HUFFPOLLSTER: How Hillary Clinton Could Win In A Landslide



Hillary Clinton has the potential to win big in November. Another set of battleground polls shows how 2016 is reshaping the electoral map. And voters are increasingly concerned about the Supreme Court. This is HuffPollster for Monday, August 15, 2016.

IS THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE OVER? - Nate Cohn: “The Upshot’s model gives Mrs. Clinton an 88 percent chance of winning. It’s about the same probability of hitting a field goal from the 20-yard line. That’s a pretty good way to think about it. If Mrs. Clinton ultimately wins, we will probably look back and say she had more or less already won it by this point. If she loses, these next two months will be talked about for decades….The possibility of a landslide victory for Mrs. Clinton — one larger than any since 1984 in the national popular vote — is larger than the chance that Mr. Trump will pull it out. According to The Upshot model, Mrs. Clinton has a better shot at winning the red state of South Carolina than Mr. Trump has at winning the presidency. In that sense, perhaps Mrs. Clinton’s position is more like having a double-digit lead at the beginning of the third quarter….To squeak out a win, Mr. Trump would need to win over enough white working-class voters, particularly white men without a degree, to compensate for his weakness among well-educated voters and Hispanic Republican-leaners, and especially well-educated women. This is what the polls showed when Mr. Trump was in a close race or even ahead — as was the case in May or in early-to-mid July.” (NYT)

WHAT A CLINTON LANDSLIDE MIGHT LOOK LIKE - Nate Silver: “ Trump is a significant underdog — he has a 13 percent chance of winning the election according to our polls-only model and a 23 percent chance according to polls-plus. But those probabilities aren’t that small. For comparison, you have a 17 percent chance of losing a ‘game’ of Russian roulette. But there’s another possibility staring us right in the face: A potential Hillary Clinton landslide….. If this were an ordinary election, the smart money would be on the race tightening down the stretch run, and coming more into line with economic ‘fundamentals’ that suggest the election ought to be close….But the theory behind ‘fundamentals’ models is that economic conditions prevail because most other factors are fought to a draw….Perhaps the strongest evidence for a potential landslide against Trump is in the state-by-state polling, which has shown him underperforming in any number of traditionally Republican states. It’s not just Georgia and Arizona, where polls have shown a fairly close race all year. At various points, polls have shown Clinton drawing within a few percentage points of Trump — and occasionally even leading him — in states such as Utah, South Carolina, Texas, Alaska, Kansas and even Mississippi….she’s as likely to win by 14 or 16 points as she is to lose the popular vote to Trump.” (538)

HILLARY CLINTON LEADS ANOTHER ROUND OF BATTLEGROUND POLLS - Anthony Salvanto, on CBS/YouGov polls finding Clinton leading Donald Trump by 5 points in Florida, 9 points in New Hampshire, and trailing by just 4 in Georgia: “Much as in other states we’ve surveyed lately, Clinton has moved out to lead despite relatively low numbers on many attributes and voters’ doubts about her truthfulness. But voters feel Trump is even lower on a few other key measures: only 29 percent in Florida, for instance, feel he has good judgment and temperament, and 71 percent say that does not….the views on Trump’s judgment appear to weigh on him, and he continues to get low marks on ability to be commander-in-chief. Taken together, these findings show just how much the campaign has turned on views of Trump, personally, and those metrics, and less so on policy or on Clinton’s own attributes….So the overall electoral map, based on state-by-state polling throughout the last few weeks, is starting to show a much tougher path for Donald Trump now: He cannot rely simply on flipping a few tight states to get the 270 electoral votes needed to win, but will need to outright reverse a string of Clinton leads to do so.” (CBS)

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