2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumNate: The Bottom Could Fall Out For Trump
On the one hand, the fact that Trumps support was so low to begin with could presumably mitigate the damage to him. If youre only getting 40 percent of the vote, the voters you do have are probably pretty committed to you and Trump has some passionate supporters.
On the other hand, the fact that Trump has only 40 percent of the vote means that the downside for him is awfully far down. What if he doesnt win over any undecideds, and 40 percent turns out to be more of a ceiling than a floor? Trumps unfavorable rating was approaching 60 percent even before the hot mic tape surfaced, which means he was already running into a headwind in terms of picking up additional support. Furthermore, hes targeted a narrow slice of the electorate instead of a majority coalition. He doesnt have much of a ground game to turn out his marginal voters, and, especially if hes losing in the polls, they could decide that it just isnt worth the time to vote.
If Trump gets stuck at 40 percent of the vote, you could wind up with an outcome like Clinton 51 percent, Trump 40 percent, Gary Johnson 7 percent, Jill Stein and others 2 percent, or something of that nature. That is, a double-digit win for Clinton, which could potentially yield somewhere around 400 votes for her in the Electoral College, and make states as exotic as Texas and Alaska competitive.
That outcome might seem far-fetched. But in an election with high uncertainty, it shouldnt be. Even before the hot mic tape, our model gave Clinton a 5 to 6 percentage point lead, and the error in the forecast is roughly symmetric. The polls could move by 5 or 6 points toward Trump, giving him a narrow win, or equally likely, per our model they could move by 5 or 6 points toward Clinton, giving her a double-digit margin. To put it another way, a Clinton landslide is no more far-fetched than a Trump victory and given the events of the past 24 hours, probably less so.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-bottom-could-fall-out-for-trump/
bluestateguy
(44,173 posts)He does that very well. He is, on the other hand, a terrible pundit.
Similar to Chuck Todd.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)gets pissed off at the GOP for not supporting him, and they stay home on election day.
Hekate
(90,714 posts)Major Nikon
(36,827 posts)The problem with gerrymandering is it relies heavily on consistently predictable voting patterns. A landslide for HRC could mean a huge number of districts both local and in the US House going blue. If the states start to flip, the GOP could never recover in any foreseeable future and the GOP will never survive as a regional only party. Their entire network of support could literally collapse completely overnight.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(9,771 posts)Johnny2X2X
(19,069 posts)He is finished and the rest of his campaign is only going to be about what a creep he is.
The media is piling on and there hundreds of creepy stories to go through.