM
Back to the scorecard. There seems to be no "armed forces/military/veterans" score. If there was, Trump might be heading to an F.
John McCain's powerful statement to the Khans
http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/01/politics/john-mccain-statement-khan-family/index.html
Posted by: Winter | August 01, 2016 at 03:59 PM
Another point. If Trumps chances are as dire as are predicted here, there might come a point where there is a mass desertion of GOP down ticket candidates and officials. So I suspect there is a real chance that Trump losses most support of GOP politicians.
Tomi, what do you think would be the hard core support of Trump if he loses all supporters with a conscience?
I would expect that to be around 15%.
Posted by: Winter | August 01, 2016 at 04:09 PM
Hi Winter
Me too. I expect Trump to at least skip the first debate and push his taxes as far as he possibly can. I would expect enormous condemnation of everyone from all sides when he does that - and that Hillary probably has an army of surrogates to go mock him everywhere (about being chicken about not debating).
What I hope she'd do is show up (and in that case, I really hope Johnson has not qualified, it is NOT fair to have Johnson then debate Hillary if Trump is not there). But to use the opportunity to have a dialogue, the intended moderator(s) vs Hillary, fair honest factual discussion - possibly even with occasional video of what Trump has said of some of those things. Just make it a ridiculous spectacle about how Trump won't be open and honest with American voters.
The tax returns, clearly he's terrified about them and I'm pretty sure it shows he's nearly broke AND he has money from Russia. If the status of how bad his personal finances were revealed, many of his debtors will end their lines of credit (ie Deutsche Bank) which would push Trump into immediate personal bankruptcy. And if he has ANY money from Russia (or gosh, North Korea. He constantly loves Kim Jong Un and the North Koreans keep singing the praises of Trump) or China - that would end his Presidential credibility.
I expect that after 2016, the US election system will be altered with a few manadated issues. That a candidate must reveal taxes before X date and a candidate cannot skip debates. (And probably also, must undergo a full physical and mental evaluation at a government medical facility such as Bethesda Naval Hospital in Washington DC which is the primary hospital for US Presidents when they need medical care).
Now what would be the effect? I think Trump's core supporters will not desert him. So somewhere in that 30% range or so, is his floor and even if he skips all debates and doesn't show his taxes and keeps insulting American parents of fallen US soldiers and whatnot, gosh, claiming Russia will never invade the Crimea when it already is there... Those supporters will not desert Trump.
But he can't win. So he is headed to a loss. Eventually that becomes an ever more obvious, ever more enormous loss. The volunteers will quit, the money stops flowing in, none of his peers want to be seen with him. More and more those who endorsed him will revoke their endorsements. There has never been a candidate (in modern times) with so many of his OWN party already against him as they are against Trump now. The only possible chance then would be for somehow the 'alternate' candidate to win (Johnson) and at least now, that is not in any way plausible. The Democrats are united enough to guarantee Hillary with 45% and likely over 50% and therefore if 25% vote for Trump and Johnson even takes 30% he can't win...
Now. Trump may QUIT (or suspend his campaign). That will devastate the Republicans up and down the ticket, shut all incoming money, get all his TV ads off the air, have everybody rushing to demand to be paid. He'd essentially be shut down so badly, he could not even re-start his campaign anymore. Then even if all Republicans say - vote for Johnson - the TRUMP supporters won't want to vote for Johnson. They love their cuddly little racist. So at least a quarter of the Trump loyalists would stay home and some part of the rest - would vote for Hillary rather than Johnson (and some will WRITE IN Trump). Johnson can't win but he can severely damage Trump and if a lot of Republicans abandon Trump and support Johnson, he could even win a few states (very red states).
The Trump house of cards has just started to crumble but its crumbling in slow-motion. Its now on a path it cannot fix or stop the collapse. Aug 8 the RCP average (4-way race) will be at +5% for Hillary, by Sept 8 it will be +9% for Hillary, by Oct 8 it will be +14% and by Nov 8 when the votes are counted, it will be +18.
Trump has zero methods or tools or assets left, by which to alter the course of the race. The VP selections and Conventions are done, and he has no chance in the debates. But he keeps making everything worse, daily. And Hillary has clearly all the tools needed, to massacre Trump, which they now are doing, methodically, statet-by-state and vote-by-vote (like Colorado, already done, it was a battleground state in early July).
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 04:10 PM
Hi Winter
Good point about military. I have it kind of hidden in 'foreign policy' and it probably should be split apart. I've written before that the military vote will generate the big part of 'Hillary Republicans' like we saw already at the Convention and now John McCain's granddaughter who said she's voting for Hillary. There will be lots of them (very likely General Colin Powell, very moderate Republican, is likely to come over earlier, not later).
On the very floor, yeah, maybe 45% of Republican voters were very strongly for Trump. So thats 15% of the total electorate. If we peel Trump to his absolute least, its that level. But there is also a 'never Hillary' part of Republicans who will always go for Trump ahead of any Clinton, and therefore the realistic floor is probably around 25% and that would need enormous condemnation of very many who have endorsed Trump. Note that most who would desert Trump, who still might vote - would of course vote for Johnson, not for Hillary. BUT... some who now think they'd like Johnson, can be peeled to Hillary. The Democratic Convention was strongly designed to appeal to the voters in the middle.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 04:17 PM
Hi everybody
To those of us obsessed with the polling data and who fell in love with the Reuters rolling 3 day average every day. That was unfortunately altered right during the Democratic Convention (bizarre timing) so we can't get trend data back from that time AND we can't measure the bounces related to the events. How very unfortunate. But if you were wondering where did that poll go (its not updating anymore) here is the new page
http://polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM651Y15_DS_13/dates/20160701-20160801/type/day
That starts unfortunately yes, on Friday after Republican Convention. But they measure the race currently as a 4 point race by a likely voter screen for a 2-person race (as of Friday 29 July). This is the page we now need to go to. For what its worth, Reuters daily poll says that Michelle Obama & Bernie Sanders day caused a small gain to Hillary, the Bill Clinton day cause a nice bump, but the Obama day and Hillary's own concluding day didn't change the race. The number which is surprisingly large is the 'refused' number ie 9% are not willing to say who they prefer. That number could hide some nasty surprise like white racist voters refusing to admit they still intend to vote for Trump.... (but could also have very disgruntled Republicans who don't want to admit the shame they will be voting against Trump)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 04:43 PM
Hi everybody
About the race. First the Khan family. Ezra Klein of Vox just pointed out something that didn't hit me. The Khans spoke before the network shared time. It was visible on cable TV coverage but not on network coverage. MOST Americans did NOT see the compelling short speech, which was the single best sound-bite and video attacking Trump.
If Trump had let it be, most Americans would not know about it. But Trump had to attack and now this has been the top story for four days. And it is pushing even more Republicans away from Trump. John McCain's granddaughter was one who wrote in public, this was the straw that broke her back and she is now for Hillary. Meanwhile John McCain and Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham - and Trump's VP Mike Pence all have said that the Khan family are heroic and should not be attacked. And once again, Trump cannot apologize, because obviously he never ever has been wrong and he never ever can afford to apologize.
Well, then we have more fun. Trump claimed the NFL (National Football League, American football, not soccer) had written him a letter that they don't want the debates on the dates that are in the calendar. Of course the NFL has not written such a letter. Why would Trump make such a blatant lie?
Then he attacked a fire marshall. Why? As it happens, the man is a decorated hero.
Then Trump of course continues his feud with a 4 star general.
The Ukraine. Trump said that under no circumstances will Russia invade the Crimea, underlining it so intensely he said "You can mark it down. you can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want" and of course the interviewer then pointed out that Russia is already in Crimea.
The Trump campaign is proceeding to self-destruct on every conceivable level. Two wonderful jokes about it. @BuhByeGOP said the only metaphor to describe how badly the Trump campaign is now doing, is if the Titanic managed to crash into the Titanic.
And the British paper Guardian put it in another way. The Trump campaign is Swift-boating itself.
All of this will damage Trump now. All of this will find itself in a series of ridiculing jokes to make Trump a total laughing stock long before November, like Sarah Palin was in 2008. And worst - all of these - plus ALL THE REPUBLICAN comments - will be collected by Hillary and run at some convenient point. I would expect that while the Hillary campaign did run Republican comments about Trump at the Convention in the video montages, those were the old videos produced in the past months and already run on YouTube. If they are smart about it, they wait now, let the Republicans do more damage to Trump BUT NOT repeat them now. Because if the Republicans see they are used in videos attacking Trump, they will speak less. BUT as Trump is repeatedly vile, there is a strong demand for Republicans to react and the best thing for the Democrats is to wait now.. all of these can be used, the damage will be about the same sooner or later, but let Trump damage himself now. Then later, around October, turn on the 'by the way, this is what Republicans say' series and run them all then. Use Trump's own words now yes, but wait with the Republican condemnations... (thats what I'd do)
Titanic hitting the Titanic. Trump Swift-boating his own campaign... LOL
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 05:32 PM
Hi Everybody
And it just keeps getting worse. Gallup has measured Conventions since 1984. The GOP Convention of 2016 is the only one in history that managed to get people to think WORSE of the party after the Convention - and not by a little bit either. The damage -15% is about as strong AGAINST the Republican party than they have EVER managed to do POSITIVE. Here is Gallup link
http://www.gallup.com/poll/194084/americans-positive-democratic-gop-convention.aspx
And yeah, Democrats got a small positive gain, not big. But Republicans had a massive damage to their position. So here is what Trump management will do. It is very literally the Trump U and Trump Vodka and Trump Casino reputation, now put into politics. He is that bad.
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | August 01, 2016 at 06:02 PM
The Koch donor network is showing some cracks; won't support Trump; focusing on the Senate.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/koch-network-seeks-to-defuse-donor-frustration-over-trump-rebuff/2016/08/01/7247b8c2-579a-11e6-831d-0324760ca856_story.html
Posted by: grouch | August 01, 2016 at 06:38 PM
Another thing I find interesting in comparing the two conventions is how they handled protests during speeches.
Can't find the reference, but someone reported Hillary passing the word to the New York delegates to not drown out the Bernie-or-Bust supporters on the first day.
Wonder if Hillary will settle for a much lower point spread and instead focus some energy on down ticket races. It would make sense, given her history of negotiations with hard-nosed factions. She knows full well the frustration Obama has had.
Posted by: grouch | August 01, 2016 at 06:41 PM
@Tomi
Top 20 is sound.
Posted by: paul | August 01, 2016 at 09:08 PM