As we all know, US presidential election results are not based on national vote totals but on the basis of the Electoral College that determines the result on a state-by-state basis. There are 538 electoral votes in total, thus requiring 270 to win. Hence it is really state polling that is important, though national polls can give some idea of which way sentiment is moving.
Josh Marshall says that currently Hillary Clinton has 273 electoral votes in states where she leads Donald Trump by 10 points or more. Things can, of course, change in the next 88 days but in general in past elections, things settle down a couple of weeks after the two conventions and the state of affairs tends to remain fairly stable after that.
All Clinton has to do is to hold on to those states that went for president Obama in 2012 and gave him 332 votes. But it looks like states that voted for Romney in 2012 (particularly North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and even Utah, that provide a total of 48 votes) are within her reach and in play in this election, giving Clinton more options and making winning all of the traditionally key states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida less critical to her chances. Donald Trump, on the other hand, has to hold on to all of Romney’s states that gave him 206 votes and add all the 67 votes provided by Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida to win.
So things do not look good for Trump at the moment. He may decide that he needs to do something really dramatic to shake up the race and so we should brace ourselves for even more controversial statements to come from him, along the lines of the stand up comedy routines that cartoonist Tom Tomorrow describes.
“As we all know…”
not really
May! MAY! How much freaking drama are you after?
Apparently Trump is already claiming it must be voter fraud if he loses Pennsylvania.
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2016/08/07/discuss-moments-of-political-madness-5/#comment-1034750
Nerd -- Psssh, that’s not even the most dramatic thing he’s said this week.
Swell, A path for Clinton to track right to win the Romney vote and not have to both with those horrible liberals, progressives or any other pesky Democrats.
He may decide that he needs to do something really dramatic …
We should never underestimate Trump’s talent for attention grabbing, but I worry much more about an October Surprise from his de facto allies in a certain pseudoCaliphate, who absolutely crave another Bush-league crusader to validate their claims about the hostility of the West against all Muslims.
For every idiot who thinks Trump is deliberately trolling the republicans is there an equal and opposite idiot who thinks he was put there by the DCC to open the overton window?
If the October surprise comes it may come from KGB puppet Julian Assange handing off something juicy.
On the other hand, if someone can convince Trump to shut up and stick to script, the goofier elements in the Democratic party may well drive voters to Trump or discourage sufficient numbers of Dems voting to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
abear, by goofy elements you seem to mean liberals, progressives and people of conscience not wanting to support right wing domestic policies, cozy corporate relationships and a continuation of failed and brutal foreign policy, all in a Democratic wrapper. That’s a lot to trade for some social policies we are already winning on. If defeat comes to the Dems because of voter turnout it will be because Hillary continued to abandon the left while trying to woo the right. She wants my vote? It’s hers to come and get. The excitement over Sanders and Stein has shown there is a good bloc to go after. No one, Democrat or otherwise, owes Hillary their vote just because she isn’t Trump. Punched any hippies lately?