Dem odds of Senate takeover increasing by the day: 6 of 8 GOP candidates now polling worse than pre-convention: https://t.co/fYnnlMVUy2
— Susan Davis (@DaviSusan) August 16, 2016
Via front-pager Kay, from the NYTimes, “Early Voting Limits Donald Trump’s Time to Turn Campaign Around”:
Advisers to Donald J. Trump keep reassuring Republicans that there is still plenty of time to rescue his candidacy — nearly three months to counter Hillary Clinton’s vast operation in swing states and get Mr. Trump on message.
The Trump team had better check the calendar.
Voting actually starts in less than six weeks, on Sept. 23 in Minnesota and South Dakota, the first of some 35 states and the District of Columbia that allow people to cast ballots at polling sites or by mail before Nov. 8. Iowa is expected to have ballots ready by the end of September, as are Illinois and two other states.
The electoral battlegrounds of Arizona and Ohio are to begin voting on Oct. 12, nearly four weeks before Election Day. And North Carolina and Florida will be underway before Halloween.
Early voting has become a critical, even decisive factor in presidential elections: President Obama was sufficiently ahead in the early vote in Iowa and Nevada in 2012 that his campaign shifted resources from those states to others, according to former advisers, who also credited enthusiastic early voting in 2008 for his victory in North Carolina and elsewhere.
Nearly 32 percent of voters cast their ballots before Election Day in 2012, according to census data, compared with 29.7 percent in 2008 and 20 percent in 2004.
With Mrs. Clinton spending aggressively to try to dominate the early vote, Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly created distractions for himself in the past two weeks, is in jeopardy not just of being outmaneuvered but also of running out of chances to improve perceptions of him enough to win over undecided voters.
“When you have something as catastrophic as the Trump campaign is becoming, there aren’t enough weeks left to turn things around, and little ability to organize effectively and capture a strong share of the early vote,” said Mike Murphy, a veteran Republican strategist who worked on behalf of Jeb Bush during the primaries…
Longish article, but well worth reading the whole thing, especially if you’re nervous about media BothSider-ism.
Trump's Florida chief says a rally of his is "equivalent to 40,000 door-knocks" https://t.co/1oNiIkZoOF
— Elizabeth Titus (@emtitus) August 15, 2016
Trump needs 65 million or so voters. At 10,000 per rally, 3 rallies a day, 7 days a week, he will reach goal in six years.
— stuart stevens (@stuartpstevens) August 17, 2016
Wednesday Morning Open Thread: GOTV (and Run Out the Clock)Post + Comments (186)