Recent polls have been mixed, but mostly between polls that are just OK for Hillary Clinton and polls that are overwhelmingly good for Hillary Clinton. 

Clinton now leads Donald Trump in national polling averages by about seven points, with every recent live interview poll showing her up by between four and 12 points according to Politico. 

These aren’t even among the most optimistic for her.

She maintains solid leads in states that would put her well over the 270 electoral votes necessary to win, and she seems to have taken the lead in the swing states she didn’t really need (those being Florida and Nevada). 

With the election under a month away, there’s still time for the race to tighten somewhat. 

But we’re getting to the point where, for Trump to win, he needs either an earth-shattering Clinton scandal to flip the campaign or perhaps just an enormous failure in predictive polling.

There were bigger discrepancies during the various models at earlier points in the race—mostly about whether Clinton should be viewed as a close favorite opposed to “the Donald,” or as a solid winner. 

But now they’re all basically saying the same thing, probably due to a certain released audiotape, or a couple dozen sexual assault allegations.

Now, the polling averages are not infallible.

They have frequently been incorrect in predicting the final outcome by a couple points. For instance, the polls low-balled Barack Obama’s margin of victory by some points back 2012, and tended to underestimate the GOP’s chances in 2014.

The polls could be wrong, but at this point, Clinton is seemingly winning by enough that a Trump victory would mean an enormous error with the polling process. 

Also, keep in mind that Trump’s ground game and turnout operation are reputed to be dreadful. 

Trump’s best hope, then, is that some truly major, unpredictable news event scrambles the race in the final stretch. 

Because the way things are looking now, his name will not be synonymous with winning for much longer.

 

Benjamin Hummel is an English and speech & communications major at SDSU and can be reached at [email protected].