Trump Train Is Chugging
By Robert A. Guiffre
After a week of serious setbacks, the Hillary Clinton campaign is down, and the Donald Trump campaign is up.
The best polling source, online gambling, has reflected how the race for the White House has tightened. Back on August 18th Hillary Clinton was a -450 favorite compared to Trump a +325 underdog; as of September 12th (right after Hillary’s awful weekend) Clinton’s odds decreased to -220 and Trump increased to +180. That is a drastic improvement for “The Donald.” Even better for Trump, Clinton’s gaffes (deplorable comments and health crisis lies) did not fully digest within public consciousness. Are bookmakers overplaying or underplaying the events from this past weekend?
Well, what about more esteemed pollsters? Nate Silver – whom boldly predicted that Trump had no chance of winning the Republican Primary early in the election season – wrote just yesterday that Trump has a 34.7 percent chance of winning the White House, his best odds since July (Trump’s best-ever odds were 37 percent).
Alas, Hillary Clinton is still leading a majority of national polls; however, there are reasons to be optimistic for Trump supporters:
First off, polls have underestimated Trump the entire primary season. Back in March, CNN claimed that the Pennsylvania GOP Primary was “too tight to call” and Trump and Kasich were “neck and neck.” Less than a month later, Trump ended up winning by 20 percent.
Second, some upper-middle class, college educated white people are hesitant to proclaim their support for Donald Trump, especially when polled by phone by a live human being. In some circles, it is politically incorrect to support Donald Trump. We won’t get into why this is ridiculous (it is), but many professional-type white people might not want to shout their support from the roof tops. There is evidence to support the theory that Trump has significant support among “secret voters:” Trump performs 3-9 points better on online polls than phone polls.
Third, Trump is taking leads in key swing states. As of this week, many polls have Trump leading in Ohio, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina and within striking distance in many more swing states. There is a real likelihood that Trump may win the White House but lose the popular vote.
Fourth: Trump is making slight inroads with the African American vote. It seems as if Trump’s recent campaign stops in black churches have shown some payoff. Despite little to no media coverage, the L.A. Times released a poll today that showed Trump winning over 17 percent of the black vote. Seventeen percent doesn’t sound like much, but it is much better than the 2% Mitt Romney pulled in 2012. Trump is courting African American voters – African America Males in particular – by making a valid point that the Democratic Party has taken their vote for granted and has produced little to no results. If Trump can get his support among African Americans over 25 percent, it would be very hard for Hillary Clinton to get to 270 electoral college votes.
Lastly, the debates!!! NBC recently had their “Commander-in-Chief Forum.” Despite there being little to no promotion of the event, post-event polls showed that over 60 percent of viewers think Trump looked better and “won.” The debates are going to make or break this election, and for whatever reason, there is a feeling that Trump will perform better once on stage.
Time shall tell what will happen with this election. In the meantime, below are some good resources to keep an eye on the horse race:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
http://www.oddschecker.com/politics/us-politics/us-presidential-election-2016/winner
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