Getting back to the original "Horse Race" intention of this thread, a couple interesting observations from Josh Marshall at TPM:


2. One dynamic of this race is Trump's disproportionate share of the vote from non-college educated white voters. The key is that that slice of the population is relatively over-represented in the big swing states. That's the main reason why Clinton is slightly underperforming Obama in most swing states and relatively over-performing in a number of reddish states which are younger and less white. So, for instance, Arizona is very close, even though Clinton likely won't win there. Texas is closer than it usually is even though she almost certainly won't win Texas. What it amounts to is a net negative since a lot of that additional support in red states - mainly college-educated whites who voted for Romney but won't support Trump - is, in hard electoral terms, wasted.

3. One fascinating part of the 2016 cycle: In part because of dynamics I noted in Item #2 there is a decent chance that Donald Trump will win both of the archetypical battleground/swing states of the aughts (Florida and Ohio) and yet still lose the election. That's because of states like Virginia, Colorado and North Carolina. Virginia and North Carolina weren't even considered swing states in the Bush years. Now Virginia and Colorado will also certainly go to Clinton and there are better than 50-50 odds North Carolina will too.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/elec...-potpourri