Cook Political Report: “Strategists from both parties warn that they are seeing a lot of volatility in polling, but acknowledge that the playing field seems more level than it has been over the past three weeks. While we still expect Democrats to win the majority, we are lowering the range of potential gains back to the four- to six-seat range.”
Poll Worker Injured by Booby-Trapped Trump Sign
“A poll worker in Texas was injured Tuesday when he tried to move a Donald Trump campaign sign and cut his hand on box-cutter blades that had been attached to it,” the Huffington Post reports.
“The tampered sign was discovered Tuesday morning blocking an official polling sign at Collin County College in Plano, according to NBC Dallas. A precinct official had ordered the sign to be moved.”
Republicans Coming Home to Trump
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
Since the start of his presidential bid, Republicans have been consistently less loyal to Donald Trump than Democrats have been to Hillary Clinton.
But Republicans have been warming to Trump as we get closer to Election Day.
Toomey Still Won’t Say If He’ll Vote for Trump
“With just five more days until Election Day, Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) says he is still undecided in the 2016 presidential election,” WTXF reports.
“However, for Toomey, it is not a matter of whether he will cast his vote for Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. Instead, Toomey is undecided on whether or not he was cast a vote for the republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, at all.”
Clinton’s Firewall Is Educated White Women
James Hohmann: “Our fresh Washington Post-ABC News Tracking Poll, which has Hillary Clinton ahead by just 2 points among all likely voters nationally, finds that Donald Trump is losing college-educated white women by 27 points.”
“If the Republican nominee was anywhere close to Romney’s 52 percent support level among this traditionally Republican-leaning constituency, he would likely win the election. But drilling into the crosstabs of our polling and reviewing credible, state-level data demonstrates how highly unlikely it is that this constituency will waver in the final days. It is one of the reasons that, even though the race has tightened pretty dramatically, Clinton retains a significant structural advantage.”
Quote of the Day
“If you try to apply conventional political wisdom to Donald Trump you lose every time.”
— Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, interviewed on Morning Joe.
Clinton Remains the Favorite
Stuart Rothenberg: “A final flurry of quality polls in the next few days should give us more of an idea where the race stands. But even then, turnout is likely to be the key — with the focus on three important demographic groups that prefer Clinton: blacks, Latinos and younger voters.”
“If those groups turn out in numbers comparable to 2012, Clinton will win, possibly comfortably. If they don’t, an upset can’t be ruled out.”
“The bottom line: Clinton remains the favorite (in both the popular and electoral votes), though a less comfortable one than a week ago. The fight for the Senate looks like a toss-up, with Democrats still having more paths than the GOP to a majority. And, the House is not in play.”
Publishers Campaign for Obama Books
“Vice President Joe Biden is thinking about writing a book. Former Attorney General Eric Holder recently sold one for seven figures. Former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is shopping one, and Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway has been fielding inquiries. But as publishers prepare to compete for a slew of political memoirs, all eyes are on the president and first lady,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“President Barack Obama’s literary accomplishments are rare for a sitting president. His critically-acclaimed 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, won a Grammy for best spoken-word album. So did his second book, The Audacity of Hope, a book published in 2006 that discusses his time in the Senate and his policy positions. Each book has sold more than three million copies in print and e-books in the U.S., according to a publishing executive. “
Casting Call for New Conservative News Network
What’s being billed as an “up-and-coming conservative media network currently in development” is now scouring for hosts, reporters and right-leaning, well-spoken panelists, according to a brand new casting notice obtained by Fox News.
The notice goes on to say the on-air talent the network wants “must be knowledgeable about conservative viewpoints, current events and the presidential election,” adding applicants must also “look upscale and intelligent,” and should be “outspoken and energetic.”
Auditions are being held in New York City on Nov. 7, the eve of Election Day.
The Best Campaigns Don’t Look at National Polls
Jim Messina: “I’ve come to hate public polling, period. In the 2012 race we focused on a ‘golden report,’ which included 62,000 simulations to determine Mr. Obama’s chances of winning battleground states. It included state tracking polls and nightly calls from volunteers, but no national tracking polls. [On the day before the election,] I assured the president that the golden report was predicting a victory, with 332 electoral votes. On Election Day, that was the exact number of electoral votes the president won.”
“Today, campaigns can target voters so well that they can personalize conversations. That is the only way, when any candidate asks about the state of the race, to offer a true assessment. Hillary Clinton can do that. To my knowledge, Donald J. Trump, who has bragged that he doesn’t care about data in campaigns, can’t.”
For more, listen to our interview with Messina who told us two months ago “this campaign was always going to be close.”
Pay No Attention to the ‘Phantom Swings’ In Polls
This piece is only available to Political Wire members.
If it weren’t for the craziness of this election, we might notice that the 2016 presidential campaign is actually ending very much like the race four years ago. The Democrat holds a small lead while the Republican scrambles in the final days to flip traditional blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
In fact, Hillary Clinton’s national polling lead over Donald Trump is actually very close to Barack Obama’s final margin of victory over Mitt Romney in 2012.
This should have been entirely predictable — with perfect hindsight, of course — given the intense partisanship of the country. But the twists and turns of political news coverage can cloud our perception of what’s really happening.
In fact, as I’ve argued many times, the presidential race has been incredibly stable for months.
Political scientists Benjamin Lauderdale and Douglas Rivers agree:
We believe that most of the bounces seen in surveys this year represent sampling noise that can be reduced or eliminated by adopting by better statistical methodology. We risk a repetition of 2012 where polling swings were largely statistical mirages. The convention and first debate bounces in 2012 were mostly the consequence of transitory variations in response rates. Fewer voters were changing their minds than were changing their inclination to respond to surveys.
In their research, Lauderdale and Rivers find that the willingness of Clinton and Trump supporters to participate in polls has varied depending upon what was happening at the time of the poll: “when things are going badly for a candidate, their supporters tend to stop participating in polls.”
When the “Access Hollywood” video of Trump bragging about sexual assault was released, Trump supporters were actually 4% less likely than Clinton supporters to respond to a poll. The reverse happened after last week’s news about the FBI continuing to investigate Clinton’s emails. Suddenly, Clinton supporters were less likely to respond to a survey.
A pollster’s failure to control for this bias can result in “phantom swings” – polls bouncing around because of changes in the sample despite no change in individual voting intentions.
They conclude:
We consider it almost certain that Clinton was never as far ahead as many published polls suggested at the high points of the campaign, and equally that she has not lost as much by recent events as some published polls suggest. The truth is more boring: real change mostly happens slowly, and the impact of campaign events is much less than the media makes out.
How Trump Pushed Millennials Out of the GOP
Ron Brownstein: “Even with the race’s late turmoil, Trump still faces long odds against overcoming Clinton’s lead in enough states to win. But Democrats can’t be entirely certain that Trump’s visceral connection with blue-collar, older, and non-urban whites won’t allow him to squeeze out a narrow victory.”
“The problem for Republicans is that even if Trump succeeds in the near-term, his insular appeal to his preponderantly white coalition has exposed the party to a clear long-term risk. Win or lose, all evidence suggests Trump is further alienating a Millennial generation that is already cool to the GOP—and is poised to become the electorate’s largest cohort in 2020.”
Uninsured Rate Drops to New Low
A new CDC report finds just 8.9% of Americans don’t have health insurance coverage, the lowest percentage ever recorded.
Huffington Post: “This latest survey of the uninsured population underscores what the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, has achieved in its first three years of being fully online. The uninsured rate had hovered around 15 percent in previous years, until the health care reform law’s expansion of Medicaid to poor adults, and introduction of subsidized private health insurance for low- and moderate-income families became available.”
Study Suggests No Hidden Trump Voters
According to a new study, a hidden army of Donald Trump voters that’s undetected by the polls is unlikely to materialize on Election Day.
“The study — which was comprised of interviews with likely voters conducted over the phone with a live interviewer, and other interviews conducted online without a personal interaction — showed only a slight, not-statistically-significant difference in their effect on voters’ preferences for president.”
Trump’s Transition Team Emboldened by Polls
“Donald Trump’s presidential transition team has kicked into higher gear as the race for the White House tightens, with a team of conservative Washington policy wonks fleshing out plans to dismantle President Barack Obama’s legacy,” Politico reports.
“What once seemed like a futile exercise in preparing for a government that might never be is suddenly becoming very real for the 100-plus Republicans on Trump’s transition team. The group — made up of an unlikely hodgepodge of conservative think tank fellows, former Mitt Romney advisers and die-hard Trump supporters — has been working at a frenzied pace to put the finishing touches on a road map for the nominee’s first 100 days.”
Clinton Still Holds Advantage In Tightening Race
Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball: “Hillary Clinton has picked an awful time to hit one of the rough patches that has plagued her throughout the campaign. Now with just days to go until Election Day, there’s added uncertainty about the outcome. But while she may not be on the brink of an Electoral College win the size of Barack Obama’s in 2008 or even 2012, her position as the clear frontrunner in this race endures.”
Cook Political Report: “A tightening race nationally has also translated into tightening at the state level. States that were trending Trump’s way in September started to slip away from him in early October. Now, with the focus more on Clinton’s emails than on Trump’s debate performances or his Twitter spats, states like Iowa and Ohio are moving back in Trump’s direction… However, these are minor, not major adjustments to the overall Electoral College map with Clinton now at 278 (8 more votes than she needs to win) and Trump at 214 (56 short of 270).”
For members: Clinton’s Most Obvious Path to Victory
Clinton Holds Very Narrow Lead Nationally
A new New York Times/CBS News poll finds Hillary Clinton just three points ahead of Donald Trump in the presidential race, 45% to 42%, with Gary Johnson at 5% and Jill Stein at 4%.
“National polling averages showed a growing lead for Mrs. Clinton in mid-October… Yet after a rough few weeks, enthusiasm among Mr. Trump’s supporters has rebounded, and 52 percent now say they are very enthusiastic about voting. Enthusiasm among Mrs. Clinton’s supporters has remained flat since September, with 47 percent saying they are very enthusiastic to vote.”
The ABC News-Washington Post tracking poll shows Clinton leading by two points, 47% to 45%.
Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
“We’ve got to be nice and cool, nice and calm. All right, stay on point Donald, stay on point.”
— Donald Trump, quoted by Politico., channeling the counsel of his advisers.
