Reprinted from Reader Supported News
You will probably read this after the most watched debate ever. Donald Trump will likely have uttered the words "believe me" a number of times. Trump says those words when he is lying. They are his tell; they signal he is bluffing.
Three weeks ago, I and most of the political analysts thought this race was over. Of course, that would have been a bad thing for the media, who want a close race to increase ratings and advertising revenue.
Over the past three weeks, Hillary Clinton's poll numbers have been dropping steadily in battleground states. If these polls are accurate, Donald Trump could be our president-elect when we wake up November 9th.
I still think the organizational advantage that Clinton has will prevail. I am in a battleground state, and the Iowa combined campaign calls me regularly. It's the top of the ticket that is driving the ground game. The down-ticket candidates are not competitive in Iowa. I rarely see Trump ads, while Hillary has a strong presence on the airways. There are some messages that are positive, but most are anti-Trump, and so far they are not working as planned.
Trump's numbers are not rising. Instead, voters are moving from Clinton to Gary Johnson. Gary Johnson will not be on the stage in any of the debates. He will not win a single state in this election. Johnson may just be the Ross Perot of this election and take enough votes from one of the candidates to influence the result. Without Perot, Bill Clinton might not have become president. Gary Johnson, however, seems to be taking more from Hillary Clinton than he is taking from Donald Trump.
How could that be? The Libertarian Party wants to decimate social programs. The Libertarian platform calls for eliminating Social Security and Medicare. How could any Democrat support that? I think Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have benefited from their ability to define themselves. Voters who don't want either Clinton or Trump are voting against the two party system and haven't really taken a close look at either candidate.
