When I saw the headline National poll: Clinton lead narrows ( by Louis Nelson, POLITICO, June 21, 2016), I assumed that someone in the MSM had finally noticed that, in the face of all the MSM hype, Trump has been closing in on Clinton in the post-Orlando polls (as I've discussed here and here ).

But in fact, the underlying article (and the headline when you click through) is about the (certainly interesting) fact that in the latest CNN/ORC poll, Clinton's lead over Trump narrows to just 4 percentage points, 42-38, in a four-way race that includes Libertarian Gary Johnson (9 percent) and Green Party candidate Jill Stein (7 percent). The margin of error is plus or minus 3 per cent, so this is definitely bad news for the Clinton camp.

However, POLITICO's Nelson does not report that, in a head-to-head race, Clinton leads Trump by just 5 percent—and that this is sharply down from 13 percent in the last head-to-head CNN/ORC poll released in May.

Clinton gets just 38% of whites (who until 1965 would have been called "Americans") vs. 51% for Trump. Since the GOP got 60% of the white vote in 2010 and 2014, this suggests Trump has a relatively straightforward path to victory.

(Curiously, the CNN/ORC poll says that 34% of Americans are unfavorable to Melania Trump (pictured above right) vs. 28% who are favorable. I just don't believe this.)