November 8, 2016
I BLAME THE DEBATE COMMISSION:
Clinton Gains, And The Polls Magically Converge (Nate Silver, 11/08/16, 538)
As a lot of you noticed, Nevada, North Carolina and Florida flipped from red to blue over the course of Monday. We don't think that's a particularly meaningful metric, because the forecasts are probabilistic -- Clinton's chances of winning Florida increased to 54 percent from 48 percent, for instance, which is nontrivial but not an especially large change. Still, we know it's something a lot of readers follow. It's unlikely that any further states will flip to Clinton in our final forecast, as she's too far behind in Ohio, the next-closest state.1 It's possible that Florida and North Carolina could flip back to Trump by tomorrow morning, though probably not Nevada, where Clinton's lead is a bit larger.Mostly, though, the number I have on my mind today is "4." That's because it kept coming up over and over as national polls were released today: It seemed like every pollster had Clinton leading by 4 percentage points.
I still don't really think that Hillary is supported by 50% of the country nor Donald by as much as 42%, but once Gary Johnson didn't make the debates it meant people eventually had to choose.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 8, 2016 1:36 PM