Trump Takes The Lead

While Hillary Clinton coughed her way through a speech in Cleveland yesterday, Donald Trump was taking the lead in the new poll from - get ready for it - CNN.

Yes, friends, the Clinton News Network, which has blatantly made itself nothing more than the propaganda arm for the Clinton campaign for the last year and a half, is no longer able to dummy  up a poll that could credibly give their gal the lead and has finally given up that ghost.  Heads must literally be spinning right now in their morning meeting to review the talking points the Clinton campaign has fed them overnight, as they desperately attempt to find some way to report this latest CNN/ORC poll as positive news for Hillary.

But wait, it gets better.  Trump also took the lead over the weekend in - are you sitting down? - the REUTERS/IPSOS tracking poll.

That is not a typo.

Yes, the Reuters/Ipsos poll, about which I wrote extensively in July, as its authors scrambled to revise their already heavily biased sampling method to make it even more friendly to The Most Corrupt Woman in America, now has Trump holding a 1 point lead.  I suppose we should expect an announcement from Reuters soon that it will, from this point forward, only poll Democrats in order to ensure Hillary keeps her "lead" over her execrable opponent.

Speaking of Trump, let's all remember that it was barely a month ago that everyone in the DC/NYC Establishment Axis of Propaganda was declaring the New York businessman to be officially dead in this race.  It was too late, they said, and Hillary's lead at that point was just too overwhelming for him to be able to make a comeback.

A few weeks later, here we are.  Trump leads not only in the CNN/ORC and Reuters/Ipsos polls, he also leads in the LA Times poll and the Rasmussen survey.

Of course, the Establishment people have made this same mistake of declaring Trump officially "dead" at dozens of points over the last 14 months.  One can only wonder how many more times they will make this same clownish mistake before finally learning what is really going on in the electorate this cycle.

Ok, the truth is that these people are so out of touch with real America, so solidly captive in their little insular bubble of stupidity and ignorance that they are utterly incapable of comprehending how ordinary Americans actually think.

The only good news for them here is that it is they, and not Trump, who are running out of time in this campaign.  So they can only be utterly, completely, laughably wrong a few more times before it's all over.

Reuters/Ipso 'Fixes' Its Poll - And Makes it Even Worse

If you've been reading this blog you've known for more than a month now that the Reuters/Ipsos poll has severe methodology issues, consistently over-sampling Democrat voters by as much as 10% of the overall sample. As a result of this consistent, unaddressed issue, the poll showed Hillary Clinton leading by 15% one day in mid-July when no other poll had her lead registering at over 5%, with most having it within 1-2%.

Even though this ridiculous sampling method produced wildly-outlying results, Reuters/Ipsos did nothing to change its method until last week, when, even with its over-sampling of Democrat voters, the poll showed Trump suddenly moving into the lead following the GOP National Convention.

Now suddenly the folks who run the poll are recognizing they have a systemic problem in their polling method and are moving to "fix" it - only they're NOT fixing the problem that really exists, just "fixing" the method so that it will reliably show Hillary back in the lead.

Your fake national news media in action, folks.

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.