Are we talking lived in or visited states? I've only lived in two but visited at least half of the states.

Probably both, but if you're going to include visited, then I'm only up to five (plus two Canadian provinces).

Meanwhile, back on Election 2016, West Virginia was the first state for quite a while where Clinton didn't get as many delegates as FiveThirtyEight's target for her - she got 11 instead of 12. Sanders picked up 17.

Trump continues to prove what an idiot he is. His ideas to buy back debt at a discount...print more money to buy the debt...recipes for serious problems and economic doom.
Pretty good explanation of it here. The man thinks running a country is like running his casinos.

Why Donald Trump's debt proposal is reckless - May. 9, 2016

OK, does anyone else find it a little worrying that there are polls showing the contest between Trump and Clinton tightening, both in swing states and nationally. But what do all the pundits and poll "experts" do? Just dismiss is as nothing to worry about, "just a blip", "the poll assumes Ohio is too white", "don't worry the polling averages still show Clinton has a 1 point lead"

Fck me! This is exactly the type of complacency that meant we ended up with Trump as the nominee in the first place. Then there was a little mea culpa about that. Now they're doing the exact same thing again.

I think the only person to call them out on this that I know is Bill Maher.

God I hate the liberal pundits who scoff about conservatives having their own facts. Then they ignore the facts in front of them because their "gut" says they're wrong.

Yes, while he has won a couple of states recently his net gain in delegates is close to non-existent. Bernie supporters call foul regarding the will of the people yet he is a good 3 million votes behind in the popular vote count.

Also swayed I think by the GOP having their race sown up, open primaries may attract cross over voters. Still likely to be Hillary ahead in the end.

It is odd. It is well known how the polls and media coverage correlate. Which one drives the other? It's rather chicken and egg. In the clickbait era it makes sense for the media to tell a narrative of a close race to drive page impressions but does that then influence the polls or the other way round?

I recall in 2008 the close race narrative was pervasive yet in the end it was a pretty big victory.

It would take a YUUUGE win for Bernie in California for him to catch up in delegates. It's very unlikely. Unless of course we get the fabled indictment we've been promised by Fox News for however many months it is now.

A lot of polls treat the election as a national popular vote horse race, when the United States actually has 51 presidential elections of varying proportions, almost all of which are winner-take-all and most of which have already been decided well before the fact.

Trump has a lot of disadvantages going into this, but he is quite adept at using media to his advantage. The Democrats will need to have an effective plan for coping with that.

But this time round it seems the opposite. The polls in 2008 showed a consistent lead for Obama of 5-10% but the pundits called it close. Right now, the polls are tightening, but it's going to be a Clinton landslide.

To be fair, Trump has described two different debt plans, not just one. Unfortunately, neither one of them makes any sense.

The idea of a tight popular vote combined with an electoral vote landslide is not contradictory.

I guess one advantage for Clinton is she's already hugely unpopular, so Trump's attack ads can't make that any worse...

No, but tight races in FL, OH and PA do.

The interesting dynamic is going to be third party candidates. A lot of talk of the Libertarian and Green parties getting substantial vote numbers (maybe as much as 10%). Not enough to steal a state but as we've seen in the GOP primary getting a victory through a plurality is easier the more candidates there are.