General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"Barring a shock to the system, Democrats recapture the presidency"
Presidential Election
by Rachel Bitecofer
In July of 2018, raised eyebrows by predicting some four months before the midterm election that Democrats would pick up 42 seats in the House of Representatives. In hindsight, that may not seem such a bold prediction, but when my forecast was released, election Twitter was still having a robust debate as to whether the Blue Wave would be large enough for Democrats to pick up the 23 seats they needed to take control of the House of Representatives and return the Speakers gavel to Nancy Pelosi
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Barring a shock to the system, Democrats recapture the presidency. The leaking of the Trump campaigns internal polling has somewhat softened the blow of this forecast, as that polling reaffirms what my model already knew: Trumps 2016 path to the White House, which was the political equivalent of getting dealt a Royal Flush in poker, is probably not replicable in 2020 with an agitated Democratic electorate. And that is really bad news for Donald Trump because the Blue Wall of the Midwest was then, and is now, the ONLY viable path for Trump to win the White House.
Why is Trump in so much trouble in the Midwest? First, and probably most important, is the profound misunderstanding by, well, almost everyone, as to how he won Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania in the first place. Ask anyone, and they will describe Trumps 2016 Midwestern triumph as a product of white, working class voters swinging away from the Democrats based on the appeal of Trumps economic populist messaging. Some will point to survey data of disaffected Obama-to-Trump voters and even Sanders-to-Trump voters as evidence that this populist appeal was the decisive factor. And this is sort of true. In Ohio, Trump managed the rare feat of cracking 50%. Elsewhere, that explanation runs into empirical problems when one digs into the data. Start with the numerical fact that Trump won Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan with 47.22%, 48.18%, and 47.5% of the vote, respectively, after five times the normal number in those states cast their ballots for an option other than Trump or Clinton. This, combined with the depressed turnout of African Americans (targeted with suppression materials by the Russians) and left-leaning Independents turned off by Clinton (targeted with defection materials by the Russians) allowed Trump to pull off an improbable victory, one that will be hard to replicate in todays less nitpicky atmosphere. Yet, the media (and the voting public) has turned Trumps 2016 win into a mythic legend of invincibility. The complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president, has been replaced with the terrified electorate of 2020, who are convinced hes the Terminator and cant be stopped. Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is everything.
Trumps second problem is that along with a turnout surge of Democrats that in many states like Virginia is simply larger than the turnout surges of Republicans because of demographics, he is deeply unpopular among Independents because of all the abnormal, norm-breaking and according to the Mueller Report, even illegal things, he does as president. This has left him with an abysmal approval rating averaging just 34.8% in 2019 among independents who largely broke against Republicans in the 2018 midterms as my theory predicted. In a follow-up piece to this forecast, I will show that much of this swing among Independents is actually the product of their own turnout surge, which brought more left-leaning Independents out to the polls by the same negative partisanship mechanisms that moved their partisan counterparts. This is why even the Democrats sharp drift to the left as they chase their partys nomination, following the Republicans down the path of ideological polarization wont have the impact on the vote choice of Independents Republicans are hoping for in 2018.
http://cnu.edu/wasoncenter/2019/07/01-2020-election-forecast/
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)in 2015, Hillary had it in the bag.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Too little objective data provided for it to be anything but.
NewJeffCT
(56,828 posts)People were predicting a competitive race between her and Jeb Bush, with Scott Walker and Marco Rubio as possibilities as well. Trump has just gotten into the race and his comments on Mexicans were panned in the media. She had the Democratic nomination locked up because Sanders didn't really gain momentum until late 2015, but not the general election.
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/jeb-bush-surges-lead-gop-pack-new-2016-poll
maxsolomon
(33,339 posts)August 2020? Early September?
Calculating
(2,955 posts)Let's not get complacent lol.
Me.
(35,454 posts)Reading the article certainly does not urge that
renate
(13,776 posts)But apathy was an easy choice for people who didn't like Trump but also didn't like Hillary enough to bestir themselves to go out and vote, especially because she was totally supposed to win (and did, after all).
This time around, people are pissed and disgusted--not all people, but many. He'll have his base, but that's it. It will feel really really good to vote not just for a Democrat but specifically against the most corrupt president in our lifetimes.
Fiendish Thingy
(15,609 posts)To energize the turnout of young voters and POC.
Safer than nominating a status quo centrist, who would likely suppress turnout for younger voters.
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)Middle of the road is uninspiring. We need to keep the emotional intensity high to win this one.
yonder
(9,665 posts)gratuitous
(82,849 posts)Keep on keeping on.