Posted on 09/11/2016 10:59:19 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Hillary Clinton's plan to win the presidency has largely consisted of standing back and letting Donald Trump self-destruct. That doesn't seem to be working anymore.
The latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows the Republican candidate steadily closing the gap with his Democratic opponent. Clinton is now leading Trump by less than 3 percentage points — 45.6% to 42.9% — down from 9 points right after the Democratic National Convention in July.
Because of the way the US electorate is distributed, Clinton still has a substantial edge over Trump. To clinch the deal, she only needs to win 41 electoral votes in the relative handful of states that are currently considered toss-ups, while Trump needs 116 to reach the magic number of 270. That electoral map is constantly shifting, however, with three states — Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — that were considered to be in the Clinton column just last month now up for grabs.
To be sure, time is not on Trump's side. In nine of the past 10 elections, the candidate who has been behind on Labor Day — the start of the traditional two-month sprint until Election Day — went on to lose in November (the exception was George W. Bush in 2000).
On the flip side, the current trend doesn't bode well for Clinton. The polling model used by the politics website FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton an 89% chance of winning after her convention, with a projected edge of 8.6 percentage points. She's now down to a 69% chance of winning, with a lead of just 3.9 percentage points. That website also points out that almost 1 in 5 Americans are either undecided or determined to vote for one of the marginal third parties, more than twice the number at this time four years ago.
The main culprit: a steady stream of negative stories that raise questions about Clinton’s character, including recent revelations about her interactions with Clinton Foundation donors at the time that she was President Barack Obama's secretary of state. As a result, Clinton's lead has withered in lockstep with her image among voters: only 35% of voters view her as the more honest and trustworthy candidate, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll, with 50% choosing Trump.
That same poll found that a surprising 54% of women aged 45 or older support Trump, compared with 39% who support Clinton. And 90% of Republicans now say they support their party's candidate, which shows the party is finally coalescing around its unconventional nominee.
Surprisingly, Clinton is even struggling with Hispanic voters despite Trump's racially charged campaign. Recent polls show Clinton isn’t doing any better among Hispanics than previous Democratic candidates, despite Trump's focus on tough immigration laws and controversial depiction of Mexican immigrants as "drug dealers" and "rapists."
Clinton may have believed that Trump's words were so toxic that Hispanics would automatically turn out in droves just to block him, but it now seems clear that getting them to the polls will require the same voter outreach efforts as in any other election. Her campaign is just now beginning to air Spanish-language television ads in key battleground states such as Florida and Nevada, which have the country's highest Latino populations but are still toss-ups.
Clinton appears to have gotten the message in recent days. She started taking questions from the press for the first time in 275 days this week and tried to make the campaign all about Trump once again, focusing especially on his praise for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin in a transparent bid to get traditional Republicans to rethink their newfound tolerance for Trump.
"I was just thinking about all of the presidents that would just be looking at one another in total astonishment," she told reporters this week. "What would Ronald Reagan say about a Republican nominee who attacks America’s generals and heaps praise on Russia’s president? I think we know the answer."
Trump was the game changer, it was suppose to be Jeb!
Sports betting line was 2-1/2 - 1 odds against Trump last week.
Today its down to 2 - 1 odds. Get your bet in before it goes even!
Senator Tim Kaine To Be Next US President At 66-1 Is A Fair Bet
https://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/senator-tim-kaine-to-be-next-us-president-at-66-1-is-a-fair-bet/
Obama cancelling the election and keeping power? You want to see rioting in the streets. And I don’t mean by the takers, but by the armed taxpayers.
The Election was supposed to be over by now, EVERYONE said that they Prayed for a Trump nomination so Hillary could wipe the Floor with him, now it looks like She is Wiping the Floor with her Face, Literally!
Yeb! was supposed to be the Designated Loser.
He already had his gracious concession speech memorized.
He got help with that from the Memorizer Bunny, Rubio.
Trump has upset a lot of applecarts.
If Trump loses, there will be no gracious Concession Speech.
If it’s close, he will file a Lawsuit claiming Voter Fraud.
If is isn’t close, here is the Speech, “Good luck America, you’re going to need it”.
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