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Sunday, September 4, 2016

2016 Election now in the Home Stretch

No doubt, the polls have tightened a little the last few weeks. While we could do without that, this is not unexpected.

Hillary's press secretary:

“It is inevitable that the race will even further tighten than what we’ve seen in the last couple weeks. There was no doubt that coming out of the convention, we had a pretty significant bounce,” Fallon said. “We always perceived that the race would tighten around Labor Day because once Donald Trump stopped committing unforced errors, he could probably get a little bit closer to consolidating the Republicans that defected from him, again, after he went after the Khan family and that would naturally mean that the race would tighten a bit.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/hillary-clinton-hold-press-conferences-president-press-secretary/story?id=41828072

Part of it has been that the press has been hammering her on the Clinton Foundation-which is pretty sad when philanthropic work like this is used as a political cudgel. It's the 2016 version of Swiftboating. Meanwhile, when does the Trump Foundation and it's illegal payment to Florida AG Pam Bondi become news?

I did have an interesting chat last night with Michael Powell, a major NY Times columnist who assured me that the Times is going to be on the Trump Foundation soon after WaPo's big scoop on the $25,000 payment to Pam Bondi.

https://twitter.com/powellnyt/status/772252805457448960

"@ReneeCPAinMS @evilsax All good questions. As I say, a story we should follow."

https://twitter.com/powellnyt/status/772252624666107904

"@evilsax @joshtpm NYT did excellent Trump U pieces. We need to follow on Washpost excellent piece on Florida and Trump Foundatoin"

https://twitter.com/powellnyt/status/772249924343848960

Let's hope so. If Trump is running against the Clinton Foundation he needs to have his own scrutiny. The irony is that the Trump Foundation story is what the Clinton Foundation was supposed to be: clear pay for play.

However, another reason Hillary's numbers may have trailed off the last few weeks is she hasn't been campaigning as much.

"So, where does the presidential race currently stand? After Hillary enjoyed an unmistakable bounce in the polls after the Democratic National Convention that sustained itself through much of August, more recent polls show a tightening race. According to the RealClearPolitics average of recent national polls, Hillary holds about a 3 point advantage over Trump in a four-way matchup that includes Jill Stein and Gary Johnson. This lead is down from the roughly 7 point advantage Hillary enjoyed in early August."

"Trump’s improving standing in the race comes during a time when his campaign is clearly making an effort to force Trump to moderate the tone of his campaign. In recent weeks, Trump has increasingly relied on the use of a teleprompter for various planned speeches, in a clear attempt by his campaign handlers to discourage him from making off the cuff comments on the stump that have frequently landed him in hot water in the past."

"While the tightening of the polls and the latest attempted makeover of the Trump campaign may be causing some angst among Hillary supporters, these developments also coincide with a relentless fundraising effort that Hillary embarked on in August that is likely to pay big dividends. In the month of August, Hillary raised an astounding $143 million for her campaign and for the national and statewide Democratic parties. The amount she raised in August is more than 50 percent higher than what she raised in July. Even more impressive is the $81 million of that August total that was raised for the Democratic National Committee and statewide parties, a sign that Hillary is trying to sweep up as many down ballot Democrats as possible on her coattails this November."

"Hillary’s impressive August fundraising haul shows just how well-positioned her campaign is for the homestretch of the campaign. Her advantage over Trump in campaign organization, campaign staff, and cash on hand give her a bountiful pool of resources to pull from over the next 60 days or so that the Trump campaign can only fantasize about."

https://www.willhillarywin.com/2016/09/04/labor-day-weekend-marks-pivotal-point-in-2016-race/
That's the key. She is very well positioned. With the start of September she will not need to fundraise and will be campaigning a lot, with her murderers' row of Dem surrogates: President Obama, VP Biden, Bernie Sanders, etc. 
Remember as well that she has a huge ground game advantage over Trump who truly doesn't see the need for one. 
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/01/donald-trump-has-1-field-office-open-in-all-of-florida-thats-a-total-disaster/
The way you can tell that Obama had a great ground game is that in both 2008 and 2012, he outperformed his polling averages throughout the campaign by about 40% on election day. 
Yet, Hillary's net ground game advantage over Trump is clearly greater than even Obama's was over Romney. 
But if you even assume the Obama premium then you have always multiply any HRC polling lead by about 40%. 

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