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.
There was good stuff earlier, but nothing recent.
GO TRUMP!!!
Due respect to the purist thumbsuckers here(Ex Cruzbots) reservations, Pence is a solid pick for Donald. Conservative bona fides, knows the Hill, would shore up his right flank and would go against conventional wisdom that DT should pick a skirt or a minority. I like this choice if so. Even Uncle Levin yesterday praised Pence.
I do think Cruz and Ryan will ultimately support and campaign for DT. I think the momentum is with Trump now and will be through the Summer. Oblameo is out of control and his continued Tourette's idiocy at the Dallas Memorial has to make seasoned Democrat operatives cringe. This election its the Democrats working the old playbook 2008 style. Go hard Left, make promises and lemmings will vote for you and you win an election. Well they are learning the optics have changed, enough people see what HRC is about and want to no part of a Clinton\Obama third term. She's unlikeable, untrustworthy and just a str8 up witch. If she gets above 25% of all men she will be lucky, she's neither HOT, smart or agreeable to most men. Your basic tw*t ex-wife type.
If Trump wins all the states Romney won all he has to do is pick off a couple of Hillary’s states and depending on the states, Penn. for example would result in a smashing victory for Trump.
“Did Donald Trump really just surge past Hillary Clinton in two of the election’s most important battlegrounds? “
Gotta love it, politico! You just couldn’t stand to write the opening sentence as follows:
“Donald Trump just surged past Hillary Clinton in two of the election’s most important battlegrounds!”
Which is it?
Back in the Spring, YOU were using the Cruzer talking point that Trump could NOT overcome the large (15-20%) polling deficit he had against Hillary.
I told you that Reagan was far worse at the same time relative to the election, and I congratulated Jimmy Carter for his second term. Having watched him ascend to the top of the R polls, I insisted it would be easy for him to close that gap if he were the nominee. YOU insisted he could never overcome his negatives, that he would never be able to come close to winning. YOU insisted Trump could never do what Reagan did, which is why we had to put in someone else.
YOU were wrong, I was right.
You might want to apologize for being such an ass (and you were), but you won't because of your arrogance, and you can't admit how wrong you were. And you were as wrong as one can possibly be, weren't you?
After Friday’s and the rest of the weekend of marches, destruction and harm to cops by Obama’s thugs, Black Liars, Trump will gain another 5 points in the real polls.
Iman Obama keep ordering your Black Liars Thugs to march and destroy America, and you will hand the election over to Trump.
Obozo, keep attacking the second amendment and make more Americans buy guns. 99.99999% of the new gun buyers will vote for Trump, as they know your surrogate Clintoon would destroy our 2nd amendment if she replaces you.
I completely agree. He can turn a few DNC strongholds, and while the arrogant Hillary machine is focused on fixing the ballots in Ohio, and Trump can swipe a couple others that she isn’t watching.
“Quinnipiac University show Trump leading Clinton in Florida and Pennsylvania — and tied in the critical battleground state of Ohio.”
“Hillary is slipping back down into the toilet again.”
11 posted on 7/13/2016, 5:14:53 AM by Mr Apple ( HILLARY CLINTON >> COOKIES, CHOCOLATES, DESSERTS & CASHEWS....the WALRUS LOOK)
Produce the reply substantiating those charges including the language you allege and I will deal with it. Meanwhile, I say you are making stuff up and chasing me all over the forum with false and misleading allegations.
Pinging you to a thread that proves you were wrong last Spring is hardly "chasing you all over the forum". As to misleading and false, not so, not at all. Our exchange happened much as I said, it happened not too many weeks before you were originally banned, and per my last post you're simply too arrogant to admit you were wrong.
Have at it, frankly I don't really care, I'm happy we have a candidate strong enough to beat Madame Secretary the Stalinist, it's one of several reasons I switched from supporting Cruz to Trump in January. I hope you can be too.
Hillary Clinton’s margins in the popular vote are padded by overwhelming margins in the metro New York City, Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, and Los Angeles areas.
“The stakes literally are high with this election.”
Like the corn in OKLAHOMA, as high as an elephant’s eye.
All that stuff you heard about how all the ladies will vote for Hillary just because she is a woman is all garbage. When they enter the voting booth they DON’T want a woman. If they did Hillary would be the one finishing her second term now instead of trying to win her first.
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