Opinion of RCP's No-Tossups Map

[AGA]

[elcorazon]

Freedom, but waiting for Ohio and Iowa to flip.

[Pessimistic Antineutrino]

That's my current prediction, so FM.

[Figueira]

Looks solid based on where the polls are currently.

[ProudModerate2]

I would be very happy with this map come Nov 8.
To embarrass trump further, it would be nice for Hillary to also take Ohio.
To completely bury trump, throw-in Iowa, ME-02 and NE-02.
To annihilate trump with a nuclear election bomb, also take Georgia and Arizona.

[Maxwell]

Pretty silly with ME-2, still. Otherwise, looks fine.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Freedom, but waiting for Ohio and Iowa to flip.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Pretty silly with ME-2, still. Otherwise, looks fine.

This.  Take out ME-2 and it's the most likely outcome (today).

[Eraserhead]

My map is exactly the same as this one, so it works for me.

Do we have any evidence yet to suggest that ME-2 has moved back to Clinton?

[BlueSwan]

The most sober map at the current point in time.

[Figueira]

Pretty silly with ME-2, still. Otherwise, looks fine.

I expect Clinton to win ME-2, but the RCP map is intentionally just based on polls.

[ursulahx]

Looks pretty good to me, even with ME-02 turning red (ie blue on the map).

[Xing]

Seems plausible. If Clinton wins by more like 5-6%, I'd expect at least two of IA, OH, and ME-02 to flip, but in a 3-4% win for her, this map could happen.

[ag]

Very plausible. And that fact alone is staggering: it is almost a generic D vs. R map from the last few elections.

[KingSweden]

The most sober map at the current point in time.

[Badger]

Looks solid based on where the polls are currently.

[Nyvin]

Very realistic.   I could see this being the outcome, give or take a few states here or there.

[AGA]

Freedom map. I would not be surprised if this were the outcome, and this probably is what would happen if the election were held today.

[Wisconsin+17]

Seems pretty reasonable to me, aside from ME-02. Ohio should flip back pretty soon.

Now, will all you democrats stop panicking?

[Figueira]

Seems pretty reasonable to me, aside from ME-02. Ohio should flip back pretty soon.

Now, will all you democrats stop panicking?

Ohio would need more polls. Ohio is blue on 538 because Clinton's national lead would imply that.

[Maxwell]

The trend map would be cooler.

[Wisconsin+17]

Well, right now I have it scored as 264-204 with 70 outstanding.

Trump's only path to victory is Nevada, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona.

That's 5 tossups with 2 of them he's ahead, so say, 60/40 in AZ and 52/48 in North Carolina. Florida is 40/60, Nevada is 45-55, and Colorado is now 40-60. I put his winning chance down to about 3 percent.

Trump has never lead in the state aggregate poll, the closest he came is when he actually cracked the FRIEWALL, lead in Colorado and lost in Florida.

[LLR]

Seems pretty reasonable to me, aside from ME-02. Ohio should flip back pretty soon.

Now, will all you democrats stop panicking?

ME-02 is completely reasonable, I think.

This map seems very accurate

[GeorgiaModerate]

Trump's only path to victory is Nevada, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona.

That's 5 tossups with 2 of them he's ahead, so say, 60/40 in AZ and 52/48 in North Carolina. Florida is 40/60, Nevada is 45-55, and Colorado is now 40-60. I put his winning chance down to about 3 percent.

On the whole I like your analysis, but two things:

1. These aren't independent events.  I agree that Trump is the underdog in Colorado (if anything, I think your 40% is overly generous to him) -- but if he manages to win it, there would likely have been national movement such that his probability of winning the other states is considerably higher than shown.

2. There's an uncertainty factor that decreases as the election gets closer.  If these are the probabilities in those states on Nov. 7, then I agree that Trump's chances are minuscule.  But if they're the probabilities today, his chances are higher (10%? 15? 20?) because there's time for him to make up some ground.  Stuart Rothenberg once said, when someone asked him who would win if the election was today: "Nobody.  Because there is no election today."  This is worth keeping in mind.

[Wisconsin+17]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

He's gotten it down to one state, up to about a maximum of about 1/3 when he was down a couple points in Florida and up in Colorado. 

The problem with multiple states is that you're assuming that if he improves in one state, that necessarily means that other states will improve too. Sure- it's a possibility, but what we've seen is that even with an improvement, he has to improve enough to flip a state. This is why we're better treating these as independent events.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Granted. These are predictions, "if the election were held today, this would be his percentage chance of winning. You're quite right, that we have a month to go and things can change.

The problem, however, is that the election is narrowing. Undecideds are at about 8 percent, so any state with a differential greater than 8 is a state that's unwinnable for Trump. Granted, this doesn't include lots of states which are still winnable, but the second problem is the law of large numbers.

If I have a bin of 10, and I need 8 of those 10 to swing my way, I have a chance of winning.

If I have a bin of 100,000, and I need 80,000 to swing my way, this is much harder.

Consider the graph of Clinton minus Trump. If we take the Integral of the area under Hillary, this is the same as political momentum. Trump is vastly outweighted in political momentum over the course of a year's campaign. It's narrowed, certainly, but he's still behind and Clinton is adding to her momentum.

Trump has to not only stop her momentum - in accumulating decided voters but also has to flip the numbers and lead himself. Trump's major problem is that while he was on track to overcome her momentum temporarily, he is actually losing ground.

Personally, I think we're in for Romney II with Trump fading on the homestretch.