Recent national polls have been very volatile.  There was a time where all polls pointed in the same direction and were within a few points of each other.  That is no longer the case.  A perfect example is the last four national polls released: Two show Clinton +6, one Trump +5 and one Trump +2.  How can polls taken within the same week be 11 points apart?

That said most polls are pointing to Clinton rebounding after bottoming around her episode with pneumonia.  Although she is ahead in only 6 of the last 10 polls, 4 of those polls have her up by 5 or 6 points. Trump wins three polls by an average of 3 points.

Her lead seems to have bottomed on September 14th at 1.3%. That just so happens to be the last day she was off the campaign trail due to her health.  Since then she has slowly regained momentum to get to her current 3% lead.

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 – 682

12 Polls were released in the last couple of days with seven of them impacting the forecast.  Many of these polls showed Donald Trump making up further ground which tightened the forecast further.

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

• 3 NC Polls (Trump +1, +2, +5) moved the state from a tossup to lean R
• Maine Poll tie moved state from likely D to lean D (2 previous polls Clinton +9, +3)
• 2 NV Polls both Trump +3 moves state from tossup to lean R
• NH Poll Clinton +9 moves state from lean D to likely D

The above moved the forecast from the previous 294-244 to the current 286-252.  The 34 point lead is Clinton’s smallest lead to date and puts Trump within striking distance of her.

Here are the other polls:

• OH Poll Trump +5 confirms state as likely R
• WI Poll Clinton +3 confirms state as likely D
• FL Poll Clinton +5 confirms state as tossup (Trump ahead in previous polls)
• CA Poll Clinton +17 confirms state as solid D
• NY Poll Clinton +21 confirms state as solid D

Here is the list of current tossups:

• AZ
• FL

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

• CO
• NH
• PA
• VA
• WI

Trump has began to assert himself in other thought to be tossups including:

• OH
• IA
• NC
• NV

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 – 665

Donald Trump had a great couple of months between 8/7 and 9/12 where he cut Hillary Clinton’s lead from 6.8% to 2.0% on a very slow but consistent basis.  For the last week, the race has come to a standstill as Clinton made it back to the campaign trail from her brief pneumonia episode and the lead has fluctuated between 1% and 2% (It is currently at 1.6%).  It will likely be out of that range this time next week after Monday’s debates.  Which direction it moves is anybody’s guess.

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 – 662