There’s a lot going on in the polls as we wrap up this election. After two weeks of penniless media coverage, Trump seems to be surviving, with the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll shows him lagging behind Clinton four points. This is movable. CNN/ORC and NBC News polls show Clinton ahead of Trump nine and six points respectively. Something is wrong with the ingredients. Regardless, this race looked like it could enter a tie, and if not for Trump’s indefensible remarks about groping women, caught on the 2005 Access Hollywood tape, James O’Keefe’s tapes showing Democratic operatives plotting voter fraud and inciting violence at Trump rallies, along with dozens of emails (i.e. Clinton’s Wall Street speeches) would be front and center. In fact, I’ll just make the bold prediction that Trump could already win this race.
But it wasn’t. Republicans abandoned Trump, withdrew their support, and called on him to step aside. Even Gov. Mike Pence told Trump he would be alone for the next 48 hours after the Access tape was released the weekend before the second presidential debate. Trump came out looking great, which healed the wound — but the media continued its absurd weeklong investigation into whether the locker room chatter existed (it does, people — trust me) and the various other women who have accused Trump of sexual harassment. So we know Trump isn’t winning any up-to-date voters right now, especially suburban women. What about men? Men have long favored Republicans — and Trump had a decisive advantage among that group. Well, up-to-date Bloomberg poll For the first time, Clinton leads among male voters and has a nine-point lead over Trump:
Trump’s support among key groups of voters, including men and the less educated, has eroded in the final days of the campaign, a result that could translate into a landslide defeat for Republicans in the Electoral College and defeats in lower-level races that will decide control of the House and Senate.
“This poll shows a movement toward Clinton with all the right groups needed to win — including men and people without college degrees,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, who oversaw the survey ahead of Wednesday’s final debate. “Their support for Clinton is a sea change in algebra.”
After trailing men all summer, Clinton now has 46 percent of them in a hypothetical two-way race, compared to Trump’s 44 percent. She leads women by 17 points and has a 1-point advantage among white women, 46 percent to 45 percent.
In the overall two-way contest, Clinton leads by 50 to 41, the same margin as if independents were included.
Before we get to Ann Selzer, in September she noted that based on her polling in Ohio, the situation looked like this: like the electorate of 2004 on the ground. In fact, for a brief period before the Access Hollywood fiasco, Trump looked like he might be competitive in Colorado and Nevada. Winning those states, along with Ohio, Iowa, and Florida, would not only give him victory — but, with the exception of New Mexico and Virginia, would more or less mirror George W. Bush’s successful reelection bid in 2004. That’s no longer the case. The latest polls show Florida may be slipping away. If Clinton wins on Nov. 8, the race is over.
Now, I’m not going to be negative about this. We’ve written Trump’s political obituaries many times, and every time we’ve been surprised when he’s turned the tables. This is not a normal election year — and Trump is not a typical candidate. Let’s see what happens. What’s a little disconcerting for the Trump team is that every time he’s been about to fall off a cliff going into the general election, there’s been some up-to-date information about the email scandal or some up-to-date detail about the Clinton Foundation. We’ve had the Wall Street transcripts, the emails mocking Catholics, Clinton’s support for fracking (which she opposes), and various other positions that contradict her supposed leftward shift. As for the email scandal, it’s possible that her server has already been compromised, when a confidential document found on Romanian hacker Guccifer’s server included Clinton’s IP address. Trump certainly has plenty of ammunition to utilize against Clinton tonight. This could be the moment where he turns the tables, but he needs to provide a solid response to all of these allegations, beyond saying that these women were too ugly for him to grope. If he can do that, he can move on to any of the latest developments we’ve read about in the Wikileaks documents. As for Russia and cybersecurity, he shouldn’t neglect to mention the unsecured Clinton email server we know he had at least 53 hacking attempts opposed it. Trump sidestepped this point of discussion twice.
If you really want to see doom and gloom, here’s NBC’s Chuck Todd, who warned that The Republican Party is on the brink of total disaster.. The Washington Post he mentioned that everything Trump touches dies. Make no mistake; Trump is in trouble. He’s behind, but let’s not write him off yet. He still has time to surprise, although that window is closing swift. This debate is the last earnest push to get him back on his feet. He needs to have a solid night against Lady Macbeth.
