All About Politics: The Washington Post-SurveyMonkey 50 State Poll

The last time the Washington Post conducted a 50-state presidential poll was 1988. In that year’s national election, George H. W. Bush carried 39 states. Before I go any further, I must tell you my first reaction to the title, “50 State Poll.”

As you know all too well, I go berserk when Washington, D.C., is not included in any survey or listing of the U.S.A. In this case, it is particularly offensive, since D.C. does count in presidential elections. It has three electoral votes. This has been the case since 1964. The passage of the 23rd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gave the citizens of D.C. the right to vote in presidential elections.

Before 1964, the citizens of the nation’s capital were denied this fundamental right of citizenship. It was unbelievable and disgraceful that they could not vote for president. Since 1964, D.C. has always gone for the Democratic presidential candidate. Barack Obama got 93 percent or the vote in 2008 and 91 percent in 2012.

The president has never shown his appreciation and gratitude for this stupendous support. He has taken us for granted throughout his nearly eight years in office. There is no other way to say it: Obama has been an ingrate. After he finishes his term, the president plans to live in D.C. for a few years. Maybe he will, for once, feel the sting of being a third-class citizen.

All right, the sermon is over. Let’s return to the poll by the Washington Post and SurveyMonkey. There is quite a bit to talk about. D.C. was not included because, “the sample size was too small to report results.”

Hillary Clinton has no worries about D.C. As the Post poll pointed out, since 2000 every Democrat has won at least 85 percent of the vote. By the way, Clinton won 79 percent of the D.C. primary vote against Bernie Sanders. She won all eight wards. Her 79-percent showing was her very best in all the Democratic contests.

Clinton has also taken D.C. for granted. There was not one word about D.C. voting rights or D.C. statehood in her acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention. She did write a piece in the Washington Informer. I called the editor of the paper, Denise Rolark-Barnes, to try to find out more about Clinton’s column (how it came out and whether or not they would aggressively cover her in relation to D.C.). Rolark-Barnes never called back after repeated attempts.

Rolark-Barnes also refused to be interviewed in Philadelphia by Channel 4. I can only surmise that she views herself and her paper as an ad machine rather than a journalistic enterprise. There is no other reason not to respond. If she has another reason, I cannot say, since she continues to stonewall. Again, back to the poll.

In this poll, Clinton looks like she is in pretty good shape. As you know, it is not who wins the most votes, but who gets to the magic number of 270 Electoral College votes. (In 2000, Gore got 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush in the popular vote nationwide.)

The big picture is the following, with about nine weeks to election day, Tuesday, Nov. 8.

If you add up Clinton’s states that are solid Democratic (plus-10-percent margin or more), she has a sure 187 electoral votes (14 states). If you add six additional states that lean Democratic (plus-4-percent to 9-percent margin), that brings Clinton’s grand total to 244. That would mean she would only need 26 more electoral votes. Pretty close to the magic number.

The Washington Post poll shows Donald Trump has a sure 108 electoral votes — that is, 17 states. Add three more states leaning to him and you have a total of 126 electoral votes. In the “toss-up” category there are 10 states, which account for 168 votes. The most prominent of those are Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada. These states are where you will see both candidates making campaign stops many times before election day.

What I found most interesting is the level of support for each candidate. The very best states for Clinton were two, both with 30-point margins: Maryland and Hawaii. The best state for Trump was Wyoming with a 38-point margin; next was North Dakota with a 28-point margin.

West Virginia was Trump’s third best with a 24-point margin. I bring this up because West Virginia used to be considered reliably Democratic. In 1980, Carter won West Virginia when he was getting wiped out in the rest of the country. In fact, even Michael Dukakis in 1988 won West Virginia. It was one of the 11 states he won that year.

The most surprising state is Texas. The second-largest state is always considered a Republican lock. It last voted for a Democrat in 1976 (Jimmy Carter). Obama lost the 2012 vote by 16 points. In fact, the Post poll has Clinton actually leading Trump by one point.

The Post points out that four in 10 registered voters are nonwhite — 24 percent are Hispanic and 14 percent are African American. Among Hispanic voters, Clinton leads by 44 points and among African American voters she leads by 75 points. Trump leads by 34 points among white voters. A key element is that Clinton does better with white and Hispanic voters than Obama did.

Third Party Contenders Are Wild Cards

That is the bold headline in the middle of the campaign 2016 insert. It has Libertarian Gary Johnson receiving 13 percent. His worst state is Mississippi — four percent. His best — at 25 percent — is New Mexico, where he was governor for two terms.

Support for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, hovers at five percent. Her best state is Vermont with 10 percent.

Johnson’s popularity could help Clinton in Colorado and Iowa, where he now polls 16 percent. In those states, in my opinion, he takes votes away from Trump.

A final point, which I made in a previous column, is that Utah is in play.

Johnson’s second best state is Utah. He gets 23 percent of the vote. Mormons don’t like Trump. In the Republican caucuses, he finished third with a dismal 14 percent.

Sorry for all the profusion of numbers. But in the final analysis, that’s what elections are all about.

The pollsters will remind you that this is but a “snapshot in time.” That is their professional alibi if they get it wrong. The poll was conducted from Aug. 9 to Sept. 1 with 74,886 registered voters polled. In one state, 546 voters were the fewest asked; 5,147, the most in another state.

This is where the campaign stands today. As all pundits reserve the right to say, in politics, “a few weeks is a lifetime.”