I would say a fairly good run of polls today so far for the Democrats. Nothing dramatic. More just steady as she goes, which is good for Hillary Clinton since she’s ahead. Trump’s rise in the polls seems to have stalled, at least on the basis of today’s polls.
Let me run through a few polls.
PPP just released polls of Colorado, Michigan and Virginia. Clinton is ahead by 5 percentage points in each one. If she were behind in any of those states that could be a big problem. But that’s a solid place to be. Earlier in the day EPIC-MRA, which is basically the premium in-state poll in Michigan, released a poll of Michigan which put Clinton up by 4 percentage points. Another local poll had Clinton +3.
There was a tie poll of Michigan (46-46). But that’s a Republican firm called Strategic National. So Michigan and these other states look to be in decent shape for Clinton – not great shape but decent shape.
There’s also a tie poll out in Pennsylvania (46-46). But again, a Republican consulting firm. I wouldn’t put much stock in that given the other polls we’ve seen today. It would be nice to see another real poll of PA just as a gut check but there were quality polls released on Wednesday that had Clinton in a decent position.
What does continue to be an issue is New Hampshire. We had those three polls yesterday, which clearly put the state in play and seemed to show Trump ahead. Today we had a UMass Lowell poll which had Trump +1 and a Gravis poll sponsored by Breitbart with Trump +2. New Hampshire is clearly the one pretty loose brick in the Blue Wall. The good news for Dems is that Nevada looks increasingly like it’s close to locked down.
We’ve had very few national polls of late. I think pollsters rightly see that state polls are currently more telling. There seems to be a slight drift in Clinton’s direction with the tracking polls. The ABC/WaPo tracking poll is back to Clinton +3. Another good sign is increasing evidence of strong Hispanic voter turnout around the country – higher participation combined with better percentages for Dems relative to 2012.
This isn’t an exhaustive list by any means – just an overview of the polls that seemed important to me. The best way look at all the data is by looking at the TPM Electoral Scoreboard and drilling down into individual states. Big picture: The race is significantly closer than it was in mid-October. But Clinton remains the clear favorite with a decent amount of evidence today that Trump’s rise in the polls has stalled and hints of turnout and field operations on the ground making an over-performance against the polls possible for Clinton.
