Nate Silver: Clinton Begins The 2016 Campaign, And It’s A Toss-up

[Playinghardball]

There’s already plenty of bad punditry regarding the chances of Hillary Clinton — who officially announced her candidacy on Sunday — to become the 45th president. You can find Democrats boasting about their “blue wall” in the Electoral College and how hard this will make it for any Republican to win. Or Republicans warning that the Democratic Party rarely wins three elections in a row.

Most of this analysis is flimsy. So is the commentary about the ups-and-downs in early swing state polls. And when you see some pundit declaring a minor misstep to be a “game changer,” find someone else to follow on Twitter.

The truth is that a general election win by Clinton — she’s very likely to become the Democratic nominee — is roughly a 50/50 proposition. And we’re not likely to learn a lot over the rest of 2015 to change that. Here’s why:

Incumbency and Obama’s Approval Rating. Start with the fact that there’s no incumbent president running. There actually haven’t been a lot of cases that precisely meet the circumstances voters will face next year: Barack Obama, assuming he serves out the rest of his term, will become just the fifth president limited by the 22nd Amendment from seeking an additional term in office.1 This is slightly different from the case where an incumbent voluntarily declines to run again.2 Still, the evidence we have from presidential elections and from other contexts like gubernatorial elections is that these cases default to being toss-ups.

More here: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/clinton-begins-the-2016-campaign-and-its-a-toss-up/

[onehandle]

1. 'Most of this analysis is flimsy.'

Hey Nate, we know every Republican that will possibly run. Do the numbers.

Or is this just self-promotion?

[leveymg]

2. It's Hillary against herself. That's the tossup.

Are her negatives higher than her positives this week? We'll have to see in 19 months.

[alcibiades_mystery]

3. Shorter Silver: here's a bunch of reasons I have no idea what will happen

Honestly.

[Logical]

4. LOL, yea, because he is terrible at his job! Jesus, whiners. nt

[arely staircase]

5. interesting part

The third factor is a candidate’s ideology as measured on a left-right scale. “Extreme” candidates (like Barry Goldwater) suffer an electoral penalty, while moderate ones (like Dwight Eisenhower) usually perform well.

But nominees like Goldwater (or George McGovern) are rare. So are those like Eisenhower, for that matter. Usually a party nominates a candidate closer to the median of its voters and elected officials.

That’s part of why Clinton is such a safe bet to be the Democratic nominee. Her political positions are essentially those of a “generic Democrat.” She’s neither a true centrist, nor extremely far to the left, so she’s not especially vulnerable to a challenge from either flank of her party.

[JonLP24]

6. This is why I have a hard time buying Christie has a potential nominee

?w=1024

[Warren DeMontague]

7. I don't see it being Christie.

Right now my money is either on Bush, or maybe Walker. Paul is a dark horse, might bag a #2 slot but unlikely to get the GOP apparatus behind him.

We might luck out and get someone like Santorum. That would be big fun.

[okaawhatever]

8. This is a great article. Fantastic explanation of the factors he uses to determine who will win

elections. I hope every DUer gives it a glance. It will inform us as to what we are up against for 2016.