I'm going to do my election update now. While Trump looks like he's gaining in a couple of the really close states, he's ultimately losing more electoral votes than he's gaining, and it looks very much like Clinton is surging further and further ahead. Let's look at the data.
Aggregate polling
Clinton - 47.6%, Trump - 40.1% (7.5% Clinton)
Clinton's lead has increased even more, going from 5.9% to 7.5%. This is looking worse and worse for Trump. For reference, the difference between Obama and Romney in 2012 was only about 3.9%. The difference between McCain and Obama in 2008 was about 7.2%, and we all know how much of a blow out that election was. That's how badly the republican party is self destructing right now. In the presidential race, they are literally doing as bad as they were after 8 years of the Bush administration, despite Clinton being far less popular than Obama all things considered, and the party arguably being less unified. That's how badly Trump is imploding the republican party. It's really sad.
Aggregate polling with third party candidates
Clinton- 43.8%, Trump- 36.3%, Johnson- 8.6%, Stein- 4.0% (7.5% Clinton)
The four way race gives similar results, and shows that third parties are "taking" from Trump and Clinton equally. I don't want to hear a word about "spoilers" here. It's not panning out in the data, despite third party support growing. Johnson is back over 8 points, and Stein is at 4. For reference, Stein's goal this election is to reach 5%, since this will give the green party more campaign funding. This will allow libertarians and greens to be more competitive in the future.
Electoral College
I'm changing a few things. RCP removed New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Virginia from their swing state lists, and given how commanding Clinton is leading there (7%+), that is a good idea. They also give Oregon back to Clinton, and while the lead is still 4.5% by my calculations, only one poll actually gave it to Trump, and it's considered a heavy blue state, so I'm removing it. I'll also remove Kentucky and give it to Trump because the only reason it leaned Clinton is because a single poll gave it 3% in her favor and that's not very reliable. I'll put it back with more polling data, but no one else remotely considers it a swing state, and expects nothing to happen here. I'll also remove Missouri since it's over 6% in Trump's favor and I don't know why it was added in the first place. I'll remove Wisconsin and Michigan too since they're up by similar leads for Clinton. I'll also remove Mississippi and Texas since they're generally very strong red states and are only on my list due to poor polling. So I'm doing a lot of clean up here. All in all I only want to count states with under 3-4 point leads with reliable polling, or where experts seem to think that there's some real competition there. As for the data:
Arizona - 0.3% Trump (flipped from 0.5% Clinton)
Florida - 2.7% Clinton (no change)
Georgia - 1.8% Clinton (flipped from 4.0% Trump)
Iowa - 0.5% Clinton (no change)
Nevada - 2.3% Clinton (down from 2.5%)
North Carolina - 1.3% Clinton (down from 2.0%)
Ohio - 0.8% Clinton (no change)
Maine CD2 - 1% Trump (no change)
Election Scenarios
These new changes do make some differences in the electoral college level
Most likely scenario with no swing states (<3% lead) - 272-164 Clinton
Most likely scenario with toss ups (<1% lead) - 338-164 Clinton
Most likely scenario (best guess) - 362-176 Clinton
All toss ups Clinton (Clinton + 1) - 374-164 Clinton
Clinton + 2 - 374-164 Clinton
Clinton + 3 - 374-164 Clinton
All toss ups Trump (Trump + 1) - 338-200 Clinton
Trump + 2 - 307-231 Clinton
Trump + 3 - 272-266 Clinton
Since I cut back on swing states, I also cut back on my extended scenarios that would most likely not happen anyway. I only made those in order to come up with crazy ways in which Trump could actually win for demonstration purposes, since a Trump victory is really that unlikely.
All in all, even giving Kentucky back to Trump, he's still in the hole because he's losing Georgia. GEORGIA. When you're a republican and you start losing the deep south, you have serious issues. Either that or the democratic party's move to the right is paying off in some electoral college votes. This is not looking good for Trump at all. Even if Trump wins every swing state under 3 points as it is, he would still lose the election. And those other states he would need to win are getting deeper blue every day. Pennsylvania I think is up 8.5%? Virginia and New Hampshire are crazily high too. Oregon was unlikely to ever go for him to begin with. Realistically, he would need to make inroads in places like Wisconsin and Michigan to really win the election at this point. He would need to overcome 5, maybe even 6 point deficits just to have a CHANCE.
Conclusion
It's kind of superfluous given I'm just belaboring the point, but all in all, Trump's losing badly. Clinton's lead is seeing no signs of fading, even in the face of growing third party support. He's even starting to lose states in the deep south that almost never go democrat. Unless things dramatically change, Clinton is going to win this election. It's really a matter of by how much, and how the closer swing states will ultimately go.
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