As we prepare to enter the final two weeks of this presidential campaign, here's how things shape up:

On the one hand, we have a candidate who's accused of hiring crazed fanatics to aid in her campaign.

On the other hand, we have a candidate who gets crazed fanatics to help in his campaign for free.

Who's going to win? At the moment the most reliable poll in recent history is giving a slight edge to the guy who fires up fanatics for free.

That's Donald Trump, and as of Saturday the Investors Business Daily/TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence Poll had him leading Hillary Clinton by two points in a four-way race. (Check the RealClearPolitics daily summaries of the latest polls here.)

That lead is within the margin of error of course, but it's fascinating that Trump could still be in contention after a couple of what looked like the worst weeks in history.

To find out why, I put in a call to Raghavan Mayur. He's the president of Ramsey-based Technometrica, the company that does the actual polling for Investor's Business Daily.

The IBD/TIPP tracking poll was rated as "the most accurate" in the 2012 race by the New York Times. While other polls had Republican Mitt Romney up by several points going into the election, Mayur's poll correctly showed Obama ahead.

Check this Business Insider article about how IBD/TIPP called the race at this point in the 2012 cycle. They had Obama up 3 points while other polls were calling it for Romney.

In 2008, the poll got Obama's victory margin right down to the decimal point at 7.2. And the cycle before that, the poll put George W. Bush at 2.1 going into an election he won with a 2.5 percent margin.

That means Mayur is perfectly positioned to answer the question Clinton famously asked a month ago: "Why aren't I ahead by 50 points?"

The reason, said the Indian-born graduate of NJIT and Rutgers, is that support on either side has hardened to the point that scandals don't seem to matter - even the recent groping allegations against Trump.

"His core support is staying intact," said Mayur. "It's not as if somebody is jumping ship because of scandal and moving over to the Hillary column."

And you're not going to see Clinton supporters going over to Trump either, he said, no matter what Wikileaks leaks.

That's where the fun begins. The Saturday IBD/TIPP poll had Clinton tied with Trump in a two-way race - which this isn't - but behind two points in a four-way race - which this is.

That means Clinton loses more voters to third-party candidates than Trump.

"I think that perhaps these are people who believe Trump is not acceptable," he said. "If you pitch Clinton vs. Trump alone, they vote for Clinton. But when they have options they will abandon her."

Mayur's poll isn't the only one released over the past few days that had Trump ahead when Libertarian Gary Johnson and the Green Party's Jill Stein were factored in.

Another poll also had Trump ahead and yet another had the race in a dead heat.

Only one had Clinton winning a four-way race.

"It's like a stock trading in a very narrow range," he said.

Then there's the question of enthusiasm. This will not be a replay of Obama vs. Romney.

"You've got to keep in mind the intensity of Democrats is not as high as what Trump has," he said. "Clinton is not able to excite the base as much as Obama was able to."

I've seen that at the events I've attended in person. Clinton gets a polite but reserved reception. Trump gets a lot of the aforementioned crazed fanatics.

Mayur said that makes this race difficult to predict, unlike the prior two, which he said were "divinely ordained."

"In 2008, no Republican could have won after that financial tsunami," he said. "In 2012,Hurricane Sandy happened. It made Obama look presidential and put a stop to any momentum Romney could get."

This time around, Trump is tapping into what Mayur termed "an ethos of populism" that is keeping the race tight despite scandals that would have finished off any other politician, he said.

But what about those other polls that showed Clinton leading by 8 points or so after the "Access Hollywood" tape came out?

"Typically what happens is that I lead the polls," he said. "They follow me."

That's because his tracking poll is done on a daily basis and uses a rolling average that incorporates results from the prior five days or so. It's a good way of detecting trends and the trend if toward a close race.

"I can say this much with confidence. The race is gonna be tightening for them," he said of the other polls.

These are all national polls, but this is not a national election. And at the moment the polls show the Democrats have the edge in the Electoral College lineup.

Perhaps that's what Trump has in mind when he says the race is "rigged." But it was rigged by the Founding Fathers.

So he better get those fanatics fired up fast.

PAST POLLS - AND PAST MISTAKES BY 'THE STUPID PARTY':

The RealClearPolitics listing of recent polls shows a "YUGE" - as the Donald might say - difference between the polling companies.Trump is up 2 points in the IBD tracking poll of a four-way race, but he's down by an amazing 12 points in the ABC News poll.

There's no way of knowing at the moment which is more accurate.

But we know who was in the last cycle.

Nate Silver, then of the New York Times, ranked the polling companies.

IBD/TIPP had the best results. The poll picked Obama when most of the others were picking Romney.

Meanwhile the ABC poll was among the worst, ranking 18th out of 23 polls.

Does this mean ABC is in the bag for Clinton?

No. We already knew that - and it has nothing to do with the accuracy of the polls.

All three major networks as well as the major newspapers have been in the bag for Clinton since the beginning.

It's not just that some, like the Washington Post, have turned their news stories into opinion columns.

It's the more deceptive practice of choosing what goes on Page One. If the Post and Times did long think-pieces on the risks of imposing a no-fly zone on Syria, for example, voters would see Clinton as the warmonger she is.

If they wrote about the impracticality of her call for open borders, voters would be appalled by that.

Instead they focus on the candidate's personal life - his, not hers.

That's how you slant coverage while maintaining a stance of objectivity, boys and girls.

But the bigger problem for Trump - or any Republican - is the Electoral College, Imagine the polls hold up and this ends up being a tight race. The Republicans will have no one to blame but themselves if it's lost in the Electoral College.

As I noted in this column in 2013, back when they controlled both houses of Congress, the Republicans could have put forward a constitutional amendment that would have required each state to employ the Maine-Nebraska system for choosing electors.

Under that system, every state would be in play and presidential candidates would have to run full national campaigns.

Under the current system the election is decided in a handful of swing states and most states are ignored by both parties. If you're a Republican in California or New Jersey, you might as well just stay home on Election Day for all the effect you can have on the presidential race.

But if that system were in effect, you could be voting for an elector who represents your district's interests.

Furthermore any questionable tactics the Democrats employ would not have an effect on the statewide vote.

But the Republicans waited until it was too late - 2013 - before advancing the plan nationally. The same is true in New Jersey by the way. Our Republicans could have done this in the 1990s. It never occurred to them.

There's a reason the Republicans are called "the stupid party" while the Democrats are called "the corrupt party."

You're seeing it now.