Alex wrote:I might have to doubt the wisdom of my prediction that Hillary will win.
In my opinion several things are clear:
1. This has to be the most bizarre presidential election in US history.
2. The polls still predict Hillary Clinton will be the winner.
3. The outcome is getting less and less easy to predict.
4. Despite the polls, it's suspenseful. I believe people are going to glued to their TVs on election day.
5. If Trump does win, despite the polls it will be an upset victory. It could happen, and if it's an upset victory it won't be the first time:
Yeah, interesting times indeed, and it will be thrilling to watch the results coming in on Tuesday (or Wednesday morning here in Thailand)... I'll take a day off work on Wednesday, I wouldn't want to miss that.
According to CNN, Hillary Clinton is no longer assured of at least 270 electoral votes. CNN now puts Clinton at 268 electoral votes and Donald Trump at 204 electoral votes.
66 electoral votes are "battleground state" votes, which means those votes could go either way. Donald Trump would have to get all of them to win. Hillary Clinton would have to get only one of them to win.
In other words, if CNN is correct things have changed and it's more difficult to predict the election outcome, although according to CNN "Clinton still holds a clear advantage."
WashingtonThere are very few things that the Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton campaigns agree on these days, but one point of total agreement is that this race has tightened over the last 10-14 days. That tightening is reflected in our new CNN "Road to 270" map.
The latest snapshot of the Electoral College map heading into the final days is a little more favorable to Trump, but Clinton still holds a clear advantage.
What's changed?
-- Maine's 2nd Congressional District moves from "battleground" to "lean Republican"
-- New Hampshire moves from "lean Democrat" to "battleground"
-- Ohio moves from from "battleground" to "lean Republican"
-- Utah from "battleground" to "lean Republican"
The state of play
We've made four moves in the map since our last update and all of them are in Donald Trump's direction. Ohio, Utah, and Maine's 2nd congressional district are all moving from the battleground/toss-up category to lean Republican. And New Hampshire is moving from lean Democratic to a pure battleground/toss-up state.
Clinton's electoral vote total is at 268 when you add up all the states that are solidly or leaning in her direction and Donald Trump's is 204 when you combine all the states that are solidly or leaning in his direction. That leaves six remaining battleground contests worth a total of 66 electoral votes in Arizona, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, and the second congressional district in and around Omaha, Nebraska.
It's important to note what this map reflects and what it does not reflect: while he has made gains, Clinton remains in a much stronger electoral position than Trump. In the current snapshot, Clinton would only need to win one of the remaining toss-up states to secure the presidency. Trump needs to win all of them. However, this current map does represent an ever-so-slightly less steep mountain for him to to climb to 270 electoral votes.
The changes to the map reflect current polling, reporting with the campaigns and affiliated groups tracking the state of play in each critical state, television advertising decisions made by the campaigns and outside groups, and the candidate/surrogate travel schedules.
This is not a prediction of where the map will end up on Tuesday night when the votes are counted, it is simply a snapshot heading into the homestretch.
Solid Republican:
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Montana (3), Nebraska (4), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3) (157 total)
Leans Republican:
Georgia (16), Iowa (6), Maine 2nd Congressional District (1), Ohio (18), Utah (6) (47 total)
Battleground states:
Arizona (11), Florida (29), Nevada (6), Nebraska 2nd Congressional District (1), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), (66 total)
Solid Democratic:
California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), DC (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (3), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington (12), Minnesota (10), New Mexico (5) (200 total)
It Sure Looks Like FBI Renegades Are Trying To Swing The Presidential Election
One of the most unsettling developments yet in a campaign filled with them
by Whitney Snyder, Editorial Director, The Huffington Post
November 5, 2016
Three days before a historic election, a disturbing twist has emerged: the possibility that agents in the country’s preeminent investigative service are attempting to swing the outcome.
- Reuters reported on Thursday that FBI Director James Comey wrote his unprecedented letter to Congress last week in part because he feared his own employees might leak word of the Hillary Clinton email investigation to the press.
- Two sources told Reuters that investigators in the FBI’s New York field office are “known to be hostile” to Clinton.
- On Thursday, The Guardian reported its sources described the FBI as a “Trumpland,” where agents have “deep antipathy” toward Clinton.
Those reports follow a whirlwind week of leaks from the FBI that appear intended to cast a shadow over Clinton.
On Sunday, The Wall Street Journal reported that FBI investigators had looked into the Clinton Foundation and were frustrated that senior law enforcement officials and career anti-corruption prosecutors were not impressed by the results. So frustrated, it seems, that details of their investigation ended up in a news report less than 10 days before Election Day.
The leaks continued days later. A story in the Journal on Wednesday revealed more information about the investigation.
Fox News reported on Wednesday that FBI sources said that the Clinton Foundation case is moving toward “likely an indictment.” The story was widely refuted by other media organizations. (Fox anchor Bret Baier apologized for the report on Friday, calling it a “mistake.”)
On Friday, Donald Trump surrogate Rudy Giuliani, who claims deep connections to the FBI, admitted that the Trump campaign knew about the FBI’s review of additional emails before Comey’s letter. “I thought it was going to be about three or four weeks ago,” he said of the FBI director’s announcement. Hours later, Giuliani backpedaled and said he knew nothing of FBI leaks.
The leaks would be alarming under any circumstances. The Department of Justice typically does not comment on ongoing probes. “Except in exceptional circumstances, the department will not even acknowledge the existence of an investigation,” former Attorney General Eric Holder wrote on Sunday. For such leaks to occur so close to an election is a further breach of DOJ guidance, which advises officials with questions “regarding the timing of charges or overt investigative steps near the time of a primary or general election” to contact the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division.
While judging the seriousness of an investigation by anonymous leaks may be a fool’s errand, the case against the Clinton Foundation does not appear to be strong. According to The New York Times, a key source for the investigation was the book Clinton Cash, which was funded by a group co-founded by Steve Bannon, the former Breitbart executive chairman who is now Trump’s campaign CEO.
Public integrity prosecutors were reportedly not persuaded by the FBI’s findings. “There’s no there there. It’s a nothing burger with a side of hot air. There is no case to prosecute,” said Tim Weiner, author of Enemies, the definitive history of the FBI. Investigators’ “efforts to find criminality in the conduct of Hillary Clinton have come up thus far with nothing and agents don’t like it went investigations don’t pay off,” he said.
While Comey’s decision to write to Congress less than two weeks before the election was misguided and unnerving, it’s the possibility of a revenge-seeking shadow element within the agency that is much more troubling. That these investigators may have forced Comey’s hand suggests that they constitute a threat that will outlast the election. Even if Clinton wins, she will oversee an FBI employing at least a small number of agents who appear to have meddled in an election. The rot will persist.
The FBI’s history is littered with unsavory acts ― from blackmailing Martin Luther King Jr. to eavesdropping on at least 12 Supreme Court justices. The decision by some of its agents to intervene in the most high-stakes election in generations joins that odious list. In a campaign that has seen the steady erosion of longstanding political norms, this is one of the most unsettling developments yet.
Ryan Grim contributed reporting.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
