Hillary has this. It's done. Finis. Stick a fork in Trump.
Nate, IMO is gun-shy after his over exaggeration of Trump’s nomination chances. He’s looking at this race the way my dad watches New Orleans Saints games… looking at the negative and ignoring reality. What he’s basically saying is Trump has a chance at running the table on all the razor thin close swing states and I’m here to tell you that that’s impossible absent a wave election.
Who am I? Well I’m not a statistician but I have stayed at the Holiday Inn. I also (as I recall) was the only person in the 2008 Dailykos prediction contest that picked the electoral vote spot on… even the Nebraska congressional district Obama vote. That beats Nate’s heralded 49 of 50 state prediction.
I was a regular reader of Nate in 2008 and I can’t believe he missed Indiana. Look at the polling averages of Indiana above. Zogby and Rasmussen are Republican leaning outliers. Take those two out and Obama was ahead or tied in every poll except the Howey-Gauge poll. Plus, Obama had a greater lead earlier in October and polls naturally tighten (as they are now) but that doesn’t mean there’s a been a shift. So even when Nate was on his game, he missed. Indiana hadn’t gone blue in forever and he didn’t trust the (real) polls.
I thought of this today when I looked at his Alaska page. Electoral-vote.com has Alaska at 45% Trump, Hillary 43%. Nate has Trump up 7 points! How could this be? Let’s look:
To the right is Nate’s Alaska polling. Google has Trump ahead +1, Nate adjusts to +3
Cracium has Hillary up +4, Nate adjusts it gives the poll to Trump +1.
Lake Research: Trump +1, Nate adjusts it to Trump +7!
Survey Monkey is the outlier with Trump +12 so what does Nate do? Ups it to Trump +13
With Moore Info he adds +3 to Trump. With Ivan Moore he ups it to +2. Google he adds +2 and then again with have SurveryMonkey with +12 and Nate adjusts it to +15!
The only other poll that had Clinton up, Google 10/20-24 with +4, he reduced it to +1.
This is just one state I looked at and I’m stopping there because he’s completely lost it. (Sorry Nate but it’s true). He’s literally throwing out the results of every poll in Alaska and giving his own. Now I know he has a methodology but come on!
So I disagree with him with Trump’s chances and will give you my prediction, as the 2008 Daily Kos electoral vote champion (actually I didn’t win the actual contest because I was off on my congressional picks).
2016 Popular Vote
Take a look at the RCP averages to the right. What stands out? Hillary’s floor is 45 and Trump’s ceiling is 45. Trump has only cracked 45 once in this huge batch of recent polls and Hillary has only fallen below twice… and one of those is Rasmussen. The other one is the IBB tracking tie 44-44.
I’m sorry folks but if Trump cannot crack 45 five days before the election, he is NOT winning the election.
2016 Electoral Votes
Historically candidates cant and don’t sweep battleground states that are razor thin margins in polls. My guess is states have different demographics, different politics, different elections. What’s playing in NH is not in Nevada. What’s factoring in Florida’s votes is different than Ohio.
Back in 2004, in the final RCP averages for the swing states with a margin of 2% or less, Bush led Florida by 0.6, Wisconsin 0.9, Iowa 0.3, New Mexico 1.4. Kerry led Penn by .9 and New Hampshire by 1.0. Not only did neither of them sweep, but the ONLY state that flipped was Wisconsin for Kerry.
Even in 2008, when there were only two battleground states with a difference of less than 2%, Indiana (Obama led) and Missouri (McCain led), Obama didn’t sweep. McCain won Missouri.
You can go back and past elections, and I haven’t, but I’ll bet you this hasn’t been done absent a wave election. I certainly can’t recall any.
Now let’s look at the battleground states this year (to the right).
Even if we give every state Trump is presently leading by razor thin margins, Ohio, New Hampshire, North Carolina AND Nevada to Trump, Hillary wins with 297 votes.
The only other state at less than 2% is Florida. So for Trump to win, we must assume that he wins EVERY state which is less than 2% including Florida. That’s not happening. How do I know?
Well I can point to Hillary’s excellent GOTV efforts with early voting in Nevada and Florida but even absent that, it just historically doesn’t happen.
My Prediction:
I think because of our GOTV efforts we take Nevada and Florida. I think we lose North Carolina and Ohio. I’m actually pretty confident in those pics. The only one I’m not so sure is New Hampshire but I’m going with my gut here.
Popular Vote: Hillary 48.5, Trump 45.5, Johnson 4, Stein 2. Electoral Hillary 307, Trump 231.