Either the race for President is really this tight or the pollsters love to watch the electorate sweat. Fulfilling the conventional media narrative that Hillary Clinton is now in serious trouble due to, yet, more FBI probing, we now see her WEAA Master Average lead – within a day – by almost another full point. Donald Trump catches up by seven tenths of a percentage point. The four way match-ups show Clinton with an even tighter lead of about 3.8 points – and that lead is down by a little more than 1 point. Also note her electoral college lead is fast shrinking: last week, on 10.27, Clinton was projected to win nearly 298 electoral votes; now, that’s down to nearly 286 electoral votes. Various observers are now mulling not only a tight popular vote scenario, but also a scenario whereby the electoral college results are also very narrow with Clinton barely edging out the 270 votes needed. There is a sense of foreboding around that analysis considering Trump could very well not concede if the race is too close to call, thereby stringing the election out well past November 8th.
One other note: it will be interesting to see how white voters react to the “ambush-style” killing of two Des Moines, IA police officers reported as of the filing of this analysis. Previous killings of law enforcement in places such as Dallas, TX and Baton Rouge, LA have shown noticeably dramatic dips in Clinton’s white voter support and increases for Trump. Those event-driven poll fluctuations may suggest Trump’s “law and order” rhetoric shows resonance with white voters when police killings happen. Clinton had been closing ground in battleground Iowa, where Trump is ahead by only an average of 1.7 points, down from a 6.3-point advantage in late September.
Still, YouGov suggests that the latest polling “swings” and narrowing are not all that special, and that voter turnout will be very similar to 2012 – with Clinton winning narrowly.
