Generally, that’s true. Maybe for mayor. Around here, they are nonpartisan so you have to know their positions to have an opinion. In these small towns it’s hard to get info about all the candidates.
Closer to 5 than 10.
I’m looking at RCP’s 4-way rolling average and they have 6.3 who are not willing to name one of the four. Highest I can see it having been in at least the last several weeks was 7.2, and mostly low 6ish. Same undecided numbers at this point in Obama-Romney. More in other parties to be sure but while some of those may end up doing something different in the booth you cannot call them undecided.
In a comment posted on his blog just now, Wang doubled down. He said that there will be huge amount of noise about the FBI stuff, but the polls won’t move enough to change the race:
http://election.princeton.edu/2016/10/30/a-test-of-the-polarization-hypothesis
There are genuinely smart people out there who just don’t pay much attention to politics or even current events.
Not saying Idle Thoughts doesn’t know how he’s going to vote; I have no information about that. But you can see how someone similarly situated might not have made up his or her mind.
I think this may perversely help Clinton expand her lead. While I doubt that the news will change many peoples minds, it might act to scare the $#!% out of people who had gotten complacent regarding a Clinton victory, and are suddenly confronted with an October surprise that could, according to the media’s chicken littles, lead to a president Trump, motivating them to run to the polls.
addie … have you voted yet? You had previously stated that it was close in FL you’d vote Clinton. Did this make you do that?
I agree that the email thing is a lot of sound and fury on Fox News, signifying nothing. I disagree about the Tape.
To a lot of men, the Tape was just another issue that’s come and gone during the campaign. No so for many women; for them it’s a gut issue that won’t go away. Trump was exposed as an aggressive sexual molester and many women have really bad experiences with such men. They’re not going to forget. My guess is that the Tape cost Trump several percentage points among women and that loss may not be fully reflected in the polls. However, it’s just a feeling with no real numbers to back it up.
I don’t think entrenchment is the right word, or else all Republicans would be voting for Trump. It’s not so much entrenchment as that a lot of things we think matter don’t.
The low volatility is just because Trump is just a really bad Republican candidate. We’re not that much more entrenched than in 2012, and there was a lot more volatility then.
Trump seems more viable because of his large presence, but he’s been behind the whole time, save for maybe one moment after his convention.
I only vote on election day, but I’m poll watching.
Right now it actually is a tie in Florida:
I think polls will change. The question is, will they change enough to get Trump the votes he needs in order to win in the electoral vote count?
Comey’s letter puts a big question mark over the head of Clinton as voters head into the booth, and it’s an unprecedented question mark at that. Partisans who support Hillary are going to stick with her, but those who are less partisan may feel that simply not voting for Trump is their civic commentary about the political system. I agree that most of the independent-voting women who viscerally oppose Trump because of his past predatory behavior will still probably vote for Clinton. But, there will be those who say “Meh, Bill Clinton was a sexual creep (established fact) and Hillary stood by her man, so what’s the difference?”
Until last week, voters probably wanted to vote for change but felt that Trump was too flawed to take the risk and they felt more comfortable voting for Hillary, assuming that her legal problems were mostly behind her. That is no longer the case. The FBI investigation takes us back to where we were earlier in the race: a choice between two seemingly flawed candidates. One of these candidates represents change at a time when voters really want to make a statement about their political system. That favors Trump.
However, voting is already underway and has been for several weeks. It is estimated that almost one fifth of the voters had already cast ballots, and the surge in early voting is believed by many, including myself, to be an advantage for Clinton. If early voting remains strong, particularly in certain areas, then this will be a good sign for Clinton. If the early voting drops off to the 2012 pace, then it’s clear that the damage has been done.
I think that by Wednesday the race will be statistically even. Friday is also the point at which the story will have had its maximum impact unless there are new revelations. It is possible that by Friday voters will have had a chance to assess the situation and ask themselves “Wait, so what’s the big deal?” It’s also entirely possible that Trump overplays his hand and says something outrageous or that a new Trump scandal emerges. The final week will be interesting for sure.
I still think that Clinton has the electoral map advantage, but it’s a much, much smaller advantage now. Instead of an EV win in the 300s Clinton will probably consider herself fortunate to win at all. And there is now the serious possibility of a contested election. People have kept scoffing at that possibility but it’s out there. Hyper-partisan politics at the local level and in congress could play a role in ways we cannot yet foresee.
If Trump is smart(Yeah, I know), he says NOTHING for the next 10 days. The Democrats seem determined to make the race between Clinton and Comey now, and Republicans couldn’t ask for a better matchup.
I think the democrats are making the wrong move by attacking Comey so directly and openly - you can hate what he did but most people assume that the agencies are non-partisan. This is only going to hurt Clinton’s campaign if they do this. Instead the better strategy would be to simply move past them and invite the FBI to release the contents ASAP. But if Harry Reid and Podesta continue to slam Comey it just looks like they’re trying to suppress an investigation. It’s not ideal but the real on-the-ground voting math suggests that there’s a good chance that Clinton can survive this. By attacking Comey you increase her unlikability quotient.
The first 24 hours the Clinton campaign responded appropriately. They demanded that more information be released. But since then some allies of hers have gone off the deep end, and she seems to be dipping her toe in a little now too.
The Comey bullshit will not move the needle at all. The guys who flooded the ERs 4 hours after the Comey letter was released with erections that wouldn’t go away- those guys were already voting for Trump. Guys like me who would like to warm up a barrel of tar and cut open a few feather pillows to dump on Comey, we were all voting for Clinton anyway. If using the word “Clinton” and “email” in the same sentence makes you want to string her up- guess what, your vote was never in play.
The race has been remarkably stable. We have become a nation of tribes. The Blue Tribe will vote for Clinton, the Red Tribe will vote for Trump. Replace either candidate with Charles Manson, and the vote would be the same. The Blue Tribe’s strength is in demographic changes, this may be the last race ever in which the Red Tribe is remotely competitive.
Each election, the pollsters seek out the “undecided” voters like Ahab in search of the Great White Whale. Like Moby Dick, they’re a fictional creation. People who say they’re undecided now either aren’t going to vote or just won’t admit which Tribe has their allegiance. Don’t worry about those mythical creatures, they don’t matter a whit.
I think they move the needle 2-4 points over a 5-7 day period, but that will regress backward to about 1-2 points over a longer stretch, provided that nothing further is revealed in the emails.
Gosh, I hope that isn’t true. The history of one-party nation-states is not, for the most part, a history of good governance. The United States will not be well off for the Red Tribe to be permanently out of government.
[QUOTE=asahi]
I think they move the needle 2-4 points over a 5-7 day period, but that will regress backward to about 1-2 points over a longer stretch, provided that nothing further is revealed in the emails.
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It makes no difference what’s revealed in the emails. What’s been released in the emails has made no difference at all so far, so why would that change? The entire “Clinton email” narrative has completely ignored the content of the emails. It’s entirely about the* existence* of them. I would guess the great majority of fervent Trump voters have never once read any of the emails and could probably not state with certainty anything they contained. I would estimate probably 85% of Trumpists, and probably a goodly portion of Democratic voters as well, would confuse the Clinton email server scandal with the content of the DNC hack affair. Nobody has paid attention to the contents the emails, so why start now?
In the minds of almost all voters, here’s the entire Clinton Email Narrative:
TRUMPIST: Crooked Hillary’s email server scandal proves she’s corrupt and should be locked up.
CLINTONISTA: Hillary broke no law and it’s not important.
What about this weird Comey letter changes those narratives? Nothing at all.
There was a time when both parties contributed to the national discourse and a strong Democratic Party and Republican Party were both working for the national good but approaching it from different directions. That was well and good. However, the Republicans have sold their souls to the devil and have been taken over by the loony factions- Tea Partiers, bigots, xenophobes, religious right, etc. They have ceased to be an honorable partner in guiding the ship of state and until they can exorcise the demons within, shouldn’t win any national elections.
Random points:
I think there are people who are truly undecided and not engaged, for whatever reason. Asking them is like asking a non-baseball fan who they think will/should win the World Series.
Polls are imperfect because there is a level of self-selection in respondents, by agreeing to answer in the first place one is choosing to be counted. How do you count all of those that choose not to be counted simply because they don’t want to answer their phone at dinner time, or stop and talk to a person with clipboard out in front of the grocery store?
Many many people choose up sides as a shorthand, and then get tribal because there is strength in numbers. You are not going to get them to change tribes easily. It is quite curious to me that it ends up being a near 50/50 split. But there are still a sizable number of people who don’t join one of the tribes (see baseball, above).
Jack Black as R.L. Stine in Goosebumps (appropriate for Halloween, n’est-ce pas?):
I think there was a really good chance for crossover voting this year if the Republicans had put up someone like Romney or John McCain or if the Democrats had put up someone like John Kerry or Al Gore. I don’t know any Democrats that are crossing over (but I don’t live in the rust belt), but I know more than a handful of Republicans that are swallowing real hard and voting for someone they despise to prevent the election of someone dangerous.