I just read one report that says early hispanic absentee votes are significantly more numerous than normal. In Florida, it’s twice the usual amount.
This is very good news. Trump’s lead in Florida is very thin and hispanics are a significant demographic. If they turn out in high numbers to vote against him, he could easily lose Florida and that will pretty much end his hopes for getting elected. And this is based on actual votes that have been cast; not polls or punditry.
I’ve pointed out that Clinton’s lead is within the zone of polling error. However, my feeling for at least the past week or two has been that if anyone out-performs the polls it’ll be Hillary. This is not at all scientific but in the last four races, it has been the “safe” candidate who has performed better on election day. By safe I mean the more experienced (McCain) or the incumbent (*Gore, Bush, and Obama) *Gore was a de facto incumbent, IMO. Now this could be due to just random chance, but I suspect that when undecideds actually do show up at the polls and vote, they go with their gut, and their instincts tend to be risk averse. Donald Trump is an exciting candidate, but he’s the riskier candidate, and even those who don’t like Hillary probably feel that way.
Beyond that, I completely agree with others here on SDMB who reject the notion of shy Trump voters. Trump voters are not at all shy. They don’t all carpet post Facebook and social media but they’re not reluctant to admit their support for Trump unless they’re a professor in academia. Trump’s supporters have been consistently accounted for in the polls. Moreover, I think that given his demographics, they’re probably much easier to access than Clinton’s voters, who tend to be younger, more diverse, and less likely to respond to polls and less easily accessed by polling organizations.
There are some more-grounded reasons to think the chance of polling error is disproportionately in Clinton’s favor:
It will be interesting to see!
Front Page Headline today on the NYT (paraphrased as I don’t have my copy with me right now):
Surge in Latino Early Voters
**
A benefit for Clinton.**
Interesting, like waiting in the doctor’s office for the test results is “interesting”. Your attention is absorbed but you’d rather be anywhere else, doing anything but.
That supports the hypothesis that the extremely Clinton-friendly numbers in Nevada may be also true in Florida. (It was plausible it wouldn’t be. “Hispanics” are not all the same people; folks of Mexican heritage could react very different than folks of Cuban or South American heritage.)
If so, Trump’s chances are certainly much worse than 538 believes, for sure, and a lot closer to the 99 percent Sam Wang believes (I think… he tweeted he might have made an error in his model, but he hasn’t updated his site.) For Trump, losing Nevada would be bad. Losing Arizona would be extremely bad. Losing Florida is the whole election.
Wow Dopers! I asked you to do something to cheer me up. How did you pull this off? You all are a powerful bunch. 
Thank you.
I’ve barely followed the Clinton email saga. I know I should, both because I’m a concerned citizen and because I’m in the information security profession. But I just haven’t really cared much because I can’t imagine anything in the emails that would make me want to vote for Trump.
With that preamble… It seems that Comey is pretty much a fucking idiot, isn’t he? Why get everyone worked up before you even bother to check if there’s anything new in the emails?
I’m a computer forensic examiner. I investigate security incidents all day for a living. And my general rule is not to go and shoot off my mouth before I have at least examined the evidence. But maybe things are different over at the FBI.
It is supposed to work that way at the FBI as well.
Well, there might be an opening soon. :rolleyes: I hear it pays pretty well.
Boy would it be fabulous or what to have a Doper as head of the FBI?!? You could tell us all kinds of things and we would pinky-swear to keep it all, like, totally secret.
MPSIMS - “Ask the head of the FBI”
Monday and Tuesday are going to be highly stressful for America. Candidates would be wise to put on bullet proof armor for the time being this week. Personally, if I’m going outside on Wednesday, I predict nothing will happen, but then again, who knows?
I’m angling for head of the NSA. I’ll let you all know how it goes.
I’ll take NGA (the little-known, but large and important, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency).
Not now you won’t, blabbermouth!
They have a huge presence here in St Louis. I applied to them once I think. They didn’t hire me. Fuckers. If you take the reins there before I assume control of the NSA, let me know!
What do I win? Halfway through Monday, and she’s at 67.9% and climbing.
I love it when Nate Silver practically quotes me word-for-word, though he waited until it actually happened: