Panic Reset: Is There A Tightening Race or Is The Race TOTALLY Settled? Hillary vs Trump is.. Totally Settled

In the past few days there have been several ... questionable .. polls out. And suddenly the Democrats are utterly in panic mode. And the Republicans feel that they suddenly have a chance to win the election. Ha. Ha. Ha. No there is no race. This is so settled, and so long ago. No, there is no movement. The race is not getting tighter.

How do we know? There is a consistent daily tracking poll that has measured this race for months. Its the Reuters daily tracking poll. Their latest data shows to November 1, so it includes the full effect of the nonsense FBI letter too. This poll is a 5 day daily tracker poll, so they take the last 5 days of polls (doing usually a bit over 200 interviews per day, weekends included, every day. They remove the oldest poll - 6 days ago, adding the latest one, and thus every day the last 5 days are counted. A rolling poll. ) And if we take their data for every consecutive 5 day period, we get nice over 1,000 interview polls of Likely Voters, very confident statistically, having less than 3% margin of error. And then, if we take the last TEN such 5-day intervals, we have 10 consecutive polls that run back 50 days, back to mid September, before the first debate. And lets see how the race looks like. This is the SAME pollster, every 5 days, no people here are duplicated, this is 10 consecutive polls each large enough to have over 1,000 interviews at least, and a margin of error of under 3%. In total it covers 14,000 interviews. This is what the race looks like:






Yes. There is NO MOVEMENT. Those are about as flat lines as are statistically possible. The fluctuation is more TYPICAL STATISTICAL ERROR than any measured movement. This picture hides THREE DEBATES !!! That Hillary won, by HUGE margins. But no movement. There is p*ssygate, barely visible. There is the FBI letter now. And no. This race is NOT getting tight. It is NOT a 1% race. Its a SEVEN POINT RACE. Its what its been all along. Over the past 50 days if anything, the race has WIDENED slightly, from a 5% race at the early part, to now a 7% race. Over the past 50 days, it averages as a 6% race. This is not a close contest. Romney and Obama were at 1% this time in 2012. McCain lost to Obama by 7% in 2008. Hillary is ahead by 7%. The race is not suddenly getting close. The only reason the RCP average now shows a tighter race, is because Republican propaganda pollsters like Rasmussen have bogus polls out. If the race was getting tight, this poll would show it. It isn't showing ANY movement. Once we get the normal reliable pollsters out with their next (final) polls, the race will be back to the same normal 7% its been all along!

These candidates are the best known candidates ever to run. The voters know fully well who they are and if they can vote for them. Trump is at a 40% ceiling and cannot penetrate that. Hillary will get somewhere above it but she isn't popular either. And this is not a contest. Trump has lost this election already. The voters knew in September they don't want the orange-faced, phony-hair small-fingered vulgarian.

The major pollsters will run their final polls this weekend. We'll get at least a dozen polls, could be as many as 20. THEY will tell us that this race is not close. But if the race was getting close this daily-run poll at Reuters would show it. Look at that picture. Its as flat as a heart monitor of a patient that has died. There is no race. Trump has lost this election. He lost it long ago.

Comments

[steve]

concur.

the only real unknown is the Republicans that vote for HRC vs not vote for Prez at all or write in something.

Estimates are ranging from 20 to 30 % of Republican women are voting for HRC.

Dem's voting for DT is low single digits.

If the Independents break to the national averages, it is the 6 to 7 % race as shown above.

But Electoral college is a different science.
For much of Oct. maybe 350+
I think the tightening is closer to 320.

If she gets AZ, NC, FL ....it is a rout.

[Winter]

The remaining question is voter turn out beyond the historic levels. Both sides have a GOTV program. Both have a big data program to drive the GOTV efforts.

It is believed Hillary's are an order of magnitude better than that of the GOP. Personally, I suspect the current GOP GOTV organization and database efforts are worse than those of 2012.

[Hubert Lamontagne]

Cenk Uygur on why Hillary's support is so soft:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyc8LGOmwWs

[Winter]

An explanation for the email hype: The media simply do not know which Trump scandal to cover.

The media can’t decide which Donald Trump scandal to cover, and that’s the problem
http://www.dailynewsbin.com/opinion/the-media-cant-even-decide-which-donald-trump-scandal-to-cover/26481/

Note, each and every of these scandals are much, much worse than the emails of Hillary.

But when you have watched Michael Moore in Trumpland, you know Trump supporters simply do not care: The Donald is the molotov cocktail older white men were waiting for. They simply want to throw a hand grenade into the system as a message. Afterwards, they will complain that somebody should clean up the mess.

[RickO]

Coincidence or Conspiracy. Nobody could write a novel like this. From an non American view this election campaign was a circus. Now the news of FBI reopening it cases regarding Hillary's emails and the Clinton Foundation - Pay and Play. Hillary's DOS position and alleged deals with the Saudi's and terrorists and destablizing many Arab states.
People taking the 5th and cutting deals with the FBI already. The alleged influence on ongoing investigations by the DOJ (Loretta Lynch) and (FBI) Peter Kadzik and President Obama himself - and the established Elite and Media of America. Add the usual suspects, Weiner, Podesta, Adedin, Comey and the FBI internal revolt, Giuliani, Gingrich (their comments of 20 serious Indictable offences - makes Water-Gate look like a kindergarten play ground. Bring in the Conspiracy theorists - The Clinton Death List - (Megan) Kelly File, Hannity, Joseph Paul Watson, InfoWars,the list is endless. Putin must be laughing so much, his nuts must hurt. Deal as much as you can with numbers and stats - but is that really the state of play in US politics at this moment. Nobody could write a noel is good. Make a good movie one day.

[Winter]

@RickO
"Coincidence or Conspiracy. Nobody could write a novel like this."

This book covered the primaries pretty well. And it came out before the Republican primaries even started.

The Lafayette Campaign: a Tale of Deception and Elections (Frank Adversego Thrillers Book 2)
https://www.amazon.com/Lafayette-Campaign-Deception-Elections-Adversego-ebook/dp/B010RF882O

The author was very surprised:
The Hacking of the 2016 Election – Did I Write the Script?
http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2016072911422978

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Let me make this point once more. I am utterly stunned that there are no new Trump news bombshells. We just heard that the Trump hotel in Toronto filed for bankruptcy. He is a ridiculously bad businessman, he's an animal as a human being and he's worked with some real scumbags his whole life (there's a recent video of him hanging out with a Mafioso that his kids knew also, and Trump has said of course that he never met him) and on and on and on. But no, no big bombshell news story. The child sex slavery story is lingering on the slow burner on obscure websites but nothing there. The one woman who has sued Trump for being raped as a 13 year old, had a news conference scheduled but that was cancelled at the last minute. How is there nothing on any of these stories. Nothing. Its weird. This is the last weekend to do the big bombshell news and for it to be the biggest news story of Sunday Morning talk shows, now would be the time. Friday, Saturday or at the very very latest, for Sunday papers, release the story around midnight of Saturday-Sunday night. I am astonished that there is nothing.

The last big bombshell news (since p*ssygate) were what, the Fidel Castro Cuba story I guess and then what, Chinese Steel for Trump Tower? It looked just for a moment we'd have a big Russia-Connection story to Trump and an FBI investigation and the Alfa Bank link etc, but that fizzled out almost instantly. I find this astonishing. And then they continue with the nonsense of emails, Anthony Wiener's emails as being the way to somehow smear Hillary with that story. I am just. Stunned.

I would think, its supreme professional malpractise for the 'Fourth Estate' - the press, the free press to SUPPRESS major stories about the other finalist for President, if they had them. Or not to pursue them rigorously in the past 5 months, if they had the lead into the story. If the 'Trump is a horrible person' stories come out AFTER November 8, then this will have been a totally totally failed media year, that will have just perpetuated and GROWN the misinformed, duped part of the electorate. That the media was duplicit in the brainwashing of the gullible, and that will then lead into FAR MORE hatred and racial violence and sexual abuse etc, of those now emboldened to think Trump was normal and acceptable, and if then Trump gets away with say a 7% election loss of the scale of John McCain. McCain is perfectly fine with a political career after that humiliation (except that he turned incredibly bitter and bore the grudge against Obama, can you IMAGINE how horrible Trump will be, if he is allowed back into the public space after November 9?)

Now. Its possible that Trump is a total fraud and paper tiger and even his misdeeds are just figments of his imagination and he's never even grabbed a woman by the pussy and the story of him raping his wife was a planted story to somehow make Trump feel more macho. Thats possible. Its possible there IS NO SMOKING GUN. That Trump is just a baby in a man's body and while he has tantrums he has not really damaged anything or anyone other than himself, repeatedly and his various ventures.

But if not. If there ARE really nasty stories about Trump and women (12 women have come forward) or Trump and foreign strings (Deutsche Bank, Alfa Bank, Chinese banks, Saudi bailout of his past bankruptcy) or of Trump breaking laws (labor laws, election laws, tax laws, his phony Foundation, etc) or Trump various frauds like Trump University, and on and on and on and on - if those stories then come out in November and December and January, and some of the sanest who ended up voting for Trump feel horrified, that if they had known 'this' they would not have voted for Trump - if this happens, then yes, the Free Press has abdicated its duty this season and it will be disgusting.

This is the last moment. I don't know that Trump is actually any more worse than what we've seen (ie p*ssygate) but gosh, if those stories ARE in the press, they should come out this weekend. They need to be out for the election, not the weeks after it.

Ok, I have done my ranting. Lets get back to digging for nuggets of whats going on..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Tomi
Those who plan to vote for him will not change their mind, whayever news comes out. Literally nothing will make them change. Those who do not want to vote for him do not need more scandals.

You showed the polls. Nothing xhanged in 50 days.

[sgtrock]

@Tomi;

I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer AMOUNT of all the well documented issues that are out there. People, including journalists, have become numb to some extent. As Kent Olbermann documented a while back, it's simply astonishing that anyone takes Trump seriously as a candidate:

http://www.gq.com/story/176-reasons-donald-trump-shouldnt-be-president-olbermann

He wrote that in mid-Septmeber, well before 'p**ygate'.

That's not to say that Hillary doesn't have a ton of baggage of her own, mind you. It's just that there's nothing new to hang anything on when it comes to Trump. Now, if Comey had played things fair and announced that in addition to investigating Clinton, the FBI was also investigating TRUMP, then the press would have something new to talk about. But, nooooo. He's playing favorites all the way.

Frankly, the methods that the Republicans have chosen to remain in power over the past three or four decades, especially since 2004, have done more to sour me on the GOP than anything else. Too bad. I have always considered myself a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. When I was younger I generally found myself voting a split ticket, depending upon how the current issues aligned with my core values. I have not seen anything but lies, cheating, misogyny, and racism from the vast majority of the Republicans for quite a while.

Not that I make the mistake of seeing the Democrats as angels. There's plenty about what they back that I can't align to. FISA is too broad. Copyright is about 100 years too long. Government growth 'just because' makes me nervous.

Sigh. I really wish we had a multi-party system here.

[cornelius]

Hi Tomi,

You can't really dismiss any polls you don't like and declare them outliers and just trust whatever poll fits your narrative (in this case Reuters). I think the aggregation of polls offer a much more realistic view of the race. I am not saying we should panic. That serves no purpose and, anyway, Clinton is ahead of where Obama was 4 years ago, so there is no reason to panic. But there should be serious concern about this race. It is very far from in the bag for Clinton. And after the election there should also be serious concern about the severely underestimated number of morons in the US. The fact that this race is so close is the proof.

[Winter]

@cornelius
"And after the election there should also be serious concern about the severely underestimated number of morons in the US."

As I always say, never forget that half the people score below average. ;-)

If you want to understand more read this (really good):

THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
http://harmful.cat-v.org/people/basic-laws-of-human-stupidity/

[Tester]

@cornelius:

I think Tomi is right when he dismisses polls that are too erratic. That normally signifies bad polling rather than an actual trend - especially when these polls come from politically biased sources.

I have seen some really weird things in the last few days that suggest a dramatic shift in voter alignment - but these things are so out of the blue that it's hard to believe them, they look more like Republican propaganda than genuine polls. In any case, the really relevant numbers are the state polls, not the nationwide ones, and the last numbers from the most critical states, i.e. Wisconsin, Colorado, Pennsylvania and Virginia don't look critical at all. If Clinton wins these 4 states, Trump is done.

Now, about keeping quiet about Trump's scandals, maybe the plan is to let him run his game, then unload the crap on him and get Pence as president, who on his own would never stand a chance. I think that would be the dream outcome for the GOP. Aside from that, as has been said, it wouldn't change anything. Trump's voters would just write it off as yet another attempt to 'rig the election' and still vote for him.

"And after the election there should also be serious concern about the severely underestimated number of morons in the US."

What about other countries which actually voted some sinister types into office, like Poland? It's a sad truth that democracy is always at risk of being subverted by those who manage to fool the dumb masses.

[Winter]

Just like every other election, the GOP tries to deceive people out of their vote:

Fake Clinton ads on Twitter tell supporters they can vote by text
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/fake-clinton-ads-twitter-supporters-vote-text-article-1.2856830

[Millard Filmore]

Here is a little something that supports Tomi's inclination to put Hillary's victory as bigger than the polls indicate:

http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/3/1590674/-Latino-electorate-both-on-track-for-historic-turnout-and-routinely-undercounted-in-polls

"the polling firm Latino Decisions (LD) is projecting a record turnout of between 13.1 million and 14.7 million Latino voters, up from 11.2 million voters in 2012."

And here is Latino Decisions' tweet:

ABC poll suggests Latinos will be 8% of electorate - down from 10% in 2012. LOL. Latino early vote in FL is up by over 100% compared to 12 https://t.co/JYEkXCT46I
— Latino Decisions (@LatinoDecisions) November 3, 2016

[Winter]

How the Republican.party fights democracy tooth and nail:

Latinos Face Long Lines, False Information with Early Voting Underway
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latinos-face-long-lines-false-information-election-underway-n676961

[Eduardo M]

About the lack of new Trump scandal news coming from the Clinton campaign, I read something about a week ago, sorry I can't find a link, that said she feels she has the election in the bag and is focusing more on trying to develop good relations with the sane Republican politicians so as to get legislation through congress when she becomes president. That would fit with what I have heard about how she did things as a senator.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Ok. We're just about into the period of the last polls by the big pollsters. Reuters/Ipsos has their poll out, 1,850 interviews (is big sample, usu national polls about 1,000). This may be their last or probably their penultimate poll, as they'd just have enough time to do one more over the weekend and release it on say Monday.

Where does Reuters/Ipsos see the race? 8%. They were a mid-pack pollster in the previous polls, nowhere near the top of the range ie not 'very Hillary-friendly' but not Trump-friendly either. And last time a week ago they had the race at 4%. Most important point of this 4-way poll? Trump is at 37%.

So a few days of hysteria driven by VERY questionable pollsters that are at least borderline propaganda outfits. But now a 'mid tier' pollster measures the near-end state of the race at 8% for Hillary. I DO EXPECT this to be close to where the polling ends, not 2%. We are VERY LIKELY to see polls that go HIGHER than this, by a few pollsters that tended to see the race very favorably for Democrats. I do NOT expect 8% to be an 'outlier' poll. And this is totally consistent with a roughly 7% race, now the last voters are making up their minds - and the point I've said again, and again, and again, there is a ceiling. Trump can't breach 40%.

This is only one poll. It IS possible they have measured it wrong. But this is far more consistent with the general numbers we've seen PRIOR to the few silly polls out by questionable pollsters in the past few days. The polls do not suddenly shift by ten points, as Newt Gingrich said. And there has been no big debate debacle or another p*ssygate to suddenly cause any polling collapse or jump on either side. The FBI letter is total bogus story.

Now, while we're on it. There is a good story on Politico about the stealth Trump supporters. They call them shy Trump voters. Those who would be willing to vote for Trump but are ashamed to say so for pollsters. There is some evidence that there were some Republican primary voters like that, early in the season. Politico and Morning Consult did a study and found there is not a statistically relevant size of such voters, if any exist. It will not move the race by a point or more.

So yeah. Then we go back to monitoring for more news... Its already Friday early morning my time, meaning 4 days and 4 nights, and then we get the big election day

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Millard Filmore]

Golly, I sure hope there is something to this tweet:

"Kurt EichenwaldVerified account @kurteichenwald
Coming up tomorrow in @Newsweek: One of my most important stories so far pertaining to the election."

https://www.balloon-juice.com/2016/11/03/all-hat-no-cattle/#comment-6089878

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

Had to come right back, with that Reuters/Ipsos survey. I read through the full data they have and it has 3 noteworthy details apart from the 8% race.

First, the 2-way vs 4-way damage. The race now holds Hillary support the same in 2-way race vs Trump and 4-way race that includes Johnson & Stein. But Trump loses 2 points going to 4-way. I think this echoes the idea that Trump is now damaged by the third party candidates (more than Hillary). And they are acting as the 'safe escape route' for disgruntled Republican voters, if they don't want to vote for Trump.

Second, is the bleed of Democrats voting for Trump vs Republicans voting for Hillary. As I've said, usually that is roughly even (as in Obama vs Romney) but sometimes its lopsided (as in Obama vs McCain, and that was due to the toxicity of Sarah Palin). Now we have the same imbalance. Trump does get 6% of Democrats voting for him. But Hillary gains 9% of Republicans voting for her. Such a big imbalance, 3 points, means of course stolen voters, so they count twice in the final vote split, so they result in a 6 point split. They are the largest reason why its an 8 point race. And we know those are mostly women Republicans who are voting for Hillary.... But yeah, there is a bleed of Democrats also voting for Trump but its not as big as the first fear of the Florida early vote (misunderstanding) suggested. Its now more in line with where I think the race will end.

Last - and this is an encouraging sign. They ask the popularity of the two candidates. Trump has actually seen his bad reputation improve, he is not as hated as he's been a few weeks ago. But he is still the most hated candidate ever to run and has a net unfavorability rating of -10% (55% unfavorable, 45% favorable). But get this.. Hillary is improving and... she is POSITIVE. She's up 2%. She's 51% to 49% favorable. I said she might just hit that level by election day and clearly her second and third debates were designed to feed just her favorability, rather than crush Trump more and be seen as a viciously nasty angry woman. She also has a lot of positive ads running about her, in addition to the attack ads on Trump, to work on that favorability. But this should be a great sign over at Brooklyn, the first time in this survey since right after the Convention, briefly then, she is again now in positive territory. Just in time for election day. If Hillary is at 51% popularity, she can pretty well be expected to also reach about that in the final vote (perhaps just a bit above it, by the GOTV effort that can target friendly voters).

There are still 5% voters who are undecided, so some voters need to be allocated but it does look like Trump is out of those sweepstakes and the undecided voters will be distributed among Hillary, Johnson and Stein. If so, her 8% will of course end up around 10% to 12% by this poll's suggested election outcome. And THAT also, is just my guess, but gosh, a few of my guesses are starting to come out pretty good right-about-now, funk-soul-brother haha..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Lugnut]

There's a problem with national polls like the Reuters/Ipsos one you're citing in that the election is not about popular vote on a national scale. The state polls are far more indicative of how things are going to go on election day. The electoral college vote is what will decide the election and from that perspective the race is closer than a national poll can discern.

That said, I agree that the race is NOT tightening--there's no way that so many people would have suddenly changed their minds within the past week. Almost everyone has had their minds made up for months. I think people are just so fed up with this election that they are not answering polls, and we're seeing a selection bias in the results toward overly exuberant Trumpsters.