Electoral battles

New polls make clear that some voters have fallen out of love with Clinton. But can Trump woo them?

There's a theme to the two polls over the past two days showing a dramatic change in fortunes for Hillary Clinton. There was the Quinnipiac University poll from Florida that we wrote about Wednesday, showing an 11-point flip for Donald Trump over the past three weeks. On Thursday, a new national poll from the New York Times and CBS. In May, Clinton led by six points. Now, the race is a tie.In each case, the surprising result is not really a function of support shifting from Clinton to Trump. It's a function of support for Clinton sinking.

This is how it works. Very rarely do people simply flip from one candidate to another. They don't wake up one day supporting Ronald Reagan and then, over lunch, decide they're a Walter Mondale guy. I mean, some people do that, I suppose, but it's usually the case that people slowly fall out of love with a candidate and then stay single for a little bit before jumping into another relationship. Meaning that there's a way station between candidates: undecided.