Data Suggests Clinton Poised For Landslide Win

87 days ahead of the 2016 general election, polls are showing a landslide victory for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton over Republican nominee Donald Trump. While both candidates experienced a bump in the polls after their respective Party’s national convention, the numbers have faded and are beginning to show a clearer picture of the electorate come November.

“Trump is a significant underdog — he has a 13 percent chance of winning the election according to our polls-only model and a 23 percent chance according to polls-plus,” Nate Silver, founder of data site FiveThirtyEight, writes.

According to the Washington Post, Hillary Clinton is ahead in polls of three key swing states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Florida. In addition, the Clinton campaign is even eyeing Arizona and Georgia, two states that are traditionally Republican states. Arizona has not voted for a Democrat since Bill Clinton, and before that, Harry Truman.

According to a CBS News poll, Clinton leads Trump by five points in Florida, nine points in New Hampshire, and is only behind 4 points in Georgia.

For the first two weeks of August, Clinton leads Trump nationally by almost seven percentage points (a landslide victory, technically, is double digit), notes RealClearPolitics.

According to the New York Times’ Nate Cohn, “No modern candidate who has trailed by this much a few weeks after the conventions has gone on to win the presidency.” Cohn adds, “[i]f Mrs. Clinton ultimately wins, we will probably look back and say she had more or less already won it by this point. If she loses, these next two months will be talked about for decades.”

If Donald Trump wants to remain competitive, he will have to start changing his rhetoric and policy proposals to target a broader range of the electorate – a pivot he has stated he will not make.

According to FiveThirtyEight, Silver writes, “[t]his may not be a normal presidential election because while most of [traditional strategies] are true for Clinton, it’s not clear that any of them apply to Trump.”

Sources: The New York Times, FiveThirtyEight, RealClearPolitics, CBS News / Photo Credit: Hillary Clinton / Instagram