
Here’s the good news. Remember that just a couple of weeks ago the Trump people were saying that he had time to catch up. And they cited as proof of their rosy picture how the polls started moving towards their man over the last several weeks of the 2016 campaign.
Over the last week, in fact, the polls have started moving towards Trump. Except there’s only one little problem. The movement in Trump’s direction has been so slight that you need a microscope to see any real change at all.
First the national aggregate polls. On October 14th, 538 had Joe ahead by 52.2% to 42%; RCP had it 51.5% Joe versus 41.3% Trump. This morning, the 538 national poll is 52% for Joe and 42.8% for Trump. RCP’s numbers today are 50.8% Joe, 42.9% Trump. So in both polls, Joe has dropped slightly and Trump has improved by a bit.
Now let’s look at the battleground states. Here’s what we have from 538:
Joe is ahead in 11 of 13 battleground states. On October 12th, he had a slight lead in Ohio, where the polls have jumped back and forth, so he had a lead in 12 battleground states. Joe’s overall average on October 12th was 49.43%, now it’s 49.42%. Trump has gone from 44.67% to 45.26%. So just like in the national polls, in the battleground states Trump has also moved up a bit.
Now here’s the number that really counts. In the 538 national poll, the dog-shit number is 5.2%, the lowest it has been. RCP has the national dog-shit at 6.3%. The battleground dog-shit number according to 538 is 5.31%, on October 16th, it was 5.89%.
Back in 2017, Nate Silver found that “the more undecided and third-party voters there are, the more volatile and less accurate the polling has tended to be.” But he also found that as the dog-shit number decreased, the percentage of voters who made up their minds as they went to vote the day of the election also went down.
In other words, right now Trump can only win the battleground states by convincing voters who have already decided to vote for Joe, to change their minds and vote for him. Given the way we are setting records for daily Covid-19 infections, that’s easier said than done.
Want to know the names of two rather important individuals who have announced that they are no longer interested in rooting for Trump? Try Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, who let it be known that Trump was no longer their man. On Friday, Trump directly asked Bibi whether ‘sleepy Joe’ could ever do for Israel what Trump has done and the Prime Minister of Israel refused to take the bait. The previous week, Putin said he would work with whomever occupied the Oval Office next year.
Trump has spent the last four years kissing the rear ends of these two guys every chance he got. Know what he’s gotten for all his hard work? Gurnisht, as my beloved Grandmother would say, which means nothing, not a g.d. thing.
Want the best line of all from the two political camps? It has to go to Jared Kushner, the dipshit son-in-law of the President who told Fox & Friends that his father-in-law had done wonderful things for Black Americans, but that Trump couldn’t help Blacks be successful if they didn’t want to be successful.
I guess what Jared was thinking is that the disparity between Black and White Covid-19 mortality rates is due to the fact that Blacks who catch the virus just don’t know how to get cured. Or even if they do know, they don’t care. I’m assuming, of course, that Jared or for that matter his father-in-law is capable of any rational thought at all.
One week to go, folks, one week to go. Get online. Vote early, vote often, said Al Capone. I agree with Al.
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