What if people who plan to vote have not been sampled enough or didn't want to admit it to the survey taker? Think of how far off the Brexit surveys were. The major news outlets have painted just about anyone who supports Trump as a racist, bigot, misogynist, etc. Would you tell a survey taker that you were voting for him?
Unfortunately
Southern Dad
this same influence DOES extend to the actual voting.
the negative campaigns ARE shown to work and that's why people use them, to win.
Clinton has more of the media, party and corporate connections and mutual payoffs
to push things in that direction, including voters. If they think it's a done deal,
many people will stay home and just let the politics play itself out.
Even if the Black voters don't come out in droves as they did for Obama,
the Latino voters could be the key. And we can see how the media is inciting that population,
with Trump not able to get his positive Latino support base on real economic and legal solutions
the same publicity as the negative images and rhetoric that dominates the narrative.
Most of that he did to himself, so he really helped Clinton and the Democrats on that angle.
I would say the Women voters and Latino voters will probably be the
most influenced by media haranguing by Trump and against Trump
to come out and vote for Hillary as a way of voting AGAINST what Trump represents to them.
We'll see if it's those two groups that can be lobbied to get the most votes out.
Had Trump kept the Cruz base united, they might have organized the numbers.
But with that division, while the Democrats have Latino and Women voters uniting AGAINST Trump,
whoever can forgive their difference more will end up dominating.
The male/ego issues in the Republican camp are getting in the way of unity on principles.
Those who don't depend on Constitutional principles,
but just popular media politics, can still unite their voters and get them to the polls
who vote based on image and not about the real work it's going to take to
turn the govt and economy around to be sustainable instead of racking up more debts and waste over
political conflicts and abuse.
the real solutions don't sell well in the media, so that's why
Cruz and other pushing real reforms can't pitch their plans
the same way Clinton can sell her sound bytes that aren't based on really changing anything on the deep levels required.
Just symbolic legislation, but not the real change that's needed that doesn't fit in 30 second commercials
and tweets and posts that go viral.
Trump should have teamed up with Cruz to find ways to get that Constitutional
core message out in sound bytes instead of wasting his media celebrityhood on negative blurbs.
Maybe in the future they will master this.
For someone getting out there for the first time, Trump didn't do too badly
at keeping his image in the public eye and presence, even though it was more negative than positive.