Trump's 2 point lead (in North Carolina) represents a 4 point improvement from our March poll of the state, when Clinton was ahead by a couple points. The movement has come completely among Republicans. In March Clinton was up 79-13 among Democrats, and now she's up 79-12 among Democrats. In March Trump was up 49-32 among independents, and now he's up 45-27 among independents. But in March Trump was only up by 63 points among Republicans at 73/10, and now he has a 76 point lead among them at 81/5. That's the entire reason the race has shifted from a slight Clinton advantage to a slight Trump advantage.
If a 2 point advantage for Trump held through November, that would match Mitt Romney's margin of victory in 2012 in North Carolina. That's a trend we've found in a lot of our recent polling- the race is shaping up very similarly to how things went between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Geography
Most Recent PPP Poll
2012 Results
North Carolina Trump +2 Romney +2
New Mexico Clinton +8 Obama +10
Arizona Trump +2 Romney +10
National Clinton +4 Obama +4
West Virginia Trump +27 Romney +27
Ohio Clinton +3 Obama +3
Every place we've polled in the last month we've found the Clinton/Trump race within a few points of where the Obama/Romney race ended up with the exception of Arizona, where there were a disproportionate share of Republican voters on the fence and we would expect them to eventually come home and give Trump a broader advantage. There was so much talk earlier this year of Clinton winning some sort of historical landslide that expectations got out of whack and now fuel perceptions that she's doing really poorly, but the bottom line is she's pretty much where Obama was in an election that while relatively close in the popular vote ended up as an electoral college landslide.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/...olina.html
(Technically, I do not see 332 electoral votes as a landslide. It's near the median in electoral results, with all other Presidential elections resulting in close elections in popular and electoral votes giving the winner under 57.1% or fewer, as with Truman in 1948, or 66.5% or more, as with Taft in 1908. Obama 2008 was similar to Taft 1908 in popular and electoral vote. One might expect electoral victories to cluster around 62% of the electoral vote, but there is only one election close to that. Of course, had Obama lost Florida he would have had a win close in magnitude to those of Truman in 1948 and Kennedy in 1960, and there would be no Presidential election with the winner getting between 57.1% and 66.5% of the electoral vote.
Random scatter usually results in data clustering near the median, but such does not happen in Presidential elections. The margin between a close Presidential election and a Presidential election not-so-close is roughly that of the electoral votes of California. California hasn't been a swing state in a close election since at least 1892, when it had only 8 electoral votes and Herbert Hoover was matriculating at Stanford University).
Obama had landslide wins in some regions of the US, getting Reagan-like margins of victory in some states and McGovern-like margins of loss in some others in 2008. The Reagan-like victories of 2008 eroded some in 2012 and the McGovern-style losses deepened in 2012, but he still won.
Two elections, 100 years apart:
http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusma...NE3=0;99;6
If a 2 point advantage for Trump held through November, that would match Mitt Romney's margin of victory in 2012 in North Carolina. That's a trend we've found in a lot of our recent polling- the race is shaping up very similarly to how things went between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Geography
Most Recent PPP Poll
2012 Results
North Carolina Trump +2 Romney +2
New Mexico Clinton +8 Obama +10
Arizona Trump +2 Romney +10
National Clinton +4 Obama +4
West Virginia Trump +27 Romney +27
Ohio Clinton +3 Obama +3
Every place we've polled in the last month we've found the Clinton/Trump race within a few points of where the Obama/Romney race ended up with the exception of Arizona, where there were a disproportionate share of Republican voters on the fence and we would expect them to eventually come home and give Trump a broader advantage. There was so much talk earlier this year of Clinton winning some sort of historical landslide that expectations got out of whack and now fuel perceptions that she's doing really poorly, but the bottom line is she's pretty much where Obama was in an election that while relatively close in the popular vote ended up as an electoral college landslide.
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/...olina.html
(Technically, I do not see 332 electoral votes as a landslide. It's near the median in electoral results, with all other Presidential elections resulting in close elections in popular and electoral votes giving the winner under 57.1% or fewer, as with Truman in 1948, or 66.5% or more, as with Taft in 1908. Obama 2008 was similar to Taft 1908 in popular and electoral vote. One might expect electoral victories to cluster around 62% of the electoral vote, but there is only one election close to that. Of course, had Obama lost Florida he would have had a win close in magnitude to those of Truman in 1948 and Kennedy in 1960, and there would be no Presidential election with the winner getting between 57.1% and 66.5% of the electoral vote.
Random scatter usually results in data clustering near the median, but such does not happen in Presidential elections. The margin between a close Presidential election and a Presidential election not-so-close is roughly that of the electoral votes of California. California hasn't been a swing state in a close election since at least 1892, when it had only 8 electoral votes and Herbert Hoover was matriculating at Stanford University).
Obama had landslide wins in some regions of the US, getting Reagan-like margins of victory in some states and McGovern-like margins of loss in some others in 2008. The Reagan-like victories of 2008 eroded some in 2012 and the McGovern-style losses deepened in 2012, but he still won.
Two elections, 100 years apart:
http://uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusma...NE3=0;99;6
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.