Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:56am

Election Forecast

Hillary and Donald

 

Four years ago I was convinced that Romney was going to win in a landslide so take what follows with a boulder of salt.

We are coming to the end of a very odd campaign.   In Trump and Clinton we have the two most unpopular major party candidates for President in US history.  During the course of the campaign we have had Trump accused of sexual assault by a baker’s dozen of women.  Clinton is currently under renewed criminal investigation for her using non-secure civilian e-mail servers as Secretary of State in order to protect her business of selling access and influence to the highest bidders.  WikiLeaks has revealed various unsavory aspects of the Clinton campaign and Project Veritas has shown the Democrats engaging in plots to incite violence at Trump rallies.  Trump is on audio as praising physical assault as a means of sexual success.  Clinton has jealously guarded her health records although there is demonstrable evidence that she is suffering from some malady.  Her secret paid speeches to Goldman Sachs revealed by Wikileaks underline that she routinely, as a matter of deliberate policy, says one thing in public to the people and another thing in private to the powerful.  I suspect that most Americans would wish to have as little to do personally as possible with either candidate.  In short, it has been a contest between two skunks.

This in part explains why the polls have been all over the place throughout the campaign.  Having said that, the national polls currently tend to show either a dead heat or Clinton with a very slight advantage.  The state polls indicate that Trump may be surging, with the most recent polls showing him ahead in the blue stronghold of New Hampshire, and extremely close in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.  He seems to have beaten off threats in Arizona and Georgia.  Early voting indicates that the black vote may be down from 2008 and 2012 while the Hispanic vote is up.  Overall, the Republicans seem to be holding their own in early voting in most states.

 

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The above are the states I view as currently safe for each side.  This gives Clinton 182 electoral votes to 164 for Trump.

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Next let’s add states that are almost certain to fall to each side:  for Trump, Arizona and Georgia, for Clinton, Minnesota and New Mexico.  This  ties Clinton and Trump at 197 electoral votes each.

 

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Next we have the states where it is close, but there seems to be a clear advantage to one side:  this gives Trump Iowa, Ohio and one electoral vote for Maine 2 (Maine allocates one electoral vote to each of its Congressional districts), with the other three Maine electoral votes to Clinton.  This gives Clinton 200 electoral votes to 216 for Trump.

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Now it gets tricky with true battleground states.  I give Florida, North Carolina and New Hampshire, based on the latest polls, to Trump.  Florida, as usual, will be very close, but with a decrease in the black vote, Trump Democrats, and a large effort by the Cuban community, I think Trump will win.  North Carolina, based on early voting, I think Trump will take it, and probably by a wider margin than that by which Romney took the state in 2012.  Clinton will take Virginia, although recent polls are showing it quite close, and Pennsylvania.  The Democrats who control Philadelphia will manufacture votes if they have to in order to win in the Keystone State.  That gets Clinton up to 233 and Trump up to 264.

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The remaining states are true coin flips.  I give Nevada and Wisconsin to Clinton and Colorado and Michigan to Trump.  Final electoral vote count is 249 for Clinton and 289 for Trump.

Here are some of the assumptions that I have made in coming up with these estimates:

  1. Trump will do about two points better than his current standing in polls due to “shy” Trump voters.
  2. Black turnout will be down around ten percent from 2012.
  3. White turnout will be up around five to ten percent from 2012 and virtually all the increase will be going to Trump.
  4. Trump will take about twenty percent of the black vote and thirty percent of the Hispanic vote.
  5. Overall participation in the election will be down from 2012 by five percent.
  6. Jill Stein, the Green candidate, will keep her two percent of the vote.
  7. The Libertarians will do about three percent at the polls, with the remaining three percent of their support breaking three to two for Trump.
  8. Undecideds will break three to two for Trump.
  9. Greater enthusiasm by the hard core of Trump voters will largely cancel out the Clinton ground advantage.
  10. No major events will occur between today and election day.
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Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 2:57pm

I hope Trump wins as you predict if only to defeat Hillary.

.Anzlyne
.Anzlyne
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 4:43pm

Number 10! – Around here we are still thinking there will be some big event- – maybe not, but a few of my friends expect something from the current administration before it is all over.

Penguins Fan
Penguins Fan
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 6:02pm

The Hildebeast carries Pennsylvania only if they can cook up enough voter fraud in Philadelphia…they have done it in the past. Outside of the city of Pittsburgh, western Pennsylvania is all for Trump. I think Trump takes Nevada despite the sliminess of Harry Reid.

Micha Elyi
Micha Elyi
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 6:44pm

Prep for 2020. When the election is over and Easter week draws near, go door-to-door and ask everyone to participate in weekly worship of God at the place of their choice. And invite them to Sunday Mass.

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 7:02pm

What leads you to predict CO and MI breaking for Trump? I could maybe see MI going red because of lower black turnout in Detroit and the weakening of traditionally Dem Union influence, but I dunno about CO, which seems to be the epitome of a formerly red state turned blue by liberals moving in from elsewhere. What are the odds of a state that fully legalizes pot going for Trump?

Hank
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 8:33pm

Don

I really hope your optimism in justified.

But after 108 years hell froze over, I mean the Cubbies one the Series, Anything is possible.

And a little bit from the Book of Wisdom.

http://eclecticmeanderings.blogspot.com/2016/10/vote-november-first.html

Hank
Saturday, November 5, AD 2016 8:33pm

Opps! won the Series

Michael Dowd
Michael Dowd
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 3:40am

Agree Don. I would only add one thing to your list. Bernie voters: A high percent (25%?) will stay home or vote for an independent.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 8:08am

It appears the stink bomb everyone has been expecting the media / DNC / Clinton camarilla to set off just ‘ere the election may not be forthcoming. George W. Bush’s 1976 DWI charge hit the national media on 3 November 2000, four days before the vote. I’m expecting DJT to come just a wee bit short, with Hillary’s minions stealing at least one state. Virginia, Pennsylvania, Florida, or North Carolina would be my wagers for a that.

Jerry Tidwell
Jerry Tidwell
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 8:54am

Your take seems logical. Perhaps I’m delusional or too much wishful hoping, but my gut says Trump wins easy. Too many little signs. Many more blacks as you mentioned and early voting is much higher than 2012. I just can’t see that enthusiasm being for the queen of darkness … uh ..
HRC.

Philip
Philip
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 11:24am

Saint Theresa of Calcutta, pray for us and for the chance to save babies from abortion.
We ask you to go before the throne of God and beckon Him help for our Nation.
May your words be prophetic; “…no Mrs Clinton, that woman was already aborted.”

Elaine Krewer
Admin
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 1:02pm

Wow, here’s a real blast from the past:

ABC’s coverage of Election Night 1968, featuring a clip in which the announcer (Bill Lawrence?) explains why Illinois was the “state that decided it all” between Hubert Humphrey, George Wallace and Richard Nixon, complete with a breakdown of rural, urban, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and “Negro” votes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxyUvhaBsNY

The announcer also lavishly praises Illinois’ GOP Sen. Everett Dirksen, who had just won reelection (he died less than a year later) for his personality and bipartisanship.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 2:37pm

for his personality and bipartisanship.

That’s fine if you’re talking procedural courtesies. Regarding substantive policy, ‘bipartisanship’ commonly means an insider compact against the public interest (foreign relations excepted).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 3:12pm

Mr. Dirksen was in business with his brothers for about a decade, then in Congress from age 34 to the end of his life (bar two years). That’s one of the longer private sector careers among those in charge of the Senate Republican caucus since Gen. Eisenhower’s retirement. Three caucus leaders (Hugh Scott, Trent Lott, AM McConnell were on public payrolls without interruption from their middle 20s until they were retirement age, Robert Dole had youthful military service and an elongated convalescence from war injuries, but was otherwise on public payrolls (from age 29 to age 73). Scott and Dole were working lawyers in public office, the other three not. McConnell’s spent 33 years and counting on congressional payrolls. The other four spent 36-40 years. Howard Baker had a career of some length practicing law. OTOH, he was the son of a member of Congress as well as being Everett Dirksen’s son-in-law (and it’s a reasonable wager his later years in law practice included a great deal of lobbying, Trent Lott’s second career). William Frist is the one man who had that job who was not steeped in Capitol Hill culture for decades. Do you think this might explain some of our problem?

Steve Phoenix
Steve Phoenix
Sunday, November 6, AD 2016 11:23pm

Yours is by far the best objective analysis I have read.

trackback
Monday, November 7, AD 2016 12:01am

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Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, November 9, AD 2016 2:06am

As of 2:00 am CST, you only got, CO, WI, and PA wrong.
.
I knew you were wrong about CO, but good job otherwise!

Ernst Schreiber
Ernst Schreiber
Wednesday, November 9, AD 2016 2:45am

I’m going to guess that New Hampshire goes for Clinton when it’s all said and done, but overall, you did a bang up job of predicting that the Democrat’s rustbelt firewall would be about as effective as was the great wall of China was as keeping the Genghis Khan and his Mongol Horde at bay.
.
Romney and the Bush Clan and all the other respectable Republican Establishment types hardest hit.
.
I’m looking at you, William Kristol, you pathetic loser.

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