Interesting Tweet from Nate Silver

[Doctor Jack]

Trump will have to consider himself pretty lucky if he makes it to the second debate down only 3%.


This was in response to someone on his twitter claiming that the polls aren't that bad for Trump and he will be in striking distance if he is down by only 3 points by the 2nd debate. What I find interesting about this message from Silver is that Trump is currently down by 3.1 points nationally in their polls only projection. That would mean that Nate is expecting Trump to lose more ground over the next 8 days and that means that only 29 days from the election, Trump will likely still be sinking. Even if the last 2 debates some how go ok from him (exceedingly unlikely based on what we saw last week), he would only have 29 days to stop his downward momentum and reverse all of the damage to his numbers that he is currently doing and then pull ahead for the first time in this entire election.

Doesn't seem overly likely, in my humble opinion.

[BootinUp]

1. I expect Trump to lose more ground, definitely.

Its hers to lose at this point. Without help from Clinton Trump has no chance.

[Foggyhill]

2. If Nate wasn't using crap polls, he'd be down a lot more than that

In fact, most polls out are botched jobs meant to create chaos instead of bring in info.
The margins of errors are huge because of small sample and the sampling itself is
always unrepresentative (like getting almost no minorities, under 40 or women) (like they're doing it on purpose)

Get a large 2048 people poll run with serious and science and she's likely 6 points up minimum.

If you take into account that minorities are undercounted and GOTV effort with latinos, she's likely 8 points up.
If some of the third party vote comes to her, it will be an absolute crushing.

[monmouth4]

3. Good info and welcome to DU..n/t

[Cicada]

9. Nate has sound reasons for including crummy polls

Crummy polls correlate a little bit with actual vote. So throwing them all in improves his prediction a little bit. He has looked at whether they should be ignored and the numbers from the past tell him to include them, but with reduced weighting.

[Adrahil]

4. I think his thought is....

that Trump's n o-good, very bad week continues. We probably have AT LEAST another half a week of polls to come before the latest news is baked in, and that assumes no more bad news for him.

If Assange sticks his oar in and releases something damaging to HRC, that could halt, or even reverse the trend, but it's unikely to hit polls before the debate, even if released later this week.

My guess is that Assange decided to delay the release of what he has because it's pretty weak, and bound to be drowned out by the negative coverage of the tax leak. He'll try to target a relatively quiet news cycle so Trump surrogates can make the most of it. He's all in for Trump now.

[Doctor Jack]

5. Based on the tax revelations...

...he should still be in free fall for longer than a few more days. It usually takes polls at least a week to catch up with news. And I'm under no illusions that the next debate will somehow help Trump. It sounds like he is delusional in his confidence that he won the last one so why would he change his tactic in the 2nd? And even if he did decide to buckle down and prepare, he only has a week left (he certainly didn't look like he was preparing over the past few days). It would take a highly skilled and intelligent candidate way more than 7 days to prepare for a debate. Dimwitted, volatile, easily distracted, narcissist Trump doesn't stand a chance.

[Adrahil]

6. I don't disagree.... BUUT....

I think you may be right. But I also think as Election Day approaches, the ceiling and floor for each candidate stiffens. Hillarey could get up to a 6 or 7 point lead in the polls, but I think that may be her ceiling, given the nature of our politics. But that would be plenty IMO. I think Trump's ceiling is a LOT lower. :

[Doctor Jack]

7. I think she will win by about 5-6 points

That has been her average lead since May and I see no reason why it will change by election days. My guess is 47% Clinton, 42% Trump, 11% Johnson and Stein.

[radius777]

12. Trump is vengeful and all indications are

he intends to take the fight to the gutter (Bill Clinton's affairs) and somehow try to pin it on Hillary. Trump is too stupid to realize this will backfire bigly with moderate women, independents, millennials and others. It would only help to solidify the Obama coalition in a way that H herself is having difficulty in doing.

Hillary is an excellent debater and she was clearly rusty at the beginning, and still wiped the floor with him. She's likely to improve in the 2nd and 3rd debates and have better responses for his attacks on trade, status-quo, etc.

[Missn-Hitch]

8. Damn. Well done. I need to read more on this.

I can't believe this is happening. With the hacks targeting Democrats, Assange info, and gawd forbid - another attack.

How can I even be friends with people who support this s***? Thanks for the downer on this beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Cheers.

[BSdetect]

10. drumph will be a blubbering pile of trash

during the next debate.

He is incapable of stating an actual coherent sentence live.

It's all histrionics and garbled meanings.

He often changes subjects mid "sentence" and ends up raving about irrelevant personal attributes.

Once he thinks he is being treated "very badly" then he will fly off his tiny handle and start swinging his pet phrases off the cuff.

Babblespeak.

[Doctor Jack]

11. He is going to be shouting at and interrupting regular voters too

This is going to be the town hall and its going to look even worse if he is treating regular people like shit, compared to Clinton or a moderator. You know he won't be able to help himself either. He will act like a jackass to at least a few people there.

[Cakes488]

19. I agree I think Trashpot will be a "disaster"

I don't see how he is going to manage to appear human at this town hall meeting. He is going to have to answer point blank questions from Americans...and if he DARES bring up marital infidelities in this setting it's going to backfire on him big time....Keep being you Trashbag...just keep being you!!!

[radius777]

13. Sam Wang's models have been more stable than Silver's imo

Silver had Hillary at (iirc) 95% odds after the convention in August, then down to 50% the day before the debate.

Wang has consistently had her in the mid 70's, as have the betting markets.

[Coyotl]

14. Best question today ought to be "Which states must they rig to win" and prepare for it now.

They will be using the same playbook as in 2000 and 2004, you can count on that. Which means, if you can't win, they WILL cheat. They have been preparing for rigging by sowing doubt, projecting their intent by pointing to and pre-blaming the other side, and prepping their base with talk to watch the polls in certain neighborhoods. Everything you would expect of a covert op to fix an election in another country should be watched for here. Ohio would be target one, Florida two, Wisconsin next? Look to Republican governors and state election officials, not states Dems control. There are only a few possible paths to victory for Trump, that forces their hand in very specific ways, on specific blocks of electoral votes. Even if this sounds highly improbable, given the past we need to consider this front. Their confidence in the face of improbable odds in a fair election is disturbing. Where have partisan actors taken control of election offices? Don't watch the polling places, watch the votes and the vote counters.

Lest we forget, the DNC was hacked, likely by the same dirty tricksters, and we haven't jailed them yet. That's a 400 pound gorilla sitting on the couch, not just some guy on his bed. What do you do when they are running a covert intelligence front?

[BSdetect]

17. My worst fear

It would be unbearable to have them get away with another steal.

Putin will do whatever he can to get drumph elected then mould him as his useless idiot

[Coyotl]

18. BS. Don't fall for the Putin/Russia misdirection.

The Republicans are working on the steal full time, all year long, passing voter suppression laws, dropping voters from the roles, even messing up Dem primaries to reduce Dem confidence in voting and create liberal voter alienation. Make no mistake about it, racist RTepublicans are working overtime to stop voters, in particualr the communities with the highest percent of Dem support. In other words, they target minority communities when they seal a state's election.

[PATRICK]

15. This is a familiar picture

finally reduced to the two candidates but the exact same electorate, one that has large numbers of voters (let us say?) disenchanted with the current menu. Whatever the virtues of other candidates there were and are a lot of people anxious for someone else. The media, in its usual twisted sensitivity to this issue only keeps popping up some conservative jerk or another who proceeds to blast himself into ruins on the corrupted national forum. The parties don't really want to get involved with these voters enough to offer someone talented so no surprise at least one party has been allowed to prop up a demagogical hack phony who can best brazen through his own inevitable verbal effluvia. A candidate for apocalyptical fatalists?

The other party, playing chicken has worked hard for one thing only, not to have choice or discussion about its choices in totum. Candidate Clinton is a very legitimate candidate doing those things natural and required to become so and taking advantage of this much more general derogation of responsibility. This is not the Vatican where John Paul II's right hand man gets to pick his own electors. Though we are paying a price for both the false media crusade of the last 24 years against the Clintons and the party's attempted slide to political suicide the people unmistakably to some large degree have been carved out and kept out of the game. No surprise that no charm is allowed to change that situation. Hillary's false baggage and Trump's real mouth are keeping the population decision at bay.

Thus the angst up until voting day when Hillary wins by a landslide. Remember a huge chunk of supposedly centrist and conservative Dems longed for some Biden or other but rallied to Hillary versus Sanders. And the left so far has shown nothing deserving of the honorable candidacy of its belated messiah either in forming a voice or a party for some of the most critical issues threatening our very existence. Any truthful soul searching among that crowd would lead to a noose hanging from the rafters rather than a spiteful vote for Trump. The same moral honesty should drive dissatisfied conservative Dems to emulate those libs before voting for Johnson.

The Clinton inevitability comes from us all so we all have responsibility and no flight from it possible. And that is largely because so much opportunity for responsibility has been abdicated to the breaking point, albeit aided or forced by a long list of villains. Again, the main work that should be done is downticket and belated defense of the ballot itself. Trump cannot be an issue simply because he will continue to pompously whittle away at himself and his core all on his sweet lonesome. Which is why I never bothered to watch the predictable debate, the GOP in utter laughable disgrace..

But do you expect the polls to reward you with enthusiasm and closure before November considering the feast of poisons
pumped through the media? You are just being played for ratings. This presidential race is in fact over except for the raging demons in the GOP that might be crazy enough to turn on the Bush people cheat machines for Trump just to dick people over- except Jeb supports Hillary. And media enthusiasm for their last ratings hurrah.

Where is all that Sanders crushing bravado now at the end of the real race? History is hers.

[yellowcanine]

16. The tax information could cut into some of Trump's core support imo.

Even if he only loses 1% it will be significant - and also probably cuts into the turnout also.