Clinton’s Lead Is Becoming Safer

[EricMaundry]

Source: FiveThirtyEight

Gary Johnson averaged just 7 percentage points in 11 polls1 released on Thursday, continuing a string of bad results for the Libertarian Party nominee. At the same time, the number of undecided voters appears to be falling. Those two trends are combining to remove some of the uncertainty in our forecasts — historically, the number of undecided and third-party voters has been strongly correlated with both polling volatility and polling error. The share of voters not supporting the major-party candidates remains higher than it was at this point in the 2012 campaign, for example, but the more it shrinks, the safer Hillary Clinton’s lead becomes.

Clinton and Donald Trump now combine for a little over 84 percent of the vote. That’s the highest their combined share has been since we started issuing our forecasts in June.2 There hasn’t been a huge change, but it’s meaningful.

All this shouldn’t be too surprising. We’re now only about a month away from the election; more voters are making up their minds. In recent elections, moreover, third-party candidates have tended to fade in the polls as Election Day approaches — Johnson and Jill Stein, the Green Party nominee, appear to be following the same trend.

With more voters committed to one of the two major-party nominees, Trump simply has fewer people he can appeal to in order to make up his current deficit, which makes Clinton’s lead more secure. A 5-percentage-point lead with about 15 percent of the electorate undecided or voting for a third-party candidate (about where the race currently stands) is far better than a 5-point lead with over 20 percent of the electorate undecided or voting for a third-party candidate (about where the race was in mid-June). That’s part of the reason that Clinton’s chances of winning the election are in the upper 70s now, while they were in the low 70s back in June.



Read more: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/election-update-clintons-lead-is-becoming-safer/?ex_cid=2016-forecast

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[herding cats]

1. Not safe enough.

GOTV still. We need the senate back, and we need to make some gains in the house, too.

[Retired George]

3. Agreed

But it does calm the nerves a little.

[Dawson Leery]

2. Third party candidates get no more than 5 percent then.

[onehandle]

4. LOSER LOSER LOSER LOSER LOSER.

Impotent tiny-dicked LOSER.

Sue me, former rapist before your tiny manhood went South.

[Binkie The Clown]

5. Hey, "loser.com" really DOES point to Trump!

http://loser.com/

[sheshe2]

6. Bwahahhahahahaha!

It does!

[Chicago1980]

7. Until November 9th...

Nothing is safe.

No complacency.

[tclambert]

8. Nate Silver now show Hillary ahead in Iowa!

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/iowa/

It's not by much, but her lead in Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio have been growing. Virginia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania look firmly in Hillary's grasp. In all the battleground states, Trump now leads in only two: Arizona and Georgia. In Arizona, Trump's lead is only about 1%.

[SansACause]

11. AZ and GA as battleground states?

I'll take it, but that's nuts. They are two of reddest in the nation!

[NeoConsSuck]

9. This is great news, however

This is great news, however, I am frightened by the realization that over 40% of American voters would even consider voting for T-Rump. HRC should be leading 70%-30%.

I have co-workers, neighbors and relatives who I have lost all respect for. As I've heard before, even after HRC wins (and she will!), T-Rump will be gone, but his supporters will still be amongst us.

[WhatTheFlux]

10. Soy un prendador

I'm a loser, baby...

[Kingofalldems]

12. But but--another member says Trump is up by 2!!!!111!

It's from the Washington Examiner!