Whether you're panicking or gloating, please stop sending me links to polls that show Trump winning or coming close to winning in November. In case you haven't noticed, it's not November.
In every single presidential election in recent memory that has not involved an incumbent — and even some that have — there were polls months earlier that showed the candidate who eventually lost clobbering the candidate that eventually won. Before Election Day, there will be plenty that are not to be taken seriously.
We don't even know half of each presidential ticket and already, people are sure they know how those tickets will fare.
Polls this early are pretty meaningless as to who'll win. They arguably may tell us something significant about the mood of the electorate at this point in time but just at this point in time. You know, when pollsters get rated — when someone looks to see how accurately they predicted any given election — they're judged by the closeness of their projections the day before the election, not on how they did in May.
I do think that the Democratic nominee will enjoy a tremendous advantage in the Electoral College. That's not a prediction. It's just recognizing that some states are almost certain to go to one party or another, and the ones that are almost certain to go Democratic total a lot more electoral votes than the ones that will go Republican. That's how the real game is scored.
While I'm at it: I have one pro-Bernie friend who keeps e-mailing everyone, including me, side-by-side photos of Sanders rallies with huge turnouts and Clinton rallies with smaller crowds. He thinks this proves Sanders will win. I think it proves my friend is good at finding photos of some Sanders rallies that look more populated than photos of some Clinton rallies. He wouldn't have to send these things out if he could send out actual delegate counts and projections that look more promising for the Sanders campaign. And I say that as a person who would not be unhappy if Bernie did somehow pull it off. Yeah, crowds matter but numbers matter more.