It's official...
At this point we're looking a race which is a virtual tossup.
Trump has consolidated the Republican base, which has been the major driver in his recent performance in both national and state polls.
Clinton has lost support to 3rd Party candidates and undecideds/persuadables...
Her strategy over the past four weeks of trying to hammer Trump as an extremist, and try to pander to Republican voters that don't like Trump has been an epic failure.
Time to go back to the "Battle of the Bases" and actually run on her 2016 Primary policies, instead of taking the Progressive base of the Party for granted.
It is almost too late for Clinton, considering that pledging and adopting extremely progressive policies in order to defeat Bernie in the primaries, was then followed by a pivot that has done very little to back up her talk. Ultimately, among many voters she is reinforcing the narrative that she is just another Politician who will say and do anything to get elected, but at the end of the day you can't trust to follow through.
It's amazing that she basically ignored key issues for the largest generation (Millennials) in order to try to increase Trump's already huge unfavorables. She should have been building her own favorables in August, and acting consistent and not basically taking one of the largest voting blocs for granted solely based upon "Trump is.... (fill in the blanks) which most of that generation already believes to be the case.
Er, no. That's total horsesh**t. Trump has not consolidated the Republican base by any means; he's still polling in the 60s among self-described conservatives. Hillary is at 75-80 with self-described liberals. The swings in this race -- all the swings in this race -- have been between Hillary Clinton and undecided/third-party. Trump has never really been higher than 41% or so, and in fact is usually under 40. Some of the people voting third-party are in fact Stein-voting progressives, but the majority of Johnson voters and undecideds are vague centrists without much of an ideology at all who can't stand Trump but are uncertain of whether they can bring themselves to vote for Hillary. Many are likely to end up not voting at all.
Lord, I'm agreeing with Vosem.
This week has hurt Clinton with Dem enthusiasm. We need to wait, given the circumstances, if this this is a circumstantial hit, which will right itself, or a substantive hit, which suggests a new dynamic.
Hillary is, yes, being hurt by her weaker position with Millennials, BUT her position was being bolstered by her standing with moderate college-educated whites. Her path to the White House isn't going to be done solely by pandering the most Progressive, because moderates are the key to the White House.
