Although polls have continued to be inconsistent, (ranging from Clinton +12 to Trump +2), the average over the last 8 days (through polls taken Monday) has been consistently in the 5.7% to 6.0% range.  There is some hope for Trump supporters: the lowest Clinton lead out of those 8 days is Monday at 5.7% and with only a small sample of polls, Trump seems to be closing the gap slightly over the last few days.  We’ll see what happens as more polls are released for post third debate.

Here is a trend of the polls:

Here are the last 10 polls:

Of course the election is not about national polls and popular votes.  It’s about the electoral college.  Please see previous posts or click below for updated  state by state forecast of the electoral outcome.

Click here for a state by state forecast of the elections

Click here for running list of forecast changes

Click here for results from last 5 elections

Follow me @2016ElectOdds for updates

Methodology:

• Use national polls listed at Real Clear Politics
• Weigh the outcomes by the sample size of each poll
• Account for the different days spanned for the poll by allocating it out across the days.
• Example a poll of 1000 voters taken across 7/2-7/5 would have a weighting of 250 voters for each of those days
• For each day, take the previous weighted 7 days worth of poll data to compute a percentage for each candidate.  The rolling 7 days decreases the impact of large polls taken on a single day (large sample electronic polls)

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Polling has become very inconsistent the last few days.  As an example, two well known polls released the same day (Sunday) covering the same time period (Monday-Thursday) had a 7 point difference: The ABC News/Wash Post Poll had Clinton up by 4 points while NBC News/Wall St Journal Poll had Clinton by 11.

Averaging the polls takes away some of this noise and shows broader trends.  Polling taken through Thursday shows Clinton with a 5.6% lead.  The lead has been between 5.6% and 5.8% the last four days since moving up from Sunday’s 4.2%.  By comparison, Clinton’s biggest lead post the DNC was at 6.8%.  Trump may have started to cut into the lead a bit.  It peaked on Tuesday at 5.8%.  That is consistent with what we have seen from prior events: Clinton takes a big jump up after an organized event (DNC, first debate, second debate/tapes) and Trump starts cutting into that lead immediately after over a longer period of time.

Here is a trend of the polls:

Here are the last 10 polls:

Of course the election is not about national polls and popular votes.  It’s about the electoral college.  Please see previous posts or click below for updated  state by state forecast of the electoral outcome.

Click here for a state by state forecast of the elections

Click here for running list of forecast changes

Click here for results from last 5 elections

Follow me @2016ElectOdds for updates

Methodology:

• Use national polls listed at Real Clear Politics
• Weigh the outcomes by the sample size of each poll
• Account for the different days spanned for the poll by allocating it out across the days.
• Example a poll of 1000 voters taken across 7/2-7/5 would have a weighting of 250 voters for each of those days
• For each day, take the previous weighted 7 days worth of poll data to compute a percentage for each candidate.  The rolling 7 days decreases the impact of large polls taken on a single day (large sample electronic polls)

Views – 753

28 state polls have been released since the last update with 13 of them impacting the forecast.

Here are the polls that had an impact on the forecast:

• 2 OH Polls (Clinton +2, Trump +1) move state from lean D to tossup
• 2 WI Polls (Clinton +7, +7) move state from likely D to solid D
• TX Poll Trump +4 moves state from solid R to likely R
• IN Poll Trump +4 moves state from solid R to likely R
• 2 UT Polls tie, Trump +6 move state from solid R to likely R
• 2 MO Polls Trump +5, +5 move state from solid R to likely R
• 2 VA Polls Clinton +9, +3 move state from solid D to likely D
• ME Poll Clinton +8 moves state from lean D to likely D

Trump’s gains in OH and VA were enough to offset Clinton’s gains in the other 8 states, leaving the forecast the same as the previous 326-212.  The race has been in that range for the last 7 days.

Here are the other polls:

• 4 NC Polls (Clinton +1, +4, +2, +4) confirm state as lean D
• GA Poll Trump +6 confirms state as likely R
• 2 PA Polls Clinton +9, +4 confirm state as solid D
• 2 MI Polls Clinton +10, +11 confirm state as solid D
• 2 NH Polls Clinton +3 , +6 confirms state as likely D
• 2 FL Polls Clinton +4, +3 confirms state as lean D
• NV Poll Clinton +2 confirms state as tossup
• OR Poll Clinton +10 confirms state as solid D

The latest polls push have added OH to the list of tossups:

• AZ
• NV
• OH

Many once thought to be tossup states currently have Clinton in front including:

• CO
• FL
• NC
• NH
• PA
• VA
• WI

Trump is leading in just one  thought to be tossup:

• IA

Here’s a trend of the forecast:

• Click here for a state by state forecast of the elections
• Click here for running list of forecast changes
• Click here for results from last 5 elections
• Follow me @2016ElectOdds for updates

Views – 680