OK….two days before election day...hard to believe there are really any “undecided voters” out there although here in PA, we are being bombarded with robo calls and so many TV ads (literally back to back, one for Hillary, one for Trump, one for Toomey, one for McGinty, plus the occasional local congressperson) that the resulting news hole seems to include nothing but a couple of local shootings and the weather. Action News at its best.
But my aging amateur gut is telling me that the end results are going to be a win by Hillary and my guestimate is that it is going to turn out to be something in the 6-8% range overall. I know that is big after all the “tossup, horserace, neck and neck, nailbiter” crap we have been hearing from the media for weeks now.
What do I base this on? Just a sense that in the closing days, a lot of things are openly and secretly moving her way:
- The very heavy Hispanic and early voter turnouts nationwide — demographics that appear to favor Democrats,
- The mounting tide of people who seem to finally be admitting that there is just no way they can keep clinging to the idea that they can justify a vote for Trump.
- The many anecdotal stories I hear about women, many of them long-time GOP voters, who just cannot stomach him.
- The enthusiasm and organization I have seen, having participated locally in voter registration and canvassing in recent days.
- Trump does not have an organized ground game nor the data to know where all of his supporters are.
- A sense from Democratic party actions that they have a much better read on the likely outcome than we do and that in the past, outcomes have tended to produce bigger wins for Dems like Obama than the polls have showed.
- The late campaign influx of a series of clearly junk polls conducted by organizations with clear ties to Republicans in an effort to skew poll aggregates.
So that is my gut prediction. What is yours? And how do you arrive at your prediction?