The day before Election Day 2012, national polling gave President Obama a lead over Mitt Romney of about a single percentage point, leading to speculation about one of the closest races in American history. The truth was less dramatic: Obama ended up winning the popular vote by nearly 4 points, outpacing his polling advantage.Four years later, Hillary Clinton is hoping to see something similar — since the day ahead of Election Day 2016, she’s in slightly better shape than the president was in 2012.
Democrat Hillary Clinton holds a four-point lead over Republican Donald Trump in the final national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll of the 2016 presidential race.Clinton gets support from 44 percent of likely voters, while Trump gets 40 percent, the poll shows. Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson is at 6 percent, and the Green Party’s Jill Stein is at 2 percent.
There’s quite a bit of fresh data available, and nearly all of it points in a similar direction. The final NBC News/SurveyMonkey tracking poll shows Clinton with a six-point lead (47% to 41%); the last Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll shows Clinton up by four (47% to 43%); the final Bloomberg Politics poll shows Clinton up by three (44% to 41%); the final CBS News poll shows Clinton ahead by four (45% to 41%); and the final Fox News poll shows Clinton leading by two (45% to 43%). Note, each of these polls were conducted before FBI Director James Comey cleared Clinton (again) of wrongdoing in the email controversy.Turning to the averages, Clinton’s advantage in national polling is somewhere in the range of about three points.That’s certainly enough to make the former Secretary of State the favorite, but her lead is hardly overwhelming. Since the dawn of modern polling, no presidential candidate has trailed by this much on the eve of Election Day and won the race, but as Nate Silver and others have insisted many times in recent days and weeks, to assume Trump will lose is a mistake.As for state polling, a few notable surveys have been published over the last day or so, including:* North Carolina: The final New York Times Upshot/Siena poll shows the two candidates tied in North Carolina, while a new Quinnipiac poll has Clinton ahead by two points.* Florida: The new Quinnipiac poll also shows Clinton leading Trump in Florida by one point.* Ohio: Though most recent data shows Trump favored in the Buckeye State, a Columbus Dispatch poll released yesterday actually showed Clinton ahead by a point.* Pennsylvania: The final Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll found Clinton with a four-point lead in a four-way match-up.* Iowa: The Hawkeye State may have backed President Obama twice, but it appears very likely to go “red” this year. The final Des Moines Register poll showed Trump ahead by seven points.
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Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."