I question that assumption. Why should Brexit favor him? Totally unrelated to anything he stands for. Yes, racism played a role in Brexit, yes there is some distrust of globalization. Trump is a US phenomenon and has little to do with Brexit. Same thing for Orlando- why do people think a terror attack should help Republicans? Because Bush kept us so safe on 9/11? Because starting wars with non-participating nations is the right move?
No question that the election is a long way off and that a few swing states are closer than one would hope.
That said it is a bit silly to be so cherry picking in your polls. Yes the NBC/WSJ poll places it at +5 in a two-way (up from +3 last time they polled in May) and +1 in a four-way race. And same day the ABC/WaPo poll declares “Clinton Surges” with Clinton +12 in a two-way and +10 in the four-way.
Overall the rolling average is Clinton +6.7 in a two-way and +5.6 in a four-way. And it has been pretty stable there.
The issue to me is that these are both RV polls. Trump’s strongest support is probably in non-college educated White males and Clinton’s is fairly strong with younger voters. (If not in actual support of her then at least strongly against Trump.) Both groups often fail to come to the polls. One ending up having unusually high turnout and the other slightly lower than usual could be game-changing.
Nothing about the Republican platform is racist/sexist.
It may be that all white racists are Republicans and that they are a large percentile of the base - maybe even a majority. But the party leadership is almost certainly not racist in majority and a large percentile - maybe even a majority - of the base is not racist.
There are racist Democrats, too. Probably it’s a pretty small minority, and it’s mostly blacks who are racist against whites, but it’s not zero.
I’d venture to guess that sexism is actually fairly even spread among the parties. Outside of Jews and whites, I don’t know that there’s a large feminist movement among any other racial group. It’s certainly stronger among Democrats, but they’re a smaller percentile of the party than Jews/whites are in the Republican party, so it may balance out.
This is actually quite true, and it may prove to be true yet again. I would also confess to underestimating Trump in the past and having been proven wrong again and again.
However, Trump hasn’t had a stretch quite this bad at any point in his campaign, and he’s also running a general election campaign, which is different than the primary phase. I can’t recall a general election in which a candidate started off so horribly.
Probably so, but parties aren’t elected for government positions. Gary Johnson is the individual who would get the role and he, at least, seems to be perfectly qualified for the job, far more sane than Trump, and would otherwise have been a reasonable Republican candidate. Johnson probably couldn’t get the nomination from the Republican party, but if he was their candidate, Clinton would have a hard fight on her hands.
I actually expect a high turnout all around this year, but it’s still June, a lot can change along the way. Today’s polls will only reveal the result of the election by accident. I do think they reveal the strength of the base for both sides, favoring Hillary right now. The turnout matters not only for the voters convinced already but those that are malleable, and that group may end up voting against a candidate more than for one, and I doubt the polls can get a clear reading on that.
As much as things can head in any direction from here out I think the Republican base that won’t turn out to vote for Trump or against Hillary is much larger than the Democratic base that won’t turn out to vote for Hillary or against Trump, and gives her a solid advantage in the election. It should be Hillary’s election to lose right now.
Keep in mind that 60-70 million people are going to vote for Hillary (that is about what Obama got in 2008 and 2012, and demographics are more friendly to democrats now). I have no idea if Hillary will break the 70 million vote mark, but she could.
Trump by comparison has only won 10 million votes in the primary, because a nativist base turned out to vote for him. Granted so has Hillary (she got about 15 million votes).
Trump has to get 60 million votes minimum to have a shot at beating Hillary. Where will those other 50 million votes come from? Many conservatives will fall in line, but will 1/4 of adults vote for him? I don’t know.
I’d be surprised if 60 million people trust Trump enough to be president.
But what is there in the bag of dirty tricks that will help him? Fighting clean would help him a lot more than fighting dirty would.
The usual narrative in a US Presidential election is that the candidates are neck and neck and only by persuading that undecided block of voters in the middle will a candidate succeed. But that isn’t the case here. Trump just doesn’t have enough support and being more outrageous and obnoxious isn’t going to get that support for him.
Hillary isn’t guaranteed to get that same kind of turnout. Support for Obama came in very different circumstances. However, I agree that low turnout affects Trump more.
Fear of globalization and xenophobia are the only two things Trump is running on, of course the Brexit vote favors him. And the Orlando attack favors him because of the muslim ban.
As noted before Trump is frustrated that the Orlando attack did not really favor him.
As for Brexit, It was also pointed that Trump looked like a fool in Scotland and it may get worse if the UK begins to fragment as a result of the vote.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClvPIHlXEAAUW-S.jpg:large
I mean, Trump then is looking more like President Buchanan than Pat Buchanan.
The Libertarian Party has been insane in the past (and I say that as a moderate libertarian myself). However, Johnson and Weld are not insane nor fringe candidates. They are both very successful governors with significant political experience. Weld was once a very popular Republican governor for the People’s Republic of Massachusetts after all :). In other words, if they were the Republican nominees, they would be perfectly viable and could win. As it stands now, I know they can’t win and they know that as well but the hope is that they can get libertarian views into the mainstream political process for future elections. I changed my mind recently and I am going to vote for them for that reason (Hillary Clinton was my second choice for a real Republican). Donald Trump is right out.
Well yeah, that was my point. Trump is taking situations that SHOULD favor him and royally fucking them up with his idiotic comments.
I think a lot of women will turn out in order to have the chance to cast a historical vote for the first female President. So there will probably be a higher than usual turn out of female voters even if Clinton is already a sure thing on Election Day.
And let’s not discount the anti-Trump factor. Trump is much more polarizing than somebody like McCain or Romney. He’s going to drive some people to go to the polls just to vote against him.
Did anyone else first read that as “Irreversible Prolapse”?
No…?
Because many in the American general electorate overall don’t seem to be any smarter than my dog and will believe whatever bullshit Trump serves up since he’s a Successful Businessman ™.
Granted, National review has never been Trump’s greatest fan but they point out that Trump is polling far more poorly than Romney or McCain.
Any guesses on who wants to be his running mate? They might be the standard bearer for the GOP in '20.
Standard bearer? More like pooper-scooper. Anybody associated too closely with Trump’s disaster is politically doomed.
Your wrong. Long periods of one party holding the WH has generally been the rule, rather than the exception. Democratic Republicans held it for 30 years (Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Adams). And the GOP had more or less a lock on it from the Civil War through to the Depression, with Cleveland and Wilson being the only breaks (well, and Johnson, but he was elected in a unity ticket with a Republican).