Let's talk about the white vote

[Sbane]

One of the caveats about analyzing numbers from a subsample of a poll is the high margin of error. The white vote, with it being about 70-72% of the sample, is a demographic that is going to be least affected by this. We can be reasonably sure the pollsters are getting a reasonable view of the white vote, even if they are missing by 10-15 points among smaller samples like Hispanics, Blacks, angry NH women under the age of 35 etc. The polls are consistently showing that Clinton is only losing the white vote by about 10-15 points. So then why are the polls so close? If there is a 5-10 point swing towards Clinton from Obama 2012 among the white vote, shouldn't she be leading by about 10 points right now? What exactly is going on?

[Sbane]

And if you would like to look at the numbers and what I am talking about, here you go:

1)http://www.investors.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/POSTING_Tables_Sep2016_Horserace_Registered_And-_Likely-Voters.pdf
IBD poll where Clinton leads by 1 but only loses white vote by 14 points.

2) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/interactive/2016/08/31/fox-news-poll-aug-31-2016/
Fox Poll where Clinton leads by just 6 while only losing the white vote by 11 points. That would be 2 points better than Obama 2008.

3) http://polling.reuters.com/#poll/TM651Y15_26/filters/LIKELY:1,SC_RACE:1/dates/20160801-20160901/type/week
Latest Reuters poll which is tied but Trump only up by 11 among whites.

4)https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/d1qd4msxfd/econTabReport.pdf
Yougov poll where Clinton leads by 5 but only down 13 points among whites.

5) http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2015/PPP_Release_National_83016.pdf
PPP poll where Clinton is up 5 and down 15 among whites

6) http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/09/01/suffolk-poll-hillary-clinton-donald-trump-fear/89577824/
In this USA today poll Trump is only up by 8 points among whites but Clinton only leads him by 7.

7) http://www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/MonmouthPoll_US_082916/
Monmouth poll where again Trump is only up 8 points up among whites while only losing by 7 points.

For reference, Obama lost the white vote by 13 points in 2008 and 20 points in 2012 according to exit polls.

[Sbane]

Actually many are showing Trump doing better among non-whites than Romney. We shall see if that turns out to be true or not.