VP Debate preview

What this debate means for the Trump Campaign:

Trump hasn't been doing well in the past week.  Another year of a partial tax return (from 1995 state returns from New York, Connecticut, and New Jersey) was released by the New York  Times (here: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-taxes.html?_r=0) . It's been confirmed or denied by the Trump Campaign.  No tax returns have been officially released by the campaign (but the official preparer listed on the form thinks the returns are accurate).  The Trump Foundation can no longer collect donations in the state of New York (An article is here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-foundation-ordered-to-stop-fundraising-by-ny-attorney-generals-office/2016/10/03/1d4d295a-8987-11e6-bff0-d53f592f176e_story.html).  And Trump said in a statement at a fundraiser: "When you talk about the mental health problems, when people come back from war and combat and they see things that maybe a lot of folks in this room have seen many times over and you're strong and you can handle it but a lot of people can't handle it. They see horror stories, they see events you couldn't see in a movie, nobody would believe it,", (Source: http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/03/politics/donald-trump-ptsd-suicide/). The campaign created a website under the name clintonkaine.com attacking Clinton and Kaine.  Tomorrow Mike Pence needs to help convince voters that Trump is not corrupt, or a bigot. Looking at post debate polls on Pollster it looks like Trump right now isn't going to win most of the swing states.  The data is very limited but there were 10 post debate polls on Pollster in both the Trump vs. Clinton and Trump vs. Clinton vs. Johnson category.  National poll aren't good predictors of election outcomes, but it provides a relative measurement. Trump lead in 1 of those polls but it was in the margin of error.  Clinton lead the other 9, and 5 polls were outside of the margin of error.  This pretty similar to before the debate but Clinton appeared to be winning before debate.  I think Pence acts more calm and sensible than Donald Trump, so I think he may help the cause.  But is it too late? He can still win but will he? Probably not. Pivot, a online market for predictions used by enthuasists puts the odds at 77/23 Clinton/Trump.  Pivot hasn't been scientifically tested but provides a rough guess of the odds right now.

What this debate means for the Clinton Campaign:

I have thought that Clinton would win for a couple months now. I don't support her, but she has an easier road to the White House than Trump because of Obama's high favorability and general support of her party.  If she can win all the blue states she only has to win Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and Michigan to win. I say that because right now they feel "safe" and I think she could even win all the swing states (but it would be difficult).  It's not over until the polls close on November 8th. But the Clinton campaign appears to have  a lead  or be within the margin of error (unscientific just based on recent polls) in most of the swing states. Kaine could bomb (which I don't think he will) and it wouldn't matter.  The leaked audio of Clinton suggesting that Bernie Sander's supports are baristas that live with their parents, could hurt her but young voters have low turnout rates and she may not need their votes.  It's more of a war of attrition, if you let Trump be Trump and continue to sit on your lead, you can win.