Nov 07 2016
Late Breaking FL Poll Raises Alarm Bells For Clinton
In that alert Drudge also pointed to a new poll out for Florida, showing Trump ahead of Hillary 49.72% to 46.13%. The poll can be viewed here.
It looked really good for Trump, so I started checking the cross tabs. There is a statement that the 1100 respondents (out of 50 ,000 automatic calls made) were weighted to reflect the 2012 turnout – probably making this a Dem leaning poll since Hillary is clearly not replicating Obama’s turnout this year.
With that said a couple of subgroups just jumped out at me. First
, gender (click to enlarge – green box):
Trump is winning among men by 49.45% to 44.11% for Clinton. If all we did is look at this number we would assume a great day for Hillary. But one column over has Trump winning women 49.93% to 47.74% Trust me, I have had to keep checking this to make sure I was not seeing things.
How is this possible?
As I noted in a post yesterday, this year the turnout for a candidate is not driven by party ID but by education/economic level. This has turned the normal GOP-DEM dynamics on its head:
If this holds even somewhat true nationally, Clinton will lose in a landslide. From another previous post on Florida, we have this RCP link:
The answer is that education levels are a more significant factor this year. Obama won a majority of those with a high school diploma (or less) in 2012, while Romney won college-educated voters. This year the numbers are reversed. Among white voters with only a high school education, Trump leads by over 25 points. Among whites with a college degree, Clinton leads by about 10 percent.
This is the first time since serious polling began in 1952 that this has happened. The traditional pattern of Democratic support among blue-collar workers this year follows the high-school-or-less pattern with white, blue-collar workers preferring Trump to Clinton. These unique combinations of less support for traditional party loyalties across education levels accounts for the narrow Clinton lead of four points in our latest poll. Another example, which makes the point, is that women with less education are voting for Trump while college-educated women are very strong for Clinton, which cuts into the gender gap and makes Clinton’s lead among women slightly less than Obama’s was in the previous election.
The hard truth for the Democrats is there are a lot more voters on the lower end of the education and economic rungs than there are in the upper 20% of highly educated upper middle class to super rich. That is why it is the top 20%, because they exist above the other 80%.
This is how Trump could beat Hillary with women, if the less educated and less economically successful swing to him in “yuge” numbers.
And that might also explain the other cross tab surprises:
This is amazing. Hillary is winning African Americans and Latinos in Florida, but nowhere near the levels she needs. Trump is garnering 26.2% of the African American vote, which everyone agrees is below 2012 levels of participation. This is theoretically supposed to be offset by a huge Latino turnout. But Trump is garnering 40.71% of that group!
I heard today that Trump is winning Latino’s who speak English (i.e., have lived in America a longer time and have acclimated). This is not a surprise, since they want to keep their jobs and fear the new tide of Arab and Persian refugees will take them away.
If these numbers are accurate, it will be a Trump landslide tomorrow.
Of course, we have no way of knowing if these numbers are accurate. I would have preferred the turnout model reflect early voting patterns for 2016. With that said, using 2012 turnout as a guide, this poll tilts towards Hillery.
If these cross tabs for women and Latinos are even in the ballpark, Clinton is heading into a very bad election day
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