| We're almost out of primaries, people! Zoe Daniel talks us through this week in the race to the White House | You know how Australian politicians always say "I don't take any notice of polls" and we all know that's not true?
Well, a new poll out this week has Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton in the head-to-head race for the presidency, and you can bet his bank full of dollars that he was taking notice.
One Twitter user made this point - "it's only Fox so it's of no great concern" - and yes the poll was taken by Fox News, and the 45 to 42 lead is well within the margin of error so it's really a statistical tie.
However, this is a 10-point swing in Donald Trump's favour since the last Fox poll four weeks ago.
The other thing worth noting is that a second poll, this one from the polling company Rasmussen, also has Trump up by five points over Hillary.
Both of these results are too close for any real clarity and poll averages still have Hillary up by 3.3 per cent.
It's also possible that becoming the presumptive nominee has given The Donald a bounce while Hillary is still being held back by the persistent Bernie Sanders.
But if nothing else they show that the race for the White House will not be a doddle.
This is not a drill people!
Oh, and by the way, while this week's political debate revolved almost entirely around Trump's unpopularity with women, both of these polls show that Hillary has the men offside.
This is from Rasmussen Reports:
"While there is much talk of a gender gap in this race, Clinton appears to have a bigger problem with men than Trump does with women.
"Trump leads by 22 points among men, compared to Clinton's 11-point advantage among women."
...
VICTORS
Hillary Clinton
Well, sort of.
The Democratic front-runner pulled out a narrow win in Kentucky (although she split the delegate count with Bernie Sanders).
Why did it matter when she lost Oregon on the same night anyway and supposedly has an insurmountable lead?
Well, it's her first win in May and worked to dampen, at least slightly, Sanders' campaign momentum heading into the final few states.
Late-night tweeting
There's no doubting that 2016 is the Twitter election more than ever before.
This week, Fox host Megyn Kelly asked the king of Twitter, Trump, whether he sits in Trump Tower in a "crushed velvet smoking jacket" while tweeting late at night.
And then there's Marco Rubio. Remember him?
Once dubbed the future of the Republican Party and expected to win the nomination for the GOP this year, Rubio took to Twitter during the week to vent his frustrations.
It started off on policy before the Floridian senator used the platform to mock the media over its use of "sources" suggesting a few hilarious stories of his own.
Perhaps most prudent in his tweet storm was a question about redeye flights from LA.
VANQUISHED
Bernie Sanders supporters
Chairs were thrown and death threats made after a chaotic Democratic State Convention in Nevada. The culprits?
Idealistic Sanders supporters who tried to flip the convention in their candidate's favour and failed.
Confused? Vox explains.
John Miller
We told you about Trump's supposed PR front-guy, John Miller a few weeks back.
Many suggested that Mr Miller was actually Trump. Now, The Washington Post has the full audio of the conversation so you can decide for yourself, who's the real John Miller?
Megyn Kelly
Nine months of taunts and insults between Trump and Kelly came to a head this week with a one-on-one interview between the pair.
Despite a lot of hype, the interview failed to deliver a ratings boost for Fox or any hard-hitting news.
In fact, more people wound up watching NCIS instead.
What did we learn? Well, not much and the critics were pretty harsh too.
However we did find out that Trump's favourite movie is Citizen Kane and his favourite book - apart from the Bible - is All Quiet on the Western Front.
Citizen Kane, in case you're not into watching old flicks, is a 1941 film about the powerful newspaper editor Charles Foster Kane.
Notable quotes include:
- Charles Foster Kane: "You know, Mr Bernstein, if I hadn't been very rich, I might have been a really great man."
- Emily Monroe Norton Kane: "He happens to be the president, Charles, not you."
- Charles Foster Kane: "That's a mistake that will be corrected one of these days."
- Charles Foster Kane: "Mr Carter, if the headline is big enough, it makes the news big enough."
AROUND THE KENTUCKY BEND
Voting in America can be tough. Voter ID laws, long lines at the ballot box and holding elections on Tuesdays all add to the trouble, but spare a thought for the folks from the Kentucky Bend who tried to cast a ballot on Tuesday night.
This tiny enclave, which sits on the banks of the Mississippi River, requires voters to drive nearly 65 kilometres from their homes in Kentucky, through Tennessee to reach their nearest voting location in Hickman. Sheesh.
'MY HUSBAND IS NOT HITLER'
Trump's third wife is a well-known supermodel occasionally seen on the campaign trail with her hubby.
In a sit-down interview with Du Jour magazine during the week, Melania Trump opened up about life living with The Donald, expressed her dislike for Starbucks and talked about how staying at a Holiday Inn was "fun" before remarking that being on the campaign trail is "hard work".
She also said that her husband is not Hitler. Good to know.
CLINTON COUNTIES
Hillary is winning the Democratic nomination but she's not faring as well in counties that bare her (or her husband's) name.
Just a note here, we're talking about counties actually called "Clinton County". Hillary has picked up one from nine so far.
After losses in Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, New York and Pennsylvania, Clinton County on the Tennessee-Kentucky border finally delivered for Hillary on Tuesday night. In the tiny county she picked up her first win, beating Sanders by around 60 votes.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"My name's Joe Biden and I love ice cream."
It could've been a campaign slogan for Joe Biden, instead it was his introduction to the folks at Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream in Ohio on Wednesday when he announced new overtime rules on behalf of the Obama administration.
BY THE NUMBERS
$6.5 million. That's the amount Hillary earned collectively from her book Hard Choices and speaking gigs in 2015.
The figure was released hours after Trump boasted his personal financial disclosure form was the "largest in the history of the FEC" and showed "tremendous cash flow".
Trump, who has been cagey about releasing his tax returns (and still refuses), bragged again - not surprisingly - that he's worth more than $10 billion.
Forbes later published an article putting his net worth at $4 billion, slightly down on its previous estimate due to damage to his personal brand as a result of his campaign style.
REST IN PEACE
This campaign has seen high unfavourable ratings for both frontrunners and some voters have threatened to move to Canada if Trump is elected, but this obituary for a woman in Virginia has to take the cake.
Rest in Peace, Mary.
And on that note, we're almost out of primaries, people!
On Tuesday Donald Trump will win the Republican dead rubber in Washington and then it's just five states to go.
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