So the polling was crazy last week and it was hard to keep up with. But I finally had a chance to look at all the data from the 6 poll aggregators that I am currently following. As you can see from the spread sheet, Hillary’s minimum lead in all of the states totalling 272 EC votes is now 5.251% in Virginia. That’s outside of the so-called margin of error. So if the election were held tomorrow, her chance of winning the election would be slightly more than 99%.
99.07%, More-or-less.Now, I know that things will change a lot between now and November and this model does not try to predict probabilities that far out. So, it’s very likely that Trump (assuming he does not drop out of the race, and the GOP does not tamper with his plane’s engine), will tone down his level of obnoxiousness somewhat, and everyone will watch the Olympics for a few weeks and his numbers will drift back up a bit.
And, I also know that regardless of these numbers, Hillary, Kaine and all of us, have to keep fighting every day from now till election night like we’re 3 points behind (and I will).
But as a singular event, the fact that, at this moment in time, the best polling available in the world indicates that the GOP candidate has virtually no chance of winning the election, is amazing. Presidential Campaigns are complex affairs. Data like this drives decisions every day about where to campaign, where to do ad-buys, can the campaign afford to help out down ballot candidates? Can Hillary afford to take the time to make a campaign stop in MO, or AZ or NC to help out the democratic Senators running in those states, if she has little or no hope of carrying those states? But see how much the equation changes when she is competitive in red states like MO, AZ, NC, etc. She can afford to help down ballot more, she can spend big to build infrastructure in several red states that will help the statewide parties in those places for years to come.
Democratic volunteers in places like Texas (me) who might be inclined to phone it in, become energized, imagining discouraged Republicans voters staying home. We double up on our efforts to get one or two more state Representatives elected who might otherwise be written off as lost causes. The effects go from the very top down to local school board elections. Revel in this opportunity that fate (and rampant GOP racism) has dropped in our laps. And get out and work. Work like you never have before and make this Presidential Landslide a Wave that will carry us through the 2020 census, and 2021 redistricting. Now is our time.