Right up front, I want to provide the caveat that I don’t think presidential polls, even state rather than national ones, amount to a hill of beans this early in the process. Having said that, let’s take a look at what it would mean for the Electoral College if the latest Quinnipiac polls out of Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania are correct.
The polls show Clinton with a clear lead in Florida (47%-39%), but locked in ties in Ohio (40%-40%) and Pennsylvania (42%-41%).
So, let’s say that Florida is solidly blue at this point but suddenly Pennsylvania is winnable for Trump. Or, to be more precise, let’s look at what it would mean if Trump lost Florida but won in both Ohio and Pennsylvania.
For starters, Obama won in 2012 with 332 Electoral College votes to Mitt Romney’s 206. If we keep everything the same and award Ohio and Pennsylvania to Trump, the result is 294-244.
So, winning Ohio and Pennsylvania is a good start, but without Florida being a possibility, it’s hard to get from 244 to the 270 votes needed to win.
Let’s give Trump Virginia. That get’s him to a 257-281 deficit. New Hampshire gets him to 261-277.
I don’t feel like I can give Trump Iowa based on his poor performance there in the caucuses, but even if I did, he would still lose 267-271. At this point, I am out of states. I can’t see Trump doing well in Nevada or Colorado. He seems terribly weak in Wisconsin. The only remaining state out there that is theoretically ripe for Trump is Michigan.
So, if Trump can win Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia and New Hampshire and Michigan (but not Iowa). That gets him a 277-261 victory. In fact, in this scenario Trump doesn’t even need New Hampshire.
And that seems like his only path.
And it assumes that he won’t lose Arizona or North Carolina or Indiana or Georgia, or any other states that were carried by Romney. But, of course, John McCain lost North Carolina and Indiana to Obama, and Georgia and Arizona are going to be hotly contested this time around.
If Quinnipiac is correct and Florida isn’t even a swing state this time around, the path to Republican victory is very, very narrow. But it is at least discernible. Trump will need to go after Pennsylvania and Michigan with everything he’s got.
Do not automatically discount New York, Booman. Or New Jersey.
I have been unpleasantly shocked by what I have seen and heard in the suburbs outside of NYC regarding Trump. I think he’ll take Long Island, quite possibly Westchester and most certainly New York State above about 60 miles north of NYC. I also think that he will take rural New Jersey and also suburban New Jersey. I would not in he least bit be surprised if he took the parts of Queens that identify with Long Island rather than NYC, and I’m sure that he’ll take some significantly large parts of Brooklyn and all of Staten Island.
And that’s all before any of the myriad pieces of baggage orbiting around HRC’s head decide to come in for a bumpy landing.
You’re right…polls mean nothing now. But get out in the hustings and look around. The white population is up in arms, Booman, and I don’t mean just the militia people. Not by a long shot.
AG
Arthur, you know who thinks Trump can take New York?
No one.
I’ll eat a “Make America Great Again” hat if Trump wins New York.
Angry white people from Long Island (and upstate) are not going to be enough to win the state.
Yeah, and that’s what I find frustrating about Arthur’s comments: he’s completely uninterested in anything resembling facts of evidence.
The last time a Republican presidential nominee was Reagan in 1984. The most recent Democratic margins of victories were 28.1%, 29.7%, 28.1%, 24.7%, and 30.3%.
There is no way Trump wins New York. None.
The ONLY way is that Trump drives up turnout among the angry white folks to historically unprecedented levels.
But we’d need to see some evidence of that first.
The fact that Arthur’s friends/acquaintances are a bit more pissed off than they were a few years ago doesn’t really means much. He hasn’t even argued, for example, that his non-voting friends are now so pissed off that they’re going to start voting.
So I can’t be sure his anecdote, even if accurate, supports his conclusion.
Precisely.
If a few of HRC’s chickens come home to roost before the election and/or Trump digs deeply enough into her nasty side that it pops out in a debate or two?
No telling what will happen.
What I am saying…and have been saying all along…is this:
Misinformation/disinformation/public relations/attempted trance-media hypnosis, call it what you will. It simply isn’t true.
You want HRC to win? Seriously take down Trump. Not with banter and bullshit, but by facts!!!
Connect the dots to his crooked deals and stay on topic. Cheap gossip like the stuff I illustrated above from Google News? Useless. Worse than useless, really. He thrives on that kind of shit. That’s where he lives…in KardashianLand!!!
You gonna take down Kim Kardashian by pointing out that her big butt was surgically implanted and her whole shtick is just public relations work ramped up to epic proportions? Of course not. Her fans know all that. They like it!!! Wanna take down the WWF by pointing that it is a pre-scripted farce? Won’t work. It’s old news to the millions who like it. But show that Kardashian is in reality a double agent for some hated enemy or Vince McMahon is a serial baby killer (not that I am suggesting that either idea is remotely true) and you win. Otherwise? Better to shut up than stoke the fires of ersatz celebrityship.
Same same with Trump.
Bet on it.
AG
And how long until “Bet on it” becomes “Wait”?
You’re like a bipolar manic depressive, except that it’s not your mood that ping-pongs, it’s your degree of certitude.
I am “certain”” of nothing…nothing except the various permutations and combinations of the following statement, the latest in a long line that stretches back to the Old Testament and beyond:
Of that I am quitecertain.
AG
Thanks, Martin — this is interesting. I know your focus is on Trump’s path to the presidency, but do you think there’s the slightest chance Trump could take PA?
I don’t. They elected a Democratic governor in the 2014 Republican landslide and haven’t gone red in a presidential election since 1988.
Some non-trivial number of suburban Republicans will vote for Hillary, and that will more than counteract the Pennsyltucky factor.
PPP has pretty different numbers for Florida.
I don’t come close to buying the hype frond Arizona or Georgia.
Right now the electoral college looks like a mix between ’08 and ’12. There isn’t a landslide in the state polling.
IF Trump wins Ohio and Pennsylvania, and you give Florida to Clinton, you get 256-244 with the following left. On that map there are 7 ways for Clinton to win, and 4 for Trump and 1 tie.
Virginia (which looks good for Clinton)
NH – which is close
Iowa – last poll had Clinton up +3
CO – not a good place in 2014 and Obama does not poll well there
NV – you would think that leans Clinton
So given that mix it is hard to see how Trump wins, but that is a pretty fricken close map.
Hopefully these numbers (and the PPP numbers which were similar) are wrong.
Obama won Colorado by 5.4% in 2012 and 9% in 2008. Latinos are over 17% of the population, although less of the electorate.
Those work against Trump.
The problem is a lot of these polls are 40-40 ranges…and Sanders is taking them. They aren’t Trump voters. They’ll stay home or come to Clinton. The only state in this entire primary motivated substantially by Obama-coalition-animus was West Virginia.
PA is fool’s gold for Republicans, and I’m sure you’ll agree with me on that.
The only state Trump has a reasonable shot at is OH. Michigan, Wisconsin, Virginia are not going to be toss-ups, even though there will be a (warranted) focus. The media will pretend that Pennsylvania is a toss-up on their fun little maps, cite polls where Trump is winning by 1 or tied, and the result will be 5+ for the D. Also look to Toomey’s numbers for a proxy. He’s not looking so hot himself.
Agree completely. There’s also the fact that Trump has no campaign in any meaningful sense of the word, will probably raise less than a third of the money he needs, has no GOTV, doesn’t believe in using advanced data, and can’t go a day without stepping on his dick.
PA was only +1 nationally in ’12. I am not so sure.
The VP picks and conventions are going to scramble these numbers – likely get both up to mid-40’s.
I still think its Clinton +10.
But don’t sleep on a slowing economy..
I don’t think you can take Florida off the table based on one poll. Here are current poll averages from RCP:
Pennsylvania Clinton +0.5
Florida Clinton +3.0
Ohio Clinton +2.7
Virginia Clinton +4.0
So Florida and Ohio are about equally close. Clinton was +4 in the most recent poll from Michigan, but that was a month ago.
It’s surprising to me that Pennsylvania is closer than the other states.
Perhaps one way to summarize your analysis is that Clinton wins if she holds either Florida or Pennsylvania.
Moreover, Clinton is +7 in Michigan (according to Pollster).
There are also a lot of “undecided” in the current polling samples, typical for this time of year. Still plenty of variance to consider.
Maybe it’s more of a hunch than an educated opinion at this point, but it was my understanding that Quinnipiac isn’t all that reliable outside of CT.
You could always refer to Sam Wang’s map.
Those maps are based entirely on current polling.
Even if Trump goes +2 nationally, he still loses. Clinton’s meta-margin is 3.7%.
How disturbing: to think that it could even be close.
My thoughts exactly!
What these polls do is give a picture of the past. But they are missing something.
The time right after the primaries is when campaigns (and the media) try to define their opponent. Bush vs Gore, Bush vs Kerry, Obama vs Romney.
That defining is taking place right now, and Trump is getting killed. And it’s the media and not Clinton doing most of the work. Trump is being defined as a lying grifter, only out for his personal benefit.
Everywhere there are stories about Trumps grifting. It’s not just liberal sites like here, it’s EVERYWHERE (except maybe Fox).
By the time the republican convention rolls around the media (and Clinton surrogates) will be looking at everything with a fine tooth comb.
Trump is a crook. An ordinary con man crook. It’s being discussed openly.
He’s dead.
.
Considering the intensity of the unanimous negative publicity against Trump by the MSM, it’s weird to see Clinton leading by only 5 points nationwide (a poll this a.m. that whizzed by).
But I lived through two Nixon elections, so electing someone you dislike and distrust is nothing new for America.
Have you people learned nothing from the unanimously media-supported runup to the Butch II Blood For Oil War in Iraq?
Read my latest post…News Flash!!! Google News Says HRC to Pick Warren As VP!!!.
Look at this screen shot from Google News, 3:50PM EDT, 6/21/16.
When since that Iraq fiasco has the mass media unanimously agreed on anything of true national import!!!
It’s not that Trump is or isn’t a bad idea, it’s that HRC is a bad idea that they are selling you like a gigantic three card monte game!!!
WFTU.
You are being had.
Again.
Sigh…
AG
In what way could/should the story about her speech been reported that would not have led you to the conclusion that it was just a big railroading by the media?
I’m honestly curious as to how you think it could have been impartially and fairly presented?
And when Trump give his big speech he’s promising what would you be looking for in the ensuing reporting to tell you IT had been fairly reported on?
How “fair” do I expect the reporting to be?
I don’t.
There is always a fix in…since at least Bush II. Multiple fixes. For example…Dean was clearly fixed out with his “AAArgh!!!”
thing; Kerry was subsequently fixed is and then Butch II was fixed by vote fraud because the media fix didn’t work…Kerry and Butch II were both assholes. “Tomato cans” as the old fight fixers used to call the designated opponents. Can’t have a money-maker with two tomato cans.
Maybe is a self-fulfilling prophecy, but I do not think so. In a desperate, emergency-style fix like this one? I mean really, both parties are obviously scared shitless of Trump, perhaps for any number of good reasons. I expect totally pro-HRC mass media, and I am getting it. No questions asked. Not really. Not about HRC’s dismal, totally militaristic foreign policy record, not about the sponsorship of her campaign and foundation by .01%-owned, Big Multinational Money, not about her many proven lies, not about a goddamned thing.
They were asked by media earlier:
But now that she is the chosen one running against the Trumpian Anti-Chirst?
Nothing.
Just streams of anti-Trump media.
In less obviously fixed elections one could at least count upon about 1/3rd of the media to be on the losing side right to he very end. Like Romney/Obama. But in an emergency? Remember the Iraq runup? i sat fascinated after news reportt after news report would line up several supposedly ex-military, CIA or State Department hawks and then bring on a disheveled, confused little nun or bespectacled academic to rebut the warhawks’ line. Next newsmedia? Same game. Over and over and over and over again.
What we are seeing now is a modern analogue of that act. We haven’t seen it since that time, and that tells me that there is something truly rotten being hidden here, or at the very least something very dangerous to the survival of the Permanent Government.
So I am pointing it out.
Dassit.
That’s all there is to it.
Think on it and then take it or leave it. In the scope of human history it’s not going to make much difference one way or another.
Except possibly to me.
One mind at a time.
It’s the best that I can do.
Later…
AG
Could it be that Trump is just the juiciest media hit target at the moment due to his own unforced errors and that when/if there’s a lull in easy pop-up fly balls he puts up in the air that the media will turn their attention back to the many real and manufactured “flaws” of HRC? I guess I’m wondering just how powerful the “horse race” imperative (in terms of eyeballs, clicks, advertising dollars, etc) is compared to the “boxing fix” you assert is happening. I guess will see how the media deals with the ebbs and flows of the currents that bring them flotsam and jetsam.
i would bet serious money that a huge majority of the real mass media…Google News, the TV networks, the “newspapers/magazines/news services of record” etc.,the so-called centrist media…will consistently tilt way toward HRC until the final votes are in.
And after? If Trump should win? Unless he makes big-time peace with the controllers…always possible with a negotiator…they will continue to fight him every step of the way.
Why?
Just because he’s an asshole?
It didn’t matter to them that Butch II was an asshole during the runup to the Iraq War, did it? Why? Because he was a weak, dumb asshole who was totally controlled by a
his designated controller Dick CVheney, that’s why. If Trump was to include a Cheney-type in his inner circle…something that he is doing on a lower level with Manafort as campaign controller (a sign to the controllers that he is…malleable…as far as I am concerned)…then maybe the centrist media opposition would calm down. But if he seriously attempted to do even half the things that he has said he is going to do? No way. He would continue to be the most vilified presidential candidate and/or president in recent history. Worse than Goldwater.
That’s my take on it, anyway.
Later,…
AG
Complacency reigns in an era of systematic efforts to disenfranchise African-Americans and Latinos.
Steve Phillips, The Nation: Are Black Voters Invisible to Democrats?
What distinguished 2010 and 2014 from 2008 and 2012?
As much as the establishment spreads the story of the “purer than thou” not showing up, the failures were more fundamental. Minorities did not show up because “Minorities are less motivated to vote in mid-term elections.” or some variation of the same excuse for failing to provide substantial get-out-the-vote efforts in minority precincts and white precincts with a history of election discrimination.
The demographic shift is not an inevitability if the obstacles to voting keep being added to begin to rival Jim Crow voting laws. Or if white vigilante groups can successfully repress the vote with fear. Or white employers shut down the ability of their workers to have time to vote in an era of long lines.
The illusion of inevitability allows the Clinton campaign to continue to this that they can win a cheap victory that will allow them lots of latitude.
A pull no punches article. Not complementary to either party, centrist Dems or POC, imo. As I have posted before, what ARE their asks? Identity politics has its weaknesses if they are captives.
complimentary, I mean.
Scoop: Ivanka convinced GOP mega-donor Bob Mercer to launch PAC for donors who won’t back Trump but loathe Hillary
— Joshua Green (@JoshuaGreen) June 22, 2016