Tipsheet

Question From Hillary Clinton: 'Why Aren't I 50 Points Ahead'?

Guy Benson
Guy Benson  |  September 22, 2016 1:50 PM

Just spitballing here, but perhaps because you're, um, a conniving, unrelatable, unaccountable, terrible candidate who people don't like and don't trust?  Or maybe it's something else.  Who knows, really?  It's kind of a mystery. Watch the original clip -- which appears to be pulled from a "remarks via video" speech to a pro-union audience -- followed by a short, highly amusing Vine mash-up from the Washington Free Beacon:

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Question: Is her speaking style somehow getting worse?  This delivery seems especially shrill, which I realize is a "gendered" word that we're not supposed to use, but it just fits here.  In any case, setting aside the typical left-wing harangue against pro-worker, anti-coercion 'right to work' laws, how is Mrs. Clinton doing in those consternation-causing polls?  On one hand, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal national survey gives her the biggest lead she's held in weeks:

In the four-way top line, Clinton is ahead by six, 43-37. She's built that lead despite a bad (37/52) favorability rating because Donald Trump's is far worse (28/61). The only entities that rate lower than Trump in the poll are the news media and Vladimir Putin.  Pew also shows her ahead by seven, using data drawn over a full month. In terms of swing state polling, Hillaryworld has seen some positive numbers in the last day or so, as well. If the numbers out of Pennsylvania remain stubbornly static, Trump is going to need to cobble together some other states to have a prayer at 270 electoral votes. Two battlegrounds that are often mentioned in that mix are Colorado and New Hampshire. We told you about his sizable deficit in a Monmouth poll of the latter state earlier, and here's a new survey out of the former:

On the other hand, two different national polls have Trump in the lead, while another gives Hillary a margin-of-error lead. And as for other battlegrounds, a slate of Fox News surveys gives Trump modest leads in North Carolina, Nevada and Ohio -- with GOP candidates leading in all three states' contested Senate races. There's another poll out of North Carolina today showing an exact tie, but Trump is now slightly ahead in the RCP average there. And Team Trump needed some good news out of must-have Florida, after three straight polls indicated that Hillary had regained the momentum there. Suffolk delivered it:

That represents a five-point swing away from Hillary since early August in this series, which now also shows Marco Rubio leading his Democratic challenger by nine points.  Still, many Hillary fans are touting the NBC/WSJ and Pew numbers as proof that she's bouncing back.  So I'll leave you with this:

UPDATE - Our own Leigh Wolf documents a few reasons why Hillary isn't leading this race widely.