The latest polls are bad news for the Trump campaign.
If polls are any indicator, it is looking more likely every day that Donald Trump will lose the general election this November.
As Quartz reports, “Though polls are not a reliable predictor of what will happen in November, several recent surveys indicate an unprecedented drop in his approval ratings. According to Gallup, Trump is the first candidate in US history to lose support after his party’s convention.”
According to Gallup, “Americans’ assessments of the effect of the conventions on their image of each party largely mirror their assessments of how the convention will affect their vote in the 2016 election.”
By 45% to 41%, Americans say they are more rather than less likely to vote for Hillary Clinton based on what they saw or read about the Democratic convention. In contrast, many more Americans said they were less likely (51%) rather than more likely (36%) to vote for Donald Trump as a result of what they saw or read about the Republican convention.
Gallup has asked this question about Democratic and Republican national conventions since 1984, with the exceptions of the 1984 and 1992 Republican conventions. The 2016 Republican convention is the first after which a greater percentage of Americans have said they are “less likely” rather than “more likely” to vote for the party’s presidential nominee.
Nate Silver, the statistician and polling expert who successfully predicted the outcome in 49 of 50 states during the 2008 presidential elections, shows Clinton annihilating Trump by a margin of 91.7% to 8.3% were the election to be held today. (His Polls-Only forecast puts it at 83.2% to 16.8% for November and his Polls-Plus forecast which factors in economic and historical data puts it at 75.9% to 24.1%.)
Vox published a comprehensive listing of the newest polls last week, reporting that: “The presidential race may have reached a turning point, as a new group of polls shows Hillary Clinton clobbering Donald Trump nationally and in swing states.”
- A McClatchy-Marist poll released last Thursday shows Clinton ahead by 15 points – her greatest polled lead – with 48% to 33%.
- A national Fox News poll released last Wednesday shows Clinton beating Trump by a margin of 10 points, 49% to 39%;
- A Franklin & Marshall poll shows Trump trailing Clinton by 11 points, 49% to 38%. As Vox reports, Pennsylvania is “a state most observers believe is a must-win for Trump.”
- A Suffolk poll “found Clinton ahead of Trump in a head-to-head matchup by 6 points” in Florida, “which is even more of a must-win state for Trump,” according to Vox.
- WBUR’s new poll shows Clinton leading Trump 47% to 32% in New Hampshire, another important swing state that was recently thought to be close.
- Detroit News and WDIV-TV reports that Clinton leads Trump 41% to 32% in Michigan, “traditionally a Democratic state, but one the Trump campaign had fantasized about winning as part of a ‘Rust Belt’ strategy.”
And the bad news continues for the Trump campaign as NBC News reported on Sunday that “college educated white voters are a big problem for Trump.”
This week’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Hillary Clinton now has a 7-point edge over Donald Trump among college-educated white voters (47%-40%). The July NBC/WSJ poll showed that Clinton had only a 1-point edge over Trump with those voters (43%-42%).
And that growing edge is echoed in other polls. This week’s CNN/ORC poll showed her edge was 10 points with college-educated whites. A poll just after the GOP convention showed her lead with those voters was only 4 points.
Considering Trump’s very poor numbers with minority voters, his slide among college-educated whites suggests a road to a rough November.
However, as most leading media outlets report, in this election anything is possible – so it remains important for everyone to vote. In fact, liberals and progressives should be sure to take at least two friends with them to the polling stations this November.
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