There are many reasons to doubt that this scenario comes to pass. Perhaps chief among them is the fact that to get that many new, low-propensity voters to the polls would likely require a massive ground operation. Trump has nothing of the sort. Still, it’s theoretically possible, and in some states early voting by whites is quite high.
Except such models assume that the rest of the electorate holds constant. That doesn’t appear to be happening. To Trump’s benefit, African-American turnout appears to be falling somewhat short in early voting. On the flip side, Latinos are breaking records in Republican must-win states such as Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as the crucial state of Nevada. (There’s also more anecdotal evidence that there are in fact “hidden Clinton” voters among married Republican women.)
In Florida, at the beginning of early voting, turnout among Hispanics was up 99% over the same period in 2012. In crucial Clark County, Nev., a surge in Latino votes yielded the Democrats a 72,000-ballot lead in early voting.
Clinton leads Trump among Hispanics by more than 3-to-1 in polls, while Trump’s lead among whites, while substantial, is much narrower, largely because he’s losing among white college-educated voters and white women.
