PHILADELPHIA — California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) says the presidential election is looking “very uncertain,” and Hillary Clinton should be worried.
Brown, who arrived in Philadelphia on Tuesday, said recent polls show the race between Clinton and Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, is “very tight, very tight.”
{mosads}When asked if Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, should be nervous about her sagging numbers, Brown said, “Of course.”
“You think she isn’t? It’s very uncertain at this point and very threatening,” he told The Hill. “Full alert is what I would say.”
Clinton’s campaign has signaled that it is concerned about the polling numbers, which suggest Trump got a bounce from last week’s Republican National Convention.
Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, sent out an alert to supporters Tuesday.
“Poll after poll is showing that Trump has been eating away at our lead, and after his convention, he’s erased it entirely,” he wrote in a fundraising email.
He alluded to a recent CNN/ORC poll that found Trump is leading Clinton, 44 percent to 39 percent, in a four-way race including Libertarian Party presidential nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein.
While fundraising emails sometimes emphasize bad news as a way to urge donors to send money, it’s clear the race between Clinton and Trump has tightened.
Mook said the campaign expected Trump to get a bounce out of Cleveland but warned the next few weeks are “critical.”
“With the polls leaning in the wrong direction, your contribution has never been more critical,” he wrote.
Media pundits and political handicappers have given Trump little chance of winning in November.
Mother Jones, a liberal-leaning publication, wrote on July 7: “Clinton’s poll numbers look nearly unbeatable.”
But opinions are shifting in the wake of several polls showing Trump getting a strong bump after the GOP convention in Cleveland.
Political analyst Nate Silver, who correctly forecast the 2012 presidential election, now gives Clinton a 53.2 percent chance of winning and Trump a 46.8 percent chance.
Clinton has seen her lead erode in recent weeks following the damning FBI report that criticized her handling of classified information while secretary of State as “extremely careless.”
Republicans spent much of their convention last week trying to vilify her, and survey data show that strategy is having an impact.
Brown said Tuesday that the angry rhetoric during this year’s presidential campaign speaks to a divided nation.
“This business of the hatred and the extreme passion and intensity reflects deep fissures in the American people,” he said.
He called the GOP convention “boisterous, bitter” and “hostile to a significant part of America.”
Clinton had a good night Monday when she got a strong endorsement from her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), at the Democratic National Convention, easing concerns that his supporters may not embrace her campaign.
Her biggest vulnerability may be the economy.
The CNN/ORC poll released Monday showed that voters by an 11-point margin think Trump would better handle the economy as president. By a similar margin, voters think Trump would respond better to terrorism than Clinton.