Posted on 07/13/2016 5:02:21 AM PDT by SJackson
Did Donald Trump really just surge past Hillary Clinton in two of the election's most important battlegrounds?
New swing-state polls released Wednesday by Quinnipiac University show Trump leading Clinton in Florida and Pennsylvania — and tied in the critical battleground state of Ohio. In three of the states that matter most in November, the surveys point to a race much closer than the national polls, which have Clinton pegged to a significant, mid-single-digit advantage over Trump, suggest.
The race is so close that it's within the margin of error in each of the three states. Trump leads by three points in Florida — the closest state in the 2012 election — 42 percent to 39 percent. In Ohio, the race is tied, 41 percent to 41 percent. And in Pennsylvania — which hasn't voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1988 — Trump leads, 43 percent to 41 percent. Other polls give Clinton an advantage in all three states. Including the new Quinnipiac surveys, POLITICO’s Battleground State polling average — which include the five most-recent polls in each state — give Clinton a 3.2-point lead in Florida, a 2.8-point edge in Ohio and a larger, 4.6-point advantage in Pennsylvania.
While the Quinnipiac results are eye-popping, they don’t represent any significant movement — except in Florida. In three rounds of polling over the past two months, the race has moved from a four-point Trump lead in Ohio in the first survey, then tied in the next two polls. In Pennsylvania, Clinton led by one point in the first two polls and now trails by two.
But in Florida, the race has bounced around. Clinton led by one point in the first poll two months ago, but she opened up an eight-point lead in June — a lead that has been erased and more in the new Quinnipiac survey.
The polls from the Connecticut-based school are likely to be met with some skepticism. When Quinnipiac released their first round of polls in the same three states two months ago, they prompted a round of sniping from Democrats and an F-bomb on Twitter from Nate Silver, the FiveThirtyEight founder who has built a career using poll results to make political predictions.
But subsequent polls later confirmed the May Quinnipiac surveys: Trump pulled virtually even with Clinton nationally after knocking out his rivals for the GOP nomination.
It’s possible the results of the FBI investigation into Clinton’s private email server dating back to her service as secretary of state — FBI Director James Comey called Clinton and her staff “extremely careless,” even as he said the government shouldn’t press charges because there wasn’t evidence of criminal intent — are driving Clinton’s poll numbers down leading into the conventions, typically a critical time for campaigns. In the poll release, the school suggested the investigation could have played a role, pointing to other lingering questions about Clinton’s honesty and trustworthiness. “While there is no definite link between Clinton’s drop in Florida and the U.S. Justice Department decision not to prosecute her for her handling of emails,” Quinnipiac pollster Peter Brown said, “she has lost ground to Trump on questions which measure moral standards and honesty.”
But the Quinnipiac polls are imperfect measures of a post-email investigation race. That’s because, like many of the school’s other polls, they were conducted over an unusually lengthy, 12-day time period: June 30 through July 11. The national polls conducted since Comey’s statement are mixed: Clinton posted a 3-point lead in this week’s NBC News/SurveyMonkey online tracking poll, down from a 5-point lead the week prior. Morning Consult, another online tracking poll, gave Clinton identical 1-point leads in the days before and after Comey’s statement. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, left, reacts as she takes the stage at a rally, Monday, June 6, in Long Beach, Calif.
Overall, Clinton leads by 4.3 points in the latest national HuffPost Pollster average, and she has a 3.7-point advantage in the RealClearPolitics average. The polling in other battleground states since the announcement are also cloudy. Monmouth University surveys conducted after the Comey statement gave Clinton a 4-point lead in Nevada — but showed Trump ahead by two points in Iowa.
In the Quinnipiac polls, there are warning signs for both candidates in all three states. First, despite near-universal name-ID, neither candidate can break out of the low 40s on the ballot test. That points to two very unpopular candidates.
But, in a reversal from earlier surveys, it’s a more acute problem for Clinton. Clinton’s unfavorable ratings (59 percent in Florida, 60 percent in Ohio, 65 percent in Pennsylvania) are higher than Trump’s (54 percent in Florida, 59 percent in Ohio, 57 percent in Pennsylvania) in all three battleground states. And majorities in all three states — which together account for 67 electoral votes, or nearly a quarter of the 270 necessary to win the presidency — have a “very unfavorable” view of Clinton.
Another measure of voters’ ambivalence about Clinton in the Quinnipiac poll: a second ballot-test question, this time adding two third-party candidates to the mix. When voters are asked to consider the general election again, this time given the option of choosing Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Trump’s advantage over Clinton grows in each state. Trump leads on the four-way ballot by five points in Florida, one point in Ohio and six points in Pennsylvania.
There are some eyebrow-raising results from the polls, however. On the two-way ballot test in Florida, Clinton trails Trump despite the Republican winning just 21 percent of non-white voters in the increasingly diverse state.
In Ohio, Clinton wins 90 percent of Democrats, but Trump only captures 77 percent of Republicans, putting him at a significant disadvantage. In Pennsylvania, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by close to 10 percentage points, both candidates are at 82 percent among their own partisans, with Trump only three points ahead among self-identified independents.
“If Trump doesn’t win PA it’s over”
Bush won TWICE without PA, and without Michigan, Wisconsin, or Minnesota. All states that Trump may well win, since he’s the first Republican actually fighting for WHITE VOTES.
So I wouldn’t be so simplistic about a single state.
What I can't quite get my head around are the rank and file, female federal employees that I know who very quietly support Trump.
“If Trump doesn’t win PA it’s over”
That’s not even close to being true.
“If Trump doesn’t win PA it’s over”
If Trump does win PA it’s over.
According to someone (now who might that be?), this was simply impossible........
It's why we had to be against Trump, he could never beat her. Not EVER.
The margin of cheat in Pennsylvania is so high, I suspect a 15 point lead might be necessary to overcome it.
...
I dont think Q polls are that accurate... If I remember correctly they had Rombot winning a week before...
The last Q poll the week before the 2012 electiom showed Obama leading in the key swing states of Ohio, Florida and Virginia.
Rombot was winning until he botched the last debate and Christie Man-hugged Obama after that Hurricane.
ok, I tend towards pretty extreme pessimism.
But I’ll say this: if Trump wins Pennsylvania, I don’t see how Clinton can win.
exactly.
of course if I had read your post first, I wouldn’t have needed to do mine. you are right. :)
thanks for that review.
just to try to remember a bit of context on these polls, we shouldn’t forget that Rasmussen had Romney up by a point or two nationally in its final poll.
Watch the Reuters poll that has Hillary up by 13 crash back to earth
“Trump will need a very large margin. They will cheat. This may come down to a few counties in a few states. Be on guard pubbies!”
“They WILL cheat” needs to be repeated over and over until enough honest people are motivated to get involved in every polling place across the country. We MUST have honest people working as election clerks, election judges, and challengers. It is just far too tempting for the libtards to cheat when there isn’t somebody there to call them on it. They can’t help themselves and they actually think themselves very ‘clever’ because in their minds they are only doing a public service, balancing out all the missing votes for libtard candidates the republicans have suppressed. After all, Hillary SHOULD be president and those not ‘intelligent’ enough to see that shouldn’t be allowed to vote in the first place.
We cannot count on the election being any sort of landslide for Trump. This election is far too important to allow the libtards to have any polling places where they can get away with their fraud and cheating unhindered by the lack of presence of an honest poll worker or challenger. All FReepers MUST get involved your local election process if you haven’t already done so. It is foolish to think that we can just trust libtard poll workers to give us honest election results in the absence of anybody there to call out their fraud. For those who have not done so, contact your Republican Party chairman and/or your county clerk and tell them you want to be a polling place clerk or election judge. If those positions are filled, ask to be a poll watcher or poll challenge. If we have watchers and challengers in every precinct across the country, especially in democrat strongholds, it will make it far harder for the libtards to get away with saying there was 110% voter turn out and every one of those voted for Hillary.
There isn’t some army of angels to rely upon to keep the election honest. It’s up to YOU to get involved to ensure they cannot get away with their cheating. I know most people reading this already are aware of all this, but for those who have not gotten involved in OUR electoral process, this election is the time to do so. We can campaign for Trump and convince our friends, family, and neighbors all to vote for him until we’re blue in the face, but if we leave it up to the libtards to count our votes unhindered from any oversight, they can steal the election for Hillary!
Rant-off....
Brilliant statement. That’s why I will keep calling for him and ALL of us need to donate anything, 5 10, whatever to him.
And get absentee ballots for any eldelry who can’t get to polls, and get friends to vote!!!
The country is a total mess. People are starting to decide that they don’t want 8 more years of this chaos.
Add to this yesterday’s Monmouth IA poll showing Trump +2 in IA, a state Republicans won only once in last four elections, and Cankles is in huge trouble.
The stakes literally are high with this election.
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This is an existential matter now. Eight more years of liberalism run amuck will destroy us.
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