Larry Sabato et al. point out what should be obvious—that regardless of who the Democratic or Republican presidential nominees are it’s likely to be a competitive race:
It appears that the GOP will have one of the largest, and probably the largest, field of candidates in modern presidential history (while Democrats have one of the smallest). Intense competition can invigorate a party, but the dangers of corrosive factionalism are substantial—and the current Republican Party is faction-ridden.
All that said, some might put a pinkie on the scale for the GOP at this very early moment. Why? Primarily because American politics is cyclical, and our recurrent history makes an argument for turnover at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Running for a third consecutive presidential party term probably does exact a penalty on the incumbent’s party. Dan McLaughlin, writing at the conservative website The Federalist, looked at the 11 elections conducted since the end of the Civil War when there was no incumbent on the ballot and an incumbent had been reelected in the previous election (which is what we’ll have in 2016). He found that the incumbent party lost an average of 6.9 percent of the two-party vote in the next election. So, subtract 6.9 percent from Obama’s 2012 share of 52 percent, and the Republican wins the presidency quite easily—though in today’s polarized America such a significant shift from one election to the next doesn’t seem very likely.
In the post-war period once having elected a president except in the case of presidents who are obviously poorly-suited for the job, e.g. Carter, Americans are predisposed to re-elect him but not predisposed to award the president’s party a third term however qualified the candidate put forward might be.
That doesn’t mean that the Democratic candidate will inevitably lose or the Republican candidate inevitably win. It means that if the Democrats put forward a strong candidate whether the Republicans have a strong or weak candidate it’s likely to be a competitive race and if the Democrats put forward a weak one it could turn into a rout.
Over the next two years I think we’re likely to hear a lot of attempts at defining weak as strong and vice versa but I hope that Democrats don’t kid themselves into believing that whatever candidate they put forward is a shoe-in. It ain’t necessarily so and history suggest it is not so.
The most alarming thing is the number of GOP viables who have not repudiated Bush’s wars. Paul, well kind of, but Rubio no, Walker no, Jeb, certainly not, Cruz even more hawkish, Christie, nope.
It would be even money whether any of these would get the US even more mired in quagmires than Hillary would.
Have you read the piece by John Judis on the Emerging Democratic Majority, where he sort of backtracks from the book’s thesis?
Yes, I’ve read it. When I first read the squibs from the original book, I laughed out loud. Those who believe in a permanent Congressional majority are kidding themselves.