The election that virtually every analyst and talking head has been telling us was over now appears to be a dead heat. Just last week, a Reuters poll had Donald Trump losing to Hillary Clinton by double digits — 45% to 33%. Before I continue, let me remind you of a little history.

A few months ago, Reuters’ polls regularly showed Trump leading Clinton by a few points. Suddenly, Reuters announced that its polling methodology was flawed. Translation: Reuters wasn’t getting the results it wanted. So in a blatant attempt to get a different outcome, Reuters changed how it was conducting the poll.

Pat Caddell, a Democrat pollster, blasted Reuters’ move as “the most outrageous thing” he had seen in his profession. Caddell added, “This comes as close as I have ever seen to cooking the results… if this was accounting, they would put them in jail.”

And it worked. The next poll Reuters took had Trump trailing Clinton by three points.

Then the Trump campaign entered its worst couple of weeks of missteps, which, not surprisingly, was reflected in last week’s poll that found Trump trailing by 12 points. Such findings led numerous commentators to declare that Hillary was heading toward a historic landslide victory.

The problem with all these prognosticators making such bold predictions based on polling is obvious: No one has voted yet!

But since the media and political establishment put such an emphasis on polling, today’s news must have our elites reaching for the Maalox. The latest Reuters poll finds that the race is essentially tied — 40% Clinton, 39% Trump. Clinton’s double-digit lead is gone!

Moreover, Democrat support for Clinton is down three points, while Republican support for Trump is up seven points. If Republicans would just stick together we could win!

Other polls confirm Trump’s movement. The Los Angeles Times daily tracking poll now finds Trump leading Clinton 45% to 42%. Trump is also closing the gap in key swing states. And the results of the latest Washington Post poll produced this headline: “A Record Number Of Americans Now Dislike Hillary Clinton.” (See next item.)

“It’s Raining Shoes”

I’m not going to refer to Hillary Clinton’s problems anymore as an “email scandal” because it sounds unserious. But it is extremely serious. The emails provide evidence of corruption between the Clinton Foundation and the State Department. They are also evidence of Hillary’s cavalier attitude regarding our national security.

Every day brings a new disclosure. For example, in the past 24 hours, we have learned that:

The FBI discovered 30 new Benghazi emails Clinton deleted instead of handing over to the State Department and the congressional committees that had asked for them. Did she consider those personal or potentially damaging?

Huma Abedin was well aware of the risks of using unsecured Blackberries in foreign countries. On October 12, 2009, as Clinton was traveling to Russia, Abedin emailed other State Department officials to inform them that “those of us in the Russia traveling party will be leaving blackberries on the airplane” once they land in Moscow.

(By the way, she sent the same message to leaders of the Clinton Foundation, once again highlighting the unseemly connection between the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton State Department.)

But this much is clear: Huma and others close to Hillary were aware of the risks and knew Clinton was violating government policy. Let me remind you of what FBI Director James Comey said last month:

“She [Clinton] also used her personal e-mail extensively while outside the United States, including sending and receiving work-related e-mails in the territory of sophisticated adversaries. Given that combination of factors, we assess it is possible that hostile actors gained access to Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail account.”

The scandal isn’t going away. Clinton is now being compelled to answer 25 questions under oath. Who knows what else we may learn.

And that’s exactly what Democrats fear most. Columnist A. B. Stoddard commented [Tuesday] on just how much of Clinton’s story, even before the Benghazi committee, has been untrue:

“What she probably thought was legalese that would protect her, were actually a bunch of lies. They’ve all been proven wrong. Now, it’s not just another shoe to drop, it’s raining shoes, and Democrats are terrified about what’s going to be coming out this week, and the end of September, in the days and weeks before the election.”

Liberal MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski agreed, saying, “But you know what … today’s headline is ‘30 Emails. Benghazi. Hidden.’ That doesn’t help. Sorry. Thirty missing emails about Benghazi? That just doesn’t help… People are not that dumb.”

Clinton’s Tough Choice

The Colin Kaepernick controversy has dominated the headlines for days, but Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama haven’t said a word. How could they? They would have to choose between the National Anthem and the Black Lives Matter movement.

For most of us, that’s not a hard call. But for Hillary, it’s really tough.

Donald Trump left no doubt about which side he was on. Trump said about Kaepernick, “I think it’s a terrible thing, and you know, maybe he should find a country that works better for him. Let him try. It won’t happen.”

That shows you how in tune Trump is with average Americans. I can imagine my father, Spike Bauer, or my father-in-law, Bill Hoke, saying exactly that. That is how real patriots think.

Follow The Missiles

In politics there is a saying everyone understands, “Follow the money.” A comparable saying when dealing with Iran might be, “Follow the missiles.”

When the Iranian nuclear negotiations began, one of the primary objectives of the West was to guarantee that the Iranian facility at Fordow was shuttered. Everyone agreed that the facility, which housed a major part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and was built inside a mountain, had to be closed.

But as the negotiations progressed, the fate of Fordow ultimately became one of Obama’s biggest concessions to Tehran. And to further sweeten the deal for Iran, Obama agreed to end many sanctions against the Iranian regime, the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism.

As soon as the sanctions were lifted, Russia announced that it would sell highly sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles to Iran. This week, Iran announced that it deployed the Russian S-300 missiles to Fordow — the very facility where it claims nothing unusual, just research, is taking place.

Could Iran’s intentions be more obvious?

Let me say this as bluntly as I can: When we eventually discover that Iran is cheating, as it always does, efforts to take out the facility will be vastly more difficult. American and Israeli lives will likely be lost as a result of the policies pursued by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.