Jul.15

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Trump Continues to Have a Slight Lead in the Polls

Polls taken 2 weeks after the disastrous debate and released yesterday show Trump with a slight lead both nationally and in the swing states. Here is a summary of the results:

All the results are within the margin of error. Nevertheless, it appears that Biden has not been damaged yet by the debate, although when the Republicans show footage of his performance five times per hour for the rest of the campaign, that could change. Remember, only about a third of the electorate watched the debate. However, in the NBC poll, 79% of the voters said they are concerned about Biden's age and mental and physical health. Trump is going to try to ride that to victory, especially after demonstrating on Saturday that he is immortal (at least when shot in the ear).

On the other hand, given how the Electoral College is a gerrymander of the entire country, it is generally believed that to win the electoral vote, a Democrat needs to win the popular vote by about 3 points. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by 2.1 points and still lost the Electoral College by a margin of 304 to 227. So it appears that Biden is probably about 5 points below what he needs to be.

The CBS poll breaks it down by state as follows:

The race has been remarkably stable. Will the shooting on Saturday change the pattern? We might know in a couple of weeks. But so far, virtually nothing has changed the race. Chances are that by September, this incident won't either. (V)