The Electoral College Will Go to Clinton

Updating his previous projections for the 2016 presidential election, Larry Sabato predicts that in the event of a Clinton-Trump match-up:

  1. All of the states he previously listed as toss-ups lean to Clinton.
  2. All of the states he previously listed as leaning towards Clinton are now likely to go to Clinton.
  3. The state that was leaning towards whoever the Republican candidate might have been is now leaning towards Clinton.

Then he looks farther into the future:

Every now and then, one of the major parties goes off the track and forfeits an election, as in 1964 and 1972. This time, it is possible that the Republicans are the new Whigs, headed for a crackup, an oft-made comparison that historian Michael Holt recently examined in the Crystal Ball.

However, it’s just as possible, maybe probable, that the party would repair itself by 2020. Four years after the Goldwater debacle, the Republicans elected a president. Four years after the McGovern disaster, the Democrats elected a president. Odds are, there will be no need for a bugler playing taps for the GOP this time either. Somehow, though, Republicans will have to find ways to heal the deep rifts in their party, while becoming more mainstream and accommodating to this century’s American electorate. It will take far more than another “autopsy report” like the one in 2013 to accomplish this.

His prediction is basically an elaboration on the prevailing wisdom. If the prevailing wisdom holds, Clinton is probably not defeatable, at least not by this Republican Party. But this has proven to be a surprising primary season, the prevailing wisdom might not hold, and nobody really has any idea of what will happen.

By which I don’t mean to say that Clinton cannot win. What I’m saying is that if there’s a real political seachange in the making, nobody knows what will happen.

15 comments… add one
  • steve Link

    Bah. If Trump loses to Clinton, not a given I think, the GOP will just double down. It will be because they did not run a true conservative.

    Steve

  • Modulo Myself Link

    I don’t see anything but Clinton winning. I don’t even see Trump as the nominee now. He’s become repetitive and dull. This is not surprising–he’s unconventional only in that his base seems to be antisocial and very unaware of what actual unconventional people are like.

  • michael reynolds Link

    MM is right. Show is about over. The ratings are dropping. There’s a little boy pointing at The Donald yelling, “But he has no clothes!” The man is a pig, and that fact is now painfully clear.

    He is also, as I’ve been saying from the start, a psychopath but not a smart one. He went with his instincts on the abortion answer because 1) He knows fuck-all about anything, and 2) He’s too stupid to know he should prepare, at least a little.

    The man is actually dumber than W. In fact, I’ll renew my bet that he’s dyslexic and suffers from ADD and is barely literate. Speculation, absolutely, and I doubt we’ll ever know, but that’s the only possible rationale for his otherwise simply idiotic lack of preparation.

    He is 50 points underwater with women. But he’s also under water with men. And no, he has no secret Latino or black support.

    The only thing that can save Trump now is an ISIS attack in the US, or an indictment from the FBI. And that’s if he gets past Cruz and the sleazeballs of the GOP establishment.

    My concern now is that the GOP convention will find a way to give it to Ryan. He would be more formidable than any of the buffoons the GOP used to refer to as their deep, talented bench. (Some depth. Some talent.) Cruz would be my favorite – he’s both repellant and extreme, and Hillary would annihilate him 55/45.

    And finally we could be done with Republicans babbling about needing a “true conservative.” Cruz is without doubt a true conservative. He’s a creep, but you can’t say he doesn’t have beliefs – unlike Trump.

  • Andy Link

    Well folks, the eggs aren’t counted yet. I won’t start making predictions until there are two major party candidates that have secured their respective nominations.

  • CStanley Link

    I’m hoping this is wrong but barring a Clinton indictment I suspect it’s correct. Looking at the 2012 map, the GOP would have to take Fl back (assuming multiple other blue states don’t flip.) And I assume Hillary will take FL so that’s that.

  • michael reynolds Link

    So far Hillary has racked up 1 million more actual votes than Trump, 2 million more than Bernie. Just sayin’.

    I’d suggest you boys consider the fact that women are 51% of the population, and 53% of the vote. They run this country if they want to. And all the stuff men think is politically irrelevant is real damn relevant to that 53%.

    Barring a major terrorist attack or the Feebs, Hillary will beat Trump or Cruz. She’d have trouble with Kasich or Ryan, no question. But barring an immaculate conception leading to the delivery of the Ryan child in a Cleveland manger, she’s got this.

  • michael reynolds Link

    From a 2015 poll:

    Q. “How common do you think gender-based bias is in the workplace?”

    Very common: Women 35% Men 18%.
    Not very common: Women 13% Men 35%

    “Do you think most men:

    Q. Consider women their equals in the workplace: Women 21% Men 43%

    Which adds up to men being in a serious state of either denial or condescension. But hey, what would the little woman know about such things, they know about make-up and cookin’ casseroles, right?

    It’s the same disconnect as we see on race. People don’t see what they don’t want to see, particularly when they profit by remaining clueless.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/huffpost-makers-women-workplace-survey_us_56462843e4b08cda348898de?ir=Women&section=women&utm_hp_ref=women

  • jan Link

    With all your great Clinton predictions, while slamming the GOP candidates, you must be in your happy place, Michael.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Jan:

    Well, I’ve been saying for years and years that voters are all about their emotions, that they don’t actually give a rat’s ass about half the things they claimed were of vital importance, and now who is proving me right? Republican voters!

    I’ve said for years that the Republican party was cynically manipulating and using the so-called “base” and now, guess who agrees with me? The base!

    I said the Tea Party was b.s., that they were nothing but old, angry white people scared of change and in the end they’d care more about abortion and same sex marriage – because those are ways for them to lash out against change – than any nonsense about balanced budgets. Right again.

    I’ve been saying that Trump is a great psychopath, but nevertheless, kinda dumb. That fact is slowly percolating through the electorate, but after his amazing abortion implosion the public will get it. Finally.

    I’ve said that Obamacare would force even the craziest of Republicans to concede that the US government has to deal with health care, and guess what? The GOP frontrunner identifies health care as the second most important job of the federal government. Health care and. . . wait for it. . . education!

    I said the supposedly strong GOP field was no such thing, and guess who proved me right? Republican voters!

    And I said that we (Democrats) had this thing, that we might actually be able to bury the GOP, so long as we didn’t do something stupid like turning Muslim immigration into a party shibboleth. And, barring an ISIS event, we do have this, and even Republicans are now awake to the danger to their party. And I correctly identified the single biggest threat to Hillary, though hopefully we will never get that proof. (In addition to correctly predicting that Europe would walk back its commitment on immigration and refugees.)

    I’ve also been wrong on some things. I thought Putin was walking into a quagmire in Syria, but he seems to have danced away relatively unbloodied.

    But basically I’ve been calling bullshit on the entire phony, nasty, racist, sexist, bigoted, brain-dead edifice of the GOP, and this year has been my vindication. Thank you, Donald Trump who just might use nuclear weapons in Europe, and wants a nuclear arms race between China, Japan and South Korea, and who might arrest women for getting an abortion (but not the men involved, heaven forfend!), and thinks wages are actually too high. Thank you, Donald – if only I had bet some real money.

    But if it makes you feel better, I’ve also been saying that with the passage of SSM, the Democrats are running out of people to “liberate”and would need a new focus because we are out of steam. Also our indifference to managing immigration is unsustainable, we have been sneering at and otherwise ignoring the white working class, and if we don’t manage to stick a gag in the mouths of the Campus Left they’ll find a way to screw us, because they’re obnoxious idiots.

    So, I’m feeling correct, but not happy, because I don’t think anyone who loves this country is thrilled to see a soulless Mussolini-wannabe on a national ticket, nor do I think we can point to Hillary and say, “She’s the future!” with a straight face. It’s pathetic that we’re down to this. We should be ashamed as a country. It’s a much bigger downhill slide from Lincoln to Trump, but the slope from FDR to Hillary is pretty steep, too.

  • jan Link

    Michael,

    I gather from your ensuing comments that instead of a happy place, you are somewhere between sadness and bliss.

    As much as you delight, though, in dividing people into stark categories — republicans “bad,” democrats “better” — people have a way of disproving such harsh generalities and predictive analysis. This might especially be the case in 2016, since republicans, democrats, independents are kind of sidelining their party affiliations and becoming more like “free range” protesters and voters.

  • jan Link

    I’ve been saying that Trump is a great psychopath, but nevertheless, kinda dumb. That fact is slowly percolating through the electorate, but after his amazing abortion implosion the public will get it. Finally.

    I know the “woman card” has been an ace in the hole for dems — much like Blacks have been. All you have to do is bring out a “reproductive rights” slight from the right, and a major slug of women will respond in a knee-jerk fashion, claiming their rights are being imperiled. Another juggernaut is employment, and dragging out statistics that oftentimes are slanted or misrepresenting a given circumstance of their job criteria. But, these are ignored for the greater good of making women’s issues available to the puppeteers of NOW and their associates in the democrat party.

    I remember how the dems literally dismembered Romney for his “binders full of women” comment. It could not be assuaged by the actual numbers of women he hired, or the testimonials from women in his employ as to the decorum and respect in which he related to them. Nope, it was a done deal. He was finished!

    I see Trump’s unrehearsed faux pas being treated in the same, successful partisan manner. “Oh my God, what a rude fascist, republican pig this man is!” Nonetheless, his employment of women is pretty impressive, including having a daughter at the reins of his corporate empire. But, this will not penetrate the skulls of those indoctrinated to believe what they are told. So, Michael, I think you are right that this comment will probably have a devastating effect on Mr.. Trump’s bid for the nomination.

    However, what I find really disturbing about Trump’s latest “woman” remark is how easily crude discourse can still be exploited. IMO, such incidents and outcomes reflect badly on women themselves, in that apparently they haven’t reached the stage of self-confidence and self worth to see through these political scams and the patronizing way NOW and the dems repeatedly use them for their own purposes, keeping their own power in full employment.

    BTW, if left alone, Trump could implode under the weight and misgivings of his own persona and underdeveloped ideas, without the additional disparaging help from elite republicans or dems. But, this will not happen, and the feisty support Trump now enjoys will only increase as all the hysterical attempts to stop him mounts.

  • steve Link

    jan- “I see Trump’s unrehearsed faux pas being treated in the same, successful partisan manner. ”

    This was a great, big, easy, softball question. We have been involved at our local high school with speech and debate for years. None, as in zero, of our kids would flub that question so poorly. It is one thing to commit a faux pas on a difficult, unanticipated question. On something that easily anticipated? No way. That just demonstrated, again, how poorly prepared the guy is. He just shoots from the hip. If he screws it up he says he never said it, claims it was a gotcha question, the press is out to get him, and issues a “clarification”. I really don’t expect him to know the capital of Bulgaria or the name of Frances defense minister, but how the heck do you make it to over 60 while living in New York and, presumably, occasionally reading a newspaper (or something) and not know the correct answer on this?

    Steve

  • jan Link

    Steve, no argument about trump’s lack of preparation. He is an off the cuff kind of guy which oftentimes works against him. My remark, though, was aimed at how women seem to have so little immunity to hearing stupid rhetoric, becoming instantly aggrieved over relatively inane slights.

  • michael reynolds Link

    Jan:

    It’s not just ‘stupid rhetoric,’ the GOP is actively, and with some success, making it impossible for women to exercise their constitutional right to an abortion. That’s not ‘rhetoric’ it’s legislation that particularly targets poor women and women of color.

    So, no, Jan, women aren’t stupid. In fact, they are very clear-eyed. It’s you who is out of touch.

    And what Trump really did was commit the unforgivable sin of blurting out the truth. Of course outlawing abortion would result in penalizing women. Duh. But the pro-life movement understands that if they are honest, even for a moment, they will lose support. So what they objected to was Trump letting the cat out of the bag and that’s why he was condemned from both sides – both from the people who want women to be free, and from the people who want women reduced again to second-class status.

  • jan Link

    Michael, I never said that women were stupid, only that Trump’s comments were. Women, however, should be more resilient in taking such remarks with a grain of salt rather than getting hysterical over them. Women’s power in this county, savvy in exercising & implementing their rights is secure. And the fragility of a woman’s status implied by you is rather condescending.

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