As noted in Lefty Coaster's diary:



Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump leads Democrat Hillary Clinton head-to-head, according to a new poll released Friday. The poll by SurveyUSA finds that matched up directly, Trump garners 45 percent to Clinton’s 40 percent.

And the other shoe has finally dropped. I didn't expect it to happen this early, so sure, we'll keep an eye out for other polls, but folks, it's going to happen way before the 2016 general election anyway, as is clear to anyone who can read a trend.

B-B-B-BUT SHITTY POLLER!

Nope. SurveyUSA has an A rating on 538. For the Nate Silver fanboys, here is Nate Silver on SurveyUSA:



Let me show you the scorecard for SurveyUSA, which has an exemplary track record

[...]

SurveyUSA is very consistent. In each of the six types of elections that we consider, they’ve done better than their counterparts.

[...]

SurveyUSA has also held up well over different political cycles.

[...]

Over the long run, SurveyUSA has had essentially zero partisan bias.

[...]

As I hope is obvious, SurveyUSA is a very strong polling firm

True, but this poll shatters the notion that Clinton is our stronger general candidate.

Sanders does slightly better overall:



Trump: 45% Clinton: 40%

Trump: 44% Sanders: 40%

men

Trump: 50% Clinton: 35%

Trump: 48% Sanders: 40% women

Trump: 39% Clinton: 44%

Trump: 39% Sanders: 40%

Trump: 51% Clinton: 34%

Trump: 50% Sanders: 36%

Trump: 25% Clinton: 59%

Trump: 26% Sanders: 59%

Trump: 86% 74% 79% 43% 12% 12% 14%

Clinton: 8% 12% 6% 30% 75% 78% 70% Trump: 82% 69% 77% 41% 17% 15% 14%

Sanders: 10% 14% 13% 31% 62% 71% 77%

Sanders does better than Clinton with men... than Clinton does better than Sanders with women:Sanders does better than Clinton with whites:Surely Sanders loses the black vote, right? Haha, nope:Sanders has stronger cross-over appeal AND does better with the Democratic base of self-described strong Democrats (i.e., the activists and people who drive GOTV efforts):(From left to right: strong Republican, Republican, Indie leaning Republican, Indie, Indie leaning Democratic, Democratic, strong Democratic.)

All this throws the electability argument for Clinton out the window and shows what some of us have known for a while now: Sanders' bigger hurdle is the Democratic primary, not the general election. That hurdle is most probably driven by the erroneous electability argument.

B-B-B-BUT POLLS THIS FAR OUT!

You betcha, given that it's polls this far out that have been used to bolster support for Hillary in the first place. That's really all Hillary has had -- polls this far out. There's no, uh, edge on the issues, after all.

Many of us remember all the gloating over the polls back in March, April -- oh, those awesome double-digit leads... oh, those wins in key battleground states and on the national stage... oh, that eGhazi Nothingburger that would be dead in a week.

Now the GOP is cleaning our clock in both key battleground states and on the national stage.

B-B-B-BUT THAT WILL TURN AROUND WITH 2016 DEMOCRATIC MESSAGING!

Oh please. Nobody needs me to point out that Democrats suck on messaging and that we'll be playing defense all year with Hillary.

The billions of bucks of attack advertising hasn't even begun. With favorables/trustworthies like Hillary's -- the most horrendous of any candidate -- that advertising has its work cut out for it. With the FBI's ongoing counterintel investigation of Hillary's server, after a referral made by an Obama-appointed inspector general, the GOP could probably win the messaging war with a $100 voucher on Google AdWords.