Another Polling Update For Today

Two new polls out this morning giving further indication that Donald Trump has essentially drawn even and possibly slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton nationally leading into the GOP National Convention next week:

• A CBS/NYTimes poll that has the race tied at 40/40; and
• A new Rasmussen survey that shows Trump leading, 44/37.

The RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, which goes all the way back to June 24, now shows Ms. Clinton with a 3.1% overall lead.  If one considers only those polls taken during July, and thus more likely to give us an accurate snapshot of the race, that lead falls to 1.2%.

Further, if one factors out the wildly outlying Reuters/Ipsos survey, you end up with Trump leading by .67%.  So basically, the race is a tie.

Interestingly, RCP has still not chosen to include Reuters/Ipsos's most recent update that results in Hillary holding a 13% lead in the race.  So I suppose the folks at RCP may have decided that that poll is just too ludicrous even for their purposes.

Whatever, we basically now have a tied race, and it is very likely that the polls will swing in favor of Trump as he gets the traditional bounce out of his convention.  After that, it is equally likely that they will swing back Ms. Clinton's way over the following two weeks as she gets the traditional bounce out of her convention.

After that, this race will ultimately boil down to whether Trump is able to convince enough voters that he is not dangerous.  More on that tomorrow.

More Thoughts on Polling Data - UPDATED

Following on to  yesterday's bashing of the Reuters/Ipsos poll and the recent decision by RealClearPolitics.com to include this clearly fake, clear outlier in its daily polling average, we have these results this morning:

• A national McClatchy poll showing the race at Hillary 42, Trump 39, right in line with every other recent national poll - well, other than Reuters/Ipsos;
• State polls from Quinnipiac that show the following results:  Ohio - Trump and Clinton tied; Florida - Trump +3; Pennsylvania - Trump +2; 
• An Iowa poll from Monmouth that has the race at Trump +2;
• A Nevada poll from Monmouth that has it Hillary +4;
• Another Florida poll from JMC Analytics that has it Trump +5;

And where is this morning's latest update on Reuters/Ipsos?  Hillary 46, Trump 33.

As I write this, RCP has yet to include this latest clearly fake Reuters/Ipsos result in its daily average.  If they do, well, shame on them, and it's time to stop relying on RCP for anything real.

Have a great day.

UPDATE:  Now at mid-day, we have new results from the YouGov/Economist national tracking poll - another tracking poll which RCP chooses not to include in its average for mysterious reasons - that shows the race at Hillary 40, Trump 37.

At this point, the data is overwhelming that this is a 2-3 point race at this moment in time, yet Reuters/Ipsos comes up with a 13 point margin for Hillary.

Why is the Reuters/Ipsos national tracking poll the only such tracking poll that RCP chooses to include in its average?  This is a question that needs to be answered.

Thoughts on Recent Polling Data

If you, like much of our fake national news media, follow the RealClearPolitics.com average of recent polls, you likely believe that Hillary Clinton has a modest, but consistent lead in that measure of somewhere around 4-5 percentage points over Donald Trump in a head-to-head race.  When polls add in the Libertarian and Green party candidates, the lead shrinks by about a percentage point.  That's been pretty consistent over the last few weeks, though it has narrowed somewhat from a month ago.

What you need to know is this:  In early June - June 4 to be exact - RCP, for whatever reason, chose to start including the Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll results in its average.  As we detailed here several weeks back, that poll consistently and obviously intentionally over-samples Democrat voters in its' surveys by a huge amount.  Because of this, it consistently produces a skewed result that heavily favors the Democrat candidate.  This is not a secret - it is something everyone has been aware of for a long, long time.

The folks at RCP appeared to realize this reality from the outset of that tracking poll a year ago, and for ten months studiously refused to include its results in its average.  That changed, as mentioned above, six weeks ago, just as Trump had closed what had been an 8-10 point Clinton lead.  I inquired via email with RCP as to the reasons behind their decision, but received no reply.

This morning, another tracking poll - the NBC/SurveyMonkey daily tracking poll - shows the race has narrowed to a Clinton lead of 47-44.  This compares to the Reuters/Ipsos result of Clinton 44, Trump 33.

Guess what?  RCP does not include the NBC/SurveyMonkey poll in its average.

So let's play a little game:  If one factors out the Reuters/Ipsos clear outlier from the current RCP average of polls going all the way back to June 24, you come out with an average Clinton lead of 3.5%, right in line with the NBC/SurveyMonkey poll.

Further, if one includes only those polls released in July, and thus far more reflective of current events, the average result comes out to a Clinton lead of 2.3%, well within the margin of error of all the polls taken.

Again, I have no idea why, after having ignored the Reuters/Ipsos poll for ten solid months, RCP chose to begin including it in its average at a particularly fortuitous time for Ms. Clinton.  I've asked, and RCP chooses not to reply.

But if you rely on the RCP average for your info on where the polls currently stand, just be aware that its results are significantly skewed by the inclusion of a poll that intentionally uses a widely skewed sample.