A good many votes will be in the machines BEFORE November 6, 2018….
These votes will be cast more in the next 40+ days……
Right now?
Trump’s approval is in the mid 30’s in most of the polling….
Ford v Kavanaugh is going back and forth….
The Trump Trade Wars are beginning…
And a whole lot of other things are percolating ….
Hmmmmm?
The commencement of voting in key states underscores the heightened significance of virtually every major development — political or otherwise — on the state and national stage in the coming days. Economic indicators, the president’s tweets, new revelations in the special counsel investigation and even the weather begin to matter much more as voters decide whether to go to the polls.
It’s been an inauspicious beginning to the voting season for Trump and his Republican Party, which continue to struggle under the weight of near-constant self-imposed crises and chaos.
The president escalated a trade war with China in recent days, triggering new waves of concern among farmers and major employers across Minnesota and beyond. And the GOP’s continued embrace of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, despite an allegation of decades-old sexual misconduct, threatens to further alienate suburban women, a key constituency this fall that has already largely turned away from Trump.
Political parties and their allies are ramping up voter outreach programs in several states to mark the beginning of the early voting phase….
image….Early voting booths in downtown Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Steve Karnowski)
RealClearPolitics’ average approval spread has shrunk again slightly, from – 13.1% to – 11.5%.
Not just Rasmussen (49-50 = – 1%), but the two most-recent polls before that have shown single-digit deficits (Economist/YouGov (44-53 = – 9% and Reuters/Ipsos 47-52 = – 5%).
However the three polls included in RCP’s average before these three (Gallup, CNN & Quinnipiac) show spreads wider than – 15%.
The raw, rough conclusion (to be confirmed, refined or weakened by further data and further developments) is that approval of Trump has improved by about 1 1/2 %, while disapproval has slipped nearly imperceptibly (well within any margins of error) by about 0.1%.
See: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Oregon Governor:
http://cgpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/09/oregon-governor-race-of-day.html
Pennsylvania Governor:
http://cgpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/09/pennsylvania-governor-race-of-day.html
Pennsylvania U.S. Senate:
http://cgpolitics.blogspot.com/2018/09/pennsylvania-us-senate-race-of-day.html