CNN/ORC Clinton +5

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

loljohnson

And people laughed at me months ago when I said Johnson wouldn't crack 5%.

people don't seem to know how this third party thing works even though we go through it every election.

hilarious - Clinton does better with the Likely Voter screen!

LOL, when you look at the rest of the data that's out there you can basically tell whatever story you want about Johnson. You can look at this poll and say he's collapsing, you can look at ABC which has had him at 5% for the last month+ (he's staying constant), and you can look at the Times-Picayune State Polls, which show him at 6% in Florida, 8% in North Carolina, 8% in Georgia, and 9% in Virginia, which strongly suggests he's succeeding 5% nationally.

But of course Atlas goes with the poll that shows their savior hitting 50%.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Johnson has definitely declined from his peak, but his peak was something like 9% in the polling averages, and the polling averages now have him at about 6%.  So sure, that's a decline, but not the kind of "crash" that some were predicting six months ago when some were saying "Oh, his ceiling is going to be something like 2%."

Most polls still have him north of 5, yet when we get polls like this that have him below 5, everyone starts jumping on it like "See, I told you Johnson was going to crash and burn!"  In the threads on polls that still have him in high single digits, there isn't a corresponding chorus of "I guess Johnson isn't going to drop like people were saying."

Third parties typically decline even more on election day itself than in the polling leading up to election day. Nader polled at 2.3% in 2008 and he got 0.6%. Barr polled at 1.5% and got 0.4%.

Neither of them were actually included in many polls that year.  Should be noted that Perot '92, Perot '96, and Nader '00 all did about as well on election day as they were polling a few weeks before the election.  I guess what I'd say is that polls are really bad at distinguishing between a 3rd party candidate whose true support is 0.5% and a 3rd party candidate whose true support is 5%.  It's not clear to me that we can figure out which of those categories Johnson is in in advance of the election.

According to PPP, among early voters in North Carolina Johnson got so few votes that his number rounded down to 0. His and Stein's support is extremely soft, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people who say that support them don't even bother to vote at all.

Do we have any evidence that "early vote polling" is predictive of anything?  I am skeptical.  We really don't know how people who vote early might compare to those who vote on election day, or how polling of self-identified early voters stacks up against final results.

It's certainly indicative of enthusiasm, or in this case the lack thereof, of Johnson voters.

Well, yeah, a lot of Johnson voters are probably people who cast a vote in the major party primaries for someone other than the winners. (Only 14% of eligible voters actually cast a primary ballot for Clinton or Trump) Early Voters fall into two categories: 1) enthusiastic supporters, or 2) people who can't get to the polls on election day. If you're just kind of "meh" about your candidate, why check the box earlier than you have to? Granted something like Obama did in 2012 (casting his absentee-ballot in person with reporters present) increases the # of early voters, but my point still stands.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Clinton + 4-6% is how the race stands with 15 days to go.

It's likely she will win, but it's not over yet folks.

You are dismissing multiple polls that have her in the high single digits are low double digits that vastly outweigh those that have her in the mid single digits. The average right now with live caller polls is around 8%.

Atl./PRRI: C+15
ABC: C+12
Mon.: C+12
NBCWSJ: C+10
CBS: C+9
Selzer C+9
Bg C+8
Fox C+7
Q C+7
CNN C+5
IBD TIE

AVERAGE: 8.54%

...and you are dismissing some polls that see the race as pure toss-up like L.A Times poll and Rasmussen. Nate Silver also has the race at HRC +5.2% at the moment. 4-6% is the current stand.

The LA Times poll is trash, and Rasmussen state polls completely contradict their national polling.

The RCP average is Clinton +5, and I think Trump will still close the gap a bit if the media's attention goes back to HRC for a few days.

Oh, yes, telling your cute success story. Funny, for every late decider Trump pulls in, he appears to be losing another to Clinton. I moved NC toward Trump and GA toward Clinton today in my ratings.