Meh – Fox News will “accidentally” tack a minus sign in front of both of those, and if Trump feels that his campaign needs a boost, he’ll float the story of how the FBI is now investigating Hillary in the suspicious death of Vince Foster (“you won’t believe what they’re finding!!”), and he’ll hire a Mexican and a swarthy Muslim to do terroristic things.
Is it finally safe to consider voting third-party?
In CA, sure, go ahead. In Florida? No way!
It ain’t over til it’s over.
No.
Never this time, never this election.
Never pay attention to one poll. Only averages and trends mean anything.
You’re right, of course. My head knows this. But whenever I see a poll like the one in my cite, it just horrifies me for awhile.
Election Update: Trump’s Slump Deepens In The Polls
Clinton has increased her lead in the polls since the convention. She has about the same lead as Obama did over McCain in 2008 - around 7 percentage points. In the RCP average she’s at 47 and Trump is at 40.
It is my hope that she can increase it even further. Maybe during the debates she can knock Trump into the low 30s.
The antidote is adaher predicting Trump will get 400 electoral votes.
That helped. 
Thanks.
This helped, too. Thanks!
I think Trump’s endorsements of his GOP were a sign that Paul Manafort is starting to reassert some control over Donald Trump. His team of ‘economic advisors’ is good for a laugh, but still, it’s a sign that Trump is moving past the chaos and into the realm of stability again, which means that we’ve probably seen him bottom out. I’d be careful about counting him out yet. Again, Hillary didn’t become more popular; Trump just became less so. This is still a race about Americans who hate liberals, minorities, and the democratic establishment on one hand, and those who are more reasonable on the other. Hillary is still extremely vulnerable, particularly given her repeatedly tortured explanations of her interpretation of Comey’s testimony.
Oh, we’ve seen this before. Trump goes crazy, people swoop in to save him, things calm down for a week or two, then he ramps up again.
All he does by “endorsing” Ryan is get the heat off his back. Doesn’t mean he is going to Cinderella himself into a reasonable candidate.
He doesn’t have to be reasonable; he just has to convince enough people that he can be. People (almost exclusively white) want to believe in the myth that is Trumpism. They will keep believing in it until they are confronted with something that makes them question or doubt it – but questions and doubts can be reversed if people want to believe in the myth so badly. And there is pretty clear evidence that they do.
Hillary Clinton is the ‘real’ candidate. People know how she will govern. Even the more optimistic among us probably doubt she will have a noticeably positive impact on our state of politics in the next four years.
Trump, on the other hand, represents our imagination. He represents what we want to believe, that a superman can come out of nowhere and fix our broken system. He is the adult Santa Claus but with a bit of an attitude problem. They want to believe that those factories, steel mills, and textile factories are gonna come back and magically create opportunity for lower-income whites currently strung out on meth or stuck in some dead end job at 7-11. People want to believe that Trump is gonna once and for all stop Indians, Chinese, and Russians from taking IT jobs from guys who graduated with mediocre grades at Online State U.
Trump is not going away because people want to keep believing. It’s just that he occasionally says shit that is so utterly offensive and outrageous that the truth occasionally – only occasionally – slaps them in the face and makes them ask “Is this just a dream?” But he’ll calm down and they’ll go back to sleep and keep dreaming.
Sorry that you tend to look at the negative side of things, but I gotta tell you: your lumping of “white people” as one monolithic Trump voting block who want to “believe in Trumpism” is offensive. Dial it back.
I’m sorry you find it offensive, but it pretty much squares with the facts. Trump is the product of white nationalism – this has been well-documented. But you’re offended? You’re offended?! by the existence of Trump’s campaign. LOL.
I’m not saying that all whites want to vote for Trump, but I’m surprised that this even needs to be said.
I say this as someone who’s pretty pasty white if it makes any difference.
Yeah, if Trump does manage to win, a lot of people who love blaming everything on whites, and particularly white males, are going to be surprised at how many females and non-whites voted for him and made it happen.
Yeah, there was that one black guy at his rally, Trump loves that guy.
I’m kidding - you are right. If he wins it will be because some women and some minorities voted for him - he can’t win with just white men, they aren’t a big enough demographic.
Last I looked, he’s polling surprising “well” with Hispanics - he is in the double digits.
He’s unlikely to win white women as a voting block - but he will likely take the conservatives.
And there is that one black guy.
There’s a lot more of “that one black guy” than people seem to think.