The 5-Minute Fix from The Washington Post

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By Amber Phillips

Another day, another Washington Post-ABC News poll that finds that the presidential race is tied.

That's the popular vote. But as Al Gore knows well, presidential races are won and lost by the electoral vote. Fix Boss Chris Cillizza fiddled with our super neat electoral map tool to figure out whether Donald Trump could win that all-important vote. His answer? Yes, but …

Here are some options to a possible-but-not-easy Trump victory:

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Option 1: If Trump wins ALL the states Mitt Romney won in 2012, PLUS Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio and New Hampshire, he can get past the 270 mark. But Trump is down almost 5 points in New Hampshire and 2.5 in Colorado.

Screen Shot 2016-11-02 at 9.42.20 AM

Option 2: If Trump wins all the states Romney won minus North Carolina, he would need to win 7 others to make up for it: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio and Wisconsin. Even though The Fix recently moved Florida into the toss-up column, this is a tough path for Trump, given Hillary Clinton is up almost six points in Wisconsin.

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Option 3: A tie! It's not the likeliest scenario, but shuffle some states around, and it could happen. In the event of a tie, Congress would be the tie breaker (each state gets a single vote), and given that there are more Republicans than Democrats in Congress, they would almost certainly hand the election to Trump.

So, this election could be over in 7 days ... or never.

A phrase you should know: Tracking polls

What is it: Basically a poll done every night. Pollsters call a random sampling of Americans every evening and ask them questions, like who they're going to vote for. Then they release the past few days' results.

Why it's different than regular polls: Regular polls are not done every.single.night. They're in the field for a few days, then done.

One of our polling gurus, Emily Guskin

What tracking polls are good for: Spotting trends, like voters moving away or toward one candidate. The Washington Post-ABC News pollsters start using tracking polls as we get closer to Nov. 8 to try to spot those trends. Because fewer poll results mean more electoral uncertainty.

What the tracking polls are saying now: Funny you should ask; that's my next topic of discussion.

Your weekly philosophy lesson

Our tracking poll released Wednesday shows that voters think Trump is more honest and trustworthy than Clinton — by 8 points!

(Source: Post-ABC tracking polls Oct. 30-31, margin of error +/- 4 points)

On the surface, that makes zero sense. Of the 91 Trump statements that Washington Post's Fact checking team has, well, fact checked, they have given 63 percent the Four Pinocchio rating (false as false can be). (For comparison; 14.2 percent of Clinton's claims have been given Four Pinocchios.)

Here's the philosophy lesson, via Cillizza:

Perception matters hugely in politics. What people perceive to be the facts — whether or not those actually are the facts — are very powerful when it comes to what they think of the presidential candidates.

In that perception game, here's how the two candidates are seen:
Trump: Straight talker. Loud, brash and often offensive.
Clinton: Guarded and careful, maybe to the point of paranoia.

People read those traits very differently; facts aside.

Speaking of things that could go on forever …

WILTON MANORS, FL - Democratic Nominee for President of the United States former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton meets and speaks to Florida voters during LGBT unity rally in Wilton Manors, Florida Sunday October 30, 2016. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Hillary Clinton. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

A handful of Senate Republicans have suggested that if Hillary Clinton wins the presidency, they'll just block her Supreme Court nominee indefinitely.

And they can totally do that. Russell Wheeler, a Supreme Court expert with the Brookings Institution, tells me that the Constitution says the Senate "shall advise" the president, which over time we've taken to mean will approve or disapprove of. Despite precedent, there are very few courts that would interpret "shall" as "must."

But blocking Clinton's nominee would be a tough thing to explain away: The Senate Republicans floating the idea of a perma-blockade also were on record saying the next president should decide.

Okay, let's talk about this:

"America was great not because of what our forefathers did — but because of who our forefathers were. America was founded as a White Christian Republic. And as a White Christian Republic it became great."

That's a full-throated Trump endorsement from the Crusader, one of the most prominent newspapers of the Ku Klux Klan.

Crusader

The author of that endorsement, KKK chief and Christian Identity pastor Thomas Robb, told our partners at mic.com: "Trump's message is 'tapping into [the] voice' for the anger of white supremacists." He added: "I've never been more encouraged in the last 50 years than I've been in the past year and a half. ... I don't like to use the word radicalize, but I believe that Trump will advance the narrative."

Finally: GO VOTE

Here's one less excuse for you: If you don't know the rules in your state, you can just click here and find them out.

Today, we present the states that require an ID to vote. It can get tricky, since a few states' strict voter ID laws have been struck down by the courts (Texas, North Carolina). Still, I think voter ID laws are probably here to stay. Here's where things stand now:

voter-id

Also, GO VOTE!

(giphy.com)

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