Presidential Vote Update, Clinton 47.8%-46.6%

The Presidential vote, linked here, is at nearly 133 million votes, 4 million more than 2012 and nearly 2 million more than 2008. The final number should top 136 million. Currently Hillary Clinton leads 47.8%-46.6%. Much of her gain has come from California. They've counted over 3 million ballots since election day and that's increased Clinton's national lead by nearly 1 million votes. I'm revising my final estimate to a 1.7% Clinton win. So Nate Cohn's 1.5% looks good but his 2.0% is a bit high.

California sticks out as an anomaly. Without California Barack Obama won the rest of the country 50.0%-48.4%. Without California Donald Trump won the rest of the country 47.9%-46.4%. That's a 3.1% swing in margin. The median was a 2.5% swing toward Trump and many of the margins were clustered there. While the rest of the country swung 3.1% toward Trump, California swung 3.5% toward Clinton. That strong California swing toward Clinton, along with ones in Texas, Massachusetts, and Arizona, has brought up Clinton's margin. These states will see Partisan Vote Indexes (PVI) change by 4-5 points from 2012 to 2016. In 2012 this only happened with small states. They tend to be more volatile.

Does this signal a dramatic shift in these states or just a Clinton-Trump anomaly? I think the latter. In Arizona and Texas Republicans did slightly better in the two party House vote than they did in 2012. In California Democrats are doing better than 2012 in the House vote but this can be the result of so many Top Two races without a Republican. I'll compare California district by district later.