Julia Ioffe has some good quality Republicans-in-disarray porn available at Politico. Speaking of which, based on some pretty consistent polling out of Utah, I think it would be relatively simple for Clinton to ensure that Donald Trump doesn’t get its Electoral College votes. Since it looks like she’s in third place there and that Trump only has a tiny lead over Evan McMullin, all Clinton has to do is send the word out that she wants her supporters to vote for McMullin. If even a small fraction of her voters follow that advice, there’s little chance that Trump can carry Utah. It’s worth thinking about because it would keep Trump from winning even if he carries all the other states that Romney won (except North Carolina) and Trump somehow won Nevada, Iowa, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Of course, without any candidate getting an outright majority of the Electoral College in that scenario, who knows what would happen?
Of course, if it’s true that Clinton is ahead in Alaska then she’d get to 271 even in the above scenario regardless of who won Utah.
Maybe I’ll write about the disarray story today, or maybe it will have to wait for tomorrow.
If you believe Clinton takes Alaska (irrespective of any poll), I got land in SE Louisiana I’d like to talk to you about.
The last three polls out of Alaska have Clinton +4, Trump +1, and Trump +1.
The land has a bridge on it.
Only two polls not three. One of those is Google Consumer Survey, but it’s not the latest which has Trump +1 or +2. The other poll is by an outfit that appears to be unknown. The Google Survey that has Clinton ahead also has 20% undecided or decline to answer.
Google is junk. Survey Monkey and UPI/CPI vote (which are 3 of the last 4 in Alaska) have it Trump +8, Trump + 14 and Trump + 18.
Cranium is a Democratic Pollster. Moore is a GOP pollster, their last poll is over Oct 6, but they have Trump only up 4. Lake is a Democratic pollster.
The last independent phone survey had Trump up 6.
If you are going to cite polls by date, at least get them right…
Well that is McMullin’s stated plan. Win Utah, prevent either from getting enough EC votes. Senate must choose either Pence of Kaine for VP and if the House (with the small faction of Never-Trumpers) cannot choose between Trump or HRC or McMullin, Pence of Kaine become president. That is unacceptable to either side so McMullin becomes a compromise candidate because democrats can’t fathom Trump victory and Republicans can’t fathom a Clinton victory. So they choose him as an alternative to getting screwed or seeing GOP Pence or Dem Kaine become president.
Deep State rules the country openly.
The flaw in that speculative scenario is that UT doesn’t prevent HRC from getting to 270 unless all the potential swing states except NV go for Trump and that has to include both NC and WI for Trump.
It’s not so much a flaw as an extreme longshot. As McMullin explained this is his best option to win. Doens’t make it a good option or even rise to the level of a bad option.
It also assumes a certain outcome of the House state delegations that would each only get a single vote. If it goes to the House, the deciding factor will be the Senate.
If the GOP retains 51 Senate seats, Pence would be selected as the VP. Then the House GOP would simply fail to give any candidate a majority and Pence would become acting President until a candidate obtained a majority in the House which need not ever happen. Or perhaps in 2018 Democrats win a landslide in the House and then HRC would have a majority.
If Dems end up with 51 Senate seats, that only when McMullin could conceivably be considered by the House GOP. And how many of those Trump voters would they hold onto in the next election? They’d go with Trump rather than face those mobs of furious Trump voters.
Undefined is if the Senate ends up 50/50. No provision in the 12th amendment for the outgoing VP to cast the tie-breaking vote. While amusing to contemplate how this country could operate without a POTUS or acting POTUS, the President holds far too much power for any outcome other than chaos to be even remotely realistic.
And if the rules needs interpretation, like in the case of senate tie, the body to turn to is SCOTUS with its eight justices.
But interesting as these scenarios are, it will not happen.
Billmon:
Was wondering what he was smoking as he was tweeting on such a strategy. Relieved when he figured out that it was nuts.
I’m with you here. You don’t concede a state like that. Symbolically it’s all kinds of fucked up, since the Democrats are ostensibly the big tent party. Asking supporters to vote for a guy who doesn’t share their values is a good way to discourage those supporters in future elections.
Thing about Clinton is she just never gives up, and right now she’s in a fight back frame of mind. She wants a controlling moment for this last week. That said, she is a pragmatist so she fight smart.
At the Beast Fest, but of course, North Carolina state House candidates scuffle at local festival
The victim has filed criminal assault charges.
It’s a bad idea for Clinton to talk up McMullin in any way as he provides a haven for ‘sane conservatives’ to show up and vote – and they’ll vote Republican downticket, which are where the important votes are. The chance of Clinton losing personally is still very slim. I think that was the reason McMullin ran in the first place – to pump up the Congressional vote for Republicans, not for a crazy longshot to win the Presidency.
It seems like a good tactical idea, but bad strategy. Comey showed the futility of helping republicans in any way.
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Obama should regret many of his across the aisle maneuvers. The Republican Party of today takes no prisoners.
I agree with the conclusion but not the reasoning. Clinton should quietly disengage in UT and hope McM wins UT, ID and any other deep red states he can – not to throw the election into the House should she not get 270 (she’d lose that way), but to ensure that the current GOP civil war will be as equally balanced as possible after she wins the Electoral College outright.
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the internal conflicts in the GOP – it’s bad – really bad – irreconcilably bad. The Bush-Romney-Kristol-Rubin-Ziegler-Murphy-Nichols wing hates the Trump wing with blood-spitting passion. Check out Nicolle Wallace, Ana Navarro et al. These are hardcore Bush Administration right-wingers who have consistently taken the left-wing argument on everything that’s come up this cycle. They’re awful – Bush/Cheney awful – but they’re closer to us on policy and basic human sensibility than they are to the demonstrable majority of the GOP electorate. We can’t let ourselves snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time (by which I mean 2018/2020). This is a once-in-a-century political opportunity.
Instead of trying to bring Latinos, Asians and young voters back into the fold, as the autopsy recommended, the party has instead kicked women out. And of all the issues that held the former GOP coalition together, abortion is the strongest (and it’s not strong at all with suburban women). All the other issues are hopeless deadlocks – tax breaks for the wealthy, corporate deregulation, trade, military intervention, blatant racism, anti-Semitism, gays, guns & God. The educated GOP is on one side and the Trumpistas are on the other on every one of these issues. Without ranked instant runoff voting, three parties is not viable. They’re putting themselves in a box where dems will have 50% and the two divorced GOP parties (and it’s very generous and simplistic to say only two) splitting the other 50%.
TL;DR – it’s to our advantage to keep the two GOP factions as close as possible to 25%-25% so neither can convince the other that it should be the one to give in.
McM, while a monster once you examine his policies, is an infinitely better politician than any of the 16 that Trump demolished. Did you see his twitter takedown of Trump? McM is the only male candidate capable of successfully baiting and humiliating Trump. I think we’ll get the most mileage out of this with McM leading the “civilized” GOP and Trump (or whoever) leading the deplorable GOP.
Finally, speaking strictly to the 2016 result: McM is on the ballot in a number of battleground states (IA, MN, CO, VA, NM). The more press he gets for leading in UT, the more votes he’ll pick off from Trump in states that would push HRC over the top. Case in point: Iowa, Trump’s best Obama state. If McM decreases Trump’s IA total by a few percentage points, Trump has no path to 270, no matter how much help Comey gives him.
I agree with your final assessment, disagree with your argument.
We are going to hear “she didn’t really win because [fill in the blank] lost it”. Its just another way to delegitimize the next administration.
Screw ’em. I’m not going worry about conniving, cheating, asshats. They’ll kill themselves without help from me. Every single time you try to play games with the opposition you’ll end up worse than before.
Hillary should go balls to the wall and work for the most votes (not ev’s, votes) that she can possibly get. It might be that she won’t be that effective downticket, but it can’t hurt.
Well, she’s got her work cut out for her now. I am ready for this election to be over, but it’s also getting scary. To think everything could tip on the strange behavior of a law enforcement agency should give any of the reckless fools on our side of the aisle, who continue to insist Trump wouldn’t be any different tha Clinton, real pause.
The good news is, my independent but conservative leaning aunt and uncle nailed their ballots this week. Voted for Hillary. Watching football today, my uncle asked me a bit about the emails. Said he didn’t like the situation, but liked Trump a lot less.
She’s going to to be north of 300 EV. That has been baked in from the start. No need to worry about bizarre scenarios and definitely no need to freak out over volatility in noisy polling data.
I wish I could give you more 4’s.
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I tossed in one of my own. Best to keep calm and carry on.
Glad you are so confident.
Looking at the data I am not.
I still think she wins by 8 to 10 – but the data are screaming otherwise.
The data says 3-5, doesn’t it?
That still gets Clinton to 300 E.V. but there’s huge danger in the Senate at this moment.
There is very little data post 10/28. There are 3 national polls that show Clinton +1, +1 and +3.
The thing is there is a world of difference between a 5 point lead and a 3 point lead.
If it is 3 then the election is still in doubt. If it is 5 we are talking margin, not winner.
Right now it looks like it is 2-3. But there have not been enough recent state polls to validate ABC and IBD one was or another.
I am VERY suspicious that it is really that close.
But right now there is no way of knowing.
The state polling released over the weekend is now 4-5 days old.
My own take is that McMullan has a much better chance of beating Trump in Utah than Hillary, with or without her help. The more this becomes the media narrative, the more damage McMullan could also do Trump in other battleground states, particularly Iowa.
After the election Trump will probably seek to monetise his notoriety. I can’t see him hanging around for 2020 or to lead the GOP in the interim, leaving the Trumpistas more or less leaderless. He could help the in 2018 mid terms, but it’s not in his nature to work for others.
So a large part of the GOP will become an even more embittered, listless mess, with all sorts of charlatans seeking to take over part of the action. Without Dem control of Congress, Hillary will be an ineffective President, unless she can shave off enough disillusioned Republicans to manufacture a majority, and that will come at a huge cost in Democratic disillusionment.
If Republicans do win both Houses, they will Impeach Hillary over the emails and we will get President Kaine – equally unable to do much. Probably at least another four years before this fever can break.
The House impeaches, then there is a trial in the Senate.
It takes a two-thirds majority in the Senate to convict and remove a POTUS.
That is not gunna happen.
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Ah – I missed the two thirds majority bit.
Talking about Utah in a 3-5 point national race is the equivalent of talking about a skirmish in a remote location during D-day.
That isn’t where the front is – and in some ways given the recent polling is denial.
I don’t see what the point would be for Clinton.
If she gets 270 electoral votes without Utah, it doesn’t matter if McMullin or Trump wins Utah, Clinton becomes president.
If she doesn’t get 270 electoral votes without Utah, it doesn’t matter if McMullin or Trump wins Utah, Clinton doesn’t become president. (Because the Republicans would dominate the house, and in particular control many small state delegations.)
Though if McMullin wins Utah and neither Trump nor Clinton gets 270 electoral votes we get an immense session of election geekery. But I don’t think Clinton would see it as much of an upside.