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Eye On Candidates
September 2, 2016

Clinton team over-confident?

How can you tell when a campaign is perhaps getting over-confident? When headlines like this start to appear:

Clinton’s advisers tell her to prep for a landslide

Advisers to Hillary Clinton’s campaign have identified so many paths to an Election Day victory they are now focusing not only on the one or two battlegrounds that would ensure a win but on opening up the possibility of an Electoral College landslide.

“Hillary Clinton has many paths to 270 electoral votes, more than any candidate in a generation,” said Jeff Berman, a paid consultant to her campaign.

Revealing a level of confidence Clinton’s inner circle has been eager to squash for weeks, outside advisers have now identified victories in Pennsylvania and New Hampshire as the path of least resistance, delivering for the Democratic nominee more than the 270 electoral votes needed to take the White House. And they are projecting increased confidence about her chances in Republican-leaning North Carolina, a state that could prove as critical as Ohio or Pennsylvania.

The article also notes that Clinton's apparently commanding position allows her to help down-ballot candidates:

Keeping all the paths to 270 open for now also allows Clinton to bring down-ballot candidates along for the ride. Clinton and Tim Kaine have recently given boosts to Senate hopefuls like Pennsylvania’s Katie McGinty, New Hampshire’s Maggie Hassan and Ohio’s Ted Strickland, joining them on the campaign trail. “When Donald Trump comes to town, he’s not standing with Pat Toomey,” said Dukes of Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, who is running for reelection. “We don’t see that happening on the other side.”

It's always possible that the Clinton campaign is far too confident, and in recent days the polls have started to tighten somewhat, suggesting they might be caught by Donald Trump. But it is a measure of just how badly Trump's campaign has done so far that the Clinton campaign is expressing this much confidence.