The Homa Files

OK, let’s start with the obvious: Trump had a very, very bad week … and, if I were Trump, I’d rather have Clinton’s poll results than Trump’s.

But, Trump’s campaign obit may be a bit premature.

At least one poll’s results suggest that Donald may still have a pulse.

The Reuters / IPSO poll shows a typical dissipation of Hillary’s post-convention bounce … and a statistically significant bounceback for the Donald … narrowing Clinton’s advantage to only 2.4 percentage points … within the margin of error.

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Clintonites surely consider the results to be simply an outlier.

For Trumpsters, it’s a ray of hope.

Which is it?

Here are some factors to consider …

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Factors to consider:

The IPSO poll is an online poll.

Traditional pollsters diss online polls as unreliable.

But, traditional phone polls have their own problems … e.g. missed big on the primaries and Brexit.

And, this year, Trump has tended to out-perform phone polls.

Theory: folks know they’ll be categorized as dummies if they say they’re voting for Trump. Online polls provide a greater sense of anonymity.

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Note that he IPSO poll caught the Trump post-convention bounce … and Hillary’s YUGE post-convention bounce.

So maybe, IPSO just picks up on the swings quicker than most traditional polls.

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Also note that the IPSO sample has 20% more Democrats than Republicans … an overweighting based on most estimates of party split.

That favors Hillary, right?

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Bottom line:

This week may have been a blessing in disguise for Trump.

A small downtick and it would have been business as usual.

The big jolt may have been enough to give Donald some religion … and start his campaigning like a Presidential candidate.

There’s still time, right?

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As one pundit put it:

Most voters are only partially engaged in this election.

They follow politics the way that I follow the NFL season.

I am aware the Super Bowl is in January (or February), but I am not following the day-to-day, week to week rankings, games, scores and trades.

The closer we get to the playoffs, the more closely I will start paying attention.

We are in August people. There is a long way to go until November.

And, don’t forget: WikiLeaks is standing in the shadows … waiting to pounce.

The fun’s not over yet.

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#HomaFiles

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This entry was posted on August 7, 2016 at 8:30 am and is filed under 2016 Presidential Election, Clinton, Hillary, Polls & Surveys, Trump, Donald. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.