On a purely structural level, Hillary Clinton must still remain a slight favorite to win the White House — but every new day brings the type of news every campaign dreads, and the certainty that eking out win will require a grueling, ugly trip through the meat grinder.
A number of new polls show Libertarian presidential nominee Gary Johnson doing increasingly well with millennials and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton under performing with the same demographic that helped President Obama build winning coalitions in 2008 and 2012.
A New York Times/CBS poll shows 26 percent of voters under the age of 29 supporting Johnson and a further 10 percent supporting Green presidential nominee Jill Stein. Similarly, a Quinnipiac poll shows Johnson at 29 percent of young voters, and Stein at 15.
In that poll, Clinton barely edges out Johnson among young voters, getting 31 percent. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is at 26 percent among that demographic in the poll. Further, a Global Strategy Group poll of millennials in 11 battleground states found that while 73 percent of millennials saying Trump is a racist, just 38 percent supporting Clinton in a 4-way matchup.
How soon before Clinton is forced to take on Johnson?
Now comes the news billionaire casino owner Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, are planning to spend $45 million to boost Republicans in the next two months, including at least $5 million to help Mr. Trump. And Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade who poured $6 million together with his wife into an anti-Trump super PAC, now plans to give at least $1 million to a group backing Mr. Trump.
If Hillary Clinton pulls this out, the celebration will be short-lived as she and her staff will require immediate downtime to recuperate from the brutal physical and psychological stress of today’s contemporary presidential campaign demolition derby.