Clinton's Lead Against Trump Shrinks, But Don't Freak Out

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 12, 2016 |

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | July 12, 2016 |

An NBC News poll released this morning is showing that Trump is narrowing the gap between himself and Hillary Clinton a week after the private email server scandal dominated the news (nevermind that Trump’s comments on Saddam Hussein and his Star of David tweet also dominated the news cycle, because the people who hate Trump have already reached their hatred saturation point). The polls shows that Clinton now only holds a narrow three point lead, with a stunning 56 percent of those polled saying Clinton should have been indicted over a scandal 48 percent of them do not understand.

But don’t freak out. It’s one poll. Real Clear Politics average of polls still shows Clinton with a 4.5 point lead, which is skewed by one conservative-friendly Rasmussen Poll that shows Trump with a two-point lead. The other two polls taken this week — after the FBI Director’s recommendation not to indict — show Clinton with a 5 point lead and an 11 point lead. FiveThirtyEight also still has Clinton with a 78 percent chance of winning.

Still, enthusiasm for Hillary Clinton is not exactly high (although this really insightful article may explain why), and this email server scandal is not going away. Republicans in Congress are calling for more hearings trying to find something with which they can prosecute Clinton.

It’s frustrating (at least for the Democrats) because the Republicans control Congress, and it is their right to call whatever Congressional hearings they wish, so they can theoretically keep the fire lit under this email server scandal up until election day. The irony here is that most of the very same Republicans who are trying to take down Clinton don’t want anything to do with their own candidate. Most major Republicans are refusing to attend the Republican National Convention next week, Trump has very few prominent speakers lined up (save for Ted Cruz), and still, the GOP is hellbent on destroying Clinton’s candidacy.

It’s short-sighted for most Republicans because should Trump win, he’ll likely alienate most of the party, obliterate the country’s economy, and basically wipe out the Republican congressional leads in 2018 and 2020 (census year!), thereby ruining the future of their party. A better long-term strategy is probably to let Clinton win and spend the next four years amassing a larger Congressional majority and trying to mount a candidate who can run Clinton out of office, should she prove ineffective (although that may be difficult: Hillary Clinton’s polling numbers while serving as Senator and Secretary of State were consistently high. It’s only when she’s campaigning that her unpopularity soars).