What follows herein is a tutorial on how to become a “coffee boy” as that appellation is understood in Trump world. You have seen this show before. Somebody within the GOP nominee’s orbit is a player until they’re not and then they become a being of inconsequential dimension and stature, a veritable gnat. The incredible shrinking political staffer as it were. This week the honor goes to Tom Mountain, who was understood to be a “top volunteer” a vice chair, in fact, for Donald Trump’s Massachusetts team. Mountain wrote an internal memo saying that New Hampshire was gone and, apparently as a result, so is he.
According to Mountain, Trump was “sure to lose by an even higher margin” in New Hampshire than in the previous two election cycles, citing “campaign data/research.” Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won New Hampshire by a hair in 2016, clinching a minuscule margin of 0.37 percent with 2,736 votes.
The messaging was a near complete reversal for the Trump campaign, which had high ambitions of claiming the Granite State when President Joe Biden was still the Democratic presidential nominee.
Officials with the Trump campaign didn’t give the warning much merit and were quick to attack Mountain’s position in the campaign. In an interview with the Globe, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said that to describe Mountain as a “leading volunteer” would be a “massive overstatement of his involvement.”
He made the daily run to Starbucks and carried J.D. Vance’s boxes of doughnuts. We get it. He was a coffee boy. Mountain’s parting shot was that the campaign should spend time and money in Pennsylvania and that’s actually good advice.
Recent polls of Pennsylvania voters show Vice President Kamala Harris either tied with former President Donald Trump or inching ahead as the post-Labor Day sprint to November begins.
A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll was the most favorable for Harris, showing her with a 51% to 47% lead over Trump among registered voters, which was outside the margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.
That poll found that Harris leads in six of seven swing states and has surged ahead of Trump by 2 points in North Carolina and Georgia, where he previously led. The two are tied in Arizona. […]
Harris’ lead in Pennsylvania was just 1 point in a Redfield & Wilton Strategies (RWS) poll for The Telegraph, a British media outlet.
In that poll Harris and Trump each lead in three swing states and are tied in Nevada.
According to the RWS poll, Trump leads Harris in Arizona (+1 point), Georgia (+2) and North Carolina (+1), while she led in Michigan (+3) and Wisconsin (+4), as well as Pennsylvania.
That poll also surveyed the Pennsylvania’s U.S. Senate race and determined that Democratic Sen. Bob Casey has a 44% to 38% lead over Republican challenger Dave McCormick.
The important thing to bear in mind is not the precise number here. The numbers, with some exceptions, are within the statistical tie category, therefore rendering the race uncallable at this time. But what is significant is that the trend is consistent as the weeks go by. Prior to Joe Biden leaving in late July, Trump had a three or four point lead in Pennsylvania, depending on which poll you read. That lead has been virtually erased. Now Kamala Harris is ahead three or four points, for a net gain of six or seven points — in a little over a month. That is significant. That cannot be ignored. In a pre-Trump world, in fact, those kinds of stats would be interpreted as a harbinger of doom.
Whether Trump can regain lost ground is anybody’s guess. But two predictions I will make:
- The trend will continue. Trump will lose more ground;
- A lot more volunteers will say screw it and leave. Why waste your time on a losing cause?
And of course the remaining, hard core Trumpies all say that New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and other places are doing fine. Just fine.
Slip slidin’ away, Donald. You know the nearer your destination the more it’s slip slidin’ away. Except for prison. That’s doing the opposite. That’s fast approaching. As you would say, “sad.”
“A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll was the most favorable for Harris, showing her with a 51% to 47% lead over Trump among registered voters, which was outside the margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.”
Not really sure this source is all that reliable if they fail to understand the very meaning of “margin of error.”
Yes, that “4 percentage point” lead is outside the margin. but that’s not what a “margin of error” actually means. What it means is that the numbers in the poll can swing by 3 points EITHER way. So, when there’s a margin of error of ±3 points, that means you take each number and add and subtract the margin number. So, while Harris may be leading 51-47, with a ±3 point margin, her numbers can be as low as 48 and as high as 54 so her actual numbers could be behind Trump by 48-50 (Trump would gain 3 points) or leading by as much as 54-44.
The ONLY time you describe something as TRULY “outside” the margin of error is when the said margin allows one side to lead even after SUBTRACTING that margin of error from the current number. If Harris were leading that poll by 54-46 and the margin of error remained 3 points, then that would be fine; it would say her “low end” would be 51 and Trump’s “high end” would be 49. You really need to have a lead of at least twice whatever the margin of error is in order to feel truly comfortable (if the MOE is 3, your lead should be at least 6 and if the MOE is 2, your lead should be at least 4; if the MOE is 4 or more, the poll is essentially worthless).