Trump has a Hillary 2016 problem

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In 2016, Hillary consistently outpolled Trump, but she also consistently ran into polling ceilings both nationally and in the states.  The fact that she was never able to actually hit 50% should have been a warning sign of how baked-in the anti-Hillary sentiment was.

Trump has the same problem.

Trump's ceiling nationally is 44%
In national polls, Trump has a 44% ceiling.  FiveThirtyEight has 101 polling results in September so far and Trump only breaks 44% in the following polls:
9/13 Fox:  46% (x2)
9/9 Rasmussen:  46%
9/9 Harris:  46%
9/4 Harris:  47%
9/2 Rasmussen:  45%
9/1 AtlasIntel:  46%

That's only 7 out of 101 polling results in which Trump breaks his 44% national ceiling, and Fox News is the only legit one (Rasmussen is GOP, Harris has 0 undecideds, AtlasIntel is a fake poll)


Trump's ceiling in Wisconsin is 45%
Trump has the same problem in Wisconsin, where of the 25 polls conducted in September, not a single one shows him above 45%.


Trump's ceiling in Pennsylvania is 46%
Pennsylvania hasn't received as much polling attention, but if we go back to the start of August, there are 31 polls, and the only ones showing him above 46% are:
9/3 Rasmussen:  49%
9/2 Monmouth:  47%
8/11 Emerson:  47%


Trump's ceiling in Michigan is 44%
Michigan similarly suffers from a lack of polling.  Since August 1 there have been 21 polls and the only ones showing him above 44% are an 8/21 Civiqs poll with Trump at 46% and an 8/28 Trafalgar poll where he's ahead of Biden with 47%.


Trump's ceiling in Arizona is 47%
Go back to the start of July, 34 polls, Gravis gives him a 48% and OnMessage gives him a 51% but that's it.


Trump has no ceiling in Florida
The above states all follow the same pattern.  There have been plenty of polling results but none of them get Trump the numbers he needs to beat Biden.  He always runs into a ceiling.  This is not the case in Florida.  In the last month there have been several polls putting Trump at 48, 49, even 50%.  Those are the kinds of numbers he needs if he wants to win a state and lends credibility to the idea that Florida is the best state for Trump to make a play.



In 2016, Trump received
46.1% of the NPV
47.22% in Wisconsin
48.18% in Pennsylvania
47.5% in Michigan
48.67% in Arizona
49.02% in Florida

He is president today not because he was strong in those states but because Hillary Clinton had a hard ceiling of support, and a lot of her haters voted for third-party candidates.  In Wisconsin, for instance, 6.33% of the vote went to third-party candidates.  In Michigan, 5.23%.  In Arizona, 6.2%.

Biden does not have the Hillary Clinton problem.  He is consistently able to reach or exceed 50% in all of these polls.  It seems very unlikely that Trump will be able to win Pennsylvania with 48% again this year, because 2016 was such an anomaly.  In 2012, for instance, only 1.44% of PA voted for third-party candidates.  A similar number this year, with Trump matching his 2016 result, would be a 2-point Trump loss (Biden 50.36%).

But Trump would be lucky to even match his 2016 results in these states, because he has a Hillary Clinton problem.  Even if people don't like Biden, they refuse to vote for Trump.  In hundreds of polls he's consistently blocked at 2-3% below his 2016 results.  The main difference from 2016 seems to be that instead of voting third-party, the voters he's lost are simply moving to Biden.

Trump's ceiling nationally is 44% ... gets 47%
Trump's ceiling in Wisconsin is 45% ... gets 49%
Trump's ceiling in Pennsylvania is 46% ... gets 49%
Trump's ceiling in Michigan is 44% ... gets 48%
Trump's ceiling in Arizona is 47% ... gets 49%

Good job General MacArthur.

Whatever, MacArthur was correct that Trump was too unpopular to be able to win those states.

There are so many posts you could bump from people who were so much more wrong, lots of people confidently insisted Trump would win.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

I'd also like to point out that Hillary's concession - in virtually identical circumstances, even though many voice on the left were calling for her to hold out - is now a potent argument  in forcing Trump to acknowledge his loss.