It’s a slow economic news week, so let me follow up with some further information about movement in the polls. My usual caution: polls are *NOT* forecasts, just nowcasts estimating what would happen if the election were today.
In the past few days, there is further evidence that Trump’s “law and order” message has resonated with at least a small subset of presumably white, probably older, voters. Below are some graphs from Nate Silver’s site of a few swing and swing-ish States. Note his graphs take into account national, as well as State-specific polls, but the net result is typically within 1% of what my average of State-only polling shows.
There has been a considerable narrowing of the race in Florida:
And also, to a bit lesser extent, in Pennsylvania:
There has also been some subdued movement in Georgia and in Iowa:
Michigan has narrowed slightly, although Biden’s lead remains pretty wide there:
On the other hand, there’s been no perceptible change in North Carolina:
And interestingly, in the two States that have been the epicenter of “Black Lives Matter” incidents, Minnesota and Wisconsin, Biden’s lead may actually have expanded slightly:
It is *way* overstating the case to say that “Biden’s in trouble.” He still has leads in all of the important swing States. And Trump is completely incapable of staying “on message.” He will inevitably rise to any bait that is immediately in front of him, and generate new controversies (like disparaging the military).
But, with “law and order,” telegraphing to conservative, older Whites that “the animals are loose,” he has found his *relatively* most resonant issue, and it shows in the polling.
Your not handling polling right. You need to extrapolate for polling biases and where remaining lagging votes will go.
My takeaway is that Biden is leading comfortably in the states that he needs in order to breach the 270 mark while Trump is in a dogfight with states that he needs just to get to 257 Electoral College votes. Trump needs to find an additional 12 votes to reach 269, which would throw the election to the House, where Trump would likely win. But if you’re fighting for the 257th vote it will be very tough to get find that 269th vote. Trump’s financial resources are strained and he’s having to devote time, money and effort in states like Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Georgia that ought to be in the bag. Those are also expensive markets. Biden’s goal shouldn’t be win a blowout election; his first priority should be to get to 270. Anything beyond that is just gravy.
2slug:
Why would trump win in the House when it is controlled by Dems? What am I missing?
Run,
It is not the vote of the full House, but the vote of each state’s House Reps. 50 votes.
Ok, something I have forgotten over the years! Thank you.
Congress ….. Representatives States
Democratic … 232 ………………. 23
Republican ….198 ………………. 26
The House of Reps is in some
sense a real House of Reps.
There are more Dem Representatives, but
a majority of states have Republican delegations.
Under the 12th Amendment, with a tie in the
Electoral College, the House decides: each
state gets one vote to choose the president.
Call it the Final Electoral College Insult.
Lets remember, Trump only got 71000 votes more in Ohio than Mittens from 2012. In the Bag, Ohio never will be.
The polls always tighten as the election approaches. The tribes retreat to their corners after the conventions. Sometimes that trend can be reversed because of late breaking externals. But not often.
Only Florida shows notable tightening. Certainly not PA, although in GA and IA Trump is up a bit. Main theory for Florida tightening is appeal to Cuban-Americans there of the GOP conventino that made a big fuss abotu Cuba and Venezuela and had a Cuban American from there on.
Otherwise not all that much change, and it has widened in Wisconsin where all the Kenosha mess was, so this “tightening,” such as ii is, is not about the “law and order” theme playing out, maybe more like Florida Cuban Americans believing Biden is a socialist who will bring Castro or Maduro like rule to the US.
Barkley:
If you are correct and likely are such, what a misconception.
Funny thing is I see posts on Facebook by the Biden campaign about supposed polls that I think do not exist showing Biden behind Trump in various states, with these messages appealing for money to overcome this awful situation. I kind of find this annoying frankly.
As it is, I am not a pollyanna and think Trump could still win. It really does get down to a handful of states where Biden mostly has leads, but not really large ones. Just as in 2016, short term memory is two weeks long, so what happens in the last two weeks is super important, see the Comey move 11 days before the 2016 election that did Hillary in. And the things that can move it one way or the other then are things that ahead of time are completely unforeseeable.
No, it will not be a vaccine announcement. Polls show that 62% of the population is already skeptical of any such last minute announcement, which has in effect already been announced. That will not be new and will be no big deal if is announced, even though some Trumpisti are counting on it, like Hannity’s “the Great One,” Mark Levin, who thinks that Dems are “terrrified of this one word, vaccine.” No, not that, but something else we are not at all thinking about, although it can go either way.
Barkley:
“Whata surprise, trump and/or Republicans are lying?” I am shocked, shocked anyone would stoop so low as to lie and for others to now believe these lies after 2016. We probably should get odds as to whether the “anybody but trump or Biden” vote will exceed what it was in 2016. Six percent was what it was in 2016 and more than 3 times what it was in 2012.
I watched a bit of a C-span clip of a Trump Rally last night and saw rapture in the faces of the crowd. They stood anxiously waiting to exult a response. You could see them take a deep breath in preparation. Remember rapture?
Eat your heart out Aimee Semple McPherson.
lawn order
i coulda told ya
thing is though, it was/is inevitable. if i were 18 or so, and especially if i was black, i’d be out there “rioting.” but even “protesting” invites rioters..agents provocateurs and our own idiots.
and the reaction is predictable. even “decent” people are afraid of mobs and riots and will vote for the strong man who protects them from
disorder.
do they poll the voting machines or discount the disenfranchised?
Trump is back to talking about polls again. But they still show him losing
via @BostonGlobe – September 10
When Donald Trump ran for president in 2016, a standard chunk of his stump speech was devoted to extolling how well he was doing in the polls or, alternatively, how the latest polls were wrong.
Trump isn’t talking so much about polls this year. Then again, there hasn’t been a lot for him to say that is positive.
But in the post-convention surveys, this has changed. Trump has closed the gap nationally from being down 9 percentage points to Joe Biden in July to down 7.5 percentage points now, according to the RealClearPolitics average. He has also moved the polling needle slightly in swing states.
It was enough that Trump was talking about polling again during an interview on Fox News on Wednesday night.
“I think we are leading in Florida. We’re leading in Wisconsin. We’re leading in Pennsylvania. We’re leading in North Carolina. I think we are leading in New Hampshire. We are leading by a lot — and we are really leading by a lot in Ohio, I just saw a poll a little while ago. I think we are leading all over the place, frankly,” Trump told Fox News host Sean Hannity.
For the record, he is not leading public polls in any of those places. And he is most certainly not winning Ohio by a lot. The most recent Ohio poll was done by Rasmussen, which often gives Trump is most favorable poll numbers, found Biden ahead there 49 percent to 44 percent last week.
That said, there has been a tightening in other swing states like Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina. This is clearly good news for Trump. He isn’t in a double-digit polling free fall like he was just a few months ago.
For example, Biden once led Florida in the RealClearPolitics by an average of 8 percentage points in late July, an advantage that now is 1.2 percentage points. During the same period in Pennsylvania, Biden’s lead shrunk from an average of 8.5 percentage points to 4.3. In North Carolina, it went from Biden leading on average by 4.7 percentage points to leading by 1.5 percentage points. In late July, Trump was fully tied with Biden in Texas according to the polling average, but now is up, on average, by 3.5 percentage points. …
RCP Average ………. Biden +7.5
FOX News …………… Biden +5
Economist/YouGov .. Biden +9
The Hill/HarrisX …….. Biden +8
Monmouth* …………… Biden +7
Reuters/Ipsos ……….. Biden +12
Rasmussen Reports . Biden +2
USC Dornsife ………… Biden +12
CNBC/Change Research (D)* Biden +6
Harvard-Harris ……….. Biden +6
IBD/TIPP ……………….. Biden +8
CNN ………………………. Biden +8
RealClearPolitics – Election 2020 – General Election: Trump vs. Biden
We keep finding new ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Coberly has it correct, although actual “lawn order” will be more my thing during our La Nina fall and winter. I will obtain my mail in ballot online in two more days when it first becomes available for mailing and then cast my straight Blue vote before just letting the chips fall where they may while getting something useful done.
In Wisconsin Poll, Unrest Concerns Don’t Translate Into Surge for Trump
NY Times – September 12
The key battleground of Wisconsin, which President Trump carried in 2016 by talking up trade, the economy and doubts about Hillary Clinton, is now awash in deep concern about violent crime, riots and protests — but voters aren’t favoring Mr. Trump on those issues even though he is pushing them hard, according to new polling from The New York Times and Siena College.
Worries about law and order have become so prevalent in the state that likely voters in the Times poll said the issue was just as important as solving the coronavirus pandemic, the public health disaster that has fueled economic distress, prompted schools to operate virtually and led to more than 1,200 deaths in the state, according to a Times database of coronavirus cases.
Yet so far, Mr. Trump has failed in his attempt to capitalize politically on his inflammatory remarks about the unrest in Kenosha, Wis., where last month demonstrators burned a number of buildings following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Mr. Blake remains hospitalized after being shot seven times in the back during a confrontation captured on video and later broadcast online. …
For more than a decade, Wisconsin has been among the most polarized and evenly divided states in the country, and the fate of its political candidates has hung on turnout. When Democrats in its two major cities — Madison and Milwaukee — turned out in big numbers, party standard-bearers like Barack Obama and Gov. Tony Evers won statewide elections. But when Democratic turnout in Milwaukee or Madison has been soft, Republicans have prevailed: former Gov. Scott Walker carried the state in three elections between 2010 and 2014, and Mr. Trump won in 2016 by fewer than 23,000 votes out of nearly three million cast.
In Wisconsin’s cities, enthusiasm is high. The poll found 81 percent of voters in the cities said they were “almost certain” to vote, compared with 69 percent of suburban voters and 68 percent of rural voters. These city voters are also far more likely to favor Mr. Biden over Mr. Trump to maintain law and order. The intensity gap, if it is maintained through Election Day, is likely to benefit Mr. Biden. …
Joe Biden is leading among likely voters in four swing states
…………………………..2016 Result ………. Sept. 2020
Minnesota (n=814) +2 Clinton ………… +9 Biden 50-41
Nevada (462) …….. +2 Clinton …………..+4 Biden 46-42
New Hampshire (445) ….<1 Clinton ….. +3 Biden 45-42
Wisconsin (760) …..<1 Trump …………… +5 Biden 48-43
Based on a New York Times/Siena College poll of likely voters from Sept. 8 to Sept. 11.
(tweet) Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
I thought Mini Mike was through with Democrat politics after spending almost 2 Billion Dollars, and then giving the worst and most inept Debate Performance in the history of Presidential Politics. Pocahontas ended his political career on first question, OVER! Save NYC instead.
—-
Michael Bloomberg to spend at least $100 million to help Biden in Florida
via @BostonGlobe – September 13
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is committing at least $100 million to help Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in the crucial battleground state of Florida.
Bloomberg’s late-stage infusion of cash reflects Democrats’ concerns about the tight race in a state that is a priority for President Donald Trump. A victory for Biden in Florida, the largest of the perennial battleground states, would significantly complicate Trump’s path to reaching the 270 Electoral College votes needed to secure a second term. …
One of the world’s wealthiest men with a net worth estimated to exceed $60 billion, Bloomberg promised throughout his campaign that he would help Democrats try to defeat Trump regardless of how his own White House bid fared.
He exited the presidential race pledging to spend “whatever it takes” to defeat Trump, and has already invested millions to support Democrats up and down the ballot. Bloomberg transferred $18 million from his presidential campaign to the Democratic National Committee, and transferred its offices in six key swing states to the local Democratic parties there. …
Michael Bloomberg to spend at least $100 million to help Biden in Florida
Fred:
Do you mind if I email you?
Bill (run75441 – moderator)
I don’t mind, but
don’t expect
a response.