It’s only one poll, and it’s a produced in part by an organization that is in a de facto war with the candidate in question. However, it is also consistent with the nearly month-long barrage of negative press, so it would seem to have surface validity.
Assuming Trump collapses, and given the fact that the #neverTrump movement is divided and confused, could we be seeing much more attention given to the Johnson/Weld campaign? And if Johnson/Weld enter the race, could we also see Jill Stein and, gulp, Bernie Sanders enter as a fourth party?
No, no, and no. As has been pointed out numerous times, it takes a tremendous amount of time and money to get on the ballot and the deadlines are approaching quickly.
Johnson/Weld have already been nominated by the Libertarians. It’s not unreasonable to think that they may draw a few votes from those who can’t support Trump but won’t vote for Hillary. He probably won’t matter, although if Trump’s free fall continues, Johnson/Weld might draw enough from voters to push _Arizona, Missouri, or Georgia into the Democratic column.
Jill Stein is a fucking joke. This pathetic woman can’t even win a race for the Massachusetts state assembly. No one needs to listen to the idiotic rants of a city council member who can’t see a difference between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
The green party got less than half a million votes in 2012, I don’t think they will be a spoiler. The memory of Nader in 2000 is still fresh on a lot of people’s minds. Some Bernie supporters may support her, but it’ll be a small %.
I think Johnson could get some votes, but that is because I’m assuming that the people who are hostile to Trump have more hostility than the people who are hostile to Clinton. So it’ll be harder to hold their nose and vote for the lesser of two evils.
Sanders has said keeping Trump out of power is very important, he isn’t going to run as a third party candidate because of that.
I think the GOP realizes they fucked up, and are just waiting until 2020 at this point.
In 2024, there will be a number of people *voting *who will literally have no living memory of a Republican president. Or of a white male one, for that matter.
I’ve thought about that too, but obviously it’s too far off to consider seriously.
On the other hand, someone correct me if I’m wrong, but only one time in US history has one party held the presidency four consecutive times (FDR). Republicans held it through Reagan I & II, and Bush I.
I’m not counting Kennedy/Johnson or Nixon/Ford because the VEEPs came in as fill ins (not that they could be counted as four terms anyway.)
But yeah, it could happen. I just think it’s funny to watch the Republican establishment say, "Okay, okay, you got me. I’ll stick with Trump through this election and hope…hope! mind you, that I can sneak some wins downballot.
“But you wait until 2020! Three terms of presidential democrats will be all the public can swallow.”
And by then, Trump, or someone equally bad, may run and win then.
It’s a grave mistake to assume Trump is down and out. He fights even dirtier than other Repubs, and that’s saying a lot. And the more trouble his campaign is in, the dirtier he’ll fight. In spite of her current status and her organization and her money, this is gonna be a tough campaign for Hillary.
Problem is that he fights so dirty that even Republicans are getting soiled and hit by Trump also. And as I noted in another thread there is still one factor against Trump that was not present in past presidential contests; this time the right wing echo cave has had many cave ins, the monolith seen defending the Republican candidate 24/7 is not 100% in favor of the current Republican candidate.
Here is another factor against Trump too: in the past one saw dozens of Republican congress critters from the GOP overwhelmingly and quickly defending their candidate against Democratic attacks in TV and other media, currently there is mostly crickets.
The jaw-dropper for me in that poll is, it has 41% of Republicans saying that Trump’s comments indicate an unfair bias against women or minorities or Muslims. I mean, granted, a majority of Democrats said that, and a majority of Independents said it likewise, but, still: 41% of Republicans?
MSNBC stated this morning that a poll including Libertarian and I think a Green candidate has Hillary ahead by 1 point, within the margin of error. 3rd party candidates are taking the votes away from Hillary. Given the Brexit vote that shows Hillary and Obama still don’t understand the dissatisfaction that people have for globalization this election is far from over.
The party may be having a breakdown, but Trump supporters are not.
Trump has a solid core of true believers. Plus, I have a gut feeling that he has a lot of additional supporters who won’t admit it out loud to the pollsters (or even to family members)— but in the privacy of the voting booth will vote for him.
If the polls say 39 vs 51 %, I say, add 3 or 4 % for the “secret admirers”.
That changes the results to 43 vs 47—only a 4% difference. Allow an additional 2-4% margin of error in the polling , as we just saw in England…
I can imagine that after leaving the voting booth, those “secret admirers” who lied on the phone, will also lie to reporters on the sidewalk doing the exit polls.
When the actual votes are counted, we could easily have a surprise just like the Brexit vote.
On Election night, people who go to bed at midnight after hearing the TV stations confidently declare that Hillary has won, may well wake up the next morning to President Trump.
The Brexit vote wasn’t a surprise, the polls were always at the “too close to call” level, the problem was just like with Trump people simply chose to disregard the polls because it seemed silly. What one should take from both situations is not “anything could happen” it is “stop ignoring the polls”.
I seem to remember hearing about a poll taken with the 2012 election a year and a half out. Pegged every state but FL. (Ryan might well have cost Romney that one.)
I agree with panache, don’t count Trump out until the counting (voting) is done. He fights dirty and he’s willing to say the most outrageous things. Considering he’s only down a few points in the polls when he should be totally cratering, he’s capable of pulling out a few surprises and gaining strength, especially if the party forces him to buckle down and fundraise, pick the right VP and all that other good stuff.
Trump has no freaking clue what he is doing, all he can manage to do is turn opportunities that should favor him like Brexit into yet another instance when the news cycle is entirely about what a stupid thing he said. He is not some super political genius playing 3D chess, he is a one note chump. He is Bart Simpson on the “I didn’t do it” episode.
If you actually look at the poll results, Trump has “collapsed” to where he was in March. Trump is here to stay until and unless he decides to jump ship.
That was a single poll. Aggregate polling shows Clinton winning comfortably in a 4-way race. Even the same day as the +1 poll (NBC/WSJ), another had her +10 (ABC/WP). The day before that, Reuters/Ipsos had Clinton +9.
But no one stays tuned in to hear how the race is looking like a blow-out versus the eyeballs you get by saying “Horse race!”