Past polling data shows that three weeks out from the election, polls usually don’t move more than 3.4 points toward either candidate. Clinton leads Trump by 5.5 points in the RealClearPolitics two-way national average and by 5.7 points in the four-way national average (which includes third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein). Even if Trump moved the polls by about three points in his direction (which isn’t guaranteed, since Clinton could add about three points to her margin) Clinton would still have a two- to three-point national lead heading into Election Day. In that case, the smart money would be on her.
Clinton has led by larger margins at earlier points in the campaign. For example, she led Trump by more than seven points in the RCP two-way average in the aftermath of the Democratic National Convention. At that time she was enjoying a convention bounce and Trump was losing ground after a public feud with the Khan family, who lost a son in Iraq. Clinton also led Trump by double digits in March 2016 (when the GOP primary was still hotly contested) and the summer of 2015 (at the beginning of the Trump phenomenon). At those junctures, Trump still had ample time to change the polls. But three weeks is a much shorter window than three, eight or 18 months. And as Harry Enten of FiveThirtyEight notes, there is no clear historical precedent for a Trump comeback at this point.
It’s important to note that these benchmarks aren’t ironclad laws. Something unexpected could happen (e.g. Trump could shake off the new sexual assault allegations, have a great final debate performance and find some new damaging piece of information related to Clinton’s emails) that allows the Republican to make up ground faster than the majority of his predecessors. But Trump win scenarios often involve nearly every significant event over the next three weeks breaking his way, which is possible but not the most likely outcome.
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