The Nation:
Donald Trump Has a Millennial Problem, and It Could Reshape American Politics
A generation that’s coming of age during this ugly election is rejecting Trumpism in a big way.
What’s really going on here is simply a reversion to the mean. Clinton’s “millennial problem” is based entirely on comparisons with young voters’ enthusiasm for Barack Obama. But Obama’s candidacy was unique, and singularly exciting for a generation that values diversity. Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California San Diego, explains that “this is the age cohort that typically has the lowest level of turnout, and they’re the hardest ones to mobilize. Obama was a special person in the sense that he was the first African-American, and he was stylistically closer to that generation than Hillary Clinton is. The identification they might have with someone who is as exciting and interesting as Obama doesn’t work as well with Hillary Clinton.”
When Hillary wins next week, we will be thanking the kids, women and people of color. Let me say that again, the kids are alright.
Natalie Jackson/HuffPost Pollster:
Clinton is currently about 6 points ahead of Trump in the HuffPost Pollster national chart, and our predictions give her 341 electoral votes. Assuming the polls haven’t become fundamentally more error-prone than in 2012, a 98 percent certainty of her election makes sense ― especially when compared with Obama’s 91 percent certainty with only a fraction of that lead. Maybe there are reasons to think 2016 is more uncertain than 2012 was; it certainly has been an unconventional year. But we’re trusting that pollsters have captured opinions reasonably well on average.
Latino USA:
Trump Peaks at 17.2% Support in Latest Pre-Election New Latino Voice Poll
Donald Trump’s Latino support is back to pre-convention levels, according to the latest online New Latino Voice (NLV) tracking poll released Wednesday from Florida International University and Hispanic mobile advertising company Adsmovil.
In the tracking poll’s 27th week (October 24–31), Trump’s 17.2% support with Latino voters was his highest number since early June. Despite seeing his best performance in the NLV in about four months, the Republican candidate still trails Hillary Clinton (73.5%) by about 56 points with Latino voters in this week’s poll, with Other gaining 9.3% support. (NLV has recently included a October 3 Latino Decisions analysis to its slides, predicting that Clinton’s Latino electoral support would reach historic levels.)
YouGov:
Recently Nate Silver asked us why our polls don’t bounce around much. In our polling, Clinton had a small lead in September which expanded to five or six points after the first Presidential debate on September 26. Since then a lot has happened – sex tapes, election rigging, WikiLeaks – but our numbers have budged only slightly. Over the past three weeks, our election model and polling for The Economist has shown a consistent lead for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump of three to five percent. In contrast, some other polls have shown wide swings. For example, the ABC/Washington Post poll had a Clinton lead of two points on September 22, rising to 12 points on October 22-23, and falling back to a single point yesterday.
We believe that most of the bounces seen in surveys this year represent sampling noise that can be reduced or eliminated by adopting by better statistical methodology. We risk a repetition of 2012 where polling swings were largely statistical mirages. The convention and first debate bounces in 2012 were mostly the consequence of transitory variations in response rates. Fewer voters were changing their minds than were changing their inclination to respond to surveys.
Remember the excellent 2012 RAND poll? It’s baack (Clinton +9).
CNN:
Libertarian vice presidential nominee Bill Weld defended Hillary Clinton Tuesday night, acknowledging an explicit split with his running mate Gary Johnson.
Weld, in an interview with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, said he disagreed with FBI Director James Comey's decision to announce publicly the agency was looking into more Clinton emails just days before the election and defended the Democratic presidential nominee whom he has known for decades.
"I'm here vouching for Mrs. Clinton, and I think it's high time somebody did," Weld said.
Weld is a guy that doesn’t want to be remembered as the new Ralph Nader.
Zack Beauchamp/Vox:
Forget conspiracy theories. This is why Trump’s Russian connection is actually a problem.
The problem with these stories isn’t just that they’re speculative. It’s that they obscure and even discredit the more sober evidence about Trump’s troubling attitude toward the Russian state.
There is basically conclusive evidence that Russia is interfering in the US election, and that this interference has been designed to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. There is strong evidence linking Trump’s foreign policy advisers to Russia, and Trump’s stated policy ideas are extremely favorable to Russian interests.
You don’t need to construct poorly evidenced conspiracy theories to explain this. There is a confluence of interests between the Kremlin and Donald Trump, and they are, in effect, helping each other. Russia’s role in the election is plenty worrying without positing any Manchurian Candidate plots. Here’s why.
James Hohmann/WaPo (published before the MULaw poll showing HRC +6):
Why Trump believes he can win Wisconsin – and why he’s probably wrong
“At this point, I think most Wisconsin voters would rather have a root canal, colonoscopy or almost even see the Vikings in the Super Bowl than hear one more word about Trump or Clinton,” Republican consultant Wendy Riemann, who served in the Walker administration for nearly five years, said from her native Sheboygan. “Wisconsinites don’t like Clinton, but Trump does not represent Midwestern values, and it will cost him greatly in some Milwaukee suburbs.”
Trump lost the Wisconsin GOP primary to Ted Cruz by 13 points in April. He lost Waukesha County by 39 points. Our Bob Costa interviewed white, upper-middle-class Republicans at a Starbucks in Waukesha yesterday. Trump continues to have a serious problem there, he relays, though there were also indicators that some holdouts are coming around. The two key quotes from Bob’s dispatch:
“You’re in a town that’s about going to college and raising a family. People are polished and hard-working. He’s not one of us,” said Andy Schwichtenberg, a 28-year-old stockbroker. “I did try,” he added with a sigh. “I went to a rally.” But he was not swayed and he was turned off by the crowd, which he noted was packed with guys “who came there on Harleys.”
Mary Jordan/WaPo:
A hot mic, groping charges and sexting: 2016 has not been a good year for men
This presidential election has been downright embarrassing to men. In its closing days, that’s how a lot of men, including Ken Oldham, see the 2016 campaign.
So many of its lowest moments involved men and sex: Donald Trump’s vulgar boasts on the “Access Hollywood” video about kissing women and grabbing their crotches. Women, one after another, accusing Trump of groping them. Women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct showing up at a presidential debate. And now, a new FBI inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails — triggered by, of all things, an investigation of illicit texts allegedly sent to an underage girl by the husband of a Clinton top aide.
“It’s disgusting,” said Oldham, 40, president of the United Way in Frederick, Md. “Men have not looked good in this election.”
“The vast majority of men are decent, civil human beings, and I don’t think we can be silent anymore,” said Oldham, who joined the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes fundraiser in downtown Frederick on Sunday to raise money to help survivors of sexual assault.
To make a point, Oldham and two dozen men did the walk in high heels. “It was the first time I had the guts to put on a pair of pumps and walk publicly through town,” he said.
Bloomberg:
Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting Chuck Schumer said Wednesday he’s lost confidence in FBI Director James Comey over his handling of the most recent disclosure in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation -- a tough rebuke to a man Schumer has long admired.
“I do not have confidence in him any longer,” said the New York Democrat, who has criticized as “appalling” Comey’s decision to send a letter to lawmakers 11 days before the election disclosing the bureau’s new review of e-mails potentially pertinent to the investigation of Clinton’s private server.
“To restore my faith, I am going to have to sit down and talk to him and get an explanation for why he did this,” Schumer said in an interview.