Presidential Race Even – Time To Panic?

Ken AshfordElection 2016, PollsLeave a Comment

For the first time ever this presidential season, my Polltracker graph (in the right column) shows Trump ahead of Hillary Clinton.  According to the Polltracker poll averages, Trump has 41.1% to Clinton’s 40.2%.

A couple of things to note.

Most importantly, Trump’s poll numbers have not gone up.  Almost no national poll places Trump above 45%.  It is, and always has been, his ceiling.  And nobody has ever been elected President with 45% or lower.

Clinton, however, has gone down, and understandably so, given her bad week.  Yes, she outspent Trump with ads 15-to-1, but that only managed to buffer the bad news of the email scandal.

Also, one should note that other poll averages are not as bleak.  Real Clear Politics average still has Clinton up by 2.7 points.

In addition, a lot of political events are coming that will change the landscape.  For example, this just happened:

…and pretty soon we get into the conventions with the convention bounces.

Also, the statewide polls still look good.  This came out just this morning:

Hillary Clinton leads Donald Trump in four of the most diverse presidential battleground states, according to brand-new NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls.

Clinton is ahead of Trump by eight points among registered voters in Colorado, 43 percent to 35 percent; a combined 21 percent say neither, other or are undecided.

In Florida, which decided the 2000 presidential election, she’s up seven points, 44 percent to 37 percent; the rest are undecided or prefer someone else.

In North Carolina, a state Obama won in 2008 but lost in 2012, Clinton leads by six points, 44 percent to 38 percent.

And in Virginia, Clinton’s advantage is nine points, 44 percent to 35 percent.

When we go to 538, which not only focuses on state polls, but also weights pollsters based on their past predictive success, we see that it gives Clinton a 62% chance of winning.

So panic?  No.  But Hillary has some work to do.  She has to deliver a few body blows to Trump, and she can’t count on Trump making self-inflicted wounds.

But I expect Trump to get a post-convention bounce, and then Hillary to get her bounce afterward.  If they are this close when the debates start (on September 26), then I might start to panic.

UPDATE: Like clockwork, Nate Silver answers my query….

What would keep me up late at night if I were Clinton?

We’ve gone over most of the reasons for concern. I’d be worried about those trend lines. I’d be worried about my numbers in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, especially after having spent a lot of money on ads. In a big-picture sense, I’d be worried that Americans come to view the race as one between two equally terrible choices, instead of Trump being uniquely unacceptable.

What would keep me up late at night if I were Trump?

I’d be worried that after a bunch of events that would seem to play to my strengths — Brexit, Orlando, Dallas and the resurfacing of Clinton’s email problems — the best I could do was to narrow Clinton’s lead. I’d be worried that some of those undecided and Johnson voters will gravitate toward Clinton now that Sanders has endorsed her (although I’d be hopeful that I have some room to grow among my own base). And I’d be worried about my ground game. Maybe FiveThirtyEight’s model says that I’m more likely to win the Electoral College than the popular vote — but a disorganized turnout operation could eventually yield problems in the swing states.