FBI Dominating Election News Going Into Final Weekend Of Campaign

fbi

In an election in which the issues have received far too little attention, it is now news regarding the FBI which is dominating the election news. One key development is that CBS News reports that the FBI has found email related to Hillary Clinton’s work at the State Department on the computer used by Huma Abedin and Anthony Weiner:

The FBI has found emails related to Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state on the laptop belonging to the estranged husband of Huma Abedin, Anthony Weiner, according to a U.S. official.

These emails, CBS News’ Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton’s private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton. It is also not known how many relevant emails there are.

This provides some vindication for James Comey, who has been attacked by Clinton and her allies for sending the letter to Congress advising them of the change in status of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s home email server.

Reuters also provided further confirmation that, as I have suggested earlier, that one reason it was best for Comey to make the letter public was that it was likely that news of the investigation of Weiner’s computer would leak out. A leaked report of an FBI investigation, or allowing the news to be released by Congressional Republicans, who would have spun it even more unfavorably towards Clinton, could have been more harmful.

It remains unclear as to how much the tightening in the polls have been related to this as the polls were already getting closer before last Friday. I suspect that most voters’ minds had already been made up regarding the email scandal and that it would take bigger news than this to alter the election results.

It does appear that the report I mentioned yesterday from Bret Baier of Fox News claiming an indictment is likely regarding the pay-for-play activities involving the Clinton Foundation have not been substantiated, with other sources calling the report baseless. While Clinton’s actions as Secretary of State were highly unethical, and in violation of the ethics agreements she entered into, I have doubted that they will be able to get sufficient evidence to prosecute this many years later, especially as the political appointees in the Justice Department have opposed such an investigation (creating friction with career officials).

Regardless of how much impact the FBI’s actions have on the election, at this point Clinton continues to hold a narrowing lead in the polls. After it looked like Clinton might win by a landslide a couple of weeks ago, Nate Silver now finds Clinton to be in a worse position compared to Obama in recent elections. When looking at electoral maps, it no longer looks as impossible for Trump to win, but it would be difficult. Trump would have to win in all the toss-up states, and likely will need at least one blue state. Instead of Clinton fighting for upsets in red states, she now has to concentrate on holding onto states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire, with her especially vulnerable in the last. As Nate Silver put it:

If Clinton lost New Hampshire but won her other firewall states, each candidate would finish with 269 electoral votes, taking the election to the House of Representatives. Or maybe not — if Clinton also lost the 2nd Congressional District of Maine, where polls show a tight race and where the demographics are unfavorable to her, Trump would win the Electoral College 270-268, probably despite losing the popular vote.

On the other hand, states such as Florida, North Carolina, and Florida remain competitive, and a win for Clinton in just one could clinch the election. These are definitely states to watch Tuesday night. As Silver has also suggested, there is a real possibility of Clinton winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college. She could exceed Obama’s popular vote numbers by doing better than he did in red states such as Texas, but this will probably not translate into electoral votes.

Update: As expected, the resumed investigation has changed nothing. We continue to have evidence of Clinton violating the rules intended to increase government transparency, that she handled classified information improperly, and that she has lied on multiple occasions regarding the scandal, but there will be no prosection.