Charlie Cook: The Trump-Clinton Race Is Not As Close As It Looks

[brooklynite]

National Journal:

Many es­tab­lish­ment fig­ures, who I nev­er thought would come to terms with Trump as the GOP nom­in­ee, have now moved to heal­ing and clos­ure, if some­what re­luct­antly. They are quick to point out that Trump wasn’t their first choice, but, when the bugle soun­ded, they and oth­er party war horses got in line. Some­times it was more a mat­ter of lin­ing up against Clin­ton rather than be­hind Trump, and some even found it dif­fi­cult to en­dorse Trump by name. One former Re­pub­lic­an sen­at­or com­pared Trump to the vil­lain­ous Harry Pot­ter char­ac­ter Lord Vol­de­mort, “he who must not be named.” Even so, most par­tis­ans ul­ti­mately get be­hind their can­did­ate, for bet­ter or worse, and so it is with today’s Re­pub­lic­ans.

By con­trast, many of Bernie Sanders’s sup­port­ers still seem to be in the deni­al and an­ger stages. Feel­ings are still raw, and the heal­ing pro­cess has not yet be­gun. But after the last round of primar­ies on June 7, most of them will also move from de­pres­sion to ac­cept­ance.

On NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the al­ways-pres­ci­ent mod­er­at­or Chuck Todd said much the same thing but ap­proached it in an­oth­er way. First Todd poin­ted to the May 15-19 NBC News/Wall Street Journ­al poll, not­ing that Sanders bested Trump in the sur­vey by 15 points, 54 to 39 per­cent, while Clin­ton had a scant 3-point edge over Trump, 46 to 43 per­cent. Todd then cal­cu­lated that if 70 per­cent of the voters who sup­por­ted Sanders against Trump sub­sequently moved in­to Clin­ton’s corner, she would then have an 8-point lead, 51 to 43 per­cent.

Shift­ing 70 per­cent of Sanders’s sup­port­ers in­to the Clin­ton column in the May 13-17 CBS News/New York Times poll would en­large her lead over Trump from 6 points, 47 to 41 per­cent, to 9 points, 50 to 41 per­cent. Do­ing the same thing us­ing the May 14-17 Fox News sur­vey, which showed Trump ahead by 3 points, 45 to 42 per­cent, would pro­duce a tie, 45 to 45 per­cent. Todd poin­ted out that in the first 2008 NBC/WSJ poll after Clin­ton dropped out against Barack Obama, Obama moved up 3 points, a sign that Clin­ton sup­port­ers were get­ting in line. This is a nat­ur­al de­vel­op­ment after con­tested nom­in­a­tions are settled.

[MineralMan]

1. Charlie Cook is one of the very best election pundits.

He doesn't get massive publicity, but he's the one people should really listen to.

[JRLeft]

2. The numbers disagree with him.

[brooklynite]

3. Charlie Cook wouldn't be naive enough to base his analysis on national head-to-head polls

[MineralMan]

4. In your opinion.

I've watched Cook's predictions for a long time. He's usually very accurate. I've not found your predictions as well-founded, I'm afraid. I choose my predictors carefully, you see.

[KingFlorez]

8. He knows politics

He has been doing this for years.

[DebDoo]

5. Just think about how much Trump would lose by if Hillary dropped out 70% of her supporters backed Sa

Backed Bernie.

[Trust Buster]

6. We can't stand Sanders. He lost anyway.

[azurnoir]

11. well thank you for admitting that , so then who'd you vote for -hypothetically?

David French maybe?

[KingFlorez]

7. Clinton supporters are more likely to sit out than vote for Sanders

Some of the exit poll data showed that more Clinton supporters would refuse to vote for Sanders. If Sanders was the nominee he'd lose badly, because Clinton supporters would never back him.

[a kennedy]

9. and vise versa don't ya think......I don't think Bernie supporters would vote for Hillery either....

But Dems have gotta somehow make sure they come together to foil a tRump presidency. Ugh.....

[brush]

14. I disagree. Clinton supporters overwhelmingly have indicated here they would vote for the Dem . . .

nominee, whether it be Hillary or Sanders.

[bunnies]

10. "the al­ways-pres­ci­ent mod­er­at­or Chuck Todd"

[SpareribSP]

12. People were also

Predicting Trump's demise time and time again during the primaries as people dropped out. All this is also meaningless at this point in the election cycle.

[Doctor_J]

13. I actually believe that most in the hrc group will vote for her even if she's in prison in November