Politics

Things are close in this election currently. Looking at polling as of today I would place the election at:

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[Edit: After posting this I realized that I had missed Maine District 2 is leaning towards Trump. So that puts him in the lead 270-268.]

There is a potential for a tie in the electoral college. I decided to look at the numbers again and after the recent drop in the polls for Clinton the lead has narrowed for a tie between Clinton and Trump at 269-269. I’m currently showing Trump has having a small lead in nine states. In some cases it’s less than 1% and within the margin of error for most polls. If those leads translate to actual wins for Trump, then there will be a tie. If Clinton wins any of those states, then she wins. Pretty much Trump should keep his mouth shut for any last minute gaffs and have his surrogates continue to stir up headlines about the Clinton FBI investigation. Clinton on the other hand would do well to provoke him in some way. That actually tends to help her some when he puts his foot in his mouth.

The only two wild cards I see is the performance of Gary Johnson in New Mexico and Evan McMullin in Utah. If Johnson outperforms projections in New Mexico, it could very well put the election into the House. On the other hand McMullin could very well act as a spoiler in Utah giving Clinton the edge to win there or winning himself. This would of course place Trump behind in electoral votes. Looking at current polling both scenarios seem unlikely but they still exist. On the other hand having an Independent/Republican candidate doing well in Utah is greatly hurting the Libertarian Party’s chance of achieving the goal of getting over 5% in the general election average. I guess we will see how it all really turns out on election day.

Source for polling numbers: RCP average numbers

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Let’s take yet another look at state-by-state polling and state voting history to get a good prediction for the 2016 election. I primarily look at the RCP average polling numbers but I also take into account polls they don’t use if data is lacking for a state. So taking all that into account, I’m going to make my predictions for how it will all turn out next month. Please note my lightly colored predictions are close enough to potentially change.

I think Clinton will likely get 341 electoral votes, Trump at will likely get 197. With Clinton reaching 273 at a minimum, this would place her in the White House. Trump would need to hope all of Clinton’s medical concerns are valid and take a sudden turn for the worse for him to have a chance.

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Now for the challengers, both Governor Gary Johnson (L) and Jill Stein (G) will be on the ballot in most states in 2016. The Libertarian Party is on the ballot in all 50 states while the Green Party will be on many of them but missed crucial deadlines for some states. Obtaining ballot access is tough work. In polls where Governor Gary Johnson and Jill Stein were included, the polling gap between Clinton and Trump narrowed. The other candidate of notice is Evan McMullin (I) who is polling well in Utah but largely unknown and on only eleven ballots elsewhere. The former CIA spy could potentially shift Utah to voting in favor of Clinton or himself, largely due to his religious affiliation. This however will not impact the election much as Trump is in a large deficit with electoral votes. For McMullin I would guess this showing would catapult him in a position with establishment Republicans potentially setting him up for office in Utah. When it comes to national totals of the various challengers, Gary Johnson should come in the lead getting more than 5% of the vote leading to the Libertarian Party obtaining minor party status with better funding and ballot access for the next Presidential election.

We just got our Gary Johnson for President yard signs in. It took less than a week to get them in from the LP Store. I was just going to order one but since it had $5 flat rate shipping, I figured I might as well get a second sign, just in case one got damaged. I guess I can keep it if this one gets stolen or give it to one of the other Johnson supporters in the area.