I don’t know that I was fishing for that but I guess it will have to do. It seemed like an obvious answer to me, but it also seems almost too obvious. I don’t consider myself particularly enlightened, but I can’t say I like or dislike her because of her gender. That just seems odd to me.

So it’s just people falling for a shiny sell job and not knowing how politics works. Ok then.

It sure looks like Obama “pissed away” the lead multiple times. Must have been a lousy candidate.

Except all of the polls still go through the 538 Adjust-o-matic and there is still plenty of special sauce in that model that adjusts for trend line, momentum, etc. Polls plus adds in some economic data, much of which is already baked into the polls in the first place.

Doubtful. Cynical race-baiting is politics 101. Doesn’t seem to have made Bill less “likable”. Certainly doesn’t hurt Reagan’s hallowed image. Yet the same people who like them hate her.

Thankfully most of the polling already includes the other party candidates, so they can include those in the models. Once they are factored in it still just becomes a matter of who wins the 2 party vote.

No, I think it’s the standard tightening of a race in it’s final weeks.

No, they aren’t dummies. They have a strong track record (at least as good as 538 in POTUS elections) and they do a lot less data manipulation than Silver does.

Except PEC doesn’t twist itself in knots, especially compared to 538. Silver is the one overcooking the data here.

And it you take that approach his comment suggests that her fading convention bounce and the recent tightening of the polls is proof she’s a poor candidate. Except that’s what happens in pretty much every election, so it doesn’t really single her out as different.

Ok, but how does that differentiate her from the average POTUS candidate (or 90+% of politicians in general)? So why should she be less “likable” than they are?

Well keep fighting the good fight. Its about the journey, etc.

This belongs on a needlepoint.

Except she won. By a lot. By a lot more than that polling indicates. By more than Obama won in 2008.

Ok, but all of those can be leveled at pretty much every POTUS candidate. Why does it stick more to her?

Nah, just the elections she’s run in. The OP said she has pissed away huge leads in 2 consecutive elections as some kind of proof of her weakness of a candidate. If you count the primary as an election then that’s oviously false. If you don’t, then you’re basically saying that her post convention polling bounce…

A primary is an election. I can’t help if you’re too busy being the faux civility police to understand basic terms.

In 2016. This year. Against Bernie. She won.

So they are politicians. Ok.

That’s probably the best answer I’ll get on this thread.