Last Friday night I predicted what I believed would be the immediate repercussions following Hillary’s “basket of deplorables” comments Friday. It included a prediction of wall to wall media coverage about it that would unfortunately step on Trump’s super scary comments about blowing Iranian boats out of the water that he also made on that Friday Night. (other than Lawrence O’Donnell, this is not being talked about). I said that a television ad with the video of her comments would come out immediately and Hillary’s numbers would be impacted in the battleground states where the ad was running.
The first polls in the battleground states of Florida, Ohio and Nevada came out and she lost ground in all three. Most dramatically in Ohio we see a shift in two polls released in the past 24 hours that now have her trailing Trump by 5 points. This is a 5 point turn-around from some polling conducted last week where she led in all polls in that state.
The ad, along with a coordinated message from the candidate and his surrogates pushes the notion that her comments were a direct attack on all working people. Dramatic images in the ad include kindly grandmothers, friendly looking men in overalls, some minorities and talk of how Hillary hates them, and “You”.
Now this could just be a temporary blip but Trump obviously felt a shift in the polling universe and altered his schedule to have an Ohio rally tonight.
I am hoping the Clinton campaign responds quickly with Obama, Kaine and Biden, who are popular in Ohio with working class voters to help grab back her lead. She is probably not the best messenger for making her case in that crucial state at this moment. Stay tuned for additional updates.