Things turned on a dime for Clinton
I’ve been tracking data from the Pivit prediction market this year, and up to the last couple of weeks it has looked very, very bad for Donald Trump. The combined, state-by-state probability of a Clinton win had been as high as 96%. That all seems to have turned on a dime.
Hillary’s overall probability of a win started what would become a 30% plummet when Ohio and Iowa flipped, shortly after the “basket of deplorables” remark. The health episode at the 9/11 memorial, and the revelation that the campaign has been hiding a pneumonia diagnosis no helped propel the newest states to flip Trump: Florida and Nevada.
Trump still has an uphill battle
Even with the miserable two or three weeks Clinton has had, the Electoral math still remains a yuuge challenge for Trump. Even if the prediction market is correct, and Hillary loses Florida, Ohio, Iowa, and Nevada….Trump still loses. On his best day in this cycle, Trump still comes up five electors short of a win — and those five look extremely hard to pick up. The remaining states that Trump even has a remote prayer to win are Colorado, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire. And those states indeed fall into the wish category on Trump’s wish-list.
The first debate
The first Clinton-Trump debate will probably be the most viewed television debate of all time. And the election will probably hinge on it. If Clinton wipes the floor with Trump, the last two weeks will become a distant memory, and we’ll snap back to the Electoral Map we had a month ago and Clinton will phone in an easy victory. But, if the debate is even a “draw” you can count Trump as the winner. Right now he has the momentum, and in mid-September the momentum is pure gold.
Follow the Pivit electoral map at http://electoralmap.net/
Updates on Twitter at https://twitter.com/electoralmap
