Rust Belt to the rescue

Now that the USC daily poll is showing Trump pulling away from Crooked Hillary big-league (up 5 points), let's take a look at where in the country that might be coming from. At the Reuters daily poll, it looks like it's in the Great Lakes region.

He's been surging for the past month, from 25 to 45, while Hillary has been falling and stagnating, unable to rise above 40. (And since Reuters surgically altered its methodology to give Clinton a 5-point bump, the reality is even worse for her now.)

This region includes Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. Obviously Chicago and Minnesota are weighing down the regional average, and only Indiana would have been a sure thing no matter who the Republican was. That means Ohio is looking all sewn up, Michigan is on board (as suggested by the Emerson poll), and Wisconsin may be coming around too (a Marquette poll from a couple weeks ago had Clinton up by just 3, which may have been lost by now).

The surge is not due to a consolidation of the stubborn cuckservative crowd -- who are not a large factor in the general election here anyway. It is mostly a re-aligning of party affiliation. Remember that it's crossover voters who transform the electoral map.

During her decline, Hillary now stands to get only 60-70% of Obama voters in the Great Lakes, while Trump will take about 20%, the rest going third-party or staying home. Trump has 80% of Romney voters, while less than 5% are jumping ship for Clinton. Obama voters were more numerous in all these states except Indiana, so Trump's greater percentage steal comes from a far larger base as well.

Further examination shows the surge in the region coming from those with less than a college degree.

After getting sold out by the first Clinton with NAFTA, and seeing no improvements under Obama, these folks are ready to take a chance on Trump, whose central populist plan is to re-industrialize our formerly great but currently pre-modern economy.

It was the Industrial Revolution that narrowed the inequality gap between rich and poor, while the de-industrialization of the past 40 years has sent it widening. When we start making things here in America again on a grand scale, these blue-collar workers in the Rust Belt are going to enjoy more of the egalitarianism that the Great Lakes region values so highly.