Two Weeks After Convention, Trump Collapses

With Republican leaders forlornly waiting for pivots and reboots, the Trump campaign took a modest hit from the Democratic Convention into a massive week and a half rout. Donald Trump went from near even or ahead in one poll of polls on Friday the day after his convention, to a 7 point deficit among the aggregators, with a few polls showing the Republican ticket behind by double digits (Fox News – 10 points, McClatchy/Marist (8-3) – 15 points). (See opening forecast blog: The Forecasts Begin, 8-3).

All four aggregators have Hillary Clinton up. FiveThirtyEight’s “polling mostly” aggregation is a projection of the popular vote. It went from even at the end of the Republican Convention to 8 points out today. CNN has started a poll of polls not to be left out.

In Colorado, Huffington Post has Clinton up 6 points in pre-convention polls. It would be hard to believe the spread hasn’t increased during Trump’s disastrous last week. Politico’s battleground poll has her ahead by 9 points.

Forecasts

The major forecasters all increased Clinton’s odds of winning, with the biggest jump from 538, which had been the most pro Trump going into the Democratic Convention. They moved from 50-50 to 85 percent Clinton.

There is history that says post-convention polls often set the tone and trend into November, but this year’s projections have considerable caveats.

The conventions were much earlier (it’s only August) and the election polling has been much affected by outside events (WikiLeaks) and unforced errors (Khans) (see blog: ISIS and Putin Drive Election Topics, 8-3). Also, while Clinton is ahead, she is still a weak candidate facing an electorate not happy about the direction of the country and very desirous of change. Elites are on the defense, and she is the establishment. All reinforcing that 90 days is a long time in the 2016 election cycle.