RCP poll average: Trump passes Hillary

[SP33Demon]

Like I predicted, Trump has now passed Hillary in the poll averages with the latest ABC News/Wash Post +2 over hillary and up 0.2% overall. Call me Speed-a-damus.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...s/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

It's only going to get worse, folks. The email scandal and old man Bernie - both which refuse to go away and both which continue to pound her poll numbers down. For example, on March 30th she had an 11.2% lead (50-38.8) that has now evaporated. Has any candidate ever lost double digit point leads in less than 2 months?

Yeah, it's still early, but if you're a hillary supporter you have to be worried about this downward spiral. Remember, Trump excels at scalping his opponents by touting that he's a winner and his opponent is a loser using social proofing like polling. He could have a full belt of ammo to fire at her come debate time, i.e. "just look at the polls, you're losing and you were up big - what happened?" She better get her shit together or she's going to continue to bleed away voters to him. All you liberals claiming this would be a cake-walk election are in for a rude awakening, I love it. Keep doubting the Trump Train. My prediction: hillary will be Trump's 18th and final scalp collected.

 

[JSt0rm]

Im glad you made this prediction.

 

[senseamp]

America is either ready for idiocracy or it isn't. I guess we'll find out in November.

 

[JSt0rm]

America is either ready for idiocracy or it isn't. I guess we'll find out in November.

It may be that trump is just ahead of his time.

 

[sportage]

Wait for the debate(s).
A one on one will show which is the better man.
They're both about equal in oddity, so its really hard to tell who the voters will end up going with.
Trump could still implode, or Hillary go to prison.
This is one election I discount the polls because both candidates are lose canons.
Hilary could break down bawling hysterically on the debate stage after Trump calls her a big fat lesbian cow.
And Trump could tweet that Abe Lincoln was wrong to have freed the slaves.
When it comes to this election, hard to say if the voters will prefer Donald or Hillary Trump.
You know don't you, that they are secretly husband and wife and plan on taking over the world.
Hillary's alien baby feeds on flesh. And Donald killed JFK.

 

[Brian Stirling]

America is either ready for idiocracy or it isn't. I guess we'll find out in November.

Well it looks like the USA is going to get idiocracy either way!

Which would you prefer -- death by fire or bullet?


Brian

 

[senseamp]

Well it looks like the USA is going to get idiocracy either way!

Which would you prefer -- death by fire or bullet?


Brian

I didn't have any issues during the last Clinton presidency.

 

[alien42]

the popular vote matters not, the electoral college means everything.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html

a few observations...

CA, NY and IL are worth 104 and remain solidly blue.

TX is currently leaning red, which is huge. it will remain red, but the times are changing.

GA is currently a toss up which is also huge, we have a pretty solid red history.

 

[First]

She's going to win in a landslide.

[placeholder bump]

 

[tweaker2]

Reminds me of the sensationalist media build-up between Romney and Obama. And look who ended up with the deer in the headlight look on his face.

 

[Exophase]

the popular vote matters not, the electoral college means everything.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/2016_elections_electoral_college_map.html

a few observations...

CA, NY and IL are worth 104 and remain solidly blue.

TX is currently leaning red, which is huge. it will remain red, but the times are changing.

GA is currently a toss up which is also huge, we have a pretty solid red history.

Compare with 2012:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

Solid/likely/leaning Democrat is almost the same, just a flip between MN and WI. But pushes a lot of Republican states into toss-ups instead.

Then there's Sanders..

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...ions_trump_sanders_electoral_college_map.html

Loses NM, but gains MN, PA, MI, and NH. At the same time, pushes some other states red.

 

[SP33Demon]

Compare with 2012:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/2012_elections_electoral_college_map.html

Solid/likely/leaning Democrat is almost the same, just a flip between MN and WI. But pushes a lot of Republican states into toss-ups instead.

Then there's Sanders..

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ep...ions_trump_sanders_electoral_college_map.html

Loses NM, but gains MN, PA, MI, and NH. At the same time, pushes some other states red.

Yeah, I really don't want to see Sanders. He needs to drop out soon. Maybe he's banking on a longshot horrid report by the FBI or something.

All in all, it's actually bad that Trump is leading her so early now that I think about it. This could cause the Supers to think twice about Hillary and then go Sanders.

 

[glenn1]

This far out from Election Day it doesn't matter. Let's bump this thread again this time in October and see what the polls look like.

Either way this election is akin to choosing whether you'd rather be kicked in the balls or kicked in the head and then saying "Yay, the polling says balls is ahead by 0.2%!" I'll leave it for others to argue whether Clinton is balls and Trump head or vice versa.

 

[JockoJohnson]

America is either ready for idiocracy or it isn't. I guess we'll find out in November.

If Terry Crews was running, I would vote for him.

 

[PokerGuy]

This far out from Election Day it doesn't matter. Let's bump this thread again this time in October and see what the polls look like.

Either way this election is akin to choosing whether you'd rather be kicked in the balls or kicked in the head and then saying "Yay, the polling says balls is ahead by 0.2%!" I'll leave it for others to argue whether Clinton is balls and Trump head or vice versa.

This, 1000x this.

I've been following politics for a long time, and I can't remember anything as bizarre as we've seen in this cycle, with two historically unpopular, distrusted, disliked scumbags as the remaining options.

For me it boils down to Trump being the slightly lesser evil, but it's horrifying that we've gotten to this point.

 

[z1ggy]

I'll take Sanders. At least he isn't a literal criminal, or woman/Mexican hating douchenozzle. He also seems to legitimately want to help the American people, unlike hilly or thedonald.

 

[PokerGuy]

I'll take Sanders. At least he isn't a literal criminal, or woman/Mexican hating douchenozzle. He also seems to legitimately want to help the American people, unlike hilly or thedonald.

I agree he appears to want to legitimately help the people, but his nutty socialist ideas for doing so make him possibly even worse than either of the other two terrible candidates.

 

[Artdeco]

This far out from Election Day it doesn't matter. Let's bump this thread again this time in October and see what the polls look like.

Either way this election is akin to choosing whether you'd rather be kicked in the balls or kicked in the head and then saying "Yay, the polling says balls is ahead by 0.2%!" I'll leave it for others to argue whether Clinton is balls and Trump head or vice versa.

I actually laughed, and it really mirrors my feelings, these 2 are the best we could come up with?

Sigh...

 

[z1ggy]

I agree he appears to want to legitimately help the people, but his nutty socialist ideas for doing so make him possibly even worse than either of the other two terrible candidates.

Fdr could be considered a socialist by modern definitions, but some consider him the best president to have ever served. I'm not saying Sanders policies are the best, but I feel like he wouldn't go intentionally lining the pockets of wall St like hillary and he wouldn't be ridiculous like trump who pretty much has no actual political experience.

Would universal health care work here? At this point probably not, but you've got to try our start somewhere to reform our current systems.

My point overall is that I like how he acknowledges the corrupt and unfair business practices that go on here in America unlike any other candidate. He doesn't feel like a dubious career politician, which is nice for once.

 

[Doc Savage Fan]

5 months is a lot time and a lot can happen before November.

 

[blankslate]

http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-36372929

Jimmy Carter led Ronald Reagan in early 1980 presidential polls. Michael Dukakis had a commanding lead over George HW Bush in 1988. John McCain edged ahead of Barack Obama at similar point in the general election cycle in 2008. There were several times in 2012 where Mr Romney had a lead.
In other words, polls this far out from election day - particularly when one of the primary races is settled and the other isn't - aren't particularly good indicators of election-day outcomes.
If Mrs Clinton can consolidate her base - and the key is if - then the current Democratic teeth-gnashing may be overblown.
Mr Trump could be at his polling high-water mark only to see demographics, such as his low standing with women and minorities, and the realities of the state-by-state electoral landscape catch up with him.
But here's where we cut-and-paste those words of caution in every Trump polling story published since last autumn. The normal political rules don't seem to apply to the man. Just because things have happened one way in the past doesn't mean they will play out that way this time.
If admonitions that it's too far out to put much faith in polling sound familiar, it's the same thing people were saying last summer, when surveys had Mr Trump on top in key primary states and nationally.
The only thing we know right now is that, at this moment, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are essentially in a dead heat. And Mr Trump has made a lot of pundits and prognosticators look foolish over the past year.

Don't assume things will be like other elections


_______________

 

[dullard]

For example, on March 30th she had an 11.2% lead (50-38.8) that has now evaporated. Has any candidate ever lost double digit point leads in less than 2 months?

You are getting closer, by actually caring about poll averages now. But you still need to learn a lot about how to interpret polling numbers. Clinton never had a 11.2% lead then and Trump doesn't have a 0.2% lead now. You see, polls have a margin of error.

What is a margin of error. It means that since the polls didn't ask the entire group of people that will vote on election day (and no one else), the poll has to estimate how the voting will go. For one, we don't know the exact list of people who will vote. Secondly, it is financially suicide to poll everyone who will vote. Finally, lots of people won't answer the poll even if they were polled.

This estimate means that a poll is not exact. There is a bias error (the poll itself is done improperly) and a margin of error (the poll makes estimates). We'll ignore bias for now. A typical poll has a +-4% margin of error (where they are reasonably confident that the true result is in that range but it isn't guaranteed to be in that range).

Polling averages, if done properly, can reduce that typical 4% margin of error slightly but that is nearly impossible to do properly, so I'll stick with +-4% for this example. On March 23, Clinton was polling 50.4% +- 4%. That means Clinton's actual result was most likely somewhere between 46.4% and 54.4%. Trump on that day was most likely somewhere between 35% and 43%.

So, while you claim that Clinton was up 11.2%, she could have very easily have been up only 3.4% on that day (46.4% to Clinton and 43.0% to Trump).

The same goes with today's averages. It means Trump can be up as much as 8.2% or Clinton can be up as much as 7.8%. Don't over-think any one poll or any one polling average.

So the better way to interpret it is with this image:
http://pics.bbzzdd.com/users/dullard/ClintonVsTrump.JPG

Trump and Clinton have been in the same value range since mid-August 2015, plus or minus the polling margin of error. This means that there has not been a true big swing towards Clinton and then back towards Trump. At least not yet.

In all that data Clinton is more likely in the lead, but in no data since August 2015 is it certain that Clinton was in the lead. Trump could have been in the lead that whole time since the error bars overlap, it just isn't as likely. Plus those results still leave a bunch of undecided voters (todays RCP result has 13.4% undecided). That could swing the election vote either way. But ultimately, none of this matters since it is the swing states that truly matter.

 

[Jaskalas]

Hillary "rollback US policy 20 years" Clinton.
VS
Donald "blow everything up" Trump.
Yeeeehawww!!!

(Yes, wait til the actual nominations, the debates, and October before thinking who wins this !@#$ show of an election.)

 

[Jaepheth]

So does this mean you'll be taking that $1000 wager now?

No?

Didn't think so.

 

[bradly1101]

I'm prepared for the coming Trumpian dystopia. After all we elected George W Bush (sort of) and we survived him (sort of).