As goes Michigan, so goes the election

Man, have I been wasting time modeling those other states…

Odds of Clinton victory nationally and in each state since June 1st.

There’s an astounding correlation between Clinton’s odds of victory in Michigan and her odds of winning the overall election, despite variations in other battleground-ier states ostensibly tending to correlate with and drive the overall numbers. It’s a strong and consistent relationship that underscores how tough Trump’s path to the White House really is.

Trump needs to plow through the toss-ups, as well as take the strongly leaning OH, NV, and WI to get to 270.

Our model shows Clinton with a dominating 8 point lead in Michigan, and 95% odds of capturing the state, barely leading the national odds of 90%. It’s also worth noting since most polls have a survey period of approximately 10 days, none of the damage from the weekend is really included in these numbers, which makes them all the more amazing. In effect, public perception sort of predicted the ‘pussy-grabbing” comment, sliding significantly Dem-ward in the days before. Fallout from that, and other follow-ups (15 women are now publicly accusing Trump of either full-blown sexual assault or lesser offenses of general extreme creepiness) are likely to continue to push these numbers further into the Blue.

Numbers-wise, that’s basically all we need to know for now, but for a bit of editorializing, while it’s heartening to see people forcefully rejecting Trump’s well-documented history of misogyny, entitlement, and general discounting of women as anything other than sex objects, it’s also a bit puzzling that its taken so long. Trump has openly staked out positions of extreme xenophobia, racism, and anti-religious freedom, but finally seems to be losing support only after this latest batch of sexual assault allegations. The optimist’s view is that people finally said “enough!” and have withdrawn support, but the cynic in me worries that a lot of people are simply OK with broadly denouncing Mexicans, Muslims, and other minorities, and that it’s only the ‘sister/daughter/mother’ argument that holds sway.

While by now I should know better, it continues to surprise me that the average voter’s decision seems to have little to do with actual policy positions, and that elections are broadly decided by judgment on a ‘character’ largely crafted by the media. The next time you hear people lamenting that many vote against their own self-interest, just remember that no one really bothers to read the platforms anyway.

Till next time…

@stefanhilts