My "Window Ledge" Friends — otherwise rational folks who are terrified at the thought that Trump may win — are slightly (slightly!) comforted this morn by reports that Hillary got a decent-sized bounce from the Democratic Convention. The Pollster Aggregate has her up 46.0% to 40.1%, which may not seem like a safe gap but remember that Obama only beat Romney by about 4% and still managed to rack up an Electoral College landslide.
One of my friends is afraid not that Trump will win but that he won't lose by a wide-enough margin to (a) repudiate his kind of politics forever and (b) prevent him from screaming that the election was rigged. The latter is highly unlikely. Trump is already screaming that if he loses, the election had to have been rigged. To him, an alleged Trump loss is incontrovertible evidence of skullduggery since Trump never loses. The former? Well, it's possible but I wouldn't count on it.
Then again, it's 98 days until the election. So figure Trump averaging one real stupid and/or offensive statement per day 'til then, that's 98 things that may drive Independents — as well as Republicans whose antipathy for Hillary isn't set in lucite — to decide to vote for her or not at all. That may be Ms. Clinton's greatest advantage at the moment.
Still, here at newsfromme.com, we're all about the Electoral College and it's tricky to see where we are with that, this far before Election Day. The main three states to watch are, of course, Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania. It's highly unlikely Trump can win without all three of them and states aren't polled that often until the last month.
Looking just at the major pollsters: The last polling of Ohio was July 22-24, before the Democratic Convention, which obviously changed some minds. The last poll of Florida was July 11. And the only polling we have for Pennsylvania since the D.N.C. ended was yesterday and while it showed Hillary four points ahead of Donald, that's just one poll. Since she's been generally ahead in all three states and the national polls show that bump in her overall vote total, she's probably still ahead in all three.
How far ahead and for how long? That remains to be seen. I have the feeling though that until Election Day, there's going to be a constant lag time in the polling. Right now, we're waiting for all the post-D.N.C. polls but when they materialize in the next day or three, they won't reflect what (if anything) Trump has done to himself with his attacks on Khzir Khan, the Muslim father who scolded Trump for anti-Muslim sentiments. And by the time we do get the polls that show any movement because of that issue, we'll be waiting for the polls on the next Trump-induced controversy. Because you know there'll be one, maybe by the time I post this.