On the Democratic side, both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders continue to rise, though the former at a higher rate. A week ago, October 29, Clinton led
54.4 to 29.9 in the Pollster composite of national polls. Today, that's at 56.4-31.1 percent.
I thought Sanders' ceiling was 30 percent. He's now exceeded that. Congrats! But the overall picture continues to look bleak for his candidacy. Clinton's numbers range between 50 and 62 percent in the last week's national polls. Time is chipping away, yet over half of Democrats continue to back Clinton with her trend on the upswing. Sanders' numbers have ranged between 26 and 35, meaning that he's got just a quarter to a third of Democrats. I keep saying this and I'll say it again, he's not breaking through his demographic base.
Once upon a time, the early states were a bright spot for Sanders, but that's also changing. We now have three polls showing big (and growing) Clinton leads in Iowa. PPP went from a 21-point lead in mid-September to a 32-point lead this week. Gravis ... fuck Gravis they suck (but they echo PPP). Monmouth College shows a 14-point Clinton lead with no recent trendlines. Clinton leads 49-32 in the composite, virtually unchanged from a week ago.
In New Hampshire, where Sanders maintains 42-34 lead in the polling composite, the only poll last week was a Monmouth University poll showing Clinton up 48-45. Its previous poll in mid-September had Sanders winning 43-36. Interestingly, like with the national polling, Sanders isn't losing meaningful support. It's just that Clinton is scooping up the Biden crowd and undecideds.
Aside from that, Survey USA have Clinton a 66-24 lead in Florida, some school named Winthrop University did a survey in South Carolina that had Clinton up 71-15.
We'll look at the Republican side below the fold.
In the Republican primary, the clear winner this week has been Ben Carson.
Donald Trump's lead has been cut from 28.5-22.4 to 27.9-23.1. The aggregate numbers actually look better than individual poll trends. For example, the latest Fox poll has Trump leading Carson 26-23. But in late September, that was 26-18, or a five-point shift. The latest Quinnipiac poll gave Trump a 24-23 lead, another net 5-point drop from his 25-17 lead back in mid-September. And Trump's 31-21 lead in the latest Morning Consult poll is yet other five net points down from his 35-20 point lead a week ago.
It's not all bad news for Trump. The latest Ipsos/Reuters poll suggested Trump was improving—31-18 from 29-27 a week ago—but outliers are called "outliers" for a reason. The national movement toward Carson is very real.
However, note that Trump's support is actually fairly stable. His supporters appear locked in. Ben Carson is gaining at the expense of other candidates (or undecided). So score one in Trump's favor—his people are loyal. On the other hand, when you're stuck in the high 20s, low 30s, that may be enough to look good in comparison to the rest of the clown-car not-named Carson, but it's nowhere near any kind of majority. And if his opposition coalesces around someone else, he'll be in trouble.
Put another way, he seems to have maxed out his support. Where exactly will he get new supporters? If Carson flames out, you figure Ted Cruz or Mike Huckabee will be the beneficiaries. If any of the establishment types drop out, you figure Rubio will grab the bulk of those people, since he appears to be the last man standing in that corner. I won't pretend to fully understand the mind of a conservative, but I can't see how Trump broadens his support. (Though I'm still desperately hoping he does!)
In Iowa, Carson passed Trump in early October and hasn't looked back:
While Trump still leads in two of the three Iowa polls released this week (PPP and Gravis), even that wasn't good news for him, as his leads were quite diminished from previous editions of those polls. And what if Carson implodes, which I fully expect him to? Cruz is in the low teens while Rubio is low-to-mid teens. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised to see Cruz pick up the remnants when Carson explodes and win the state. I find that more plausible than Trump winning iowa. But really, it's a clusterfuck. Who the fuck knows what's going on, except that the GOP electorate still isn't particularly happy with its choices.
Meanwhile, Trump IS holding somewhat steady in New Hampshire.
So what happens if, say, Cruz (or Carson) wins Iowa, and Trump wins New Hampshire? Beats me, but hopefully we get to find out.