I wrote that in my post "A Day Later and 28 Lifetimes Away" right after the second debate.
We are only a few days later and we are already seeing how true that is.
In the aftermath of the release of the Hollywood Access "hot mic" tape the media had already buried Donald Trump. The political pundits opined that he was done. A number of GOP elites piled on and withdrew their support of Trump.
Then came the second debate where it is widely acknowledged that Trump rescued and revived his Presidential bid.
We now see some of those GOP officeholders who pulled the plug on Trump getting nervous.
Of course, as predicted, the media is still dumping on Trump at the same time that WikiLeaks releases damaging emails from the Clinton campaign. Of course, the media elites would rather not report on those emails, especially the revelations that so many of them have been actively colluding with the Clinton campaign behind the scenes.
As an example, the Media Research Center notes that the big three networks have devoted 15 times more coverage to Trump's decade-old comments than to Hillary's WikiLeaks revelations!
Despite acknowledging Trump's strong debate performance, the political pundits almost unanimously continue to write off Trump's chances of a general election win. There are three factors that are usually mentioned in supporting this opinion beyond the challenge of the Democrat advantage in the electoral college math to begin with.
- Trump's inability to attract female voters
- Trump's inability to consolidate GOP voters around his candidacy
- The fact that there is less than four weeks to the election, he is way behind and most people have made up their minds.
Having been a political consultant I understand where the pundits are coming from. It is easy to recite what people believe is the conventional wisdom that keeps getting repeated by everyone else. However, I am always looking at data and information that might disprove the conventional wisdom.
And if there was ever a year you should be looking for indicators that disprove conventional wisdom, this is the year.
With all that said, let me point you to the Rasmussen poll that was just released this morning (Thursday, October 13, 2016).
This poll was taken completely after the last debate on Sunday night. This same poll had Clinton leading Trump by 7 points right after the release of the "hot mic" tape .
That poll today has Trump leading 43%-41%---a margin of 2 points. That means that there has been a swing of 9 points in this poll in the space of 3 days (lifetimes)! That is pretty remarkable and clearly shows how volatile this race is.
What I find most interesting in the data are these two items that seem to run counter to the conventional wisdom that the pundits are reciting but actually may not be true.
First, I keep hearing from the pundits that Clinton has a big advantage because she has consolidated Democrat support whereas Trump has not done the same with Republicans.
This poll says otherwise. There is no difference in the two.
Trump is getting the support of 75% of Republicans. Clinton is only at 76% of Democrats. This is a big change from 2012 where Obama got 92% support of Democrats and Romney had 93% of Republicans supporting his candidacy. I think this factor adds to the volatility of this race and being able to predict its outcome.
Second, I think it is clear that a lot more of the votes are in play than is generally believed. In fact, the Rasmussen poll proves it. A 9 point swing in 3 days? I sense this in my conversations wherever I go as well. I have never seen so many people shaking their heads on who to vote for.
The Rasmussen poll indicates that only 84% of voters say they are certain on how they will vote right now. That is an enormous amount of votes. In 2012, there were 126 million votes cast for President. 9% of those voters said in exit polls that they did not make up their minds on who to vote for until the last day or two before the election. That represented 11 million votes and they broke resoundingly for Obama primarily because of his handling of the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. In fact, 15% of Obama voters said that was the most important reason they voted for him!
What does this say? People have short attention spans and what is most recent is going to be the most important. It also says it is way to early to write off anybody in this election. There is too much time and too much that can still happen. And the closer it comes to Election Day the bigger the impact it will have.
The other good news for Trump is that Hillary's support seems to be the most uncertain. For example, Clinton leads Trump among those who say they could change their mind (40%-37%). In addition, almost 1 in 5 voters who are uncertain are supporting Gary Johnson. They clearly are questioning whether voting on "principle" is a good decision.
This is what Rasmussen also says about those who are uncertain right now.
Those under 40 still prefer the Democrat but also remain the most undecided. Older voters favor Trump. The older the voter, the more likely he or she is to be certain of their vote.
Why is this important? Older voters will vote. Younger voters may vote. And they will be less likely to vote if they are uncertain of who to vote for. In the end, turnout will be the biggest factor of who wins this race. I know the Democrats have a respected ground game. They did turnout votes for Obama in 2008 and 2012. However, what happened in 2010 and 2014 with that same ground game?
And Trump continue to pack arenas while Hillary is challenged to fill an atrium?
A day truly is a lifetime in politics. And no one running for President has ever had 9 lives while doing it like Donald J. Trump. Politicians, pundits and media elites beware!
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