Gary Legum says while polls may indicate Trump is closing in on Clinton, he’s actually still miles away:
Yes, the polls have tightened in some of the swing states and may still tighten more. Yes, this is affecting the down-ballot races to the point where it may impact the Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate. Yes, that will hurt Clinton’s legislative agenda if she wins. Yes, if you assume everything lines up perfectly for Trump, he still has a slightly less narrow path to victory than he did last week.
But the presidential race was always going to be competitive, much as liberals might have laughed like stoned hyenas when it became clear the GOP was going to nominate Donald Trump. The electorate is so polarized and the parties so ideologically rigid that any Republican candidate always starts with a floor slightly north of 40 percent of the vote. Any Democrat was always likely to be just a few points higher than that. The onus was always going to be on the GOP candidate to run a perfect campaign to catch up, something Trump has proven incapable of doing.