Countdown to the End of Trump: Seven Days Left. Seven Days. One Week To Go, and Then He's Gone!

One Week to the End of Trump. Lets do the second-to-last Countdown to his demise. As I've already written, as Trump did not get a knock-out punch in the final debate (actually lost that one too, so he went 0 for 3 in his debates against Hillary) this election has been over for weeks now. Hillary Clinton leads the average of polling by a modest amount (due to some very questionable polls just out), but her lead in the Electoral College map is that massive, that she is coasting to an easy win. An easy win. Don't be fooled by those eager to keep the suspense going for another week. This race is done. Stick a fork in it. But again, its the weekly Countdown, so lets do the numbers.

Hillary is still up up in the RCP average by 2.2%. (That was 5.5% last week, before that 7.1%, 4.8%, 3.7%, 1.6%, 1.1%, 2.2%, 3.4% in RCP average by the 4-way polls of previous weeks). The mathematical average of those weekly averages is 3.5%. Never once has Hillary been behind on our weekly review of the latest polling averages. Not once. Both in 2008 and in 2012, Obama was behind McCain and Romney within the last 2 months. Hillary has NEVER been behind in the RCP average. There have been Over the past two months the RCP average has told is its a 4% race. To be precise, EVERY weekly average of the polling is consistent with the election being a 4.1% race. EVERY average including today, is CONSISTENT with a race that is 4.1% plus/minus 3% margin of error which is what a typical 1,000 person survey would have as its margin-of-error (many of the polls are SMALLER with larger margins of error). Today's 2.2% average is CONSISTENT with a 4.1% race. And the past two months is NOT consistent with a 2.2% race and absolutely not a 1% Race or Trump being in the lead.

Don't be fooled by a stupid ABC/Wapo tracking poll that has bizarre turnout level of white voters in this year of all years, when Hispanic voters are registering at record numbers and where all voter enthusiasm at the early voting is saying, there is a big surge of new voters, especially minority voters coming in. Don't be fooled. This race is not tight. The polling is consistent with a race result like Obama vs Romney in 2012. That nonsense FBI letter is not tumbling the race either. Its a letter about ANTHONY WIENER's emails. Anthony isn't even running for office, he was disgraced for his penis pictures and he resigned. He isn't working for Hillary either. So its a bullshit story peddled by the media who are desperate to have an exciting election to sell their news programming. They don't want to tell readers that this election is over. So we get nonsense polling like ABC/Wapo thinking only white voters will show up. And while we are on bizarre polling, lets mention Rasmussen. There have been 87 polls out about the 4-way race in the two months of September and October. 87 polls. Only 8 have said that Trump is in the lead. Only 8 polls. Thats yes, one in ten polls has said Trump is ahead. Do you go with the 90% odds or do you take odds of 10%?

But wait. Of those 8 polls that said Trump is ahead? FOUR of the eight are by ONE POLLSTER, Rasmussen! 23 professional pollsters have surveyed the race at least once in the past two months, 18 of them have never found any Trump lead. Four have each found once a Trump lead but those four pollsters have issued 13 OTHER polls in the SAME PERIOD that say Hillary is ahead. EACH of those pollsters who once found a slight Trump lead, has ALSO counted the race several times to be a Hillary lead. But 18 pollsters have consistently found NO Trump lead. And then there is bizarre Rasmussen who thinks the race is tied. HALF of their polls say Trump is ahead! Their biggest polled lead for Trump is -5% !!! When nobody else has even once found it more than -2% Trump and 18% pollsters have not found once a Trump lead at all. Rasmussen has a consistent 3.5% 'house effect' where they show a result that is favorable to the Republicans. It is consistent over the years, its calculated out by pollster specialist sites like 538 Blog where Nate Silver says the same thing. Rasmussen is a Republican Party propaganda pollster. They do not release their cross-tabs, so we cannot see what kind of bizarre mix of interviews they had (maybe they didn't ask any blacks, that would explain their nutty results) but yeah. If you want to believe Rasmussen, then they think its a 0.5% race based on 8 polls they have released. And their lastest polls says its a TIE. Now if you accept Rasmussen has a house bias in favor of Republicans, that is worth 3.5%, then yeah, Rasmussen is TELLING us the race is .. 3.5% for Hillary. This is NOT a close race. Do not be fooled by idiots who can't do math.

The actual race is for the Electoral College ie 'the map'. RCP Electoral College Map (no toss-ups) shows 305 EV Votes (was 333, 322, 340, 322, 292, 294, 311, 340) for Hillary, and 233 (205, 216, 198, 216, 246, 244, 227 and 198) EV votes for Trump. 270 is needed to win. Since last week the swingiest of the states this cycle, Florida has dipped back into Trump. So now compared against the last election (Obama-Romney 2012) Trump is up in 3 states (Florida, Ohio and Iowa) while Hillary is up in 2 states (North Carolina and Arizona). The AVERAGE of those snapshots gives 307 EV votes for Hillary and 231 for Trump. This election is very close to the Romney Obama 2012 election which ended as 333 EV votes for Obama vs 206 EV votes for Romney. Yes Hillary is poised to win every state that Obama won against Romney, but gaining two, and losing three, for a net loss of one state. The closest analogy to this race, currently, is the Obama-Romney election of 2012 - EXCEPT if you go compare the two races side-by-side, Hillary is FAR AHEAD of where Obama was at this point in time, seven days before election day! Do not be fooled by the bullshit. This race is not close.

The TV ad wars have Trump trying several hail-Mary gambits of utterly silly spending this late, in states that were never competitive to begin with, and would have needed serious effort for months. He's now up in Wisconsin, Colorado and Virginia, all states that are far too far gone to flip at this stage. The top 4 states are in exactly the same sequence by both sides, they agree by TV ad spending that Florida is biggest, then Ohio, then Pennsylvania and then North Carolina. Both sides AGREE that this is the real battleground. They show it by their TV ad spending. And Hillary is up in 2 of the four by in-state polling averages, and Trump would need to sweep all four to become President. So the latest polling in the four states that decide the race:

Florida - Trump leads by 1.0% (last week Hillary led by 0.4%, 3.6%, 2.4%, 2.8%, previous weeks Trump led by 0.5%, 0.9%, 0.2%, earlier Hillary led by 3.6%)
North Carolina - Hillary leads by 2.6% (last week Hillary led by 2.0%, 2.7%, 2.6%, 1.8%, Trump by 1.4%, earlier weeks Hillary by 0.6%, 0.7%, 0.3%)
Ohio - Trump leads by 2.5% (last week was 1.0%, 0.7%, then Hillary led by 0.5%, Trump led by 3.8%, 2.0%, 2.0%, previously Hillary led by 1.8%, and 3.3%)
Pennsylvania - Hillary leads by 6.0% (was 4.8%, 6.8%, 8.6%, 2.1%, 1.8%, 6.2%, 5.8% and 6.0%)

NOTE - Trump has to win ALL FOUR of these four states. He has never led in Pennsylvania since we started the count-down. You might make up a point or maybe two points in one week. But there is no way Trump makes up for a 6.0% deficit in Pennsylvania in the remaining week. There is not enough time. And Trump isn't even TRYING to win PA. He is campaigning in New Mexico (not a battleground state), Wisconsin (hopelessly lost at least as badly as Pennsylvania) and Michigan (which also is not a battleground state). Trump isn't even FIGHTING for Pennsylvania anymore. He knows he has lost it. He already says, he might lose. It won't be that bad, if he loses. Their internal polling has shown the same results as Nate Silver on 538 blog. He KNOWS he has lost this election. And he is NOT TRYING his hardest, on the last week, to flip Pennsylvania. Instead he goes on a glory tour of those states where his fans will adore him for seven more days, and not listen to the local Republicans in despair in the battleground states who cry about how they are losing this election.

Understand, even if Trump somehow pulled a miracle and won Florida, Ohio, flipped North Carolina where he is behind by 2.6% and flipped Pennsylvania where Trump is behind by 6.0% - he STILL WOULD LOSE. Because now Hillary is so far ahead, she is AHEAD IN ARIZONA. A red state that voted for Romney by a ten percent margin in 2012!!! Yes, Trump HAD to win all four of those battleground states to have a chance to become President, but he couldn't lose ANY states that Romney won. He is now behind in Arizona! Hillary is up by 0.6% in AZ, plus spending a million dollars in TV ads and has 130 full-time staff in Arizona to turn-out-the-vote. Trump? Has zero staff in Arizona. He can't afford it. He can't even afford to fly his plane, he has to hump to some of his events by bus. Trump TOTAL paid staff nationwide is 300. Hillary has 130 paid staff turning out a Democratic victory out of a RED STATE !!!

This race is over. Hillary Clinton is padding her lead now. She wants to pull a bigger win than Obama did in 2012. She is AHEAD at this point in polling, versus where Obama was seven days out, against Romney!  Do not be fooled, this race is not close! 

Lets talk briefly about the campaigns. Hillary has the largest surrogate army in history, starting with the most popular ex-President alive, Bill Clinton. She has the most popular sitting President in HISTORY, more popular at this point in time than yes, even Ronald Reagan. Hillary has Barack Obama campaigning for her. She has the most popular POLITICIAN in the country, even more popular than her popular husband, Michelle Obama campaigning for Hillary. She has her main rival, Bernie Sanders campaigning for her. She has VP Joe Biden, she has Senator Elizabeth Warren, she has her popular daughter Chelsea Clinton, she has Planned Parenthood boss popular left wing activist Cecile Richards. She has the whole Democratic caucus of Senators, Governors, Members of the House, and past politicians all stumping for her. Her campaign covers ALL of the battleground states - and yet, this week, Hillary has made time to do an event in... ARIZONA. Personally! She has sent her surrogates there before. Now she is so far ahead, she can afford to go campaign one day in AZ. Help turn that state blue.

How is Trump? The oldest living Republican President, George HW Bush, is not campaigning for Trump. He won't vote for Trump. He is voting for Hillary! The other living Republican President, George Dimwit Bush, is also not campaigning for Trump. He won't vote for Trump either. Both of their popular Republican wives - are voting for Hillary! Barbara Bush said its an idiot Republican woman who wuold vote for Trump. Thats a nice endorsement there, if you can get it, Mr Trump. And the past Republican nominee? Mitt Romney? Is not stomping for Trump. He won't even vote for Trump. The previous Republican nominee, John McCain is not willing to appear with Trump nor talk about Trump. The latest VP choice and top-ranked Republican, Paul Ryan, has not once appeared at a campaign event with Trump. But his rivals, John Kasich just was in the news, that he voted, and didn't vote for Trump. Neither Ted Cruz nor Marco Rubio are willing to appear with Trump. But over 100 past or present Republicans have said in public that they cannot vote for Trump and will be voting for Hillary instead! Trump only has his VP, Mike Pence running with him on the campaign trail and Pence seems to be running a parallel universe campaign, with an imaginary running mate. He is constantly at odds with Trump's positions. That is not how you win elections.

But lets get into the weeds. The Get-Out-The-Vote effort. Trump was in Nevada. In Las Vegas. He held a rally there. And part of the reason was to drive up early voting numbers (a symbolic effort because the math is not there to win a campaign in the modern era by holding mass rallies only), but Trump of course thinks of 'Make America Great AGAIN' so like many 70-year-old foolish white angry men, he wants to go back to a more serene time when women, blacks and Hispanics 'knew their place'. But at least as a SYMBOLIC act, to try to boost early voting, yes, he claimed to run the event to help early voting. Except the event was nowhere near a polling place. So Trump? Mr Liar, he said, oh, we have busses. There were no busses. By the time his desperately flailing team had rounded up some busses, only dozens of the thousands of Trump supporters were still left, to take to a polling place. A TOTAL WASTED EFFORT.

Lets compare. Hillary runs PARALLEL superstar events, often highlighted by rock stars from Katy Perry and Beyonce to Cher and Bruce Springsteen. She's had the Star Trek TV show casts support her, as she has had the West Wing TV show cast support her. They are running a show. When Obama or Michelle show up, they get 10,000 person audiences. SEPARATE from Hillary's own audiences or those of her VP Tim Caine or those of Senator Elizabeth Warren or Senator Bernie Sanders etc. But then what do they DO? At those events, Hillary's team has PAID STAFF circulating among the audience, collecting VOLUNTEERS. They are immediately signed up. What do those voluteers then do? They get SCRIPTS online, to make calls supporting Hillary. They gets telephone pitch scripts TAILORED to their backrgounds. So a nurse, gets a story about what Hillary does for healthcare. A retired teacher gets a script about education and about retirement. And so forth. What is more, the volunteers get PHONE NUMBERS of SIMILAR voters!!! A nurse calls a nurse, an Iraq War veteran calls an Iraq War veteran, a car factory worker calls a car factory worker, etc. This is the supercharged version of the most powerful volunteer army in any election, ever made, that Obama built in 2012. And that army reached 300,000 total volunteers. Hillary will far exceed that number. She will probably hit half a million volunteers. By contrast, so you understand, Romney in 2012 had 40,000 volunteers which was by far the largest number the Republican party had ever managed to collect.

So you say, thats what Trump is also doing. Or is it? Trump has not had full-time staff collecting names of volunteers! Yes. He sees crowds in thousands, even exceeding 10,000 often, and he has no systematic effort to collect their names or get them to sign up as volunteers. He started to collect names - by SIGN-UP SHEET. So yes, not actual people, but circulating papers in the crowd (because Trump is so cheap, he doesn't have a big organization to do this kind of things. There is no staff in most states, and Trump himself, doesn't even WANT to go visit the battleground states, their mood is too sour because he is losing). So what happened to those sheets? Nobody follows up. In fact, at some events, the SIGN-UP SHEETS WERE NOT EVEN COLLECTED. People signed up, and the pages were left there, tossed into garbage! Hillary has often as much as 50 staff at an event, circulating meeting every visitor, and asking them to sign up. And then they have immediate tools to get them started, including a smartphone app and SMS based contact to immediately get the volunteers involved. DURING THAT EVENT. Trump, throws his paperwork away. Nobody there to take those potential volunteers even in to help. This is a ship that has long since sunk, and the Captain is standing proudly at one of the lifeboats thinking he still is running the Titanic.

There is no way a campaign run this badly, can possibly catch up to, far less overtake, a campaign run so professionally. At EVERY stage of the race, past two months, Hillary has been safely ahead in the average of polling. At EVERY stage, she has held a lead in the Electoral College vote. She is AHEAD of where Obama was against Romney at this point in time. Hillary won all three debates. The only way the race could be changed is by an 'October Surprise' type of event like Sarah Palin reading all the newspapers or Mitt Romney talking about 47% or Donald Trump grabbing women by their p*ssies. But no, Hillary Clinton was not at some sex orgy with Anthony Wiener grabbing his nuts. The Anthony Wiener email story 'FBI letter' is bullshit. Its not even ABOUT Hillary Clinton.

Its possible yes, in the last days, we get some nasty surprise in this last week of the campaign. Yes that is possible. Its far more likely to be about Trump and his Putin connections, or Trump and his abuse of child labor as sex slaves, or his sexual groping, or his bankruptcies, or like haha, he is now not paying HIS OWN POLLSTER for three quarters of a million dollars of WORK ALREADY CONDUCTED. What can the pollster do? He spent weeks doing big surveys in a dozen states to get the picture for Trump. That is intense labor. And now that Trump was told, you're going to lose, he isn't paying? Talk about a scumbag. But yeah, Trump tax returns. Trump Foundation scandals. Trump illegal labor. Trump visa scandals, with his wife, with his undocumented labor. Trump and Fidel Castro, Trump and Muammar Gaddafi, Trump and Kim Jong-Un. Trump's 300 million dollar loan from Russia's Alfa Bank. Trump's 100 million dollar loan from Deutsche Bank. Trump's unknown-size loan from Chinese banks. Trump buying Chinese steel or Trump dealing with Iran. Trump is a bag of handgrendades rolling on the floor, all with their pins pulled, and we just don't know when they will explode. They all will. And some are due now, in the next seven days. This man is not winning this election but he is prone to massively underperform where the polling suggests the race should finish.

If you want to see last week's Countdown summary, its here.

The election is in seven days. I have published the definitive TV Guide for viewing the election, with the math on what states may come in early, and what that means for the race. Read this before you watch the election results. And Bookmark that page, to come back to it on November 8.

I have published my 'final final' forecast exactly 3 weeks before election day. I predicted Hillary wins by 16%. Full forecast including analysis and reasoning is on the blog of course, and please remember, I called the 2008 election, the 2012 election as well as Trump's exact Primary victory correctly and all three of those within one state of how they finished. Take my forecast seriously, its likely to be very close. My forecast of why Hillary wins by 16% is here.

To see the full race, my big all-numbers blog of the Election Scorecard of 3 October is here.  

Of the Senate Race, RCP Senate Map (no toss-ups) has the race again gone one state for Republicans, at 49/50. It is very tight, with a number of states flipping back-and-forth. This change was due to polling giving Nevada now back to the GOP (that won't hold but its very tight in NV). (This race was at 50/50, 49/51, 48/52, 50/50, 49/51, 49/51, 49/51, 50/50). The Democrats' Turn-out machine will ensure this is not a 50/50 result. Hillary has moved resources already into Missouri and Indiana (states that she is not competitive in) because those resources help the SENATOR races there. The Democrats are so flush with money, the SuperPAC supporting Hillary has stopped showing Hillary ads in some states, and now only shows ads for Senators like in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. The next Leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer of New York is so flush with cash, he has sent millions to his Senate colleagues to help in their campaigns, and so forth. Meanwhile Trump stopped sharing any money with Republicans several weeks ago, and is himself running out of money. The senate will not end up 50/50. The Democrats will have a (small) lead in Senate seats when the votes are counted.

The House Map by RCP is up. It went up weeks ago but unfortunately RCP has not updated it, so it keeps showing a safe Republican House outcome. Democrats will pick up some seats, but probably not take control of the House. Currently if the Democrats were to sweep all 15 of the 'toss up' seats for the House as well as of course winning all that RCP projects they are ahead - the Democrats would be 15 seats short of the majority in the House. If we assign the toss-ups exactly evenly, the House would remain in Republican hands by a 22 seat majority.

And finally a plug. I released my joke book. 1001 jokes about Donald Trump. I call it TRUMP vs The Seventh Steve. It runs 253 pages, has actually 1,052 jokes about Trump and 1,434 jokes in total including other, non-Trump jokes like those of other Republicans. I will release one page out of the ebook every day until election day, to give out 10% of the ebook for free. So visit this page even if you just want to see 'the daily jokes' about Trump. If you want to buy the ebook, it only costs $4.99. And yes, here is the page for TRUMP vs The Seventh Steve.

Comments

[grouch]

Lawsuit Alleges Racially Targeted Voter Purge in North Carolina

Voting rights advocates in North Carolina filed an emergency petition in federal court on Monday alleging that at least three counties in the state have engaged in a systematic effort to purge voters, including a disproportionate number of African Americans, from the voter rolls in the final weeks before the election.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/north-carolina-voter-purge-lawsuit

[grouch]

A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump

On Monday, NBC News reported that the FBI has mounted a preliminary inquiry into the foreign business ties of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chief. But Reid's recent note hinted at more than the Page or Manafort affairs. And a former senior intelligence officer for a Western country who specialized in Russian counterintelligence tells Mother Jones that in recent months he provided the bureau with memos, based on his recent interactions with Russian sources, contending the Russian government has for years tried to co-opt and assist Trump—and that the FBI requested more information from him.

http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump

[grouch]

Judge orders RNC to detail voter fraud pacts with Trump campaign

http://www.politico.com/blogs/under-the-radar/2016/11/rnc-trump-voter-fraud-pacts-judge-ruling-230578

[grouch]

Forget conspiracy theories. This is why Trump’s Russian connection is actually a problem.

http://www.vox.com/world/2016/11/1/13487322/donald-trump-russia-agent-hack

[Wayne Borean]

Donald J. Trump, military genius. He will replace Clausewitz and Sun Tzu both because of his mad skillz in the military field.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/31/politics/trump-pentagon-mosul-differ/index.html

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Ok we're getting ever more data on the early vote. 22 million have already cast early votes. In most battleground states the Democrats have more early votes than Republicans, except for Georgia and Arizona. Pennsylvania also has more GOP early votes but it doesn't really count because in PA everybody does not have automatically this right, you have to ask special permission to early vote. So the numbers will be tiny compared to the other states. But in most states the Democrats are up - and note, AZ and GA are states where the REGISTERED number of voters is significantly more Republican than Democrat. So if there is a GOP lead in AZ and GA, that is not necessarily a 'bad sign' only that it reflects the fact, that those are uphill battles where Democrats face a big challenge to win by a smaller army.

Florida which started with a GOP lead, is now tied. They always start strong with GOP because of mail-in votes that Republicans prefer, while Democrats like to come in-person to early vote. So now the state has tipped its balance, is even-stevens and will now start to pick up the Democratic lead.

An interesting detail comes out of Colorado. Democrats have a lead in the state, obviously. But also in terms of performance, consider this. 38% of registered Democrats have already voted, while 35% of Republicans have already voted. There is a level of an enthusiasm gap there and as there are also more registered Democrats in the state, this state is, pretty much like Robbie Mook said two weeks ago, already won by Hillary. (A dangerous thing to say, if you're a Campaign Manager haha but he obviously slipped out a bit of the confidence that they have internally).

The BIG news is the turnout by demographics. All 15 states with significant Hispanic voter numbers have seen voter turnout up. All of them. There is a Hispanic wave building. In Texas there are some voting districts where early vote has doubled over what it was in 2012. These are in Hispanic districts (that are seen as strong Democratic parts of the otherwise red state).

There are THREE important elements to this Hispanic wave. First, the overall numbers seem to be headed to the levels I predicted in March (and Pew predicted also in March) that we will end up with about 12% or 13% of total vote being Hispanic. This is catastrophic not just for Trump but for Republicans in those Southern states where the Hispanic vote is big, like Florida, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and Texas (plus states where it won't flip the election, like California and New York).

Secondly, the TREND for Hispanics has been very bad for Trump. His support has fallen fast in the past six weeks among this demographic, via the debates, especially now the last one, Bad Hombres, and the related Spanish-language TV and radio ads that Hillary launched in September. So part of the really bad polling numbers we've seen - most polls do not break out Hispanic votes, they usually only break out black votes and/or all minorities - but when we've had it, that's been weeks ago, when Trump's image wasn't as bad as its now. Trump is likely to head into a worse HISPANIC gap than we estimated before. This will also damage down-ticket votes, severely, in those states.

Third is REGISTERED VOTER vs Likely Voter imbalance. I've been digging into the month-long data for Reuters Daily Tracker poll (because daily data and even weekly data doesn't have enough population size to get this level of detail). They have a big difference in the outcome of a RV vs LV result, for Hispanics. The 'generic' Hispanic hates Trump but the LIKELY VOTER only dislikes Trump. His polling with all Hispanic RV's is in the toilet like 15% but his polling with LV's is around 25%.

If Hispanic voter turnout - as a percent of REGISTERED VOTERS is low, ie only the very actively involved LV voters turn out - those are MORE FRIENDLY to Republicans (including those famously pro-GOP Florida Hispanics of Cuban descent). But if the Hispanic voter turnout is STRONG - it means a HIGHER PROPORTION of the RV's of Hispanic voters will turn out - and those are the ones who all hate Trump. This is a kind of double-whammy. If Hispanic turnout is low, then the more Trump-friendly and GOP-friendly Hispanics show up (duh, its like in any vote, low turnout = better for GOP). BUT now, this year, the Hispanics really hate and fear Trump, and they ARE showing up in huge numbers to vote against him - and these are exactly the type of voters who will hate him. And they will vote for Hillary. And they will vote for Democrats down-ticket too.

This is very different from women or youth voters, where shifts would or could bring support to both sides. With Hispanics the 'good Hispanics' haha, for Republicans, they are ALREADY IN. And now its only the 'bad Hombres' haha, the voters who hate them - who are coming. And they're crushing Trump in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, will do so also in Florida and likely Texas too.

Now on a related note, the vote of under 30 year old voters early voting is DOWN in all states. If you remember my original 2014 forecast blog, I told you also that THIS would happen. That Obama brought in a youth voter surge, and that would subside - somewhat - for 2016 but that Hillary would replace that with a far larger female voter surge in its place. On the women's vote, we haven't had any METRICS on it yet, other than anecdotal evidence but yeah, its pretty safe to say, there will be a big female voter surge that will be measured this cycle.

Now another interesting 'sign' is the youth vote. There is a national high school vote, done every election for the sixth year running, that each of the past 5 years predicted correctly the winner. They had 300,000 high school kids vote. The result was 48% Hillary 41% Trump (plus the others). These kids will of course often pick up their political views from home and are seen as a kind of barometer not just of what youth think, but of how the nation would vote - and yes, each of the past 5 years this vote has predicted accurately the election. It isn't even close this year. Big landslide victory for Hillary (haha, are we surprised?)

Ok, watching those numbers and reporting them as they come in... I don't know how I can live from November 9 onwards...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[dave barnes]

loans FROM banks and not loans TO banks
needs to be corrected
"Trump's 300 million dollar loan to Russia's Alfa Bank. " is just one example

[dave barnes]

Tomi,
You wrote about Rasmussen and their different results.
But, they have Barry Soetoro at +8 in approval rating.
I fail to understand how people can have Drumpf™-Hills tied and be +8 for Hussein.

[cornelius]

@dave barnes

It's simple. The approval rating for Obama should be +12 but Rasmussen shows only +8 due to their GOP bias. Tomi has previously explained that once the GOP has stopped attacking Obama, his numbers started to increase. And as the GOP focused on bringing Clinton down to Trump's level, her numbers dropped.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi dave

Thanks! Corrected... :-)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cornelius

I always find it amazing to notice that someone had actually read something I wrote months (or even years) earlier - and remembered it. This ceases to amaze me. Thanks! (re Obama favorability rating)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Scott]

She is done.And don't just take my word for it, the head of the DNC African-American Womens Caucus just came out on MSNBC and said there is no enthusiasm for Hillary amongst African-American voters. They are hoping that the Hispanic voters will take up the slack.

When the Democrat candidate for President of the United States is losing the black vote then they have lost. Hillary is done. Scott still predicts Trump landslide.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/11/01/dem_strategist_clinton_should_be_in_panic_mode_over_enthusiasm_gap_with_black_voters_nothing_she_can_do_now.html

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Read up on Texas voter registrations. They're up 1.45M vs 2012 and up by 12% in the past four years. Texas doesn't collect that information by party but there is an analysis of the new registrations by surname (gosh what a job, reading 1.45 million surnames haha) And they've estimated that Hispanic surnames account for mroe than a million of the 1.45M new voters.

Hispanic voters in Texas are notoriously bad voters. They only show up at 38% rate vs 48% nationally for Hispanics and 80% for all Americans. But there is now a surge in Hispanic new registrations. A ton of them. That 38% voter turnout in 2012 - that was 1.8M votes. They have NEW voters worth 1M now.

Then the EARLY VOTING surge. That is strong across the state but exceptionally strong in large population areas, cities, and near the border - Hispanic votes. Its very plausible that Texas Hispanic vote TURNOUT this time is at 50% or above. And these are, you'll remember, not Florida 'Conservative' Cuban Hispanics. These are of Mexican background. We recall, the 'Murderers and Rapists' Mexicans, who need to be deported and put behind a wall. The Bad Hombres. Yeah. I think its a good bet that a large part of Texas's voting surge is driven by Hispanics.

And if you take the new registrations, and boost the existing 1.8M votes up from 38% to 50% turnout - you add a million votes. Thats just about the difference between Texas staying red, and Texas going blue. It does come down to probably an under 1% election for the state, could go either way.

Which also means a LOT of down-ballot elections will be tumbled in Texas.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

In this media onslaught it is difficult to steer on reason and common sense alone. For a non-American it is totally bizare to hear otherwise sane middle aged American men rage about Hillary's "faults", ignoring the utter incompetence on the other side.

It is good to get a dose of sanity once in a while. And such sanity can rarely be delivered by those involved, eg, Americans.

There is still hope for this world.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Scott

(are you a different Scott or the same Scott, seems like you used a different email but you sound like 'our' Scott)

Hey, don't feed our trolls. I just delete them. Now on the black vote. I get it you want to see that story as the black vote is failing the Democrats. Its a narrative also that suits the press who are desperate to keep a 'close race' story for another week. There is an ENTHUSIASM decline, which is both INEVITABLE and was predictable. I predicted it TWO YEARS ago. I said black voter enthusiasm was driven by Obama, and as the next Democrat was going to be Hillary (and very very unlikely for the Republicans to nominate a black rival like say Condi Rice or General Colin Powell) that meant the black surge would subside. Against that, I said in October of 2014, two years ago, that Hillary will receive a Hispanic surge, which is a good trade-off because most of the black votes for Democrats are in safely blue states like New York, Illinois and Michigan; but the Hispanic votes are often in Southern, battleground states or even red states like Arizona and Texas.

Yes the voter enthusiasm by blacks is down. Its not against Hillary. They like her, but they loved Obama. Thats natural. She is not LOSING them. And they are DEFINITELY not going to Trump. Trump gets LESS black support than Romney did! And Romney competed against a black guy. Yes White woman competing against a white man does better when that is Trump, than Romney a white man against a BLACK man. So the only issue is enthusiasm.

Could this cost Hillary Virginia? No. Could it cost Ohio? It might. Is this going to matter in Iowa? No. Will this matter in Florida? Yes. But in Florida, she gets a LARGER Hispanic community to counter the decline in black support. Against that, she gets Arizona, she runs away with Colorado and Nevada. And it puts Texas in play.

The rough balance of how much to focus on Hispanics vs blacks (vs women) is about right. If nobody was complaining on the black side, they'd have put too much pandering to that side. Its the same with the liberal wing, they NEED to complain a bit. She needs to steer a balance among a wide range of competing interests and cannot do everything for everybody, inside her big tent. But yes, I get it Scott, you are reaching for anything that shows a promise. The black vote is not deserting Hillary in the way FEMALE Republican voters ARE deserting Trump. There is yes, a decline in the enthusiasm by blacks. That will diminish their total voter turnout by some level, maybe down a few points - among their SHARE. Less than one point in any state by the total in-state vote. This will not win you the election but it might make a state like Ohio be counted longer (and Florida).

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

Next question is whether the GOP will survive?

It will be clear by anyone sane that the GOP will not recapture a majority in votes without Hispanics and women, ever. And with a liberal Supreme Court, vote rigging will be largely neutered.

That is cause enough for a civil war among Republicans. Which might cost them the house.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Winter

Great point. And its not just women and Hispanics. They already lost the black vote (12%) and there is another 6% of various other minorities by ethnic background they've lost (like Muslims) or are in danger of losing (like Asians). Then there are various other smaller voting blocks they're very actively alienating, most obviously the gay community.

So if we start with normal elections, not surge 2016 female vote or surge 2008 black vote, say take all women, thats 53% of vote. Then of men, say blacks add 6%, Hispanics, add 6%, other minorities add another 1%, you're down 66% of the electorate. Even if you win ALL the rest, you lose WORSE than this Trump election of next week haha.

It won't really get that bad, ever, obviously and their next candidates won't be this suicidally unelectable. But take the tweets I just today saw on the Latina equal pay (Latin/Hispanic women, Latina as opposed to men, Latino). This is something that should be a no-brainer for any sane politician, whatever their gender or race. If Hispanic women really earn 54 cents on the same job as any white man, gosh, that is a national crisis and has to be addressed. And as the hashtag was trending, in came the Deplorables saying all sorts of nonsense. And there is that horrible teacher who told a misbehaving prep school Muslim kid, that 'when Trump becomes President, he'll deport you'. That teacher is being disciplined. But gosh, this kind of thinking. This kind of nonsense.

If there was a small Nazi/KKK/extreme racist party where the Pepe the Frog fans could all go, and they'd elect a few loonie David Dukes into the Congress, thats ok. But when its only two parties, and one of the two decides to abandon sanity and try to run as the rich angry old white man's party, thats lunacy.

So where will it go, how will it play out. Obviously first off, it depends on how bad is the drubbing and how badly Trump loses. If he loses like Romney, he'll be fine - he'll be pestering us for the rest of his life on TV giving his opinions that will evolve not unlike other bitter losers like John McCain and Rudy Giuliani and Newt Gingrich etc. Here I have to give credit to Mitt Romney, at least he left with dignity and has kept his level of class. I betcha that is that Mormon upbringing of his - but also, it may be self-preservation, he also still harbors thoughts of running for President once again haha. But Trump after November, he'll be intolerable if he only loses by a little.

Also it depends on how much goes down with him. If the Republicans can keep a 51/49 Senate, they will essentially forgive Trump for all. They're now plotting to actually not confirm a Supreme Court justice at all in the next 4 years and wait until they'd get a Republican President. But if a really pro-Trump pro-GOP night turns out on Nov 8, say Trump loses by 4 points, the Senate stays 51/49 and of course the GOP holds the House by say 20 seats, they'd be ok. They'd forget all about the crazy Trump year, and would continue onwards with their 'normally-scheduled' internal feud between the Tea Party wing and the moderates of the party.

It gets FAR worse if they lose the Senate (ie even a 50/50 split because the VP breaks the ties). While the Congress overall would be split and the Tea Party would want to block absolutely everything Hillary wants to do (and almost no new laws would get enacted, and very likely they'd shut down the Government at some point). BUT with the Senate, it means the Supreme Court balance tips. And most Republicans have no idea the level of shitstorm that will bring to them, because of the recent nonsense they've gotten away with, back when they still had an ever-more political Court to let them get away with it all. Most of the reasons they have the House are obviously game-rigging tricks that tilt the elections against Democrats and for Republicans, starting with Citizens United and gerrymandering but going down to voter suppression. But beyond that, there are a ton of areas where a 'liberal agenda' could be advanced simply by a more modern, liberal-balanced Supreme Court. Things like gun controls and the death penalty, to start with. Guantanamo Bay and its indefinite status in terms of legal status. I could see the Supreme Court just declaing its unconstitutional to keep foreigners thus imprisoned for life without proper court treatment and that they must be immediately released. Obama wanted to close Guantanamo. It was the Congress that decided to enact laws that prevented Obama from bringing those people to US soil. Its bizarre but again, the Republicans have gotten away with absolutely illegal outrageous nonsense.

That will be blamed on Trump. And its almost certain that the Court will see other Justices also retire. Its VERY likely Hillary gets to appoint 3 Justices maybe 4. And probably one or two of those to be liberal Justices replaced by younger liberal Justices, but probably at least one other conservative Justice will retire. And that tilts the Supreme Court from its last functioning balance of 5-4 Conservative, to possibly within the first year of Hillary's term to already a 6-3 Liberal balance. And that will be utterly infathomable pain for Republicans because most of them have not been of voting age when the Court was last not in the hands of conservatives.

What if Trump loses real big. 10% 12% 15% or more. Then he'd also be HATED as a HUGE loser. Every single step he made, will be remembered and ridiculed and chronicled as a MISTAKE. Consider how much heat Sarah Palin took for 'reading all the newspapes' or what Romney got out of 'binders full of women' or of his 47%. Trump did something of that scale every week for 52 weeks! That means Trump will be seen as 'inherently flawed' a total moron and the most inept, most self-destructive politician ever - who lost the GOP the Senate AND the Supreme Court. Now Trump won't get a chance to defend himself. His last 'allies' will desert him (Newt has recently sounded very bitter about Trump already) and there will be plenty of those 'tell all' books about Trump's inside story, from those who were in the campaign, who release the stuff secretly or even defying Trump contracts, perhaps openly.

But there will be a race to lay blame. They will not want to take blame on the GOP itself. They did nothing wrong. This was a lunatic running a mad campaign. So they'll focus on the Khan family and Judge Curiel and grabbing women by their private parts. (They probably will keep the idea of the wall, it works well with their base voters).

This sets up an interesting dynamic. The Republican party will want to 'have its cake and eat it too'. They want to be able to blame Trump for all the nasty stuff he did - BUT to keep his VOTERS happy with the party. That will not be easy. Trump will of course want to blame all in the party that they sabotaged his run.

There will be a sane part of the party, we've heard leaders of it with the themes - like Bobby Jindal saying they have to stop being the stupid party denying science; Rand Paul talking about the plight of blacks and especially criminal justice; Jeb Bush talking about the sensible treatment of Hispanics; and Lindsay Graham saying they have to move past being the old angry white man's party. Its not that they don't know what they need to do - the Romney 2012 Autopsy was crystal-clear. The problem is, that Trump didn't fail in the desirable way. He should have run a 'clean' sane campaign on those idiot positions he took. He also ran a stupid campaign with truly wild stuff he did. So there will be a lot of people who will insist, the IDEAS are not bad, its the MAN who was bad. Lets do these (not all, but part of) Trump's ideas but execute it better, with a sane candidate who does release his taxes, does not grope women and doesn't admire Putin.

Then we're back to racism - lets ban the Muslims and build a wall - we're back to sexism, to anti-gay stuff, and all the rest. This party cannot win a proper balanced fair election. And if the GOP won't change internally, the voters will change the rules of the game. Like in Maine. Idiot Governor Paul LePage, a kind of prototype-Trump racist bigoted bully, won his 2 elections because there were two sane candidates who split the sane vote. So Maine is now voting for an election law change, that makes their elections for Governor (at least, I don't know if this also applies for Senator etc) to be a RANKED choices election. So you also put who you want second most, and so forth. This way they can never find an election where suddenly the lunatic won because two sane candidates blocked each other out.

The solution to the Tea Party sickness will come, it is inevitable. The question is, as you asked, will the GOP survive. So lets move down the house of horrors of November 9. What if I'm right. What if its a 16% election catastrophe and the HOUSE also flips. Then Trump cost the GOP the White House, Senate, Supreme Court AND the House. And now not only will Hillary be in charge, they get a ton of old hated rivals back in power, most of all Nancy Pelosi in the House. And if you remember Pelosi, she is an iron lady who keeps her house in order. She will ram through a Democratic agenda and there will be no bickering and no fracturing of the Democrats. And now she'd have a far more friendly President in Hillary, compared to Obama, plus a less established (and in his chamber, less powerful) Senate Majority Leader in Chuck Schumer. So Pelosi would run the legislative agenda and they'd GET THINGS DONE.

First off, this will annoy Tea Party Republicans simply because its Pelosi always in the news. Secondly, the Tea Party doesn't want to do ANYTHING. All government is bad to them. And lastly, Pelosi and Hillary will write in parts, that will DELIBERATELY tear apart individual members of Congress to vote on some legislation. This will further cause rifts inside the already fractured GOP.

So on November 9, it depends a lot, on how bad the damage is, on how it will play out in the coming weeks and months of the civil war. And whether the GOP can survive, will also depend on the fates of significant Republicans in Congress (few Senators in leading positions are challenged, probably John McCain is the most vulnerable and his polling still looks pretty solid). But its conceivable that Paul Ryan is voted out of office. But all House Members are up for re-election every 2 years. And polling suggests some of the most extreme Republicans like Darrell Issa are vulnerable. Who will be left to do the fighting on both sides, that also determines a lot on how that fight will go.

If its a huge loss as I expect, then I think the Republicans will also excommunicate and condemn those who went along to openly support Trump. This will be a parallel fight in the blame-game. Why did some big names openly endorse and support the madman. Its not unlike the way after World War 2, the Europeans that were liberated from the German occupation, immediately seeked to punish those who collaborated with the Nazis. It would be to the moderate wing's benefit to split those Tea Party types who went with Trump, away from the other Tea Partiers - via divide-and-rule.

Ok, I'll post this comment and do more

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Winter

Oh, important point. I am pretty certain that Trump is preparing his TrumpTV project however he may have conceived it. He will find at least early on, a willing eager audience but they may not be willing to PAY for watching Trump TV. And advertisers will not much warm to the idea of Trump as a brand past Nov 9. BUT if Trump TV gets on the air, and he'd probably then have most of his close buddies taken there to join him, THOSE will be an added thorn in the side of the civil war for the future of the GOP.

So then thinking of possible outcomes. Ignoring HOW we get here, a few possible outcomes for about year 2017-2018 (and 2020). First off. Internal civil war. A prolonged and increasingly bitter internal fight but no clear victors. The eventual cure has to come at some point. But if there is no clear victor, then we're headed to a difficult 2020 election and only after that big loss, could the party try to figure out a way to fix itself.

A second chance is a serious solution now. Sane heads prevail. They kick out or totally stiffle the nutters and take control of the party. Past party bosses could do this more easily when they had more political candy to wave, such as various pork-barrel projects of money to promise or deny, but that power has greatly diminished in recent years. I do think there are parts of the Tea Party movement who have learned through trial-and-error that the total obstruction way is not productive; and others who may have known it all along; and possibly some nastiest voices might lose their seats - it could be that the Tea Party was 'tamed' and agreed at least in the near term - up to 2020 - to play along and play nice. Paul Ryan (and Reince Priebus too) is definitely a politician who is capable of compromise while he is quite severely conservative by his political outlook. Similarly Mitch McConnell in the Senate can be reasoned with, as long as he is not stuck in another cycle of total obstruction. This would be kind of the 'best case' scenario.

Then there is the split. The Tea Party could literally split out of the GOP to start their own party the Freedom Party or whatever they'd want to call it. Whether kicked out or walked out or the result of some big fight, this could happen. It would instantly make both the rump-Republicans and the Tea Party minor parties into the next cycles, and they'd lose seats up and down BUT if the Tea Party was established as the right-wing Nationalist party (Nazi party) then the GOP could reorient itself to be a moderate business/small government party of probably libertarian-type of 'keep the government out of the bedroom' type of party that the GOP once used to be. But that would mean abandoning the religious Right who in this case would have gone with the Tea Party (not a foregone conclusion, they could also stay with the GOP).

Then there is the hostile takeover. This election is likely going to PURIFY the GOP. The GOP is certain to lose seats in the House and in the Senate. They tend to be moderate seats that are most vulnerable and thus, those who remain, tend to be more extreme right wing, more in line with the Tea Party (and other right wing fringe elements). So imagine Paul Ryan loses his seat, there is a power struggle and the Tea Party gets its guy to be the new boss, and then they appoint various Tea Partiers to various other posts and take over the party. Then there would still be the internal strife and bickering - but now its the last remaining moderates who would be in a distressed and endangered minority. Incidentally, the Democrats would be encouraging a few of the most moderate Republicans to abandon the party and come join the Democrats instead. A few MAY quit the GOP and become Independents. Especially any Republicans who has decided this is now their last cycle, and they will not seek re-election. They could just quit the party but sit in Congress as an Independent for the last two years.

Its possible but unlikely that the party splits THREE ways, with the Religious wing taking its own direction. Its also possible that the two or three right wing parties would then form a voting coalition (on most issues) and vote as a block. Similar to how some Independents like Bernie Sanders mostly (but not always) votes with the Democratic party.

Now the BRAND. I think the Republican BRAND is tarnished and the worse the damage, the worse their image too. It would be/could be a good idea to rebrand itself. Now if its exactly the same old GOP but with a new name, thats not exactly going to fix everything. But it COULD be that there is room for a new and different party, that could appeal to the Independents in Congress, and perhaps even draw away just one or two Democrats, who might feel slighted out of whatever power things the Democrats do. Someone doesn't get some nice Committee chairmanship or whatever. As long as its not only ex-Republicans but has some non-Republicans in it too - then a NEW party could be launched. A Conservative Party could sound like the right direction. Many of the people around the Conservative movement have complained often that the GOP was the Republican party but wasn't truly conservative on whatever issue-du-jour it might have been. If we consider the damage done to the Republican Party as a brand, by Trump, then yes, a rebranding could be useful, and then the more distinct and DIFFERENT from the past, the better. A Patriot Party for example.

Here's my measuring stick. In 2020, 2024, 2028 elections, if the GOP or whatever became of it (or its successor/s) can be seen as a perfectly SANE choice for young voters, black voters, women voters and Hispanic voters - then it has succeeded in the transition. I'd like it to also cover gays, Muslims, Jews, etc but lets keep to those 4 big voting blocks. If it is not seen as 'totally mad' for a voter in say 2024 to consider validly the choice between the GOP candidate and the DEM candidate, and that voter is say a Hispanic young woman - then the GOP has succeeded. They might not yet WIN OVER that woman voter, but if they at least are in the frame, seen as perfectly normal, sane and not repulsive as a party, then they've cured their Tea Party illness. Until that happens they cannot win a national election. And once the electoral shenanigans are removed that currently tilt the game, they can't win any other national elections either for Senate or House. Local government, Governors etc, they can win in red states but the longer they continue down this current path, the worse those contests also become.

Thats my immediate take on it haha... What do you think Winter. How will the party fare after Nov 9? Will it survive?

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Ok. Here we go... College of William & Mary/TargetSmart Florida poll of already-voted Floridians. Top-line news? 8% advantage for Hillary even thought votes cast are even by Democrats and Republicans. And why would that be... Oh my gosh this is so WAY much higher than I thought...

28% of REPUBLICANS are voting for Hillary in Florida. They are early voters, this may be the strongest anti-Trump vote edge that then subsides with time but talk about a crushing landslide devastating loss. A 50/50 state (in its early voting) is in reality 54/46 for Hillary. An 8 point BONUS gain. Its the stealth female vote (and some men too, no doubt) who are just punishing Trump for being an asshole. Good!

I hope a lot of them then go down the ticket and vote for other DEMs too, so she gets the down-ticket benefits.

Yeah. There is a reason why the Democrats are so calm and relaxed and know they're winning and why Trump is admitting already that he might lose this race. Their internal polling on both sides have known this race was over. Its why Trump is so angry at his own pollsters that he isn't paying them haha.

Ok we continue searching for more tidbits. But yeah, expect there to be a stealth Hillary vote in all other states too. She is going to win big, and the battleground states will not be close. Question is, how far can she win BEYOND the battleground states (starting with that tight race in Texas) and after the Senate, can she also flip the House. That will be a tight tight tight race but its certainly plausible. Oh, and VERY recently the Democrats have started to run the poisonous 'this guy is with Trump' ads in those local races.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Millard Filmore]

@Tomi: I think you are too optimistic about the GOP saving itself. In rural areas the concept of rugged individualism is strong. That myth is a fundamental feel good outlook that minimizes any positive benefit that a remote central government can produce.

There will always be a moderate number of SANE Republicans that disagree strongly with welfare, regulations, and whatever. Add to this all the CRAZY factions: white supremacists, grifting evangelicals (the ones that pray too loud, not the same as real evangelicals), wall street banksters, etc.

As a paranoid cynic, I do not see the SANE faction being a big enough segment to become a power center on its own. I fear it will take a staggering big hit to the country to clear out the CRAZY wing. Something like a large scale treason scandal that, even if the CRAZY legislators are not guilty, they are disgraced beyond repair. And that's the good scenario. Russia going to war in eastern Europe would shake things up in the USA just as well.