The November 7, 2016 Thread

NATIONAL–ABC Tracking–CLINTON 49, Trump 44
NATIONAL–NBC News/Wall St. Jrnl–CLINTON 48, Trump 43
NATIONAL–NBC News/SurveyMonkey–CLINTON 47, Trump 41
NATIONAL–UPI/CVOTER–CLINTON 49, Trump 46
NATIONAL–Bloomberg–CLINTON 46, Trump 43
NEW MEXICO–ABQJournal–CLINTON 45, Trump 40
NORTH CAROLINA–Quinnipiac–CLINTON 47, Trump 45
FLORIDA–Quinnipiac–CLINTON 46, Trump 45
FLORIDA–CBS News/YouGov–CLINTON 45, TRUMP 45
OHIO–CBS News/YouGov–TRUMP 46, Clinton 45
OHIO–TargetSmart/William & Mary–TRUMP 43, Clinton 40
MICHIGAN–FOX2 Detroit/Mitchell–CLINTON 46, Trump 41
NEW YORK–Siena–CLINTON 51, Trump 34
VIRGINIA–Christopher Newport Univ.–CLINTON 48, Trump 42
NEW HAMPSHIRE–Univ. of New Hampshire–CLINTON 49, Trump 38
NEW HAMPSHIRE–RKM Research & Comm.–CLINTON 48, Trump 44

If the votes cast in a nationwide mock election are any indication, Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. In this year’s election, Clinton won 332 electoral votes, while Donald Trump earned 206 electoral votes.

Jon Ralston: “Yet about one thing Trump was right: Harry Reid built this. After two years of boosting voter registration among key Democratic demographics, the retiring Senate majority leader has brought turnout among Hispanics in the state to record levels. In doing so, he’s almost surely delivered the state for Hillary Clinton—and possibly with it the presidential race (Trump has only the narrowest path to 270 electoral votes without Nevada). The reality of this election is that if Clinton wins, especially if she ends up needing Nevada, it’s not a stretch to declare that Reid was the single most important person in her victory.”

“Reid’s ground operation exploited the fear and loathing of Trump to the max, and the early results bear it out: Whereas the Latino vote was 15 percent of the Nevada electorate in 2008 and 18 percent in 2012, data I have seen shows now it is up 30 percent from 2012 in early voting, meaning it could go above 20 percent of all voters by Tuesday evening.”

The FBI has cleared Hillary Clinton once again from any criminal wrongdoing related to her private email server, finding that all of the emails to and from Hillary Clinton on Anthony Weiner’s laptop computer are duplicates. But James Comey already did his damage and should resign in short order, lest he be fired by President Obama or President Clinton. It’s obvious that he made an effort to sabotage her campaign and he stalled her momentum and caused people who voted early to have a false and negative impression of Clinton. He should not expect her to trust him, nor for Democratic partisans to have any faith in his impartiality. Indeed, I now view the entire FBI with partisan distrust, and the entire New York field office will have to be cleaned out.

In case you have not read the New York Times inside story on the final week of the Trump campaign, it is a must read. We learn that Corey Lewandowski, CNN’s pro-Trump “analyst”, “still talk[s] to the candidate frequently,” that Ivanka Trump “discouraged” the campaign from promoting her own ad for her father, fearing it would damage her own businesses (I hope she is bankrupt next year); that Trump’s inner circle finally wrestled his phone and Twitter away from him; that Steve Bannon’s pants literally caught fire while helping to write one of Trump’s speeches (bringing new meaning to liar liar pants on fire); that Trump doesn’t use a computer and, apparently, can’t wrap his mind around the idea that other people do, so he “rails against the campaign’s expenditure of tens of millions on digital ads, skeptical that spots he never sees could have any effect;” that Trump’s Gettysburg speech was supposed to be something more dignified and highbrow, but Trump “insisted” that he instead use the event to lash out at women accusing him of sexual assault; and that Trump does not do well with alone-time.

Aboard his gold-plated jumbo jet, the Republican nominee does not like to rest or be alone with his thoughts, insisting that aides stay up and keep talking to him. He prefers the soothing, whispery voice of his son-in-law. He requires constant assurance that his candidacy is on track. […] And he is struggling to suppress his bottomless need for attention.

The article opens with the revelation that Donald Trump is not sleeping, and the end of the article says that Trump believes that he will win. The latter is probably because of the former.

We also learn that Trump has fired his pollster and so all these late campaign moves, visits to Minnesota and Michigan are not because his campaign has numbers showing close races (as they have been lying about), but because his aides decided to literally play around with the 270towin electoral college simulation game to find different paths to 270. I’m serious. So all these Democrats here and elsewhere who have been so fearful of the Trump surge should perhaps change their sheets and buck up. He is who we thought he was.

New York Times: “In the immediate term, the letter removes a cloud that has hung over the Clinton campaign since Mr. Comey announced his agents were reviewing new emails that might be related to an investigation into Mrs. Clinton that ended in July. But Mr. Comey’s move is sure to raise new questions from Democrats. Most important: Why did Mr. Comey raise the specter of wrongdoing before agents had even read the emails, especially since it took only days to determine they were not significant?”

Another part of the New York Times expose on the insanity of Trump’s campaign: Trump is motivated solely by revenge: “Mr. Trump still privately muses about all of the ways he will punish his enemies after Election Day, including a threat to fund a ‘super PAC’ with vengeance as its core mission.”

Atlanta Journal Constitution: “Georgia’s two senators said they will consider Supreme Court nominees based on their individual merits in the new year, effectively rejecting a strategy some Republican colleagues have floated should Hillary Clinton win the presidency on Tuesday.”

“Their remarks come as a few high profile Senate Republicans, including John McCain and Ted Cruz, and some conservative groups have proposed indefinitely blocking any Clinton Supreme Court nomination in order to stonewall any further ideological changes to the court.”

guys is it possible that hrc is not a criminal mastermind and we're gonna have a hilarious grandma as president instead pic.twitter.com/BSt3oG6NeI

— Sean Vanaman (@vanaman) November 6, 2016

“Hispanic voters could be poised to deliver a historic rebuke to Donald Trump and the Republican Party,” Politico reports.

“Early-vote statistics from battleground states with large Hispanic populations show record turnout among a bloc that has voted at a lower rate than whites or blacks in past elections. If, as some polls suggest, Hispanic voters are supporting Hillary Clinton by blowout margins, these numbers could sink Trump in a handful of states that are essential to his path to 270 electoral votes.”

Yesterday, this young man was kicked out of a Trump rally. As he was leaving, people kicked at his wheelchair. Today, he met his President. pic.twitter.com/VI4g2tKANG

— Steve Schale (@steveschale) November 6, 2016

Martin Longman says Trump’s future is not bright:

Dispatches from Trump’s bunker are becoming Felliniesque. It reminds me of the unbridled joy I took in reading those late stories about Mitt Romney’s absolute denial that he was about to be beaten like a half-starved rented mule. The difference this time around is that Trump really does seem to understand that he’s about to go down like an overmatched tomato can. He’s never getting that revenge he wanted against President Obama. He’s met a woman he couldn’t push around.

And now his high roller brand is shot. Everyone knows he’s not really a billionaire. His credit is probably shot, too, since anyone who needs to know now realizes that he’s a horrible risk who doesn’t honor debts or contracts. He’s going to get nailed to the wall on Trump University, probably in state after state after state. He’ll never get another show like The Apprentice. He’ll never be able to say he’s a winner again. His daughter is pissed because no one will buy her clothes and her inheritance is as good as in bankruptcy court. The in-laws aren’t too impressed with Trump’s decision to make his final argument an anti-Semitic jihad against a global Jewish conspiracy to suck the lifeblood out of the white working class. His wife now knows a lot more than she needed to about Trump’s behavior and affairs when he leaves her watchful eye. The IRS is going to finish that audit soon, or begin one if that was just a lie. His foundation has a few…uh…problems.

He will be declaring bankruptcy again inside a year.

scrubbing sinks, changing sheets, folding towels, saving America. https://t.co/iw0YC7RUIH buena suerte, Celia.

— Seth D. Michaels (@sethdmichaels) November 6, 2016

Remember this one? Hillary Clinton Compares Russia Moves To Nazi Aggression https://t.co/1pdhn9tzgc via @rubycramer

— Ben Smith (@BuzzFeedBen) November 6, 2016

Good.

.@HillaryClinton can keep our country safe and strong. RT if you’re with her. pic.twitter.com/Snv70GFcUG

— Priorities USA (@prioritiesUSA) November 6, 2016