Why is the race tightening again?

[Hammy]

Everyone here's already forgotten about the premium hike with Obamacare?

I thought that too, but somebody pointed out in another thread that most of the polls ended on or before yesterday.

[Hammy]

Please stop the concern trolling, it isn't.

The mere fact that the polling averages haven't consistently been 55 Clinton/37 Trump for the duration is concerning enough for me.

It's a 3-4-way race--you're not going to have anybody getting 55%. I'm becoming more confident Clinton will win if the dynamics don't change, as long as people actually show up to vote--it just remains to be seen by how much now.

[Hammy]

The race is tightening because Hillary Clinton is an unappealing candidate to Democrats.  The party forced her on the rank and file, going into the tank for her and clearing the field.  This was fine before the e-mail matter went worse than anticipated, but now, Democrats have to deal with voting for a candidate much of America views as having committed a felony, and whose pointing the finger at Donald Trump's issues with women bring up the Bill Clinton Sex Scandals in voters' minds.

In that vein, I think that many wavering Democrats will, in the end, suck it up for Hillary as I did for Trump.  But the polls are tightening NOW because Hillary IS unsavory.  And she's an unsavory candidate that the party forced on the rank and file.  Her unsavory character, the resurrection of the 1990s Bill Clinton issues, et al, have all but taken away the luster of Hillary becoming the First Woman President.

As I said earlier, there's fairly weak evidence of tightening.  There's also absolutely no indication the tightening, if it exists, is because of the factors you identify.  The polls show that Trump has perhaps gained a little bit of previously disaffected Republicans "coming home."

If she still wins, she'll be so happy she hung on that the "First" aspect will be minimized.  No one really wants to be the First Woman to make it across the Atlantic in a lifeboat.

If she wins by the current polls-projected margin, or even a slightly tightened margin, I don't think the reaction will be anything like, "phew, that was close...so let's not celebrate the 'first woman' thing."  Why would they?  Some long game to avoid setting high expectations?  That's silly.

Given how many Republicans have conspicuously declined to endorse Trump, and the fact that Democrats aren't over 50% in polling, I would say that the unsavoriness of Clinton is the only way to explain it.

How many times was Obama over 50% in 2012? Not often and considering a more solid performance from third parties this time, getting over 50% would be a magnificent performance.

You're moving the goal posts around, careful, one may fall on you.

Something else to remember in addition to third parties, is that we have numerous R-leaning (via methodology and the pollsters own admissions) daily tracking polls, which is obviously increasing Trump's standing from how weekly/monthly polls would be and keeping it closer than it may actually be.

[Hammy]

Saw the ABC national news tonight. Proclaimed the "increasing tightness" of the race. Then turned around and cited the Qunnipiac state polls (ALL of which showed positive trend for clinton) as proof. lol

Most cable news viewers have a short attention span with the polls (and everything really) so they'll eat it up, and the media can keep getting ratings off of this narrative.