Special “Only 14 More Days Till The Election” E-dition

october-25-14-more-days

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2016
Today’s Good News And Bad News
From Our Local Political Junkie We’ll Call “Cincy Dave”

GOOD NEWS FOR TRUMP
image008After a long time, there is some good news for The Donald – a poll that he is going to like. During the primaries, Trump was fond of bragging about his poll numbers, but not so much in the last few months, as they went south. Lately, he has even taken to claiming that the polls are all wrong. But now, after many bad polls, one pollster has come up with a national poll that has him exactly tied with Hillary. The Investor’s Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence Tracking Poll — once called the most accurate poll of the 2012 election by pollster Nate Silver — gives both Clinton and Trump 41 percent support apiece in a four-way race. Before the Trump team celebrates too much, they should consider that this may be what pollsters call “an outlier”, meaning that it is outside the normal range of other polls, which now give Hillary between a 5 and 10 point edge. Also, as we have pointed out in the past, image009national polls mean very little because we don’t have a national election. We have 50 state elections (plus D.C.), so a candidate can run up big vote totals in some states and barely lose others and thus win the national vote and lose the election. Nonetheless, this poll offers Trumpsters a glimmer of hope in what everyone else except the true believers think is a lost cause. 

GOOD NEWS FOR HILLARY
A ton of Floridians registered to vote after Republican Governor Rick Scott tried to stop them. When Hurricane Matthew was approaching, the governor ordered evacuation of coastal areas during the last week of voter registrations. Democrats asked for an extension of the registration deadline but the Governor said “No.” Then the Democrats went to court and a federal judge ordered an extension. During the extended time, 108,000 new voters registered. Some of these were no doubt inspired by the Governors image010action (or refusal to act) which generated headlines and controversy. Had he calmly allowed the extension, odds are that fewer would have taken notice of it. It is therefore a good bet that a lot of these new voters will not be voting the way the governor would have liked. It is well known that larger voter turnouts generally favor the blue team. 

NEW STRATEGIES
With only two weeks to go, the candidates appear to be adopting new strategies in their campaigns. Hillary is going to try to ignore Trump, hoping he will keep saying outrageous things while she concentrates on helping down ballot Democrats in key races. The Donald is supposed to be trying to promote the populist message that he is going to “Drain the Swamp” in Washington, an old but tried and true message. That type of message works better with an unpopular president but Obama’s popularity is pretty good right image011now, as he is current enjoying a 55+ percent approval rating. Moreover, it depends on Trump being able to stay on message, which he hasn’t shown himself to be able to do in the past, often going back to settle old scores or reargue things that have been decided in the court of public opinion. We will soon see how these new strategies work out.

HILLARY AIMS TO RUN UP THE SCORE
Hillary Clinton and her allies have an animating aim in the final 14 days of the 2016 contest – drive up the score so dramatically that claims by Donald Trump of Democrat vote-rigging will be rendered inconsequential thanks to the margin of victory. And if their final bombardment of campaign activity drags down-ballot Democrats across the finish line and sweeps proponents of Trump’s alt-right ideology off the political table, all the better. More here: 

image013CRAPO FLIP-FLOPS AGAIN
Idaho Senator Mike Crapo (pronounced Kray-po, at least by Republicans) shows the real lack of backbone that many politicians have.

When Trump was nominated by his party, he endorsed him but then when the infamous pussygate tape came out, he unendorsed him. He must have heard from Trump supporters because he has now decided to un-unendorse, disunendorse, deunendorse, or re-endorse him, whatever the case may be.

There really should be a word for multiple flip-flops by politicians. Crapo joins the ranks of several other politicians who have done multiple flip-flops on Trump, including John Thune of South Dakota and Deb Fischer of Nebraska. image004

TODAY’S STATE POLLS
North Carolina and Nevada are the swing states in this batch and they show Hillary ahead in both. Interestingly, twice being First Lady of Arkansas doesn’t seem to help a bit in that Confederate State.image005

— More Good News And Bad News Tomorrow —image006image003 image005