Quote:
Originally Posted by Drak
What I don't get about polls is the myopic tendency for certain voters to suddenly change their opinions on a dime. The next debate if Trump shines people conveniently forget all the other stuff he's said and done, which are alarming foundational flaws in his character. Perhaps I just don't understand the complexities of how polls work.
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My take is that what we're seeing is not movement toward anyone, it's movement away from whoever is in the spotlight (which looks the same in the polls in a binary race, but is actually different). That's really unusual, and is a reflection of the unlikeability of both of these candidates. So I don't think that Trump having a good debate changes anything. Clinton having an awful debate (or a different bad story) might. Trump has never really gotten any sort of bump (other than a totally average convention bounce) as a result of his own behavior. It would be difficult to say for certain that Clinton has, either (her big convention bump could be attributed more to Trump's Khan tangent).
The tendency is that as the election gets closer, the potential for swing tends to decrease. That may not hold true in this weird year, but typically second and third debates do not produce much movement at all, and while the first debate produces at most a moderate bump that then fades a bit.
My gut feeling is that Clinton might be getting a largish bump that could have significant staying power. But more important than that, I think this debate (and the fall-out) really caps Trump's ceiling; there's there's probably 3-4% who are still vacillating between supporting him or not, but even if he gets all of those supporters, he probably caps out at around 43-44%. Which isn't likely to be enough to win unless third party votes and electoral college votes break in exactly the right way.