This wasn't true here, now was it?

Sorry for the random aside but I feel like Sarah Palin is under-discussed as a predecessor/precedent for Trumpism.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 14, 2017

We absolutely talked about the fact that Sarah Palin was the harbinger of doom that cleared the path for Donald Trump to bring shame to the nation.

She was Trump before there was Trump.

However the reason that we do not bring her up anymore is because she is now essentially irrelevant.

It's kind of like when you are upset that there is crabgrass in your lawn, and then suddenly a giant sink hole opens up and swallows half of your yard.

Suddenly crabgrass seems almost comforting by comparison.

Donald Trump's approval numbers hit a new low, but the good news is that his disapproval numbers hit a new high.

#Trump Drops To New Low, Close To 2-1 Disapproval, National Poll Finds; 71 Percent Say President Is Not Levelheaded
https://t.co/jYLZddx1e7

— Quinnipiac Poll (@QuinnipiacPoll) August 2, 2017

Courtesy of CBS News: 

A poll from Quinnipiac University found that only a third of American voters, 33 percent, approve of his performance in office, while 61 percent disapprove of it. This marks his lowest approval and highest disapproval number since he was inaugurated, Quinnipiac said. 

His latest approval rating is down 7 percentage points from the 40 percent approval rating Mr. Trump received in a similar survey in late June. 

Majorities of voters said that Mr. Trump is not honest, doesn't have good leadership skills, isn't a strong person, isn't intelligent, doesn't share their values and doesn't care about average Americans. Voters gave Mr. Trump negative approval ratings for handling key issues like foreign policy, the economy, immigration, health care and terrorism. 

More than half of voters also said that the president "has attempted to derail or obstruct the investigation into the Russian interference in the 2016 election." Nearly two-thirds said that the Russian government interfered in the 2016 election. Thirty percent of voters said that the president did something illegal in dealing with Russia, with another 30 percent saying he did something unethical but not illegal and 32 percent saying he did nothing wrong.

Nate Silver also weighed in on this poll:

It's not just Rasmussen (or Quinnipiac). Trump approval numbers are at or near all-time lows in many polls lately. https://t.co/CPHJOG7sE6 pic.twitter.com/B3ZLoOLnNI

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 2, 2017

I swear some people are incredibly slow to figure shit out.

Still slowly Trump's supporters are starting to figure out what obvious to all of us with more than three brain cells to rub together figured out from the start.

Donald Trump is easily the WORST president that has ever, and I mean EVER, disgraced our White House.

He claims that the building is a real dump, but my response to that is "It sure wasn't when the last President lived there."

In case you were still wondering how the polls could have been so wrong about the outcome of the election.

The case that the Comey letter—or the media's handling of the letter—cost Clinton the election is painfully obvious. https://t.co/xDGspbTQLu

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 22, 2017

Clinton experienced a sharp, 3-point drop in her polls after the Comey letter came out. Then on 11/8, she lost FL, WI, PA & MI by <=1 point.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 22, 2017

It's a fairly open-and-shut case. But the media's election post-mortems have mostly ignored it because it implicates the media's judgement. pic.twitter.com/cBLifP9WLu

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 22, 2017

These were the lead news stories (per @memeorandum) over the final 19 days of last year's campaign. Anything stand out? pic.twitter.com/St7a0tBG3L

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) April 24, 2017

The polls and the pundits didn't get it wrong, they were just unprepared for the FBI to alter the trajectory of the election.

This is why I can never give Comey that pass. 

Dammit, after the upcoming nuclear holocaust the Republicans STILL win the national elections.

Here's what the electoral map would look like if only people who weren't burnt to a crisp in the nuclear holocaust voted. pic.twitter.com/MsrkuOjZWi

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 23, 2016

And people ask me why I choose to live way up here in the wilderness.

Because civilization is apparently trying to kill itself, that's why.

Pollster Nate Silver comes right out and says it, without the Comey letter Hilary Clinton would now be our President.

Clinton lost 4 states (FL, MI, WI, PA) by ~1 point. If not for Comey/Russia, she probably wins them all by ~2 points & strategy looks great.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

So if you're going to second-guess, a way better question is whether Clinton needed a better October Surprise response strategy.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 10, 2016

There's more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016

I'll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter).

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016

That was essentially the point that I made right after the election as well.

The Russians and Wikileaks worked together to undermine Hillary's trustworthiness, hoping to disenfranchise the still butt hurt Bernie supporters among others, and when that did not deliver enough votes for them in the polls they unleashed the FBI director.

From my point of view it seems inarguable that James Comey did what he did at the behest of somebody wanting to help Donald Trump win this election.

Whether that was the Russians, the Republicans, or Donald Trump himself remains unclear, but it is was obviously SOMEBODY connected to Trump winning. 

THAT means that Comey should be removed from this post, and  investigated thoroughly.

However that is now unlikely, because the guy he risked his career to get elected, did in fact get elected, and there is NO way that he will support an investigation against his benefactor.

Historically civil debate between opposing presidential campaigns devolves into verbal food fight.

Here is more courtesy of The Daily Beast:  

The intention of the panel, moderated by journalists including BuzzFeed’s Katherine Miller and MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell, was to gather six senior members of Team Hillary and six from the Trump camp, have them sit directly across the room facing one another, and have a calm, collected conversation about the behind-the-scenes moments of the 2016 race. 

Instead, the moderators had trouble even keeping the panelists focused on the questions at hand, because the two sides would not stop sniping at and taunting their political rivals during the event. 

“I would rather lose than win the way you guys did!” Jennifer Palmieri, the communications director for Hillary for America, shot at the Trump team seated a few feet away. 

“How exactly did we win, Jenn? How exactly?” Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway fired back, noting that “I have a smile on my face at all times.” 

Palmieri proceeded to bash the Trump campaign and its chief executive (and Breitbart News honcho) Stephen K. Bannon as a vehicle and emboldening power for America’s “white supremacists and white nationalists.” 

“Are you gonna look me in the face and say I ran a campaign that was a platform for white supremacists?” Conway angrily responded. 

Palmieri told her, plainly, yes. 

“Are you kidding me?” Conway asked incredulously.

Not only is she not kidding, she is absolutely right. As anybody who paid attention to this election already knows.

In fact if it had been me on that stage I would have followed that up by reminding the Trump campaign that they could not have won without interference from the Russians and the FBI's James Comey, making their victory perhaps the most un-American "victory" in history.

While this Harvard debate is usually quite civil, reports that I heard this morning put much of the onus for it going off the rails on the Trump campaign folks, who apparently heckled CNN chief Jeff Zucker for the channel's supposedly biased Hillary reporting, and Nate Silver for getting his polling wrong.

This was one of Kellyanne Conway's shots at the Clinton campaign:

“Hashtag-he’s-your-president, how about that?” Conway told the frustrated and defeated Clinton crew. “We won.”

So yeah I think it was Trump's basket of deplorables once again demonstrating how they earned that title. 

Cold comfort from Nate Silver.

Clinton will finish with widest popular vote margin among Electoral College losers, excluding years (1824, 1876) where not all states voted.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 13, 2016

Well great, so now we know that America did NOT chooses Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.

And yet due to our ridiculous electoral college the tangerine colored internet troll is packing his bags to move into the White House.

Something needs to change.

Nate Silver's final forecast. Update: It looks like Sarah Palin is not letting the facts rain on her parade.

Our final forecast of the year just published! Clinton is a 71% favorite in polls-only, 72% in polls-plus. https://t.co/UxLqelkmvP pic.twitter.com/yTXPTLF5Ri

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 8, 2016

Remember this means nothing if you do not vote!

I am at the gym right now working to keep my damn blood pressure under control.

I know that some of you are avoiding all election coverage today, sadly as a political blogger I do not have that option.

Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow the world will be a little calmer, the sky a little bluer, and our  future a little brighter.

Update: Palin is packing up and preparing to participate in Trump's victory celebration. (Do you think we should tell her?):

Loading up this morning to depart for NYC. Trump must have the strength of Samson to have kept up his campaign schedule! 

Trump's travels, rallies, interviews, media outreach, greetings, etc., are absolutely unsurpassed in the history of American politics, indicative of the energy he'll bring to DC (needed to drain the swamp). The candidate has done his part on the trail, now it's our turn. Remind him with your vote that you have his back.

 - Sarah Palin 

Man I can hardly wait to read her Facebook freakout tomorrow.

(I know, I know, I'm evil.)

Update 2: Insecurity is not being sure even your own wife will vote for you. 

"Donald Trump leads by example, closely poll watching as a suspected illegal immigrant attempts to vote." pic.twitter.com/dykNWdsUXx

— Dan Baulch (@DaRealDanBaulch) November 8, 2016

Just keeping hope alive.

Alaska polling has a bad track record ... but a variety of partisan and nonpartisan polls show a close race there: https://t.co/Iy9uFFKV3q

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 30, 2016

Somebody mentioned in a previous post that if Nate Silver was not calling the race in Alaska close, that we should not get too excited.

Well now he is, so "Whoopee!"

Yes I know what you are going to say, but please don't ruin this for me.

After all there will be time enough on November 9th to come to terms with reality.

New polls taken after Friday show that James Comey's letter has had little effect on the voters.

And look at that, I'm still standing. 

Courtesy of Politico:

Hillary Clinton has a slim three-point lead over Donald Trump one week before Election Day, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll conducted entirely after FBI Director James Comey announced the discovery of new emails that might pertain to the former secretary of state's private server. 

Clinton leads Trump 46 percent to 43 percent in a two-way race, and 42 percent to 39 percent in a four-way race, with Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson at 7 percent and the Green Party’s Jill Stein at 5 percent. 

The poll was conducted using an online panel of 1,772 likely voters on Saturday and Sunday, beginning one day after Comey's announcement. The poll carries a margin or error of 2 percentage points. 

In a separate poll conducted before Comey's disclosure, Clinton was leading by three points in the four-way race, and five points in the two-way race. Put simply, there is not yet evidence that the revelations have drastically altered the contours of the election.

I heard this same information on MSNBC today and am glad to see it confirmed.

Also read on another online news site that for most of the voters their decision was made long ago and that all of the news which has come out recently, concerning both candidates, really has not moved the needle much at all.

And don't forget that 22 million people have already voted, so any new "scandals" between now and November 8th will have absolutely NO impact on those votes.

As of this post Nate Silver suggests that Hillary still has a 75.4% of winning and Trump has a 24.6 % chance, so very little change there.

However if you are like me you are probably feeling more than a little nauseous after riding his roller coaster for almost a year now.

I think that our friend John Oliver summed all of this up best.

"We have burrowed through, not just rock bottom,  but through the core of the earth. And we've come bursting out the other side, startling kangaroos, and we're currently hurtling toward outer space where there is no up, down, light, or darkness, just an endless void in which death comes as sweet, sweet relief. Please let this thing be over soon."

The numbers fluctuate back and forth to some degree but this is essentially where things have stood ever since the last debate.

 Take solace in the numbers, but then go out in vote.

Unless you already have of course, in which case just prepare for the Trump supporter freakout that is sure to come on November 9th.

Polls show a close race in Alaska? In Alaska? Oh....My...God!

Polls show a close race in Alaska (!), putting the Clinton-wins-every-state-that-touches-an-ocean map into play. https://t.co/mRHuPB7DiA pic.twitter.com/a26dFEIZvO

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 17, 2016

Okay first off as all of you know this has been a fantasy of mine since......let's go with forever.

Internally Alaska is not as blood red as our presidential voting shows us to be, we elect plenty of Democrats in local elections, and yet every year since 1964 we always vote GOP.

But this year, but this year, but this year....I cannot even bring myself to say it.

However I do want to say that if you are one of the many, many Bernie Sanders supporters here in Alaska that came out to caucus in the primaries, and you want to show your strength to the political power structures here in the state, in order to take a more active role in choosing which direction we take next, coming out in numbers large enough to make the state go blue this election cycle would give you the kind credibility as a group that would be impossible to ignore.

I'm just saying.

By the way it is still really not that close up here, as of right now according to Five Thirty Eight, the projection suggests a 66.6% chance for Trump and only 33.2% chance for Hillary.

However at least one recent poll shows them in virtual tie.

Is anybody else's heart beating super fast right now? Or is that just me?

Nate Silver warns about those polling numbers showing Donald Trump in the lead.

As a warning, there's been an increase in fake polls this year. Random people throwing up a website & citing their "polls" to get attention.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 21, 2016

I'm not throwing shade at any pollsters you've ever heard of. We're talking really obscure cases. But be careful what you retweet / link to.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 21, 2016

We're VERY inclusive at 538 and will include crappy polls so long as we're confident they're real. But sometimes things don't check out.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) August 21, 2016

Of course those of us who pay close attention to politics have seen this before.

Courtesy of Salon:  

The biggest laughing stock of the 2012 presidential election wasn’t Mitt Romney or Paul Ryan. In fact, compared with the current GOP nominee, the Romney-Ryan team ran a well-oiled, disciplined, respectable campaign. Though that’s not saying much, given how the bar’s been lowered to subterranean depths. Nevertheless, the biggest laughing stock of the previous go-around might’ve been a guy named Dean Chambers. 

Chambers was a self-styled, self-funded poll denier. His entire mission was to literally “unskew” the polls, believing that every polling outfit, minus, perhaps, Rasmussen, was skewed in favor of President Obama. Chambers served as a convenient security blanket for Republicans who insisted that pollsters were biased in favor of the Democrats and that Mitt Romney was actually winning. Regarding the “security blanket” aspect of Chambers’ feverishly misleading public service, his “unskewed polls” provided much needed confirmation bias for inside-the-bubble Republicans who were too terrified to contemplate a second Obama term. It was comfort food, though entirely cosmetic and inaccurate. Contrarily, anyone who followed Nate Silver, the Anti-Chambers, retained a strong grasp on forecasting the outcome. At the end of the day, Nate Silver was nearly 100 percent accurate and Chambers, Silver’s completely unworthy nemesis, was all but laughed off the stage.

What is Einstein's definition of insanity again?

Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? 

I have been saying for awhile now that Hillary Clinton needs to win this election by a landslide. Here is what that might look like.

Courtesy of FiveThirtyEight:

In a normal presidential election, both candidates raise essentially unlimited money and staff their campaigns with hundreds of experienced professionals. In a normal presidential election, both candidates are good representatives of their party’s traditional values and therefore unite almost all their party’s voters behind them. In a normal presidential election, both candidates have years of experience running for office and deftly pivot away from controversies to exploit their opponents’ weaknesses. In a normal presidential election, both candidates target a broad enough range of demographic groups to have a viable chance of reaching 51 percent of the vote. This may not be a normal presidential election because while most of those things are true for Clinton, it’s not clear that any of them apply to Trump.

Now Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight by no means suggests that Hillary WILL beat Donald Trump for certain, much less in a landslide victory.

But considering the circumstances  of this election that possibility does exist.

Here are a couple of examples of what we might see in November if indeed that is the case.

I like it. That's a good solid win.

However don't forget that Trump is going to cry foul and claim the election was stolen, so a much bigger margin would be preferable.

Oh yeah, that's much better.

Bill Clinton won Missouri twice and South Carolina seems to up for grabs this time as well. So this could be a very likely scenario.

But you know what? I would like to see an even bigger margin if possible.

Wow, Texas going blue, and Alaska!

Damn wouldn't that be something?

Let me just say how over the moon I would be if my state finally voted for Democratic nominee in a presidential election for the first time since 1964.

It's unlikely though right?

But if we turn out in significant numbers we might come close to seeing something like this come to fruition. Never hurts to try, right?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have managed to convince at least five young people so far to register this year for the first time, and I can guarantee that none of them are going to vote for Trump.

If we all try to do that, well then just maybe dreams CAN come true.

Newest post convention polls show Hillary leading Trump by 10 points. A lead she is likely to hold, and possibly expand.

Courtesy of CNN:

The post-convention polls are in, and they consistently show Hillary Clinton entering the next phase of the presidential election campaign with the upper hand over Donald Trump. 

The CNN Poll of Polls incorporating the results of six major polls -- all conducted after the party conventions concluded in late July -- finds Clinton with an average of 49% support to Trump's 39%. When third party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein are included, the margin remains the same, with both candidates losing the same amount of support to land at 45% for Clinton to 35% for Trump, with Johnson at 9% and Stein at 5%. 

The new averages reflect a sharp increase in support for Clinton compared with pre-convention polls. The last CNN Poll of Polls, analyzing the results of five national, live-interviewer telephone polls conducted before the GOP convention began, found Clinton ahead 45% to 41%.

That poll also includes the one out of Georgia which shows Hillary leading Trump by 7 points.

That's right folks, by seven points in Georgia of all places. And here I thought there was no way I could be jealous of Georgia.

This goes hand in hand with news of even more Republicans coming out in support of Clinton including a former aide to George W. Bush and the former governor of Michigan.

The always amazing Nate Silver now gives Hillary a 78.7 % chance of winning the White House, but remember folks that is only true if people turn out and vote.

Personally at this point I don't see now anybody sits this one out.

First polls after the DNC show Hillary with a significant bounce.

First fully post-DNC poll I've seen shows a 10-point bounce for Clinton: https://t.co/4W3pV4LVl6

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 30, 2016

That so far is the best one,

Reuters shows Hillary with a 6 point bounce, and PPP with a five.

Now all she has to do is let Donald Trump keep on talking and these should all double or triple by the end of next month.

Hillary Clinton should not be given national security briefings in that she is a lose cannon with extraordinarily bad judgement & insticts.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2016

The word is "loose" you tangerine colored dumb shit!

Do you need a wake up call? Because here's your wake up call.

TRUMP now leads in 538's now-cast, our estimate of what would happen in an election today. https://t.co/djsqNajFrh pic.twitter.com/7DvrdieHOw

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 25, 2016

Trump is taking full advantage of this news as well.

#MakeAmericaGreatAgain https://t.co/EXsoUOsEP4 pic.twitter.com/3ji7a14GSw

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2016

Bumps are called bumps because they are a temporary lift up, and surely Hillary will get one as well at the end of this DNC convention.

However the fact that these numbers are anywhere near this close should freak all of out, and get us running to cast our votes the minute the polls are open for business.

Speaking of Donald Trump as Twitter, Orange Jesus had quite a night last night attacking virtually every speaker on the DNC stage.

If Cory Booker is the future of the Democratic Party, they have no future! I know more about Cory than he knows about himself.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016

Sad to watch Bernie Sanders abandon his revolution. We welcome all voters who want to fix our rigged system and bring back our jobs.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016

Elizabeth Warren, often referred to as Pocahontas, just misrepresented me and spoke glowingly about Crooked Hillary, who she always hated!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016

Bernie Sanders totally sold out to Crooked Hillary Clinton. All of that work, energy and money, and nothing to show for it! Waste of time.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2016

So VERY presidential.

Don't you think? 

Super pollster Nate Silver gives Hillary Clinton a 79% chance of winning the November election.

Chances of winning the election according to @FiveThirtyEight and @NateSilver538:
Clinton - 79%
Trump - 20% pic.twitter.com/LkCN7lBot5

— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 29, 2016

Courtesy of ABC News:  

This morning on ABC's “Good Morning America,” FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver predicted that Hillary Clinton will win the presidential election against Donald Trump. 

Clinton has a 79 percent chance of winning, compared with Trump's 20 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast. 

Silver said "both candidates have a lot of room to grow," but the only recent candidate to blow a lead like the one Clinton holds was Massachusetts' then-Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1988.

Nate Silver is number crunching wunderkind, so this prediction holds serious merit.

However we once again need to remember that if we do not show up in overwhelming numbers that the GOP's penchant for voter fraud could still win the day for Donald Trump.

I seriously have no idea how any Independent or Democrat who failed to show up at the polls could live with themselves if that were to happen.

Hillary Clinton has certain qualities she is looking for in a running mate.

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Hillary Clinton is considering a running mate who could make a direct appeal to supporters of Bernie Sanders, bridging a generational and political divide, according to four people close to the campaign. 

Clinton’s chief requirements include a candidate’s resume and a fighter capable of hand-to-hand combat with Trump. The campaign’s vetting also prioritizes demographics over someone from a key swing state as she seeks to unify the Democratic voting base, said the individuals coordinating with the campaign, who were not authorized to speak on the record about early deliberations.

Let's see can appeal to supporters of Bernie Sanders,  with a good resume, and the ability to engage in hand-to-hand combat with Donald Trump.

Nope, just can't think of ANYBODY who meets that criteria.

We get it, @realDonaldTrump: When a woman stands up to you, you’re going to call her a basket case. Hormonal. Ugly.

— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) May 11, 2016

Yep that's a puzzler alright.

.@realDonaldTrump: Your policies are dangerous. Your words are reckless. Your record is embarrassing. And your free ride is over.

— Elizabeth Warren (@elizabethforma) May 11, 2016

By the way Nate Silver gives Hillary Clinton a 75% chance of winning this election.

Pretty sure with a certain running mate she can make it 100%.

What's Thanksgiving without a giant butterball. Let's talk Trump.

There is literally so much coming out about Trump right now that it almost impossible to keep up.

So here are the highlights, or lowlights if you prefer.

First there is this great anti-Trump ad from GOP candidate John Kasich.

Ouch! No wonder Trump went all medieval on his ass in response to news about this ad. (Assuming of course that medieval politicians had Twitter.)

Next we learn that despite all of those pesky "facts" that Trump has declared victory concerning his assertion that "thousands of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the falling of the twin towers on 9-11."

And the sad part is that this will probably earn him another bump in the polls.

Speaking of polls the great Nate Silver wants you to know that they do not mean a damn thing right now, and that everybody needs to chill the fuck out.

However until the polls indicate otherwise it is still Trump's world and we are all just living in it, which is why he feels empowered to insist that reporters covering his events get escorted to and from the bathrooms as if they are kindergartners on a field trip.

Yeah, THAT should really help with his press coverage.

And all of this is why Trump has become a favorite target for late night talk show hosts, like Stephen Colbert and Seth Meyers, both of whom must just LOVE having Trump in the race.

Of course not everybody finds Trump's antics so humorous, which is why some conservatives are working together to take his bloated ass down. Yeah, good luck with that!

So there you go, my Trump dump for the day.

Now if you will excuse me I have a much more succulent turkey to carve.