As Clinton stumbles, Trump takes an apparent slim lead in new tracking poll

L.A. Times ^ | 7/15/2016 | David Lauter

[usafa92]

As the presidential race moves into a key two-week period, with the announcement of running mates and the party conventions, Donald Trump has taken an apparent slim lead over Hillary Clinton, based on strong support from white voters, particularly men.

That finding, from a USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Daybreak tracking poll, a new survey that begins publication Friday, marks a significant shift in a race that most polls indicated Clinton has led since mid-May.

The polls do not yet measure, for example, whether Clinton will receive a significant boost from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ endorsement on Tuesday. The next couple of weeks also could prove pivotal as voters tune in to the campaigns during the conventions.

Trump continues to face formidable obstacles to winning. Even as new surveys show the race tightening, he has not significantly increased his support: Since February, when he began to dominate the Republican primaries, his backing in head-to-head matchups with Clinton has rarely risen above 40%.

Instead, several new surveys show Clinton’s support declining, while the number of voters saying they will vote for a third-party candidate has risen.

In the new tracking poll, through Thursday night, Trump led Clinton 43% to 40%. That’s within the poll’s margin of error of 3 points in either direction, meaning the apparent lead could be the result of chance.

What isn’t known is whether the new surveys are capturing Clinton at a low that will prove temporary, as voters react to Comey’s criticism and the renewed attention to her use of a private email server, or whether they reflect a more lasting shift that could hobble the presumed Democratic nominee for the remainder of the campaign.

[Boardwalk]

I got the bumper sticker when I complimented a guy on his. He gave me one. I had to laugh when he said “nothing has happened to the car either.” Now people do the double take...a woman with a Trump bumper sticker!? Who knew women were for Trump. Lol

[Jim Noble]

Interesting spin: “Clinton stumbles...”

Clinton hasn’t changed a bit. She hasn’t “stumbled”.

They just can’t hide what a disaster she is from the people over a prolonged period of time.

[Pinkbell]

They are really trying to spin this as bad for Trump. They must be worried.

[Bodega]

Yes, they may have miscalculated Trump’s lead. Are they sampling areas like “rural America”. I can’t find any vocal people here who are voting for Hillary and thus us “rural America” or at least a slice of it. I am a silent Trump supporter and I know there are millions like me. Yay, Trump!

[Personal Responsibility]

Trump beating Clinton by 3: “Somehow, Trump ekes out a slim 3 point lead”

Clinton beating Trump by 3: “Clinton in command of Presidential race”

[Personal Responsibility]

“measure, for example, whether Clinton will receive a significant boost from Sen. Bernie Sanders’ endorsement on Tuesday...”

This is rich.

What next? “The polls do not yet measure whether Clinton will receive a significant boost from her new pantsuit? From a restyled wig? Another new logo?

[Republican Wildcat]

It has been...and he would be much farther ahead and Hillary further behind without months and tens of millions of dollars worth of ads running by Hillary without any response. Both Hillary and Trump’s positive ratings are extraordinarily low with Hillary’s only marginally higher. June would have been a perfect month for ads blanketing the country featuring Trump’s family to put him in a more positive light so he would at least be at parity with positives or even ahead of Hillary. If that were the case now following the e-mail scandal revelations and other events that are in Trump’s favor, I could see her in the low 30s and him in the mid 40s - at least. Instead he has only pulled even to a slight advantage. It didn’t have to be that way. He could very, very far ahead of her at this point - almost to an insurmountable degree...but instead he allowed the opponent to have an advantage in the air war. That’s never a good idea. He has his own advantages against her - had he simultaneously neutralized her own singular advantage - the campaign ads and campaign organization - he would be the only one with any advantages at this point in the race.

[Cheerio]

This must be a link to a different LAT article than the one I am reading. In the 3rd paragraph it states this "Comey also said her conduct and that of her aides did not clearly violate the law or warrant prosecution."

Although I am not any sort of an attorney, I beg to differ. READ below an excerpt from the mind of prosecutor Rudy Giuliani.....

Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, pounced on Comey's finding that Clinton was "extremely careless" in using the private server in her home in Chappaqua, N.Y. "The minute you say someone is extremely careless, you are saying they're grossly negligent," he told Fox. "That is what a judge will charge a jury. The judge will charge a jury: Has the government proven that she was? "What do we mean by gross negligence? We mean extremely careless. Regular carelessness is not using the proper degree of care under the circumstances. Gross negligence is being extremely careless in exercising your responsibilities of this.

The DBMSM are going to lie all they need to in order to push this witch over the finish line all the while the GOPee just sits there like the three moneys. Fortunately Trump will not sit idly by.

[A Navy Vet]

" apparent slim lead over Hillary Clinton, based on strong support from white voters, particularly men."

Probably already been addressed, but if not...can the LA Times get ANY more racist and sexist? Sheesh, it's worse than the New York Times.

[dp0622]

lol. They’ve SO ####ING SCARED!!

[Sal]

LOL. The writer’s bias is not only palpable, it’s pitiful!.

[Sal]

I've been afraid that if he hurts her too badly TOO EARLY, she'll be replaced with someone much stronger...

It's touchy and hard to decide which way to go IMO.

[Mr Apple]

"The DBMSM are going to lie all they need to in order to push this witch over the finish line all the while the GOPee just sits there like the three moneys. Fortunately Trump will not sit idly by.

Good post. Right on mark.

[WENDLE]

You have a good point. Commie left hillery to suffer a thousand cuts. It is hurting her badly in the polls. At least 5 points and maybe 7 last week. 56% think she should have been indicted and only 31% think she is honest. I think she is starting to stink the place up.
Not sure if obama will ever do anything to her. He had his chance and rigged it her way with the help of his hacks.

[Luke21]

“Trump could be ahead by 50 points and the media would still refer to it as a “narrow lead”.”

I still remember election night in 1980 when the press finally had to report that Reagan was going to stomp Carter.

[mazda77]

Do you think the media is waiting or October? Shirley, you can’t be serious!

[CincyRichieRich]

Have you seen her walking down AF1 steps? Frightening. One stumble, and..

[Grampa Dave]

Hillary Clinton has promised to be Barack Obama in a pantsuit, which means the downward trend will continue as the Democrat practice of “Promise Everything, Deliver Nothing, Blame Others” goes on*

*Obama’s Divide-and-Rule Presidency American Thinker | July 18, 2016 | Jeffrey T. Brown

[Grampa Dave]

Trump’s lead and our support for him is unintentional.

[Grampa Dave]

“LAT is liberal beyond comprehension. Go back to Reagan vs. Carter when the media was non-competitive (no Internet and little cable) and they wanted to keep the race close which it was not.”

Special Report
How Carter Beat Reagan
Washington Post admits polling was “in-kind contribution”; New York Times agenda polling.
By Jeffrey Lord – 9.25.12
Dick Morris is right.

Here’s something Dick Morris doesn’t mention. And he’s charitable.

Remember when Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980?

That’s right. Jimmy Carter beat Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In a series of nine stories in 1980 on “Crucial States” — battleground states as they are known today — the New York Times repeatedly told readers then-President Carter was in a close and decidedly winnable race with the former California governor. And used polling data from the New York Times/CBS polls to back up its stories.

Four years later, it was the Washington Post that played the polling game — and when called out by Reagan campaign manager Ed Rollins a famous Post executive called his paper’s polling an “in-kind contribution to the Mondale campaign.” Mondale, of course, being then-President Reagan’s 1984 opponent and Carter’s vice president.

All of which will doubtless serve as a reminder of just how blatantly polling data is manipulated by liberal media — used essentially as a political weapon to support the liberal of the moment, whether Jimmy Carter in 1980, Walter Mondale in 1984 — or Barack Obama in 2012.
First the Times in 1980 and how it played the polling game.
The states involved, and the datelines for the stories:
· California — October 6, 1980
· Texas — October 8, 1980
· Pennsylvania — October 10, 1980
· Illinois — October 13, 1980
· Ohio — October 15, 1980
· New Jersey — October 16, 1980
· Florida — October 19, 1980
· New York — October 21, 1980
· Michigan — October 23, 1980

Of these nine only one was depicted as “likely” for Reagan: Reagan’s own California. A second — New Jersey — was presented as a state that “appears to support” Reagan.

The Times led their readers to believe that each of the remaining seven states were “close” — or the Times had Carter leading outright.

In every single case the Times was proven grossly wrong on election day. Reagan in fact carried every one of the nine states.

Here is how the Times played the game with the seven of the nine states in question.

• Texas: In a story datelined October 8 from Houston, the Times headlined:

Texas Looming as a Close Battle Between President and Reagan
The Reagan-Carter race in Texas, the paper claimed, had “suddenly tightened and now shapes up as a close, bruising battle to the finish.” The paper said “a New York Times/CBS News Poll, the second of seven in crucial big states, showing the Reagan-Carter race now a virtual dead heat despite a string of earlier polls on both sides that had shown the state leaning toward Mr. Reagan.”

The narrative? It was like the famous scene in the Wizard of Oz where Dorothy and her friends stare in astonishment as dog Toto pulls back the curtain in the wizard’s lair to reveal merely a man bellowing through a microphone. Causing the startled “wizard” caught in the act to frantically start yelling, “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!” In the case of the Times in its look at Texas in October of 1980 the paper dismissed “a string of earlier polls on both sides” that repeatedly showed Texas going for Reagan. Instead, the Times presented this data:
A survey of 1,050 registered voters, weighted to form a probable electorate, gave Mr. Carter 40 percent support, Mr. Reagan 39 percent, John. B. Anderson, the independent candidate, 3 percent, and 18 percent were undecided. The survey, conducted by telephone from Oct. 1 to Oct. 6, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

In other words, the race in Texas is close, assures the Times, with Carter actually in the lead.

What happened? Reagan beat Carter by over 13 points. It wasn’t even close to close.

http://spectator.org/articles/34732/how-carter-beat-reagan