I know what some of you are thinking: Oh great, another negative polling post from Benson, a known 'Never Trump' traitor. He's just gleefully spiking the football because he wants to be proven right about Trump's electability. As Trump would say: "Wrong." My anti-Hillary bona fides are well established, and I've written up plenty of pro-Trump polling, too. It's simply an inescapable fact that with five weeks to go until the election -- and with early voting already underway in many places -- Trump's poor debate performance and resulting flailing is taking a real toll on his standing in the race. We ran through some of the troubling new state polling last evening, and the numbers haven't gotten any better today. As I've been saying, with Colorado and Virginia again looking like real long shots at this point, the GOP ticket needs to focus on carrying Florida and Pennsylvania. Trump has relinquished his lead in the former state (without which he simply cannot win), and things are looking bleaker in the latter -- even though it was widely believed that Trump was uniquely positioned to compete in the Keystone State. Yikes:
New @MonmouthPoll Pennsylvania survey:
— Steven Shepard (@POLITICO_Steve) October 4, 2016
Clinton 50
Trump 40
Johnson 5
Stein 2
Toomey 46
McGinty 46https://t.co/tQjsyRfg4H
Trump's slippage in this survey has been driven by white voters, especially white women. Thus, a daunting ten-point deficit in the Monmouth data, coupled with a Franklin and Marshall poll putting him down by nine in Pennsylvania. In both polls, Clinton's favorability has ticked up, while Trump's unfavorability has risen to a toxic 60 percent. Meanwhile, in North Carolina:
New Elon poll of NC:
— Colin Campbell (@RaleighReporter) October 4, 2016
Clinton 44.5%, Trump 39%, Johnson 9%
Cooper 48%, McCrory 44%
Ross 43.6%, Burr 43.4%: https://t.co/JI03Zfno2C #ncpol
Several people have pointed out that the partisan sample in this poll is D+11, which is far out of step with the state's D+6 electorate in 2012, so "unskew" away if you're so inclined. I tend to agree that this sample smells a little ripe, but even if you remove this poll completely from the mix, Hillary has still regained the lead in the Tar Heel State. Gulp. Two more data points:
Based on current RCP averages, this is what the electoral map looks like five weeks out: pic.twitter.com/3zHLKsbasJ
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) October 4, 2016
Clinton's led in 23 of 24 swing state polls since the debate. Everything except Quinnipiac's Ohio poll. https://t.co/xOCk80200x
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) October 4, 2016
Unless you're wearing blinders, there's little question that Trump needs a bounce-back debate victory this weekend to shift the momentum. I'll leave you with our Kelly File discussion of the "kitchen sink" attacks being leveled by both sides over the home stretch: