If the Presidential election were held today, the results would be a tossup. Looking at the RealClearPolitics poll average, an average of all recent high quality polls, Hillary Clinton is up only nine tenths of a percent. In the same RCP average, Florida and Ohio are each leaning to Trump by 1.0 and 1.2 points respectively.
However, Clinton does still hold an edge and according to the polls the electoral map would go 293 to 245 in Clinton’s favor. This is consistent with most prediction models at this point, which still give an advantage to Clinton.
FiveThirtyEight, a website famous for predicting all 50 states correctly in 2012 gives Clinton a 60.5% chance of winning in November (in an average of their two prediction models). The New York Times has been more bullish for Clinton, giving her a 73% chance.
Yet either way this race has tightened drastically. In mid-August the RCP polls average had Clinton at up to a 7.7% lead, while FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times had Clinton with up to an 85% and 90% chance of winning, respectively. So the question that arises from all of this is, what changed?
Several things: First of all the Democratic National Convention was held at the end of July which was widely viewed as a success. Several speeches were lauded over including Michelle and Barack Obamas’, Joe Biden’s, and Bernie Sanders’, which helped to quell some of his supporters. On top of all of these Khizr Khan gave his now famous speech which Donald Trump attacked and started weeks of coverage over. All of this lead to artificially high numbers for Clinton.
Yet in mid-August, at the peak of Clinton’s lead, things started to change. First, on August 17, Trump hired pollster and strategist Kellyanne Conway to be his new campaign manager. Since then, Conway has been credited with getting Trump under control. After months of gaffs, Trump has largely stopped his belligerent comments and insults. A prime example of this is when he was asked about Hillary Clinton’s health recently when she left a campaign event after “overheating” and was reportedly diagnosed with pneumonia. His response, “I hope she gets well.” Trump has pivoted in a way many people thought he couldn’t, and this new affect is working.
A second difference is that Clinton has had two rough incidents recently. First, she stumbled from a campaign event and had to be helped into a van. Only hours after the incident did the Clinton campaign reveal that Clinton had pneumonia. Even more recently she called half of Trump supporters “deplorables.” Regardless of its accuracy, insulting one quarter of the electorate is almost never a smart political move. Clinton’s comment is being taken poorly by many voters and appears to have solidified many Trump leaning voters.
What makes both of these things even more impactful, however, is that both Clinton and Trump are the most unpopular major party candidates in polling history. Consistent with this, the media’s coverage of both candidates has been consistently negative. Whoever is in the spotlight is in trouble, and right now Clinton is in trouble. A week from now on the 26th the first presidential debate will take place. A good performance from Clinton will be important to staunch Trump’s current momentum. Yet a good performance by Trump could finally give him the lead in this election.
