Why this particular chaos is poor for Trump politically

Why this particular Chaos is poor for Trump politically

   This week was supposed to be about why healthcare politics are particularly fraught, and I am definitely going to return to that in the following weeks.

But for now, it is important to zero in on the Chaos that follows the aftermath of the horrific mass shootings now one weekend back as well as the Jeffrey Epstein “Suicide” of this past weekend.  Donald Trump, without being quite there in terms of what he has been able to accomplish, longs for and speaks like an Authoritarian. The goal of the strongman is to provide order and to take the burdens of politics and governance off the shoulders of the populace.   When change seems impossible, the entire thought process of how it might come about begins to shut down.  There is a twisted way in which a dominant leader takes a weight off your shoulders. Your actions now matter less. 

Another regrettably, appealing feature of unbridled leadership is that the power of  The State can be turned on the people in the Nation whom core supporters of the leader don’t like. This has the effect of ending the rule of law, and instead of letting the government pick who is and is not favored.  If you find yourself favored this can feel excellent, and, as importantly, you may cheer evisceration of the rule of law’s tendency to slow down punishment and let people you don’t like to get away with too much.

The application of cruel state power, like the immigration border camps, is perfectly in keeping with authoritarian appeal. However, vigilante violence that is not part of some sort of state-aligned effort is not, particularly when it seems indiscriminate. The El Paso shooting, in particular, goes against what almost everyone in the country wants. Only a tiny fraction of the population actually supports mass shootings at a Wal-Mart as a means of targeting those of Mexican Ancestry.  Even bitter opponents of immigration know that they too might be shopping at Wal-Mart.  Since the shooter cited a lot of Trump’s invasion rhetoric in his statement, it became unfortunately clear that Trumpism was a motivating factor. 

Unleashing vigilantes strongly conveys the sense that Trump is not able to provide order. A high-profile suicide in Federal Custody adds to that sense of chaos. Amazingly enough current conditions mirror Jeb Bush’s key line about Trump --that he is a chaos President.   chaos seems more prominent with each passing day. However, chaos is the opposite of what his electorate has been promised.   The promise of the Authoritarian is order, and random mass shootings and deaths in Federal Custody are the opposite. Trump is trying hard to spin this all, blaming it on his political opponents. This may be one of the best strategies available to him.  But in the end, the inability to crush those opponents is a sign of failure as an Authoritarian.  Uncontrolled Chaos is bad for Trump. 

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Why So Many Candidates:

So, this week begins the Debates in the Democratic primary process (For those of you in greater Boston, I am hosting a watch party. It will be awesome:

 https://www.facebook.com/events/409366673000254/)

But given that my party is on the 2^nd night of the Debates, which will in sum feature 20 candidates, I have been reflecting on the size and nature of the field (remembering that there are another five on the outside looking in, one of whom has already qualified for Round Two).  There are so many candidates that the Democratic National Committee (“DNC”) will have to resort to tie-breaks to keep the participants to 20 and even for me, who knows them all, I find that when trying to list them I often come up one shy.

I expect many of you have noticed a great deal of consternation with the size of the field. It is quite overwhelming to many people, and there is a clear, powerful desire for the number to shrink quickly. The DNC’s rules for the September Debate may well do that.

But the question remains why did so many people get into this race? Rather than look at this through the familiar lens of “gee isn’t it surprising so many people want to be President?” let’s reverse things and look instead at what were the previous barriers that kept people out.

The first and most obvious obstacle to launching and remaining in the race is money and recruiting a sufficient number of donors.  Looking at the Democratic field in say 1992, before the Internet age, Bill Clinton had a total of 152,085 donors give to his 1992 primary campaign.  (In the general election, he took federal matching money, which at the time was considered “enough.”) By contrast, Bernie Sanders had well over a million donors in 2016, and that was in a losing effort. Today’s raw number of available donors, if you include those who have given to any federal Democrat since 2016, has simply exploded.  It may well reach 5,000,000. This matters greatly because when it comes to getting the money needed to fund a campaign, there are just more people to ask. And because there are more potential donors to ask, and who will give, it is possible to keep it going for longer.  In the old-world campaigns would either run out of money or determine they did not have enough to launch in the first place. Now candidates can believe that if they catch fire with some people then the donors will follow. We have seen surges that justify this belief.  Campaigns might well be able to afford to stay in through Iowa and New Hampshire to see if a spark will catch fire. Martin O’Malley who never made a serious dent in support in 2016, still raised almost $ 6,000,000.  In contrast, the general election for Governor in Iowa from the leading candidates only cost a bit under $7,000,000. The point is presidential campaigns can now be sustained through Iowa and likely New Hampshire because of the large amount of money available to be raised. Money is not as limiting as it used to be.

But it’s not just easier money that has produced an expanded Democratic field.  Another big factor that has clearly risen to the fore might be described as the Obama/Trump factor. Although it’s hard to imagine two men more different from each other, they share one key similarity.  Each forced an expansion of our idea about who could serve as President.  No longer can we say that previous prerequisites such as large amounts of time in federal elected office or serving as a governor or as a military leader are essential to landing the nation’s top job.  Even Senators felt they should cross the hurdle of being re-elected before tossing their hat into the presidential ring.  This is true no more, and it is a sea change

Kamala Harris is running for President in her first term as a Senator, as is Cory Booker (he had to win two elections because he won a special election 2013). Even less experience has been gained by Representatives Swalwell and Mouton, and former Representative  O’Rourke. All told those running with fewer than 10 years of federal service, or any serious executive experience at the Governor level makes up nearly half the field. The premium on experience seems almost gone.  Instead, the premium now comes from high name recognition, which almost requires either running for President or being considered for it. Waiting your turn just takes you out of the conversation and does not appear to have benefits.  Now it is true for some candidates, particularly House Members, that they are at risk of giving up their seats. But for most of the rest of field, even a respectable showing puts them better off than they were before (more networks, better name recognition.)  A truly embarrassing showing might leave a candidate worse off than before he or she ran, but this seems the rare case.  Mostly, a run boosts one’s chances of being a credible candidate next time.

 One interesting but unsettled question is whether throwing one’s hat in the ring will also become more essential in the struggle to become the vice-presidential selection.  Presidential nominees have often turned to defeated rivals for their VP choice, as Barack Obama did with Joe Biden, John Kerry did with John Edwards and Ronald Reagan did with George Herbert Walker Bush.  But often the nominee plucks someone who was not a presidential candidate as the first George Bush did with Dan Quayle, George W Bush did with Dick Cheney, Mitt Romney did with Paul Ryan, Walter Mondale did with Geraldine Ferraro and Hillary Clinton did with Tim Kaine.  

Removal of the constraint that financial resources placed on competing in the early states and collapse of the high experience threshold once considered vital have unsurprisingly led to a much larger group of potentially viable candidates (anyone who has raised $2,000,000 for themselves in the past or has something of an idea can run).  As those who care about the future of the Party, we might wish the system presented a different set of incentives. But the incentives that currently exist are those now driving the decisions of so many candidates to join and remain in the hunt.  Some candidates may well be compelled to drop out by September, if they can’t satisfy the more stringent criteria the DNC has announced for the third round of debates. For now, however, we can see why we have as many candidates as we have, and we’ll just have to wait a bit until stark political reality begins to force some candidates to the sidelines. 

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The risk of Howard Schultz.

So, as you all may have seen, former Starbucks CEO and former Democrat, Howard Schultz, is contemplating entering the Presidential race as an Independent candidate.  This is bad news based at best on a willful misreading of the facts. There are lot of reasons why this would be an ill-fated effort. But let’s start with a basic point. It is almost impossible for Schultz to get to a point where he wins.  Every time one of these potential third-party challenges pops up, we are treated to some polling results that suggest Americans have a deep and abiding hunger for an independent candidate. But the 2016 election gives us at least somewhat of a guide to logical problems lurking within this conclusion.

In 2016, both the Democratic and Republican candidates were massively under water on their favorability numbers. According to the exit poll: Hillary Clinton was viewed favorably by 43% of the electorate; Donald Trump by an even lower 38%. Hence the rush to imagine that there is plenty of room for an Independent.  

 But let’s look a bit deeper. 82% of the total electorate expressed a favorable opinion of one or the other of them. This buoyant number had held despite the relentless surge of negative information about both major party candidates.  Only 18% didn’t like either of them. Those voters are vastly different and came to vastly different candidate choices, with 47% backing Trump, 30% backing Clinton and 23% choosing someone else. Opinions on Trump have basically not changed one inch since 2016. 38% had a favorable opinion in 2016; his job approval today sits on 39.8%. There is no evidence for suspecting a dramatic difference between job approval and favorability for Trump at the moment.   Whether it is 38% or 40%, this is not a particularly good number for an incumbent President, but it does appear at least somewhat solid.  While some polls have it lower and some polls have it higher, the general point of the 38%-40% range holds. While in theory some softening is possible, there is no real reason to believe it will fall a lot. Indeed, whatever appeal Schultz might have to those who voted for Trump to avoid what they saw as a worse option in Hillary Clinton, it’s hard to see him making any real inroads with people who like Trump even if their affection is slightly soft. Accordingly, Trump has an excellent chance to receive at least 38% of the vote.

To beat Trump’s expected floor of 38%, Schultz would need to win 63% of the remaining vote, which presumably will be cast by Trump opponents.  This is an exceptionally tall order, since Schultz would be running against a Democratic nominee who will have won in a field of very impressive candidates. The long odds might still dawn on Mr. Schultz, and he may still decide against entering the race. But one of the key problems of his very public consideration of an Independent bid is that it highlights divisions within the opposition to Trump.  In 2016, even the slightest division within the opposition was used by foreign adversaries to help Donald Trump. Heading into 2020, they will be looking for similar opportunities. Howard Schultz presents such a wedge, gift-wrapped and ready to be exploited all over social media. Among the potential Democratic candidates, views range widely from the Democratic Socialism of Bernie Sanders to the hard-nosed business perspective of Michael Bloomberg.  This range could produce a healthy discussion of policy that might ultimately lead to good governing.  However, as we saw during the Affordable Care Act fight and the elections through Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016, policy discussion can quickly become nasty, bitter and fearful.  

For example, many Democratic candidates are embracing Medicare for All. This idea polls very well, until its supporters are pushed into admitting that at least some and maybe many people will lose their private insurance.  Then the numbers plummet.  Such complications inside policy ideas will eventually matter if they are brought to bear skillfully in the campaign. Since Donald Trump has bad numbers, his major goal will be to drag his opponent’s numbers down to where his own numbers are at least close.  Trump needs fear or disdain of his opponent to achieve re-election. However, since he has bad trust numbers, it is hard for him or his campaign to convince people beyond his base of his policy ideas. 

Howard Schultz, however, can do it for them.  Trump will gain enormously if negative information about Democrats is thrust into the public sphere.  Already, Elizabeth Warren and Howard Schultz are feuding. Negative attacks he might launch on her may turn out to be more powerful than what Trump might do. Most elections, unfortunately, are often more about feeling than policy, and voters can easily remember the negative feeling Schultz might evoke about one of his rivals, even if the voter forgets what it was about. More conflict is good for Trump, and a candidate who is not trying to win over primary voters is better positioned to create havoc than one who must court primary voters.  

The Schultz bubble may ultimately burst, but for the moment it represents one of the greatest dangers to all seeking to defeat Trump. A viable Independent candidacy will lower the potential percentage of the vote needed to win. A third candidate would make Trump’s hold on his 38 – 40% much more powerful and important.  And it will reduce the number of votes Trump needs to secure from those who don’t like him. The less defined any one non-Trump alternative is, the better chance that alternative has simply because the idea of “not-Trump” is very popular.  As the non-Trump alternative becomes more fully defined, chances grow that negatives about that candidate will loom larger in the minds of some in the electorate. In short, Schultz has already begun creating the negative language that Trump and others can channel.  Should he launch a bid for the White House, this problem will only get worse. We will find out how serious the problem is as we go, but Schultz is a source of concern.

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An early take on the Democratic field.

            Welcome back to week two of the New Scorecard.  As promised we take our very first look at the Democratic field.   A lot has been going on, even since last week, and it can be hard to keep track of it all.  So this is merely a helpful guide to thinking of candidates in four distinct categories.

Senators (9): So far three Senators have entered the race, Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), Kirsten Gillibrand (New York) and Kamala Harris (California).  We also see campaigns brewing from Senators Cory Booker (New Jersey), Sherrod Brown (Ohio) Amy Klobuchar (Minnesota) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont). We also have two more Senators who are mulling Michael Bennett (Colorado) and Jeff Merkley (Oregon) These 9 Senators seems to be the only ones genuinely considering the race at this point.  Successful Senators need to end up capturing their homes states and doing well in their regions.  Having too many candidates from one’s home region or more than one from home state can devastate their ability to win. This is mostly so far good news for Harris.  She is mostly alone in California, and it is far and away the largest place.  

Current and Former House Members (5) So far two have jumped in: Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (HI 2), who is off a rocky start with just a small, if loyal, following and former Congressman John Delaney (MD 6) who has been running the longest but has so far failed to gain traction. Three others are strongly considering the race: Beto O’Rourke (TX 16), Tim Ryan (OH 13) and Eric Swalwell (CA 15). Of these Beto O’Rourke is clearly the strongest and someone we might well be waiting to hear from. So far the other two would appear to face long odds. 

Executives (8) These are current or former Governors or Mayors. Two are in, Julian Castro former HUD Secretary and mayor of San Antonio, and 37-year-old Peter Buttigieg Mayor of South Bend, Indiana.  Six others are seriously contemplating a run: Michael Bloomberg, billionaire and former Mayor of New York City; Eric Garcetti, Mayor of Los Angeles; John Hickenlooper, former Governor of Colorado; Jay Inslee, Governor of Washington; Mitch Landrieu, former Mayor of New Orleans; and Terry McAuliffe, former Governor of Virginia.  Each and every one of them has at least an interesting story to tell, but part of their problem is that executives can often be less known than Senators because they lack the ability to get press coverage in D.C. The list also includes several former officials, who can face even more difficult challenges because without being able to do something on one’s own, it can be too easy to become lost.  Bloomberg, because of his resources, obviously stands out as an exception, but he has other problems. Whether someone from this lane can seriously compete remains to be seen.

The Vice President and the Rest: This group includes some people running or considering a run to make a point, such as Richard Ojeda, former state Senator from West Virginia, and Andrew Yang an Entrepreneur running on a platform of ideas.  Of course, Joe Biden former Vice President of the United States, looms over the field as someone who because of name recognition and the massive field would doubtless start off as the front runner (when given too many flavors, vanilla seems pretty good). In the absence of Biden, Eric Holder, former Attorney General might still throw his hat in, though he has been quiet for a while. Howard Schultz, former Starbucks CEO, was in the mix though word is rumbling that he may be considering an Independent run instead.

            It is obviously early, but these are four places from which candidates are starting.  Those who are in have an advantage over those who are out, with Biden looming over the field. More to come next week.

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Welcome back to Scorecard Lesson One for the New Year – Remember the Rules

It has undeniably been a rough two years with Donald Trump as President, and, while I have continued a decent amount of blogging in other venues, The Scorecard has regrettably lapsed.  That ends today. You may notice a departure from the relatively non-partisan take adopted in 2016, because, as I look around, I see pundits on both sides of the aisle wishing fervently for Donald Trump to be gone.  However, wanting something and producing evidence that it is likely to happen are different things. So, we will try and be as cold and calculated as possible.

        We begin where the process of choosing President Trump’s opposition is likely to commence, namely the Democratic nominating process and accompanying primaries.  Analysis of who is running, where they are going and why will come later. We start, where everyone should, with getting a handle on the rules.

Rule 1. Winning the Democratic Nomination for President requires winning a majority of the votes from the delegates elected to the convention. If the first ballot does not result in one candidate receiving a majority, voting proceeds to a second ballot and on and on until one candidate wins a majority. We can expect many well-funded candidates from different geographic regions, and there will be opportunity for candidates with even a faint pulse to stay in the race longer because of the internet’s potential for keeping the money flowing.

Rule 2. Delegates are awarded following geographic contests and allocated proportionally according to each candidate’s % of the vote, with a 15% requirement to receive delegates (Subject to two or more candidates reaching the threshold.)  The most important thing to remember is that delegates are allocated proportionally and per contest. Each contest is in fact not a state but the geographic category from which delegates come. In most states this means by congressional district, but some states use different geographic measures, also each state selects two different kinds of statewide delegates. There is the regular selection process for ordinary delegates and a separate selection for VIP types (note these VIP’s are not the same as the superdelegates about whom you will also read).  

The two-bucket approach mostly matters because when doing the math each category is calculated separately. For example, in cases where there are only two candidates, if each bucket has an odd number of delegates, then a mere one vote victory will net the victor a two --delegate margin at the statewide level. Things get more complicated where there are even numbers of delegates.  Where the number of delegates is small, the burden on the winning candidate to get more than an even delegate split is higher.  So in a six delegate unit a four to two split would require the winner to earn a high enough percentage of the vote to be closer to 2/3 than to 50%.  (somewhere above 58%).  But in a ten-delegate unit, in order to gain a 6-4 delegate split, the winner must be closer to 60% than 50% (55% or above).  So the two-bucket approach, which might for example divide 10 statewide delegates into buckets of six and four, will reduce the likelihood that the statewide winner will gain better than an even split.  Virtually none of the pundits follow any of this.  But sharp campaign teams are watching carefully in selecting how to spend resources. 

As one would expect, more votes generally means more delegates, but the way the rules work being strong in some regions can help win more delegates than one earns from equivalent strength in other regions. You can take fewer votes and more delegates depending on the spread.  A large field can also make the delegate division almost automatic. In a contest with four delegates and four candidates who reach viability (15%), each candidate will get one delegate unless one candidate is closer to deserving two than the bottom candidate is to deserving one.  Assuming candidate 4 is exactly at 15%, the top candidate would have to hit 40% or more in order to get a second delegate and deprive the bottom finisher of anything.   This is an incredibly high bar.

Rule 3. Rule 2 decided the winner in the contest between Obama and Clinton in 2008.  All this math might seem boring, but let me repeat that it was the delegate apportionment rules that ultimately swung the Democratic nomination to Obama and not Clinton in 2008.  

If you look at the overall vote totals from 2008, depending on how you count, the race ended with the candidates merely one percentage point apart.  Indeed, there is a plausible argument that Clinton actually received more votes. The bottom line tie between them that most accurately reflected voter preference was broken by Obama’s quite small but nearly insurmountable delegate lead, which ended up being about 160 delegates out of 3200.  It would take a long time to track exactly where each extra delegate came from, but the reality is these little details mattered.  As just one example, on Feb 5^th Obama netted more delegates from Idaho than Hillary did by winning the New Jersey primary.  Obama’s team was better focused on the exact delegate allocation system, and this is a major reason why he won.

Rule 4.   How many candidates are viable matters a lot in each and every contest.  Viability numbers can flip meaningful numbers of delegates.  In a four-delegate district, if four candidates are viable, then the most likely outcome is one delegate for each regardless of who gets more votes.  But if only three hit the threshold then winning the contest will earn the victor an extra delegate. Four viable candidates in a five-delegate district means that the person finishing fourth might earn one delegate and the person fifth be shut out even if the margin between them is a single vote. In the same five-delegate district, the second-place finisher would very much like to push the fourth candidate below the threshold because in most cases (unless the first-place winner wins big) the delegate that would have gone to the fourth-place candidate now goes to the person finishing number two.  In a six-delegate district the math changes again. Now the top two finishers are likely to earn two delegates each with candidates 3 and 4 getting one. If you are near the top, slacking off a little bit to allow candidate # four to beat the threshold might be worth it if you are more concerned with reducing the delegates going to candidate 4. The point of all this, as noted above, is that the smart campaigns will be making countless decisions on tactics relating to delegate totals that will be invisible to the average media consumer and overlooked by all but the best pundits. Have you ever heard anyone on election night explain the difference between winning districts with odd versus even numbers of delegates?

Conclusion:

It’s too soon to tell whether all this complexity will have a meaningful impact in the 2020 contest.  But as we start our survey of the process, charting how many candidates are able to reach the viability threshold and in how many places is exceptionally important.  A candidate who is viable everywhere is a candidate who is in contention, whereas one who is not viable everywhere is more likely to struggle. If three or more candidates are consistently viable, we will enter into somewhat unchartered territory. We were almost there in 2008, but in the end, John Edwards was unable to stay viable. Keep these rules in mind as the process begins. Next time we will examine who’s in, who’s out and where the candidates stack up.

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Why the Clinton Strategy worked in Connecticut but not in the Electoral College.

I am not going to hide my shock at the result. Nor will I attempt to claim I saw it coming when I didn’t. However when it comes to Connecticut, given the national surprise, I feel I fared as well as could be expected. At a basic level, Clinton was in no danger in Connecticut. She won here by more than Kerry in 2004. Where the election day pattern held up better than I could have imagined was in tracking the primary map.

Clinton was able to win 47 out of the 53 towns she won in the primary, including Republican strongholds of Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien, Wilton, Easton, Ridgefield and Newtown. The Greenwich margin was 18%, and she ran stronger than Obama in almost all wealthy towns, but almost exclusively there. Some of the improvements were mind-boggling. Greenwich, Darien, New Canaan and Wilton averaged shifts of more than 30 points.

If this had been the end of the story a Clinton walk would have been in hand, but as big as some of her gains were, her losses were larger. She was pretty well slaughtered across all of rural Connecticut but also had big losses in inner-ring suburbs and small cities.

Romney got 55% or more in only 23 towns. Trump got 55% or more in 41 towns. Romney won about 60; Trump won 88. Trump won some very Democratic places headlined by Enfield, Bristol, Plainville, East Haven, Killingly. 

To make matters worse for Democrats, they also saw small erosions in their urban core, driven primarily by decline in voter turnout. Hartford was down 4%, New Haven was down 5%, Bridgeport was down 8%. Yet the cities still produced over 80% of the landslide here and a ton of votes.

The smaller cities and suburbs were not as forgiving. Margin for Clinton in New Britain was down 11%, Windham dropped 16% , Middletown 11%, Meriden 18%, West Haven 18%, Waterbury 28%, and Norwich was down 18%. These are all warning signs. A Democrat simply should not do better in Greenwich than Norwich.

While this math enabled Clinton to have a comfortable win across the state, this map when played out across the swing states spelled doom. Connecticut is simply more educated and more urban than the country, and that is why we voted how we voted. The Clinton strategy to pick off elite Republicans clearly worked here, but the losses with non-elites everywhere else was fatal.

When we look down ballot, we see improvements for Trump in areas with the targeted races. Democratic bleeding in Meriden and Ansonia cost them two Senate seats in districts where Obama previously hit 60%. Clinton performed nowhere near as strongly. Democrats did not gain any compensating seats in Fairfield County as Democratic challengers were somewhat weak or non-existent. On the House side, Republicans gained by the same regional math with a Trump factor or the national ticket mattering in almost every race, except for Pat Boyd in the 50^th District, who flipped a Republican seat blue despite the Trump wave. Democrats salvaged gains in three of the seats where the Republican wave was strong in 2010, and overall are far weaker.

The Connecticut fault lines matched the national ones in important ways. One interesting thing for Connecticut Democrats is whether Presidential strength will be mirrored down ballot in the gubernatorial election year, or whether shifting interests will bring other forces to the fore. At this point a Republican sweep in 2018 would seem to be the most likely outcome, though predicting has clearly proven harder than we imagined.

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Final Prediction

Top Lines

Clinton electoral vote 333 Trump 205 electoral vote

Senate 51D versus 49R

House R’s 229 versus D’s 206

Clinton States 

Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin, D.C.

Trump States
Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming

Tossup Calls

President,

Ohio, and Georgia (Trump) Arizona, North Carolina, and New Hampshire (Clinton)

Senate New Hampshire (Hassan-D)  Missouri (Blunt – R), North Carolina (Ross- D)

Super Surprise possibility Murphy over Rubio

Another potential shocker -  McMullin takes Utah

Reasoning:

It is fair to say we are more in line with the Upshot and those who believe Clinton is favored. The polling shows Clinton up by a pretty solid median of 4. We also believe that with ground game and early vote analysis, Clinton has more potential polling upside than Trump. The Clinton camp did more work on the mechanics side, and across the board it seems to paying off.  We are inclined toward the view that the electorate will be less white and the Clinton margin will be greater. The chance for Trump’s 2-1  is that his lead with uneducated whites grows even larger.

Alabama 

President Trump

Senator Richard Shelby (R)

House

D's 7

R's  1,2,3,4,5, 6 

Alaska

President Trump

Senator Lisa Murkowski (R)

House

AK AL R 

Arizona

President Clinton  

Senator John McCain (R)

House

D’s  1,3, 7 9

R’s 2,4,5,6,8

Arkansas

President Trump

Senator John Boozman (R)

House 
R’s 1,2,3,4

California

President Clinton

Senator Kamala Harris (D)

House

D’s 2,3,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,24,25,26,27,28,29,30,31,32,33,34,35,36,37,38,40,41,43,46,47,49,51,52,53

R’s 1,4,22,23,39,42,45,48,50

Colorado

President Clinton

Senator Michael Bennet (D)

House

D 1,2,6,7

R, 3,4,5

Connecticut

President Clinton

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D)

House

D’s 1,2,3,4,5

Delaware

President Clinton

House 

D’s AL

D.C.

President Clinton

Florida 

President Clinton

Senator Marco Rubio

House

D’s  5,7,9,10,13,20,21,22,23,24,26

R’ 1,2,3,4,6,8,11,12,14,15,16,17,18,19,25,27

Georgia

President Trump

Senator Johnny Isakson (R) some chance for runoff.

House

D’s 2,4,5,14

R’s  1,,3,6,7,8.9,10,11,12,13

Hawaii

President Clinton

Senator Brian Schatz (D)

House

D’s 1,2

Idaho

President Trump

Senator Michael Crapo (R)

House

R’s 1, 2

Illinois 

President Clinton

Senator Tammy Duckworth

House 

D  1,2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10,17

R 6,11,12,13,14,15,16

Indiana

President Trump

Senator Todd Young (R)

House 

D 1,7

R 2,3,4,5,6,8,9

Iowa

President Trump

Senator Chuck Grassley (R)

House

D’s 2

R 1,3,4

Kansas

President Trump 

Senator Jerry Moran (R)

House

R’s 1,2,3,4

Kentucky

President Trump

Senator Rand Paul (R) 

House

D’s 3

R’s 1,2,4,5,6

Louisiana  

President Trump

Senator Runoff (Likely Campbell (D) V. Kennedy(R), but who knows)

House

D's 2

R's 1,3,4,5,6

Maine

President Clinton

Maine 1 Clinton,

Maine 2  Trump

House

D’s 1

R’s 2   

Maryland

President Clinton

Senator Chris Van Hollen (D)

House

D’s 2,3,4,5,6,7,8

R’s 1

Massachusetts

President Clinton

House 

D’s 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9

Michigan

President Clinton

House 

D’s 5,9,12,13,14

R’s 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,10,11

Minnesota

President Clinton

House

D’s 1,2, 4,5,7

R’s 3,6,8

Mississippi

President Trump

House

D’s 2

R’s 1,3,4

Missouri

President Trump

Senator Roy Blunt (R)

House

D’s 1,5

R’s 2,3,4,6,7,8

Montana

President Trump

House

R’s AL

Nebraska

President Trump

Nebraska 1  Trump

Nebraska 2 Trump

Nebraska 3 Trump

House

D’s 2 

R’s 1,3

Nevada

President Clinton 

Senator Catherine Cortez Masto

House 

D’s 1, 3,4

R’s 2

New Hampshire

President Clinton

Senator Maggie Hassan (D)

House 

D’s 1,2

New Jersey

President Clinton

House

D’s 1,5,6,8,9,10,12

R’s  2,3,4,7, 11, 13

New Mexico

President Clinton

House

D’s 1,3

R’s 2

New York

President Clinton

Senator Chuck Schumer

House

D’s 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,22,25,26

R’s 1,2,11,23,24, 27,

North Carolina 

President Clinton

Senator Deborah Ross (D)

House

D’s 1,4, 12

R’s 2,3,5,6,7,8,9, 10,11,13

North Dakota

President Trump

Senator  John Hoeven

House 

R’s AL

Ohio

President Trump

Senator Rob Portman (R)

House 

D’s 3,9,11,13

R’s 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,12,14,15,16

Oklahoma

President Trump

Senator James Lankford (R)

House

R’s 1,2,3,4,5

Oregon

President Clinton

Senator Ron Wyden (D)

House

D’s 1,3,4,5

R’s 2

Pennsylvania

President Clinton

Senator Katie McGinty (D)

House 

D’s 1,2,8,13,14,17

R’s 3,4,5,6,7,9,10,11,12,15,16,18

Rhode Island 

President Clinton

House

D’s 1,2

South Carolina 

President Trump

Senator Tim Scott (R)

House

D’s 6

R’ 1,2,3,4,5,7

South Dakota

President Trump

Senator John Thune (R)

Tennessee

President Trump

House 

D’s 5,9

R’s 1,2,3,4,6,7,8

Texas

President Trump

House

D’s 9,15,16,18,20,23,28,29,30,33,34,35

R’s 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,17,19,21,22,24,25,26,27,31,32,36

Utah,

President Trump

House 

R’s 1,2,3,4

Vermont

President Clinton

Senator Pat Leahy (D)

House

D’s AL

Virginia

President Clinton

House

D’s 3,4,8,10,11

R’s 1,2,5,6,7,9,

Washington

President Clinton

Senator Patty Murray (D)

House

D’s 1,2,6,7,9,10

R’ 3,4,5,8 

West Virginia

President Trump

House

R’s 1,2,3

Wisconsin

President Clinton 

Senator Russ Feingold  (D)

House

D’s 2,3,4

R’s 1,5,6,7, 8

Wyoming

President Trump 

House

R AL

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Final Polling Update #22 and an apology

This is, of course, the final polling update of the 2016 cycle as tomorrow is election day.We have a small confession to make. We have used RCP averages throughout this entire cycle because frankly the site is easy to use, but that ease has come at a price. As we have watched more carefully we have noticed a minor skewing of their averages.  RCP’s clear inclusion of narrative skewing polls at the state level means that if we continue through another cycle, we will be doing our own average.  With that caveat, here are the numbers. 

                The races looks ever so marginally tighter this week, but that is somewhat deceptive.  Clinton leads by 47.2 to  44.3 down from 48.0 to 44.9 last week. This was basically because pre-Comey 1 and pre-tightening polls were included last week and dropped from average this week. To give you an idea of the stability here are the current polling numbers with + for Clinton and a Minus for Trump,  (+3, +4, +1,+3,+4 +6,+ 4,-5 ,+5,+7,+2,+4, tie).  Obviously, one of these thing is not like the others. If you drop best for polls for each side,  you end up with Clinton by  3.3. The Four-Way Data does almost nothing to change this math.  We should also note that almost all of the differences in these margins come from differences in Non-White, performance or margin.)  Except for the LA- Times outlier, the White margins moved between 12-18 points in polls for which we could find cross-tabs. Clinton did not do much better in the aggregate even when she got within 12 of Trump with Whites. So we stand by our point from yesterday.   This is a close race, but not one where there is much disagreement about the outcome. For a different outcome the polls have to be wrong en masse. 

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Final Early Vote Numbers in (Nevada, Florida, North Carolina,) Trend a Touch Toward Democrats.

                We have nearly final numbers from Early Voting in these three key Battleground states, and things have improved by a decent bit for Democrats, although one state is lagging slightly.

 Nevada:

        The Nevada 2016 early vote electorate looks pretty much identical to the Nevada eearly electorate of 2012. In Swing Washoe County, Democrats actually improved slightly, going from about a 1000 vote deficit to a 1000 vote victory. In Clark County, Democrats cast 73,000 more votes than Republicans. Democrats therefore gained about 4,000 votes of margin in urban Nevada vis a vis 2012 numbers.  This was offset by slightly larger gains for the G.O.P. in the Rural Counties, meaning that Democrats cast 48,000 more votes in 2012 and about 46,000 more votes in 2016.  Obama’s comfortable win in 2012 makes the 2016 margin feel quite safe.  The Senate race does have a bit of sizzle going into the final day but the math for Trump is prohibitively difficult:  not 100%, but close to 95% (If you want to be an expert, read Jon Ralston from Nevada) https://www.ralstonreports.com/

Florida:

       This is where things have gotten much better for Democrats.  From a small early gap which refused to shrink, Florida now have 88,000 more Democrats than Republicans vote. What is more, Democrats hold an even larger 200,000 vote lead amongst voters who have a low propensity to turnout.  Equally important for their chances, turnout among the segment of the electorate that is not affiliated with a party, is much less white than the overall electorate and contains a surprisingly high shares of low propensity voters.  The Hispanics vote is incredible. 450,000 more Hispanics voted in 2016 early vote than in 2012. This means already  nearly more Hispanics have voted in 2016 than voted in 2012.   Every single one of these numbers is good for Democrats. While there have been some fears on African American turnout, African Americans have cast 70,000 more ballots than in 2012. While Florida still figures to be a very close state, and, as we discussed yesterday, margin matters with Non-Whites, overall Florida looks as if it is trending for Clinton. (All of this with the help of https://twitter.com/electionsmith and Steve Schale)

North Carolina:

                The early voting here is where Clinton probably is most disappointed, but not all the news is bad from her perspective.  Point one is that there is basically no doubt that Clinton leads with ballots already cast.   And ballots already cast are equal to 70% of those who voted in 2012.  With that being said the Democratic lead amongst ballots cast has dropped, and more worrisome for Democrats, African Americans have cast roughly 64,000 ballots.  In a state where Democrats need to make up 92,000 votes, that is not excellent. Democrats, did compensate slightly with about 35,000 more other non-white votes, and Urban Millenials are leading the charge amongst those without a party affiliation.

The one thing which is not clear is whether this year’s early vote totals might partly be the result of a change in strategy amongst Democrats and Republicans.  In 2012 Democrats cast tons of these votes early.  66% of Democrats voted early versus 58% for Republicans.  Democrats may simply have chosen this cycle to focus on getting out their voters with a lower likelihood to vote, and Republicans may have begun to get in on pushing all their voters to vote early. In contrast, the Romney strategy in 2012 was to focus on lower propensity voters. Since Democrats still likely won early vote this year, it very much remains to be seen whether turnout patterns have changed. Democrats have more a fighting chance on election day if their total so far is mostly low propensity voters while the Republicans have burnt a lot of their total.  If the 2012 patterns continue, then things for Clinton get more difficult.  If Republicans still have 42% of their vote to go and Democrats only have 33%, Clinton is cooked, if Republicans did more moving there E-day vote to Early, and Democrats focused on low-propensity, then the race could tilt the other way.  Expect a photo finish regardless. 

 Conclusion:

Since Clinton has many paths to win with Nevada, she has to like her position, particularly since Florida looks good for her as well.  We have also seen incredibly high turnout so far, which may bode well for a big total for election day. 

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The difference in the election comes down to turnout and margins amongst non-whites.

When you dig around in the numbers behind the polls, the key variables consistently center on the racial composition of the electorate and margins amongst non-whites.  A great number of people were surprised to see Hillary Clinton spending time in Arizona, and two recent public polls from Arizona each show Donald Trump leading by 5 points there.  However, the key thing here is margin with Latino voters.   The NBC/Marist Poll put the Clinton lead among that group at 40%, whereas a Univision poll just of Hispanics in the state found a larger lead of 49%.  That difference alone is worth 2% overall, potentially taking a 5% lead down to a 3% lead.  If the Latino percentage of the electorate also increased slightly beyond the public poll projections then already that would make the race still a bit closer.  Add in a marginally better Native American vote (which is pretty much all anti-Trump), and Arizona is every bit the battleground as anywhere.  

 In Nevada the effect of Hispanic voters upon poll accuracy can be even bigger. CNN’s poll of Nevada which had Trump up 6 points, had him winning 32% of all non-white voters. In contrast, the Univision sample put Trump’s share with Hispanics at a meager 19%.  Given how poorly Trump is likely to perform with the other major non-white group in the Sliver State (African-Americans), CNN’s prediction is giving Trump a Hispanic share at close to 40%.  The gap between 19% and 40% clearly holds the potential to determine the outcome. 

In poll after poll, nationally and at the state level the difference in anticipated margins almost invariably comes down to how non-white do you anticipate the electorate to be and how do you think the non-white electorate will vote.  When we look, for example, at the Republican polling firm Remington, they find in Pennsylvania a somewhat unprecedented 18% of the African America vote going to Trump.  That would be unusual for a Republican.  Their poll in Florida has 22% of African Americans for Trump and 42% of Hispanics.  And so on and so forth.  Pollsters attempting to survey just African Americans or just Hispanics have produced much different results. The two most robust polls of Hispanics put Clinton’s leads at 60 and 40 points respectively. The only poll that exists of just African Americans finds Clinton leading 90% to 2%. These are big gaps.  There also compositional questions. In Pennsylvania we have seen polls with the electorate being as small as 9% African American when exit polls from the last four elections have put that number at 13%.  A dip might make sense this year, but dropping from 13% to 9% is a lot.   

This is not to say that one answer is automatically right and other is wrong.  But we can safely say that this question does play a haunting role over all of the public polling in this race and may also explain some of the 2012 polling failure, when Obama led by only .7 nationally but ended up winning by 3.9%.  Tomorrow we will tackle the early vote and maybe crank out one more state, before also doing our final predictions. 

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Our Theory of Elections.

As we head into the home stretch, we will be making a prediction as to who we believe will win in every single federal contest just as we did for every single primary contest.  But our basic guiding principle remains the same; past election results are the best guide to future results. If there is a conflict between the polling and the past, the past should be chosen.  Change obviously happens, and it would be foolish to disregard signs of change. However without an incredibly detailed argument as to why the change is occurring it becomes the better part of valor to bet against change.  This is why we did so well in the primary contests.

The 2012 Romney primary contest was won by the Establishment because an utterly unified Establishment confronted what turned out to be the absolute B squad of the Far Right. Even then Romney was constantly pushed and won with way less than 50%. This opened the door for the Far Right in 2016. It was hard to know which of the three right-winger candidates (Cruz,Carson,Trump) would ultimately emerge, but Donald Trump’s two wins in New Hampshire and South Carolina made it almost a fait accompli. 

Likewise, Clinton’s lead with the African American vote, which was never really challenged, made her a lock for the nomination because that is how the Democratic math works.  We learned this convincingly from Obama 2008.  It was also why this blog took Ted Cruz over Donald Trump in Iowa. The candidate of the Christian Right has now won three straight Iowa caucuses and its growing strength was in evidence as far back as 2000. 

Democratic wins in the New Hampshire, Michigan and Virginia Senate races in 2014 push us toward believing those states will stay Blue.  In contrast the agonizing 2014 losses, in Florida’s Governor’s race, and Senate contests in North Carolina and Colorado show just how little difference there was between winning and losing.  The increased turnout expected in a Presidential year could be enough to cause those states to snap back. 

  We also think it is safer to assume states will stay in the rough finish order they were in 2012 except where the evidence is strong enough to strongly warrant alternative conclusions.  Iowa is a great example of such contrary evidence.  In 2014, Republicans gained the open Iowa Senate seat by 8.3%. This was a big flashing red light that things were going badly for Democrats there, and that has mostly been the case this entire year. Iowa isn’t over, but the 2014 result more than any other has moved it out of the states we would expect to get Clinton to 270.

  We will identify other such changes where we see them.  But if you made state by state predictions from 2000 to 2012 and each time you bet that the state would vote for who won it last time, you would have only missed 14 states total in 2004(3), 2008(9) and 2012(2) combined.   In 2006, Democrats won the marquee race in 5 of the states Obama would go on to pick up in 2008, losing in two and not having any in two.  Interestingly it was the two states lacking in marquee races in 2006 which Obama went on to lose in 2012 after having won them in 2008. (Indiana and North Carolina). 

  This brings us at least briefly to a flaw we see in the 538 average. The current 538 average gives Clinton a better chance of winning a Romney won state  (66.7%) than it gives her of winning overall (66.0%).  Yet at the moment, the Clinton camp seems to believe they are competitive in only two Romney states (Arizona, and North Carolina). It is almost impossible for us to imagine a win in either coupled with an overall loss.  Clinton wins North Carolina, but loses Pennsylvania is pretty much the only major path that can be conjured up, and it’s a real long shot.   Winning North Carolina is hardly part of Clinton’s path of least resistance and it would be much easier for her to win on Obama’s clearest path to 270, which was identical in 2008 and 2012, than to snag a Romney state.  We need more evidence  that things are changing dramatically before finding it easier to reverse a 2012 outcome than to produce a repeat of the Obama majority. 

In conclusion, digging into the past was the major reason we out predicted other blogs in the primary. This is our hope as to how we can do better in the general. There are nuggets of truth hiding in the past, or at least that is how we will approach it. 

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