Hillary Clinton's New Polling Numbers Look Great

After a short post-convention refractory period, the business of politics is moving forward once more. On Monday, this Nate Silver prediction came as excellent news for Hillary Clinton, who seems to have earned a huge bounce in the polls after last week's Democratic National Convention. It's undoubtedly reassuring to Clinton fans who were starting to get panicked by Donald Trump's strong numbers after his own coronation ceremony in Cleveland, after which he proclaimed he got "the largest bump in the history of conventions." Even if that was true when he said it, Clinton blew him out of the water this week with a 10-point net gain in her best poll yet.

In Clinton's best poll, she faced off against not only Trump, but third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Jill Stein as well. Clinton's dominance over Trump in that poll is a good sign for supporters. But there is one troubling, yet inevitable aspect of the prediction: the undecideds. In the poll, 15 percent of respondents said they weren't sure who they were going to vote for. That number happens to be the exact margin that separates Clinton from Trump. Although it would be a statistical miracle if Trump pulled in all of that 15 percent, it's still possible. Both Clinton and Trump are trying to appeal to the undecideds — a smart move, since that's most likely where this election will be won.

According to FiveThirtyEight analyst Silver, Clinton's bounce essentially resets his election prediction to June — the new numbers for Clinton and Trump are approximately the same spread from Clinton's high after finally clinching her party's nomination. That's great news for her, since the DNC email scandal could have wrecked her support. However, she seems to have emerged unscathed from the potentially lethal situation.

It also helped Clinton that Trump has had several snafus which killed any momentum from his own convention bounce. The Khan family controversy is still following him, with military parents and advocates having trouble getting on board with his rhetoric on veterans, and his stunning lack of foreign policy expertise ate up a news cycle all by itself.

Still, numbers can change at the drop of a dime. Trump's unpredictability in this election, for example, has thrown off all expert predictions, and there's no telling what could happen next. It's less than 100 days until Election Day, and the race will only get more tumultuous from here. These polling numbers are a positive indicator for Clinton and her fans, but they're very, very far from a win in November.