The Fox Business Channel tweeted out their current assessment of the electoral map and it doesn’t look good for Donald Trump.
2016 Election Scorecard: pic.twitter.com/VUNPDbUmx4
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) October 25, 2016
One of the more shocking aspects of the map is that Texas is only “leaning” Republican according to the Fox aggregate poll. The “scorecard” presents a snapshot where Clinton has 307 electoral votes and Trump only has 174. If that is accurate then even if he managed to win all the remaining “toss up” states, Trump still can’t win.
Trump has resorted to claiming polls are rigged against him, presumably to encourage his supporters to still get out there and vote. Rigged or not, the campaign has conceded that they are behind.
NEW: .@RealDonaldTrump concedes he's 'somewhat behind' in the polls https://t.co/e6JR2oMb7O. (&don't count him out – #winning is his thing)
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) October 24, 2016
This election cycle has been volatile to say the least so it feels premature to predict an outcome, even if a Clinton victory seems more probable right now. Matt Vespa at Townhall.com explains why the Trump campaign isn’t throwing in the towel yet.
There is one theory that Trump’s campaign seems to be hedging on, which is that there’s a swath of voters who don’t like to be polled, and if a firm contacts them—these voters tell lies to protect themselves. It’s a fear Democratic pollsters have this cycle, that the people they poll, like the one’s saying they’re either voting for or leaning towards Hillary Clinton, are really voting for Trump. It’s our version of the shy Tory theory, in which the 1992 election in the U.K. projected a Labour win, only to end with the Conservatives winning the most votes ever cast in a British election. It’s impossible to gauge, but if this is the case, it shows how embarrassing these two candidates are for voters for either party.
That scenario is certainly possible but it seems like a potential Trump victory is hanging by a slim thread. In 2012 many didn’t believe the polls for similar reason. They believed some voters were reluctant to say they weren’t voting to reelect the first black president. In the end Obama won by an even wider margin.
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