WAPO: A new 50-state poll shows exactly why Clinton holds the advantage over Trump

[BumRushDaShow]

With nine weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump is within striking distance in the Upper Midwest, but Hillary Clinton’s strength in many battlegrounds and some traditional Republican strongholds gives her a big electoral college advantage, according to a 50-state Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll.

The survey of all 50 states is the largest sample ever undertaken by The Post, which joined with SurveyMonkey and its online polling resources to produce the results. The state-by-state numbers are based on responses from more than 74,000 registered voters during the period of Aug. 9 to Sept. 1. The individual state samples vary in size from about 550 to more than 5,000, allowing greater opportunities than typical surveys to look at different groups within the population and compare them from state to state.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-new-50-state-poll-shows-exactly-why-clinton-holds-the-advantage-over-trump/2016/09/05/13458832-7152-11e6-9705-23e51a2f424d_story.html

Alot to look through and I know there are other OPs getting ready for it.

[piechartking]

1. To the extent that online polls understate Clinton's support, this is actually good news...

...because the results of the poll still show her winning more than 270.

That's my take-away.

[Funtatlaguy]

2. Texas?

Seriously? 😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳😳

[Adrahil]

5. Yeah, saw that...

I have a hard time believing Trump is doing better in Ohio than Texas. But it's another data point.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. MS

was the bigger head-scratcher but then that state is like 38% black.

[elleng]

46. % disinfranchised???

[BumRushDaShow]

47. I remember

during the 2008 election when the first Presidential Debate was held at University of Mississippi... and the media who were in town were interviewing many of the blacks around the state trying to get some commentary from them on what could be the election of the first black President. And the sad thing was, a whole pile (and maybe these were just the ones they happened to catch on video) indicated "why bother?" with respect to voting.

That is the state that produced Fannie Lou Hamer who battled the Democratic Party just to be seated at the 1964 Convention. That is also the state where Medgar Evers was born and was assassinated after pushing for voter registration in the south.

Although it is 50+ years later, I think there is still some PTSD going on there, but maybe some (the next generation) are starting to stir.

[elleng]

48. Good (and sad) analysis.

Thanks.

[Dustlawyer]

12. I am seeing campaign commercials post Primary, something that hasn't happened in decades.

We never get Democatic candidates airing ads here anymore, but this time we are getting money spent here!

[grossproffit]

18. How exciting. Many of our friends & family in Arizona see Hillary ads all the time. They love em'.

[LenaBaby61]

19. Hillary's tied in TEXAS????

NO

And she's now almost about to be tied or behind in Va., Pa., and in Co.?

[Amimnoch]

22. Yep, Texas is actually in play.. but we'd better tread carefully.

Understanding Texas coming out of the Primary season:

The Democrat base of Texas was very much pro-Hillary in the Primary season. We are energized, and very active here.

The Republican base of Texas was very much anti-Trump and Pro-Cruz. The treatment that Cruz got during the GOP convention has left a bitter taste in many Texas conservatives mouths. They are certainly not, nor are they going to be Hillary supporters, but they also hate trump. Unless something is done or said to energize them against Hillary enough to go out and vote, it's likely their turnout is going to be down. There's also a lot of protest voting from their side for Johnson and the libertarian party (notice from those links that Johnson is getting almost 11% of the Texas vote.. those numbers are pretty much coming exclusively out of what would be Republican votes).

Add to that, Trump's rhetoric has GREATLY energized the very large Latino community of Texas. Pretty safe to say they won't be turning up in low numbers this round.

As long as Hillary avoids saying anything that either energizes the conservatives of Texas to get out the vote, or piss off the Latino community, Texas electoral votes are in play for us!

[Motley13]

30. Austin & Dallas are Dem

And the border

Fantastic if she could take Texass

[Amimnoch]

42. Houston as well.

The 4th largest city (by population) is also pretty blue as well.

[crabsley]

25. Lot of mexicans

In texas

[underpants]

3. Texas is a virtual tie

Lots to go through but I wanted to point that out.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. TX

is 39% Hispanic and 13% black. IMHO, the problem has a lot to do with turnout ("likely voters&quot and whatever manufactured blockades that the GOP puts in place for those folks to vote.

[underpants]

35. Sooner than I expected.

I thought in 2024 Texas could be in play. We'll see.

[Ishoutandscream2]

60. Same here. 2024 seemed a logical time

Get a few more of us Boomers out of the way, Millineals taking the wheel. and the minority-majority of our state will be unprecendented. Yet, this is kind of nice to see, even though I'm having a hard time believing it.

[Rose Siding]

4. There goes TX! - she's up by 1

GA and NC are tied, she's only down by 2 in Mississippi! Up by 1 in AZ, too.

Those all look like opportunities to me.

[loudsue]

54. That should tell you how bad the tea party has taken over NC

Every republican in my very redneck area are not excited about Trump at all, in spite of the many billions of dollars that the Koch brothers have spent buying this state.

[helpisontheway]

6. Up 1 pt in MI and tied in Colorado

She needs to put her ads up in Colorado again. I don't even know what to say about Michigan. Up 2 points in WI and 3 points in PA...What the hel is wrong with the people?

[HereSince1628]

15. Clinton's doing in WI a bit better than Mary Burke did when she lost governorship

And that's in the context of Walker polling a bit more favorably than he has since making an ass of himself in his presidential bid.

Libertarians are pushing here and making some progress on the right..that -should- be hurting Trump.

There is really no sign that Greens are making any headway so I don't see it as a divided vote on the left.

While, the lack of enthusiasm here is a lot like it was for Mary Burke's unsuccessful run for gov., HRC is doing fractionally better.

[greenman3610]

32. no effing way trump wins michigan

[Bucky]

51. It's pretty worrisome.

Everyone in this thread is acting like "nothing could possibly go worng". It's not hard to see Trump's pathway to victory here if we get overconfident. But winning Ohio, Florida, and Michigan puts him over the top (see link below). In those states, he's only 1 or 2 points down. And he'll have governors in two of those states (plus in Wisconsin) helping him get those EC votes.

http://www.270towin.com/maps/1ldXP

It's a longshot, but this election has once again become very doable for Trump.

[Beartracks]

57. The "nothing could possibly go wrong" attitude is a mistake.

And if one dares suggest everything isn't just a rose-lined pathway to the White House for Hillary, you get the flippant: "Your concern is duly noted."



Too many people here think that just because Trump is a bigoted, incompetent, imbecile, he cannot -- will not -- be elected. And yet, what do we all complain about and fight against? Bigoted, incompetent, imbeciles who have managed to get into elected office!

=======================

[spooky3]

58. The GOP will be going all out with voter suppression again.

[apcalc]

7. Online poll?

I would think that overestimates her support...old people ( more Trump supporters . ) not that computer savvy....

Can someone elaborate?

[BumRushDaShow]

10. They have a description of how they did this

The new poll was conducted online as part of SurveyMonkey’s 2016 Election Tracking project, which recruits respondents from the large number people who take polls on the company’s do-it-yourself survey platform, roughly three million each day. A subsample of respondents to this range of surveys — which includes formal and informal polls of community groups, companies, churches and other organizations — were invited to participate in a second survey with the prompt, “Where do you stand on current events? Share your opinion.” The survey was not advertised on any website, so individuals could not “click-in” in an effort to influence results. A survey invitation could be used only once.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/06/how-the-washington-post-surveymonkey-50-state-poll-was-conducted/

Doing it this may have at least initially filtered out some (but obviously not all) riff raff.

[LenaBaby61]

13. Uh ......

"The new poll was conducted on line as part of SurveyMonkey’s 2016 Election Tracking project."

This bolded part makes me not really put too much stock into even this 50 state poll.


I'll continue sticking with Sam Wang over @ Princeton Election Consortium.

[Imperialism Inc.]

16. Online polls are much improved these days.

We aren't in the early 2000s anymore; internet usage is ubiquitous. These aren't just some random user poll on someone's website either. Read the methodology section.

[BumRushDaShow]

24. I am a big Sam Wang fan

But as much as I generally loathe online polls, I thought it was interesting how they at least attempted to correct for some of the most egregious bot-responses.

And as a note - I get robo-called continually for "polls" and refuse to pick up robo-calls. I expect there are millions out there like me who do not get "sampled" because of this. So that is the 6 on one side and half a dozen on the other regarding "polling" in general - outside of the clip-board carriers and being willing to answer the door when one comes knocking or engaging one on the street, or in a supermarket.

[Bucky]

52. It's not an online poll. None of those are reported on cause they're useless.

This is a real survey.

[Roland99]

9. "The Texas results...show a dead heat, with Clinton ahead by one percentage point"

wow!

[Bucky]

53. This part I don't believe. I've lived in Texas 47 years.

Romney won Texas by 16 points. McCain won Texas by 12 points. Clinton won't do much better than Obama. They know how to spook the rubes around here.

[Stuart G]

14. I am a political junkie too..But, ..Remember ..WE ARE 62 DAYS AWAY FROM THE ELECTION!!!!

nothing is set in stone..it is all fluid....................

in 1948..everyone was sure Truman would lose at this point...........and there was only one person who was riding the Truman train during this time in the election that thought Truman could win....that person was Harry Truman.

Things are fluid, and things change..who knows?

I am hoping for a landslide for Hillary..and take over of the senate and the house.... and there is plenty of time for that to happen no matter what this poll says or what the so called pundits say...

[thesquanderer]

45. Early voting starts a lot sooner than 62 days from now.

https://mic.com/articles/152455/when-does-early-voting-start-in-the-us-here-s-a-full-list-of-voting-dates-in-each-state#.5SiixH21e

[Doctor Jack]

17. Uh, ahead in texas and Arizona, down by 2 in Mississippi but losing in Ohio and Iowa?

These online polls are a mess. Keep in mind, these are probably the best results Clinton has ever had with Texas and Arizona in her column so I am not saying this out of a sense of denial that this is absolute horseshit. There is no way any of these results are correct.

[LenaBaby61]

21. I agree with you...

This is a horseshit poll.

My neighbor has a relative in Aurora Co., and he said he hasn't seen any Hillary ads in a month plus. Additionally, he said he's seen no tRump ads as of yet, and that was last week.

[Indydem]

20. Complete garbage.

Online poll.

"No margins of sampling error are calculated, as this statistic is only available to randomly sampled surveys."

Total junk.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

27. so, exactly where is this poll? on Washington Post website? I am in Texas

and I would venture a guess that not a single wingnut I have met has ever gotten on the WP website

[BumRushDaShow]

28. Info on how it was done

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/09/06/how-the-washington-post-surveymonkey-50-state-poll-was-conducted/

[Laura PourMeADrink]

33. Sorry BRDS, perhaps not enough coffee. Still not clear to me. Say, I am

selected to complete survey. How/where would I see that survey? An email invitation? Anyone who is internet savvy, would never open up something like that anymore. Amazes me that three million people do every day

"which recruits respondents from the large number people who take polls on the company’s do-it-yourself survey platform, roughly three million each day. A subsample of respondents to this range of surveys — which includes formal and informal polls of community groups, companies, churches and other organizations — were invited to participate in a second survey with the prompt, “Where do you stand on current events? Share your opinion.”

[BumRushDaShow]

34. I definitely agree!

The pool is going to be limited and I think the discussion at Wapo basically says that. You might get one of those "invites" if you are visiting a news site or even an online retail site (I usually close the pop-ups when I see them).

On the other hand, I posted elsewhere that I refuse robo-calls and I know many are polls (whether Harris or Gallup, etc). So I am a missing demographic due to my call-blocking whereas folks that do similar might consider something like this.

It's a matter of trying to find ways to accurately capture "pools" of people by different means - whether the person responds on a phone or to a clip-board carrier or perhaps to some type of secured online poll ("secured" in that it cannot be bot-populated).

[Laura PourMeADrink]

37. Yes, me too. No land line, no robo-calls, and never click on the survey

pop ups anymore.

Wonder if anyone has done an analysis of primary polls vs results.

It is definitely a new world to deal with for pollsters. Find it fascinating.

To me, it's almost like you have to factor in the types of supporters your candidate has out there. And pay more attention to the type of poll to find what best reflects your support.

For instance, a huge part of Hillary's base are probably traditional dems - maybe older and likely to have a landline.

Finding a poll that reflects the support for a candidate like Bernie, would be difficult to find - younger - no land line - too savvy to click on an online poll - wouldn't answer an unknown number on a cell. And perhaps, the same for Trump.
In these cases, your candidate would over-perform.

[BumRushDaShow]

40. I also think that

just like you have dedicated "Publishers Clearing House" players, you probably have dedicated poll-responding "players" as well. Gives 'em something to do during the day.

This is why - as most here say - that using polls alone to predict can be dicey. I will never forget that last Gallup Poll that issued right before the 2012 election and the post-election analysis -

Gallup explains what went wrong in 2012

By Scott Clement June 4, 2013

The Gallup Poll’s misfire in the 2012 election was caused by a variety of defects in the way the firm conducts surveys, according to the organization’s top pollster, who provided the most detailed explanation to date of how the firm plans to improve their polling accuracy in future elections.

Flanked by survey experts from academia, Gallup President Frank Newport walked through four major factors that led the poll to veer toward the “inaccurate end of the spectrum." (Gallup’s final pre-election poll result – 49 percent Mitt Romney, 48 percent President Obama – differed not only from other surveys but also from Obama’s four-point victory.) Those factors ranged from problems with the organization's likely voter model to unpublished landline numbers. (Much more on that below.)
A poll. Not one conducted by Gallup.

The unusual gathering by the powers-that-be at Gallup -- and the report issued -- is a recognition of the damage done to the poll's brand in the last election. Gallup's polling drew intense criticism in the wake of the election and its partnership with USA Today was dissolved. (The organizations described the breakup as mutual).

The four factors he listed:

1. Likely voter model shifted too far toward Romney

<...>

2. Too many whites

<...>

3. Sub-regional swings

<...>

4. Secret landline phones

<...>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2013/06/04/gallup-explains-what-went-wrong-in-2012/

You often need to look at other data like past elections, in order to help give a sense on where things stand. It's hard though given the talking heads and their manufacturing of "voter sentiment".

[Laura PourMeADrink]

41. Hey...don't trash PCH players ! LOL. My brother-in-law and I got hooked

last year. What a racket ! Thought you could just hit one button and be in the contest. NOoooooo. I swear I must have received at least a hundred followup emails - must click on ONE more thing to stay in. But they have pretty cool gambling games which were an occasional work avoidance activity. LOL


Back to polls, sorry. This is an interesting article from 538 you might have missed? Measured 2016 primary polling accuracy and it was off a whopping 9.4% !!!
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-state-of-the-polls-2016/

First, here’s a calculation we call Simple Average Error. It measures the difference between the percentage of the vote separating the top two finishers in the election and the margin shown by the polls. For instance, if a poll had projected Trump to beat Ted Cruz by 2 percentage points in an election and Trump won by 10 points, that would count as an 8 percentage point error. Likewise, it would count as an 8-point error if Trump had been projected to beat Cruz by 2 points but lost to him by 6 instead.

[BumRushDaShow]

43. Ha ha

I used to get PCH mailers for years and years. With the web, it just opened up an easier way to participate.

I have to look at that 538 link. Thanks!

I used to follow him intensely when he was the NYT back in 2008 (and had his app) along with Sam Wang from Princeton, and then when he left the NYT, I followed him a bit but he got dicey with the 2012 election (at least some of his commentary).

Hopefully with these past 2 elections, some of the poll analyzers will really consider the demographic shifts that continue to happen - for example, a think tank that I followed the past 20 years - the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, regularly publishes various reports regarding POC and issued an analysis of the 2014 mid-terms -BLACK TURNOUT & THE 2014 MIDTERMS, which mentioned how some of their analysis methodology eschewed census (CPS) data to determine likely voters, etc., in some cases because of how some states report it and how it doesn't take into account actual registered voters, etc.

[Cryptoad]

23. Im dreaming of a Blue Texas!!!!!

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. Hmm...Registered vs Likely? Did someone say Hillary does better with likely

than she does with registered? And started Aug 9th? Light years ago, no?

[BumRushDaShow]

29. "And started Aug 9th? Light years ago, no? "

It covers a period from August 9th until September 1st. I.e., it wasn't just a 1 or 2-day survey. It was essentially an "add on" survey to other surveys that were conducted during that period and the participants chose to do this additional "survey" (poll).

[Laura PourMeADrink]

31. Can you explain that a bit more please? I understand the time frame - but how do the

other poll results play into it?

[BumRushDaShow]

39. I think the idea

was to "gather data" during that period while they had survey responders "engaged" in other surveys and then take a look at the results... I.e., someone may have been answering questions on the purchase of a refrigerator and when done, may have been "randomly selected" to answer additional questions on this unrelated (political) subject.

It seems that it is a technique somewhat similar to what has been done with some medical studies, where you have an "aggregator" study that looks at other medical studies to see if a particular question (say "aspirin usage&quot appears - even if the study really had nothing to do with aspirin per se, and then to see if any correlations appear. I know this is obviously not the same type of analysis here, but is somewhat along the vein of capturing larger amounts of data points (in the aggregator studies - the data may have been collected over many years). Similarly, from what I understand when the census does "household surveys", they are gathering all kinds of data and then they go back and further analyze specific points and determine if any conclusions or correlations can be made.

[Dalziel3979]

36. How can Dump get Ohio?

They didn't even vote for him in the primary.

[BumRushDaShow]

38. I doubt he will

but I expect this is speculating on a less-than-stellar urban turnout from the traditionally Democratic bigger cities like Cleveland - perhaps due to all the GOP vote blocking. Having relatives in OH and having been there many times, I know the SW corner is pretty conservative (with a little blue in another bigger city - Cincinnati, but not much).

I think that one thing that won't factor in this go-around since Obama is not on the ticket, is that there is no longer any reason to "inject race" into the rancor surrounding the candidate, which seems to have impacted Obama across both male & female demographics. But with Hillary as a woman running, that will still impact the male vote, but the hope would be that she could still pick up Obama's coalition plus a few more women.

[Bucky]

50. They're angry, scared, and effectively aggitated by years of Fox/Rush lies

Plus Trump's really pulling them out of the woodwork. Ohio is going to very tough to bring back to the blue side.

[Hekate]

44. KnR

[Bucky]

49. Going by those results, Clinton wins 308 to 230, but there's a big downside & bigger danger here

Now for the bad news. Two states with Republican governors who are more than likely to "help out" Trump's final tally (via vote suppression and very probable outright vote flipping) are very close: Wisconsin & Florida. Clinton is ahead by 2% points in each state. If Rick Scott and Scott Walker do their things, the Electoral Collage tally comes to 269-269.

http://www.270towin.com/maps/1ldXP

This is Trump's map to the White House. Either the House of Reps puts him in under a tied vote OR the Republicans cook up another state they can flip (or "flip&quot red. That's the danger.

We're only 3 points up in Nevada and 1 point up in Michigan (!). Lose those and we're in a dicey situation. Trump's latest gap closing in the polls is bad, bad, bad. If he wins (or "wins&quot Florida, Michigan, and Ohio (currently plausible) he could win the EC 275-263 , despite losing the popular vote by five million votes.

Please please please, purple state DUers. Organize and fight like hell.

Another thing to consider: currently 3rd party candidates are hurting Clinton significantly more than Trump. With these state numbers, and not counting the "none of the aboves" the two way race is Clinton 53%-Trump 47%. But a four way race is

43 - Clinton
39 - Trump
12 - Johnson
5 - Stein

Moreover, there are 3 states where 3rd party candidates together flip or nearly flip the state from a Clinton victory to a statistical tie or Trump win: Arizona, Georgia, & Colorado.

[BumRushDaShow]

55. I think the "likely voter" category this year

is going to be misread because I expect that a good number of Republicans are not going to vote for the top of the ticket, but will still vote down-ballot for GOP candidates (at least those who do bother to vote at all). The GOTV for Democrats will need to be there to cover that gap and help flip some in-play congressional seats via turnout.

[Fast Walker 52]

56. scary shit indeed... what I'm hoping for is the Dems being much better organized on the ground

and that isn't reflected in the polls is it?

Trump has very poor organization for GOTV efforts, right?

Still, it's beyond disgusting that it's this close and hard to imagine Americans really electing him as their leader. God help us if they do.

[Coyotl]

59. K & R