GOP voters aren’t sure who should lead their party moving forward. Polls and forecasts show Hillary Clinton’s huge Electoral College advantage. And concerns about voter fraud date back to the 2000 election. This is HuffPollster for Friday, October 21, 2016.
REPUBLICANS AREN’T SURE WHO SHOULD LEAD THEIR PARTY - Sahil Kapur: “Republican primary voters strongly backed Donald Trump for the presidential nomination, but the party is far less sure if it wants him to lead the GOP if he loses in November. When asked in the latest Bloomberg Politics poll who should be the face of the party nationally in the event of a Hillary Clinton victory, likely voters who are or lean Republican splintered down a list of five options. A plurality, 27 percent, picked vice presidential nominee Mike Pence. Trump got 24 percent, ahead of Texas Senator Ted Cruz at 19 percent, House Speaker Paul Ryan at 15 percent, and Ohio Governor John Kasich at 10 percent…. When asked which leader better represents their view [of] what the Republican Party should stand for, 51 percent of likely voters who are or lean Republican picked Trump, while 33 percent picked Ryan and 15 percent said they weren’t sure. ‘What is clear in these data is that a large segment of Trump supporters are all-in with the candidate…. That said, just 38 percent of them say they will stay loyal and follow his future endeavors if he does not win,’ said pollster J. Ann Selzer.” [Bloomberg]
Fewer than half of Trump supporters say he’s leading the party - Sean McMinn: “If primary elections are generally considered a way to find the two major parties’ standard-bearers, consider that another departure from the norm in 2016. Only 23 percent of U.S. adults see presidential nominee Donald Trump as the leader of the Republican party, according to a new Economist/YouGov poll. Forty percent see House Speaker Paul D. Ryan as the party’s leader — roughly the same amount as those who said they are not sure. Even among Trump supporters, fewer than half see the presidential candidate as the party’s leader. Forty-two percent view him as their standard-bearer, while 29 percent of Trump backers see Ryan as the head of the GOP.” [CQ Roll Call]
Paul Ryan’s favorability ratings have plummeted - Nick Bayer and Janie Velencia: “House Speaker Paul Ryan’s favorability has plummeted among Republicans after a week of public squabbles with GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. A YouGov/Economist poll released Wednesday found that Ryan’s net favorable rating declined by 28 points among Republicans over the last 10 days, likely dragged down by Trump supporters turning against him. Ryan’s net favorable rating among Trump supporters dropped 44 points over the period…. Only 40 percent of Republicans now hold a positive view of Ryan (R-Wis.), according to the poll, down from 54 percent 10 days ago…. Among all voters, Ryan favorability rating has sunk to negative 20, the lowest rating recorded in a YouGov/Economist poll for the GOP leader since he became speaker of the House one year ago.” [HuffPost]
THE ELECTORAL MAP HEAVILY FAVORS HILLARY CLINTON - Amy Walter: “With less than three weeks to go in election 2016 it is clear that Trump has abandoned any precept of fighting for persuadable voters…. Polling since the first debate has shown an unmistakable pattern - Clinton has been climbing and Trump has been falling - even in states once considered safely red like Arizona and Georgia. Given these factors, we are moving a number of states in our Electoral College ratings - all in favor of Clinton. Three states that had been in the Lean Republican column, Arizona, Iowa and Maine’s Second Congressional District, all move to Toss Up…. Joining the Lean Republican column is Utah. Despite the state’s deep red hue, Trump is struggling here…. Nevada, a state that has been one of Trump’s best opportunities to flip from blue to red, now is trending away from him in recent weeks…. We have moved Nevada from Toss-Up to Lean Democrat…. Finally, Colorado and Michigan, two blue-leaning states that had been tightening in September, have broken away from Trump rather decisively…. Both of these states move to Likely Democrat.” [Cook Political Report]
The HuffPost forecast concurs - The HuffPost presidential forecast gives Clinton a 95.7 percent chance of winning the election. Tallying up only the states where has at least a 90 percent probability of winning gives her 302 electoral votes.. The Democratic candidate has 341 electoral votes when the states swinging in her direction are included. That means she would win even if she loses all of the current battleground states, which include North Carolina, Ohio and Nevada. She could even lose Florida ― where she’s given a 93 percent chance of winning ― and still take the presidency. Donald Trump has essentially no viable Electoral College pathway to the presidency. His 4.2 percent chance of winning rests basically on the possibility that polls could be systematically wrong or that something major could reverse the outcome in the next 18 days. [Presidential forecast]
LIKELY VOTER MODELS AREN’T HELPING DONALD TRUMP - Nate Silver: “Typically, likely-voter models help Republican candidates, since their voters are older, whiter and have higher socioeconomic status, all of which correlate with higher turnout….The difference between likely-voter and registered-voter polls tends to be smaller in presidential election years. In fact, it probably should be fairly small since most registered voters — somewhere north of 80 percent, according to the Current Population Survey — turn out to vote. In 2008 — a year of profound Democratic enthusiasm behind Barack Obama — there was almost no difference between registered- and likely-voter polls….This year, there also isn’t much of a gap….Trump gains a net of 2.5 percentage points in likely-voter polls, as compared with registered-voter polls. But Clinton gains 1.7 points. So the net gain for Trump is only 0.8 points…. Trump’s reliance on voters without college degrees — especially men without college degrees — could disadvantage him because they turn out at lesser rates. Then there’s Trump’s lack of a turnout operation, which may or may not be reflected in polls.” [538]
CONCERNS ABOUT VOTER FRAUD AREN’T NEW - Kathleen Weldon, on data from the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research archive: “Questions about voter fraud were rare before the 2000 election... The problems in the 2000 Florida vote count, however, launched multiple questions about voting irregularities….Despite what happened in 2000, a 62 percent majority of voters in 2004 were very confident that their vote would be accurately counted, higher than the 49 percent that said the same in this year’s election….This year, polls in August found about a third of the country expecting voter fraud to be a major problem, down from 2008, while the proportion of people who expected voter suppression to be a problem remained unchanged….Despite the consensus of most researchers that voter fraud is rare, a CBS News poll in February 2015 found that a majority of Americans considered voter fraud to be fairly widespread…. A September ABC News/Washington Post poll found similar results, with 20 percent of the public saying voter fraud happens very often and 26 percent somewhat often. These polls, however, were conducted before Trump’s insistence that the election was rigged became a central tenet in his campaign. Whether the American public believes, or will come to believe, that voter fraud is widespread enough to sway a presidential election remains to be seen.” [HuffPost]
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FRIDAY’S ‘OUTLIERS’ - Links to the best of news at the intersection of polling, politics and political data:
-Donald Trump is still citing reader polls that claim he won the debates. [HuffPost]
-A UtahPolicy.com survey gives Trump a thin edge over Evan McMullin in Utah. [Deseret News]
-The Atlanta Journal-Constitution finds Trump and Hillary Clinton deadlocked in Georgia. [AJC]
-Seventy percent of voters want the loser to accept the results of the election. [Politico]
-Alexander Coppock writes that a survey list experiment shows no evidence of a hidden “shy Trump” vote. [Alexander Coppock]
-Samantha Smith highlights six charts showing the difference between Clinton supporters and Trump supporters. [Pew]
-Kimberly Adams looks at polling on beliefs the economy is rigged. [Marketplace]
-Steve Lund talks with pollster Charles Franklin about the state of the election. [Kenosha News]