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2016 Election Looking Like 2012 Election

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Donald Trump has surged in recent national polls against Hillary Clinton, overtaking her for the first time in the coveted RealClearPolitics average of several polls earlier in the week.

But for all the fuss over the national polls, the only outcome that will matter on election night is how many states Trump can convert from blue to red on the 2012 electoral map between President Barack Obama and then-GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

And, based on recent polling and projections, 2016 is shaping up to be very much like 2012.

Of 23 states with recent polling available on RealClearPolitics, 22 align with the same party in 2016 as in 2012. The only one that is not, Virginia, is a statistical tie in the latest poll.

And the percentages by which Clinton and Trump are leading in these states are, in many cases, nearly identical to the margins by which Obama and Romney won them by in 2012.

In 2012, the key swing states of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania went to Obama by a difference of 1, 2, and 5 points, respectively. Clinton is leading in the RealClearPolitics average in those states by a near-identical 2, 1.4, and 5.3 points.

“Every place we’ve polled in the last month we’ve found the Clinton/Trump race within a few points of where the Obama/Romney race ended up,” wrote Tom Jensen, the director of the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling.

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Source: Allan Smith and Andy Kiersz, businessinsider.com