Trump 2020 Late Stage Polling: Chunky Style (September 29, 2020)

2020 has been a Very Strange Year. It remains to be seen if any of our prior notions of what a Presidential Election End Game looks like have any bearing on this year’s outcome. It could hardly turn out to end normally, but who knows?

COVID-19 is maybe the largest political monkey wrench in 100 years in America. It makes Willie Horton, Dukakis in the Tank, and Kerry’s Swift Boating look tame.

Democrat Michael Dukakis Infamous Tank Photo (1988)

And then there are the Russians in the background, Rudy and the Ukraine, the active Postal Service Sabotage, and Trump’s Demand for a Debating Drug Test for good measure. And that’s before Trump.45’s incessant harping on illegitimate votes and a call to arms for his Second Amendment zealots to throw out the ballots.

Trump Arriving Back At White House Directly After Tulsa Rally Flop

Anyway, actual Voting is officially underway, even if Trump doesn’t like other people to mail in their votes. The earliest early voting in person has also just begun, and Trump flaggers are out to obstruct poll access for US citizens, like in Virginia. Your Law and Order Pres channeling the action by his human bots.

With the last 6 weeks to go, we are in nut crunching time.

Some people like their results smooth and creamy with a simple one number answer. And in the absolute end, there will be a binary choice. However, before we get there are lots of chunky results to process. 50 Separate state elections to make the whole. I prefer the Chunky Version myself.

Whether your personal peanut butter choice is Jif, Skippy, or Peter Pan, you can get it in two different varieties.

As with peanut butter there are two major polling trackers most folks are likely to follow. There is FiveThirtyEight (since 2008) of Nate Silver’s 2012 perfect call fame, and RealClear Politics (RCP) rather chunkier version (since 2000). To your taste.

Although both tracking sites have now been media ownership upgraded with Big Boy influence: RCP with Forbes (2007-2015), and FiveThirtyEight with ESPN and Disney (since 2013), they still retain much of their early wildcat DNA.

Silver is Smooth Polling. RCP, I contend, is more like the Chunky Version. Follow them both.

Here, we will concentrate on RCP for the last 6 weeks because while considered reliable, they do present a hint of rightward leaning posture. Which is good, for we want any polling to be non-Joe friendly, if it bends a bit in the wind. Advantage Trump.

So, here is another low flying overview of all RCP reported polls, gathered in a weekly harvest. All National Presidential polls and all Presidential State polls reported by RCP each day are assembled in a fairly neat bundle.

U.S. Election Week Minus-6

Monday, September 21- Sunday, September 27

Week Minus-6 Totals: Trump Wins 10 State Polls, Ties 5

Monday: Zero Wins
Tuesday
Iowa Tie
North Carolina Tie
Georgia Tie
Wednesday
Florida +4
Florida Tie
Georgia +2
Arizona +1
North Carolina +1
Thursday
Texas +3
Texas +5
Michigan +1
Georgia Tie
Iowa +3
Friday: Zero Wins
Saturday: Zero Wins
Sunday
Georgia +1
South Carolina +10

The Week’s Haul

Trump won and tied in Iowa (2), Georgia (4), North Carolina (2), and Florida (2). He won in Texas (2), South Carolina (1), Arizona (1), and Michigan (1).

He lost 14 of 14 National Polls. He won 10 of 54 State Polls.

His 7-Day Polling Batting Average was 0.000 National, and 0.185 in State Polls.

68 Weekly Polling At Bats. No Hits against National Pitchers. One in Five in the State Contests. Comfortable lead in South Carolina, but shouldn’t ever be a contest. Texas at +5 is not comfortable. Maybe just a hiccup.

Missing from Trump’s Weekly Win Column is any good news from Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maine or Nevada. Ouch.

That sucks.

Maybe pulling all those TV ads while recalibrating the campaign’s focus and money resources the last 45 days wasn’t such a sterling idea. Meanwhile Stepien took a $5,000 a month pay cut so he’s all the way onboard, and recently former long-time Campaign Manager Parscale is resting in a Florida mental health facility on a Florida Red Flag (Baker Act) detention from his wife, after he was waving a gun around over the weekend, and he is being investigated for disappearing roughly $50 million in campaign money from Trump and the RNC since January. RNC says “nope, not us.”; Trump Campaign says “Brad is family.”

Oops.

Stay tuned. But this is Trump Chaos, and who knows what drunken, drugged, or deformed rabbits he can pull out of his capacious hat in the next month until Election Day, November 3rd.

Debate tonight. Stay Tuned. Bring your otoscope and video enlarger as you watch. Focus on Beady Eyed Joe; look for the twitches.

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