No reasonable person should be surprised that Trump said such a thing, but it takes a very different turn to actually hear it in all it’s pristine vulgarity. But how much of a difference will it have made in the end, assuming Hillary wins? Was her lead already secure without it? Did it give her just enough of a boost to counter any damage from this Comey nonsense? Will it turn out to have been one of the biggest October Surprises ever?
Trump would stand a real chance of winning. Maybe 1-in-3 odds.
I’m surprised, out of all the horrible things he said, unscathed, throughout his campaign, that was his downfall.
I don’t think it would have mattered one bit. Those who were going to vote for him before have found a way to justify it by now. They may have been shocked initially into an embarrassed silence, but now they’ve decided to put personal issues aside and Trump is still their man. I don’t think new news on Clinton’s emails moves voters anyway. It may have a tiny impact on enthusiasm, but less than whether or not they have caffeine on Election Day.
Right. It made no overall difference at all. Trump supporters long ago decided to discount any negative news about him. Only people in the media cared because it gave them such great stuff to talk about.
People always try to explain elections by way of one newsworthy event. About 99% of the time, that’s sheer nonsense. This time as well.
Sure, Trumpsters were committed the moment he started blaming brown people for everything. But what about the undecideds? There were still, unfathomably, a large number of those. Think the video swayed enough of them to make a difference?
Unequivocally, no.
This election campaign has been one big thing after another hitting Trump–and within a couple weeks or so its impact has disappeared completely. It’s weird.
It doesn’t matter to partisans but it matters in terms of inspiring turnout and it also matters to voters in the middle.
Is that serious? Trump’s chances per 538 now are right at 1 in 3*. So it would have made little difference? Although, it’s not clear the Comey letter is making a big difference either, so maybe not.
I tend to think it would have though, and Trump’s chances, lets’ say by the same calculation, 538’s**, would be near even money.
One factor that cumulatively 100’s of posts here ignore is that Trump’s likely support is in the ballpark of Romney’s give or take, 60 mil votes, but only 14 some mil people voted for him in the primaries, some of them when he was essentially unopposed. His core supporters, as in ‘don’t care what negative news comes out about him’ are probably a pretty small slice of the vote he’s going to get. A lot of it is people who just think Clinton is worse than he is. If fewer negative things had come out about him, there’d be more of them, it would seem.
*28% on betting sites, not miles away.
**and save a debate about whether Trump’s odds are ‘really’ a lot lower than 1 in 3 now.