A friend of mine writes:
I decided to tabulate electoral votes based on current polls and current [polls] assuming a 5 point Clinton bias and a 13 point Clinton bias… It’s kind of heartening. [Trump] wins assuming only a 5 percent bias.
My friend includes an informative spreadsheet, available here in pdf format and best viewed at greater than original size, and says readers should feel free to pass it around.
My friend adds:
…One caveat; Maine and Nebraska are not winner take all. I don’t have poll data for their individual congressional districts so I was not able to model this aspect. Maine has an interesting governor so I suspect trump will get some electoral votes out of Maine even if he doesn’t win their general.
My friend’s spreadsheet is worth a serious look. Trump may have a much better chance than the pro-Democrat media are suggesting.
Maine has an interesting governor so I suspect trump will get some electoral votes out of Maine even if he doesn’t win their general.
Trump will probably win northern Maine, which is where the governor wins his vote. Southern Maine, a glorified Boston suburb, will go for Hill. [Much of southern Maine lives off tourism, which primarily is from the Boston area.]
Governor LePage is definitely interesting. Lived homeless several years during his childhood,spoke French as his first language, which became a problem when applying for college, as his English wasn’t up to snuff. So much for Republicans coming from the gentry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_LePage
Sure the media is biased – but does that make the polling so? And is it the media that is making the betting odds 5 to 1? I’d really like Trump to win – though have mixed feelings about him (less mixed than figure taking a chance is better than settling for the kind of corruption we’ve seen with her and politicized institutions we’ve seen with him and her). However, I kept hoping there was that kind of thing going on with Romney – and it was a lot closer.
Best argument I saw was that the pollsters were inflating the numbers for the minor party candidates. One poll had the Greens at John Anderson levels of support.
I have no insight into the election results. My default position is that the media reporting is not on the level, don’t know about the pollsters. I do not want to succumb to the Pauline Kael mindset. However, where I am, in southern NH, Trump signs way outnumber Clinton signs and bumper stickers, despite a 5% Clinton edge in the polls. I actually know people who are registering and voting for the first time. In addition, and I may be wrong, I just don’t see minority men turning out for Clinton in a big way.
I think Rush has this right. The publicly released polls are generally slanted to the need of the purchaser until the last week of the race. Then they come clean to be the most accurate poll before the election.
Evan McMullin could provide a a pathway to a congressional vote for Romney. It’s been a crazy campaign. No reason for it to get dull at the end.
“I kept hoping there was that kind of thing going on with Romney – and it was a lot closer.”
Romney had two problems. One was poor turnout from GOP voters who are more in tune with Trump.
Two is better turnout for Obama among blacks.
Hillary’s big problem, as I see it, is turnout. The young voters who are Bernie voters and blacks are not going to turn out even if her GOTV program is in high gear.
Trump’s big problem is industrial strength fraud.
I hope he has some good election lawyers on board.
I fear/suspect that a lot of Trump voters will not show up and vote. In many cases because they feel that the system is rigged against them, in many cases because they feel the vote is rigged. For all the MSM bedwetting about this issue, Trump knows what his base thinks, as per usual.
I also fear/suspect that the polls/MSM are actively attempting to suppress these voters by making it seem like the race is not competitive.
Who knows what will actually happen in two weeks. The establishment has been nothing but wrong in their prognostications for the last 15 months.
“I fear/suspect that a lot of Trump voters will not show up and vote”
I think this is what the media and the Democrats are trying to accomplish with oversampled polls.
The Trump rally turnout seems not to have dropped off. Of course, I was wrong about Romney and his rallies were well attended and he lost.
We will not know how this is going until the end. I am hearing a few accounts of big early voting turnout by apparent Trump voters.
He needs to keep the pedal to the metal until the end and I think he knows that and will do it. I wish he had a better GOTV program but Romney’s collapsed on election day,
So much for well paid experts.
Last week I drove through rural N.Carolina and counted lawn signs along the way: 38 Trump, 3 Clinton. Did not drive thru highly urban areas.
Re. mainstream media coverage: It might just be me, but it seems to me that there may have been something of a sea change on CBS and, especially, NBC. Trump positions have been articulated more frequently and accurately while HRC’s shallow, idea-free (excepting for the “Trump is the devil” meme) positions, combined with her considerable historical baggage, is being more extensively portrayed.
Maybe Trump is doing a better job WRT his message.