Presidential election, 2016

[pbrower2a]

With the departures of Ted Cruz and John Kasich from the Presidential race, we are down to this:

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump



Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump



30% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 3% or less
40% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 4% or more
60% -- lead with 50-54%
70% -- lead with 55-59%
90% -- lead with 60% or more

White -- tie or  someone leading with less than 40%.

[MillsT_98]

Why do you have Democrats as red and Republicans as blue? Where do you get these maps? Also, do you have a map with no tossups?

[pbrower2a]

(05-07-2016, 12:00 AM)MillsT_98 Wrote: Why do you have Democrats as red and Republicans as blue? Where do you get these maps? Also, do you have a map with no tossups?

The map templates come from Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. I post frequently there, and Leip sticks with the archaic red for Democrats and blue for Republicans as was the norm as late as the 1990s. This is good for discussing elections from before the 21st century.

Here's a blank map (intensity not blanked out) if you want to show the Congressional districts of Maine and Nebraska, but not electoral votes.



Here's one for elections that don't involve individual districts of Maine and Nebraska.



Or Alaska, Hawaii, or DC not voting (elections under the 48-star flag):



Or so that I can be a smart-aleck, the 45-star flag that excludes the States admitted to the Union during the 20th century:




You can clip and paste the map of your choice.

This is good for showing  a map without electoral votes.


http:??uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusmap.php?year=1980&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_p=1&type=calc&AL=0;;6&AK=0;;4&AZ=0;;5&AR=0;;6&CA=0;;6&CO=0;;5&CT=0;;5&DE=0;;5&DC=0;;9&FL=0;;4&GA=0;;5&HI=0;;7&ID=0;;6&IL=0;;5&IN=0;;5&IA=0;;5&KS=0;;5&KY=0;;6&LA=0;;5&MD=0;;6&MA=0;;0;&MI=0;;5&MN=0;;4&MS=0;;5&MO=0;;5&MT=0;;5&NV=0;;5&NH=0;;5&NJ=0;;5&NM=0;;5&NY=0;;6&NC=0;;5&ND=0;;5&OH=0;;5&OK=0;;6&OR=0;;5&PA=0;;5&RI=0;;6&SC=0;;5&SD=0;;5&TN=0;;5&TX=0;;4&UT=0;;7&VT=0;;6&VA=0;;5&WA=0;;5&WV=0;;6&WI=0;;5&WY=0;;6&ME=0;;5&ME1=0;;9&ME2=0;;9&NE=0;;5&NE1=0;1;9&NE2=0;2;9&NE3=0;;6

Remember to replace the question marks with // and add [eye-em-gee] before the map and [/eye-em-gee] at the end to get a map.  


So how do I show color?

Choose the state by its abbreviation (as in CA=0;;6) for California. The first number is for color; the second is typically (but not always!) for the electoral vote; the third is for intensity. The second will in no way affect the color of the state. You could put anything in the second space and the color will not change.

Colors of a state can appear as red (1), typically for Democrats, blue (2), typically for Republicans, green (3) for the strongest third-party or independent, yellow (4) and orange (5) for others. Blank appears as gray (0) This color applies to the first number. Purple or violet is unavailable.

Intensity can range from zero to nine. Zero is blank. "1" is practically white, "2" is very light; "5" is about average, and "9" is very dark. Because whatever appears in the second space is white for red (1), blue (2), or green (3) and black for yellow (4) I suggest using 4; ;1 for the state in question.

Now I am going to show the states across the Canadian border in increasingly-dark shades of blue; Florida in white California, Nevada, and Oregon in increasing shades of green,  with states going northward from Florida appearing in increasingly-dark shades of red,  states going east from Arizona in increasing shades of yellow.  I'm putting Utah in a pale shade of orange and states to its east as far as Missouri in increasing shades of orange. (I dislike the dark shades of orange, so I try to find ways to avoid using those).

This is the text within

http:??uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusmap.php?year=2012&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_p=1&type=calc&AL=4;;7&AK=0;;4&AZ=4;;2&AR=0;;6&CA=3;;3&CO=5;;3&CT=0;;5&DE=0;;5&DC=0;;9&FL=4;;1&GA=2;;2&HI=0;;7&ID=1;;3&IL=0;;5&IN=0;;5&IA=0;;5&KS=5;;4&KY=0;;6&LA=4;;5&MD=2;;6&MA=0;;0;&MI=1;;8&MN=1;;6&MS=4;;6&MO=5;;5&MT=1;;4&NV=3;;5&NH=0;;5&NJ=2;;7&NM=4;;3&NY=2;;8&NC=2;;4&ND=1;;5&OH=1;;9&OK=0;;6&OR=3;;8&PA=2;;7&RI=0;;6&SC=2;;3&SD=0;;5&TN=0;;5&TX=4;;4&UT=5;;2&VT=2;;9&VA=2;;5&WA=1;;2&WV=0;;6&WI=1;;7&WY=0;;6&ME=0;;5&ME1=0;1;9&ME2=0;2;9&NE=0;;5&NE1=0;1;9&NE2=0;2;9&NE3=0;3;6


Remember to replace the question marks with // and add [eye-em-gee] before the map and [/eye-em-gee] at the end to get a map.

...and the resulting map:







No toss-ups? It's too early for that.

---

Here's a blank map with electoral votes attached:




which comes from this:

http:??uselectionatlas.org/TOOLS/genusmap.php?year=2012&ev_c=1&pv_p=1&ev_p=1&type=calc&AL=0;9;6&AK=0;3;4&AZ=0;11;5&AR=0;6;6&CA=0;55;6&CO=0;9;5&CT=0;7;5&DE=0;3;5&DC=0;3;9&FL=0;29;4&GA=0;16;5&HI=0;4;7&ID=0;4;6&IL=0;20;5&IN=0;11;5&IA=0;6;5&KS=0;6;5&KY=0;8;6&LA=0;8;5&MD=0;10;6&MA=0;11;6&MI=0;16;5&MN=0;10;4&MS=0;6;5&MO=0;10;5&MT=0;3;5&NV=0;6;5&NH=0;4;5&NJ=0;14;5&NM=0;5;5&NY=0;29;6&NC=0;15;5&ND=0;3;5&OH=0;18;5&OK=0;7;6&OR=0;7;5&PA=0;20;5&RI=0;4;6&SC=0;9;5&SD=0;3;5&TN=0;11;5&TX=0;38;4&UT=0;6;7&VT=0;3;6&VA=0;13;5&WA=0;12;5&WV=0;5;6&WI=0;10;5&WY=0;3;6&ME=0;2;5&ME1=0;1;5&ME2=0;1;5&NE=0;2;5&NE1=0;1;5&NE2=0;1;5&NE3=0;1;6

(again, add image formatting and replace the question marks with rightward slashes).

So why might I not want the electoral votes shown? I have had maps of the states for other things, like the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Here is one stage of the process:

Illinois enacted legislation authorizing SSM in November 2013 to be valid on July 1, 2014 -- but courts rushed the date on which it would become effective into late February for Cook County and such made SSM valid throughout Illinois. Since then (as of December 2, 2004) no state has since enacted SSM through any legislative process, initiative or referendum, or the decision of a State court.

The Ninth District Court invalidated an SSM ban in Oregon on May 19. The federal appeals court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania invalidated the SSM ban of Pennsylvania the next day, and the Governor declined to appeal.     






Numbers apply to the order in which the states legalized or were compelled to accept same-sex marriage.

For clarity -- "12T" applies to both Minnesota (easily visible) and Rhode Island (not so visible) indicating that same-sex marriage became possible on the same day. Coincidentally, the District of Columbia is not a State, but the "56" shows that it legalized same-sex marriage between New Hampshire and New York.

For this one I would definitely not want to show electoral votes!





Legalization from previous years (white)

from legal decisions made that year and valid from that year:

resulting from a state court decision invalidating an SSM ban
resulting from state legislation
resulting from the decision of the DC Council
resulting from a statewide initiative or referendum
resulting from a decision by the US Supreme Court
resulting from a decision by a federal court subsidiary to the US Supreme Court

[Odin]

(05-07-2016, 12:00 AM)MillsT_98 Wrote: Why do you have Democrats as red and Republicans as blue? Where do you get these maps? Also, do you have a map with no tossups?

Before the 2000 election the US generally followed the rest of the world with having the left-wing party as red and the right-wing party as blue.

[MillsT_98]

Thanks pbrower!

[pbrower2a]

Here is how the States and DC aligned in 2012.

---

...Does it bother anyone that the President's median loss was about 19% (average the two Dakotas) and that his median win was just over 12% (average Washington and Oregon)? This country showed extreme division in 2012 -- probably worse than in 2008. He lost states about even worse on the average nationwide for an electoral blowout like Reagan vs. Mondale in 1984 but won with a median margin close to that for Eisenhower in 1952.

I'm not so concerned about the difference of the margins (President Obama won more of them, and except for Tennessee he did not lose those so badly) as I am by their size.

Unless such has valid excuses (it is race, it was the smear campaign of the Right, President Obama won a campaign necessary for winning but not good for building trust) we are still deep in the woods with packs of hungry feral dogs.

---

Donald Trump would absolutely crush Hillary Clinton in West Virginia. So what is wrong (or more charitably, uncharacteristic for America) about West Virginia? It does not have a heritage of slavery or Jim Crow.

West Virginia, despite its bucolic image, was very much a land of mining and heavy industry. That meant unions heavily active in politics.

West Virginia has problems.

http://www.measureofamerica.org/docs/MOA...-FINAL.pdf

Do you want to live well and prosper? (Pardon the Star Trek reference) West Virginia is not the place to be. (Mixed reference to The Beverly Hillbillies and The Real McCoys. Jed Clampett and Amos McCoy are hick patriarchs who have moved from Tennessee and West Virginia, respectively, to California).

You may have seen this in Is Connecticut the Best State to Live?

T H E M E A S U R E O F A M E R I C A 2013 –2014

16
Well-Being Comparisons:
U.S. States
This section presents American Human Development Index scores for
U.S. states and the different racial and ethnic groups within them.
The top-ranking state on the Index is Connecticut. Although Connecticut
residents saw a $1,500 decline in earnings since the last Index, the state
still edged out Massachusetts and New Jersey to retain its number one
spot due to uniformly good outcomes in all three Index areas. Fourth-
place District of Columbia—included in the state-level Index following the
practice of the U.S. Census Bureau—finished strong due to its first-place
ranking in both education and earnings and despite a poor showing in
health. The District has the forty-third lowest life expectancy of all fifty
states, just above Tennessee


Top
ranking states:
1. Connecticut
2. Massachusetts
3. New Jersey
4. District of Columbia
5. Maryland

Bottom
ranking states:

47. Alabama
48. Kentucky
49. West Virginia
50. Arkansas
51. Mississippi

(analysis mine; stats from the source cited).

West Virginia has done badly in formal education, having one of the highest percentages of people without high school diplomas. It doesn't send many kids to college who end up getting a college degree. A graduate degree? West Virginia has little to attract one. (New Mexico has a high percentage of people with less than a college degree, probably largely elderly Mexican-Americans, but it does have a healthy number of people with graduate degree. UC Berkeley set up the Los Alamos Laboratory during WWII for the Manhattan Project). New Mexico isn't that bad.

West Virginia is fairly good at incomes for states near the bottom in Human Development Index (HDI), but such reflects the declining activities of mining and heavy industry. The state failed to invest adequately in public education If one can't get a job in mining or heavy industry, there just isn't much opportunity.

People are more likely to vote Democratic if they are non-white, non-Christian, urban, and well educated. West Virginia is very white, very Christian, rural, and poorly educated. Poor people other than whites tend even more liberal than middle-class people of their ethnic group, but poor white people do not fit that trend. Thus West Virginia has most of the demographics that now favor the Republican Party.

Contrast Virginia, which is 11th in HDI. It has proportionally far fewer people with less than high-school diplomas than West Virginia. One is about twice as likely to have a bachelor's degree if one lives in Virginia than in West Virginia. and more than twice as likely to have a graduate degree. Virginia has an above-average percentage of blacks. The reputations of Pat Robinson and the late Jerry Falwell notwithstanding, Virginia isn't especially fundamentalist-Christian. Virginia has no giant cities, but it does have significant large cities. While Democrats have been hemorrhaging votes in West Virginia they are gaining voters in Virginia. The two states are going opposite way in politics.

But at the least, one might think, West Virginians should benefit greatly from 'white privilege'. After all, blacks, American Indians, and Latinos on the whole fare worse than do whites. If there is such a thing as white privilege, it seems to have passed West Virginia by. HDI for white people in West Virginia is a paltry 3.99... but for American Indians in California it is 4.43; for blacks in Maryland it is 4.99; for Latinos in Virginia it is 5.20. Statistically one is better off being black in Maryland, an American Indian in California, or Latino in Virginia.

West Virginia was long dominated by Democrats in politics. In Presidential politics it gave a majority to Bill Clinton in 1996 -- and that could be the last time for West Virginia to vote for a Democratic nominee for President for a very long time. To be sure, even a state that has demographics that might otherwise favor the other Party (Nebraska and Utah are well-educated and good in most social measures, but contrary to that reality they are very Republican-leaning), a Party that presides over political failure can fall very fast. Northern states that don't do so great (Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio) can put blame on both Parties, so there is little likelihood of one of the Parties getting all the blame. In West Virginia, Democrats held a far larger share of political power far longer as the state's economy faltered and the state under-invested in education, public health, and even roads. Such created opportunities for Republicans to make a swift takeover in political life.

Of course, so did the weakening of the once-powerful labor unions, especially the United Mine Workers. At the same time as the unions lost influence, a coal baron like the damnable Don Blankenship (convicted of crimes related to the safety of mines that had an inordinate number of fatal and crippling accidents) could wax powerful in political life.

...If you will note from the chart above, West Virginia was the fifth-worst state for Barack Obama in 2012. If America were like West Virginia, where President Obama just got a 28% approval rating (recent nationwide approval ratings of him are typically just under 50%, which is very good for a President in his final year of office in a second term), then President Obama would have been living under fear of a military coup.

---

Here is a probabilistic tool for guessing the chance of someone winning or losing the Presidency based on patterns of 2000-2012. It is especially good when

(1) the states are polarized,
(2) the electoral behavior of states is well known, and
(3) there aren't that many close states.

It is irrelevant in a runaway.

Iowa and Nevada, for which I have no recent polls, both put Hillary Clinton at 263 -- which means that any one of Colorado, Florida, Ohio, or Virginia makes her the 45th President. Together? 269. Figuring that each gives her about a 50% chance of  winning the state, and Donald Trump has only about a 6.2% chance of becoming President. Those four states are distant enough that campaigning heavily in all four of them will be time-consuming for travel. The states are different enough that nobody can craft a pitch that wins them all unless it causes states that Democrats rarely lose to go toward Trump. In probability, such is called 'independent events', like coin tosses or rolls of dice. I think that either Iowa or Nevada will quickly go off the table quickly, in which case

So what if the choices aren't 50-50? For Trumps chance of winning take the chance of Hillary Clinton the state in question and subtract the product of those values from 1. That is Trump's chance. Probability for the state going for Clinton is P[sub]C[/sub] for Colorado, P[sub]F[/sub] for Florida, P[sub]O[/sub] for Ohio, and  P[sub]V[/sub] for Virginia.

P[sub]C[/sub]P[sub]F[/sub]P[sub]O[/sub]P[sub]V[/sub] is Donald Trump's chance of winning based upon his chance of winning in each state. Even an 80% chance of winning each state gives him only about a 41% chance of winning the Presidency.

What happens if one state practically goes into the Trump camp (90% chance of winning) and another becomes a high-likelihood Clinton win (10% chance of winning) while the other two remain 50-50 propositions?

We get .90 x .10 x .50 x .50, or
P[sub]C[/sub]P[sub]F[/sub]P[sub]O[/sub]P[sub]V[/sub]= 0.0225

That's 2.25%. Now that is a long-shot.

But what of such states as Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, or North Carolina? She's not winning those unless she is winning Colorado, Florida, Ohio, or Virginia, respectively. The Trump campaign has all but lost if it has an appreciable chance of losing Arizona -- or for that matter, Kansas.  

In 2008 and 2012 Barack Obama's staff did a superb job of playing the numbers game to shred the chances in turn of John McCain and Mitt Romney. I expect much the same with the team of Hillary Clinton, whom I expect to not cast off a successful strategy.

[pbrower2a]

First polling shown here:

Quinippiac, three big states

Florida

Hillary Clinton (D): 43%
Donald Trump ®: 42%

Ohio

Donald Trump ®: 43%
Hillary Clinton (D): 39%

Pennsylvania

Hillary Clinton (D): 43%
Donald Trump ®: 42%



Sanders vs. Trump:

Florida

Sanders (D): 44%
Trump ®: 42%

Ohio

Sanders (D): 43%
Trump ®: 41%

Pennsylvania

Sanders (D): 47%
Trump ®: 41%

https://www.qu.edu/news-and-events/quinn...aseID=2345

Quinippiac seems to get some of the most R-favoring results in polling.

Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump



Bernie Sanders vs. Donald Trump



30% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 3% or less
40% -- lead with 40-49% but a margin of 4% or more
60% -- lead with 50-54%
70% -- lead with 55-59%
90% -- lead with 60% or more

White -- tie or someone leading with less than 40%.

[Kinser79]

Since PBR mentioned the Q poll...I think I'll leave this analysis here.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidenti...t-bad-boy/

--

Quote:The highly respected Quinnipiac Poll tells us something interesting: This presidential race, Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, is neck-and-neck.

Consider the data from the new “Q Poll,” dated May 10: Florida, Clinton 43/Trump 42; Ohio,Trump 43/Clinton 39; Pennsylvania, Clinton 43/Trump 42.

Could it really be that Trump is that close with Clinton? Well, there it is—there are the numbers. We can note that most other polls have Clinton leading by a wider margin, but they are generally national polls; this new “Q Poll” is focused on only three large swing states. And, as we know, in the struggle to win 270 electoral votes, it’s a state-by-state battle.

We might note something else in the Q Poll: Even though Clinton is ahead of Trump in two of the three states, she is well below 50 percent in all of them. And since Clinton, representing, as she does, the Obama administration, is virtually the incumbent, that’s a really bad sign for her. That is, in an election between an incumbent and a challenger, if the incumbent is below 50, then the undecideds typically will break for the challenger. To put it another way, if the incumbent can’t “close the deal,” then, at the last minute, the loose voters will opt for the non-incumbent.

So what’s going on? How could Clinton, backed by all her billions and Brocks, be in such trouble?

Here’s a theory, based on a universal experience of American life: high school. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Life is just a giant version of high school,” and, like most clichés, there’s a lot of truth to it.

We all remember, back in high school, that there was a bad boy, someone known as a troublemaker. Yet at the same time, more often than not, he had a kind of swaggering, alpha-male charisma. C’mon, admit it: You remember him. Maybe that person was you, or maybe instead you were one of the wannabes who wanted to hang with the Big Duck, or maybe you were one of the wallflower-nerds who just gawked from the distance. But you do remember, because you were there—as we all were.

And remember, also back in high school, there was that shrill and priggish teacher who taught Latin or something? You know, the spinsterish schoolmarm who was always telling you to shush, and maybe writing up slips for bad deportment? The one who shouted all the time and had no sense of humor? You might have feared her, maybe respected her, but chances are, you didn’t like her.

Of course, Miss Latin Teacher had her own following in the school; her base was the teacher’s pets—and most high schoolers loathed them. But possibly, plenty of other students figured, well, it’s best to behave and play by the rules—even the dumb rules.

So in our imaginary high school, maybe it’s sort of even: Bad Boy vs. Latin Teacher. And here we are: The Donald vs. Miss Hillary.

But then, if the Latin Teacher is shown to be a hypocrite, or worse, well, her support erodes—and maybe collapses. And that seems to be happening to Clinton: Her dubious ethics over the decades are catching up with her. Today, she is embroiled, of course, in the e-mail issue, and there’s also the looming, dooming, iceberg-like reality of Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, which is soon to be, also, both a graphic novel and a movie.

Sure, Facebook has probably done its best to shield Clinton from any bad news, but nonetheless, the truth is out there—and coming into focus.

Poring through the internals of the new Q poll, The Wall Street Journal’s Neil King tweeted, “Is Hillary honest/trustworthy? FL: 66% no; OH: 69% no PA: 67%; no. What about Trump? FL: 57% no; OH: 58% no; PA: 55% no.”

Reacting to King’s tweet, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza tweeted in response, “If [Trump] wins–or has a chance of winning—it’s about the honest/trustworthy question.”

So as we can see, Trump is mistrusted, but Clinton is mistrusted more. And yet one of them must win this November. Indeed, we are reminded of the the old joke about two guys walking in the woods and coming across a bear, which starts to chase them. The punch line is that one guy says to the other, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!” And that could be the key question of 2016—who is mistrusted more?

Yet we can add that Clinton’s problem is not just that she isn’t trusted, it’s also that she is trusted. That is, if she she wins, she can not only be trusted to be a continuation of Barack Obama; she can also be trusted to implement her own further liberal agenda. As she said in March, touting her Green credentials, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” She later apologized and has promised an unfunded, and unspecified, $30 billion welfare program as a way of making up, but the damage was done.

Moreover, Clinton has, throughout her campaign, chosen to stand with the Obama administration and with business-as-usual. The Washington Post’s David A. Farenthold examined Clinton’s wonky policy platform and drew this unflattering conclusion: “At its heart, this wordy list amounts to a statement of Clinton’s confidence in two things. The status quo. And the federal bureaucracy.”

Stand up for the status quo? And the bureaucrats? For an incumbent, that sounds like a formula for being stuck in the low 40s in the Q Poll.

Continuing, Farenthold wrote, whereas Trump and Sanders “want to overhaul American government,” by contrast, “Clinton mainly wants to tinker with its parts.”

We can observe: At a time when the RealClearPolitics polling average shows that just 26.6 percent of Americans think the country is going in the right direction, while a whopping 65.1 percent think we’re on the wrong track, Clinton’s stand-pat stance would seem to be more suicidal than shrewd.

Finally, there is one slight flaw in this everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-high-school analogy: Trump wasn’t really a bad boy in high school. How do we know? Because he was in military school, at the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson NY. Not only was he a student there—forced to live within the tight discipline of short hair, shined shoes, and creased pants—but in his senior year, he was named a captain of the class. To be sure, Trump was also listed as a “Ladies Man” in his school’s 1964 Yearbook, and we can further allow the possibility that he was, uh, high-spirited in other ways, too. Still, his record in high school is clear: On net, he must have been a good boy, not a bad boy.

A half-century later, Trump is who he is; his sometimes bad-boy-ish life is an open book. Indeed, he has written many books, and in them, we can see that he has mostly fond memories of military school and its shaping influence. And so today, we can judge him, and his works, as we might wish. Trump isn’t perfect, but as we have seen, politics is relative—and the biggest difference for the voters to evaluate is that Trump, unlike Clinton, is no fan of the incumbent status quo.

Meanwhile, Clinton’s life is an open book, too—and that seems to be a bigger problem for her.

And the real campaign is just getting started.

[pbrower2a]

No stranger to questions about his taxes and wealth, former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Wednesday criticized Donald Trump’s decision to withhold his tax returns from the public, calling the move “disqualifying” and speculating that Trump is hiding “a bombshell.”

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, on Tuesday told the Associated Press that he does not plan to release his tax returns — as is tradition for candidates for elected office — because he is being audited.


Romney responded on Facebook, arguing that making tax returns public provides valuable information to voters. He accused Trump of using the audit as a excuse to avoid further scrutiny and suggested that he may be concealing something that could negatively impact his candidacy, an attack Romney first made earlier this year.

“There is only one logical explanation for Mr. Trump’s refusal to release his returns: there is a bombshell in them,” Romney wrote on Wednesday. “Given Mr. Trump’s equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it’s a bombshell of unusual size.”

When he ran for president in 2012, Romney initially hesitated to release his tax returns because of the scrutiny they would bring to his business experience and wealth, but by January of that year, he relented.

Tax experts have called into question Trump’s use of the audit as a reason not to release his tax returns. Trump has claimed that the IRS is examining “four or five years” of his taxes, but the agency typically focuses on three years of taxes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mitt...5741118c70

[pbrower2a]

Percentages taken from Leip's Atlas of US Presidential Elections

Something to remember:

Mondale 1984    40.56
Carter 1980 41.01  
McGovern 1972  37.52
Goldwater 1964 38.47
Stevenson 1956 41.97
Landon 1936  36.54
Hoover 1932 39.65

These are the some of the weakest performances in Presidential campaigns in two-way races in the last 90 years. (Really, Carter barely fits this category because John Anderson got 6.61% of the popular vote). These involve two failed Presidencies and wildly-successful bids for re-election by an incumbent.  

We should remember that any poll that shows Donald Trump at 37% or so puts him at a historic low for a Presidential nominee, near the absolute floor for the Presidency in one of the two-way races.

But there is no incumbent running. Fine. Should the 2016 election remain a two-way race with no significant third-party contender, then this suggests the bare minimum for Donald Trump:

GHW Bush 53.37  Dukakis 45.65

....Anyone who believes that Donald Trump will get less than 45% of the vote in a two-way race fails to recognize the optimum in an open-seat election when the incumbent is seen as highly successful but that the usual partisan fatigue is setting in.  Is Barack Obama as effective a President as Ronald Reagan was? Probably not.

...I posted the preceding material in a forum in Leip's Election Atlas. People there generally dislike discussions of the generational cycle.  Here, such is no problem. I see Barack Obama as a stereotypical "mature Reactive" for which
predecessors include George Washington, John Adams, Grover Cleveland, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower. The mature Reactives in this group were typically in their 60s or near 60 as President. They respected precedent and formality more than they trusted the fickleness of public opinion. They showed little anger and never used the Presidency to seek revenge. This is a good group of Presidents, with Cleveland at worst mediocre (but arguably the best of an unimpressive lot between Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt) and Washington taking the role of Father of his Country for defining what the President and the Presidency are.

Barack Obama fits the pattern very well. If he isn't 60+, then he certainly acts like it without being in the generation now containing all sexagenarians (Boomers). He is no Boomer. He is probably above-average, probably about the 10th-best President that we ever had. He's more like Eisenhower than like Kennedy, though.

If the Republicans had a nominee with the temperament of JFK, then they would have a very good chance of winning in 2016.  You tell me -- do the Republicans have anyone in any way analogous to JFK? No, "city councilman in Dubuque, Iowa" does not count.

I am tempted to believe that this Presidential race is going to be much closer than most of us have recently thought. After eight years of Dwight Eisenhower, Americans were ready for someone much more dynamic. We need remember that Dwight Eisenhower's VP came close to winning the Presidential election in 1960.

So what is relevant this time?

1. The 1960 election involved one of the most telegenic nominees ever (John Kennedy) against one of the most physically ugly men to have ever become President -- Richard M. Nixon.  I am tempted to believe that Nixon lost because he was ugly.

Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton aren't that far apart.

2. Republican governors aren't doing well, on the whole, in swing states.

APPROVAL OF INCUMBENT GOVERNORS




A positive approval rating under 45% is treated as a tie.

blue -- Republican incumbent with positive or neutral approval
20% --  tie (less than 1%) or positive approval under 45%
40% --  approval 45 - 49%
50%  -- approval 50 - 54%
60%  -- approval 55 - 59%
80% -- approval over 60%

green --  Republican incumbent with negative approval

20% --  approval 45 - 49%
40%  -- approval 40 - 44%
50%  -- approval 35 - 39%
80% --  approval under 35%


red --Democratic incumbent with positive or neutral approval
20% --  tie (less than 1%) or positive approval under 45%
40% --  approval 45 - 49%
50%  -- approval 50 - 54%
60%  -- approval 55 - 59%
80% -- approval over 60%

orange --  Democratic incumbent with negative approval

20% --  approval 45 - 49%
40%  -- approval 40 - 44%
50%  -- approval 35 - 39%
80% --  approval under 35%

No governor, governor in transition,  or non-partisan governor -- white.

Positive approval under 45% -- (now treated as if a tie).

The newest poll takes precedence, but no internal polls or polls commissioned by a partisan entity, trade group, or union.
 
 * -- appointed Governor.

This map may be about two months old, as it has been updated very little. But approval of incumbent governors tends to be remarkably stable barring a breaking scandal.  A popular Governor of the same party as the nominee can help that nominee in a swing state. Donald Trump can be thankful that John Kasich is popular in Ohio, and Hillary Clinton can be thankful that the Governor of Virginia is in high regard. Obviously Republican governors of Maryland and Massachusetts are not going to help Donald Trump win either state, and the new Democratic Governor (if popular -- I have no polls) of Louisiana will be of no help to Hillary Clinton in Louisiana.

Any incumbent with an approval of 45% or more at this stage will be no drag upon a Presidential nominee of his Party in a swing state. Hillary Clinton will do fine in Pennsylvania, a state near swing status this year.

So here's how I see the incumbent Governors in swing states help or hurt Trump and Clinton.

States that went for or against President Obama by less than 5% of his national margin (2.5%) in 2012 are:

Wisconsin (+6.7)... unpopular Republican governor hurts Trump
Nevada (+6.6)... no polling, so I can really say nothing
New Hampshire (+5.9%)... popular Democratic governor running for a Senate seat, so probably neutral
Iowa (+5.7)... unpopular Republican governor hurts Trump.
Pennsylvania (+5.1)... popular Democratic governor helps Clinton
Colorado (+4.7)... popular Democratic governor helps Clinton
Virginia (+3.0)... popular Democratic governor helps Clinton

national average Obama 2.5 over Romney in 2012

Ohio (+1.9)... popular Republican governor helps Trump
Florida (+0.6)... unpopular Republican governor hurts Trump
North Carolina (-2.2)... unpopular Republican governor hurts Trump

There are only ten such states. Minnesota is just beyond the threshold for being a swing state based on the 2012 vote, and there the popular Democratic governor would be of help in a pinch -- but if Minnesota is really close this year, then Donald Trump is winning the Presidency. The second-closest loss for Obama in 2012, went for Romney by 8%. Should Georgia be in play, then Hillary Clinton is winning Virginia, North Carolina, and the election.

On the criterion of which states have governors that can help Donald Trump as failing Democrats or successful Republicans -- he might pick up Ohio but still lose Florida... and North Carolina.

3. President Obama isn't a drag on the Democratic Party. A national poll by PPP has his approval rating at 49%, which is good enough to win re-election if he were eligible to run and chose to run for re-election.

[radind]

The Middle Class still losing.

Quote:http://fortune.com/2016/05/11/middle-cla...ign=buffer

… “ the cities where the middle class is struggling are quite diverse, both geographically and economically.”… 

Cities Where the Middle Class Is Disappearing

  Middle Class.pdf (Size: 25.81 KB / Downloads: 4)

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/201...ign=buffer

[Eric the Green]

Interminable analysis of electoral votes continues

My new magic formula for a Democratic win:

The eastern corridor, the western corridor, and the lake states = 270

Eastern corridor: Maine to Virginia (including the somewhat-shaky PA and VA), 125 votes 
Lakes: Illinois and its satellites: MN, WI, MI and somewhat-shaky IA, 62 votes
Western corridor: CA to WA, HI = 78 votes
add Nevada to western corridor = 6 votes = 271

Add New Mexico to western corridor, and subtract IA from Lakes = 270.

Note that Trump's unpopularity with hispanics practically guarantees a Hillary win in Nevada and New Mexico.

[Bronco80]

So, Donald Trump.  He both terrifies and excites me.

What's terrifying is obvious, and it starts with him having access to the nuclear codes.  My #1 fear of Trump is him as Commander-in-Chief running foreign policy.  It continues in that I think Trump would be more interested in appointing sycophantic yes-men in his Cabinet to stroke his massive ego, instead of finding people that are actually qualified to run major federal departments.  Then, of course there's the bigotry.  To be fair, the GOP has been exploiting bigotry ever since the Southern Strategy, but it has at least been in a controlled, calculated manner to benefit the nation's elite.  Trump, on the other hand, is chaotically declaring open season on disadvantaged groups.

So what's the exciting part?  Not only do I think he's going to lose, and lose badly, but I hope that he has irrevocably splintered the Republican political alliances to make them unelectable, at least on the presidential level, and over time hopefully that will filter downticket.  The GOP elites that have running their weak government, pro-corporate agenda have always been small in number, with that agenda being quite unpopular unless it's buttressed by pandering on Southern strategy style wedge issues.  But there was always the risk that the masses would overrun the elites. Trump has masterfully exploited that, and even if he loses in 2016 he's created the blueprint for himself or another Trumpist to do it again in 2020 and beyond.  It's been amusing listening to the #NeverTrumpers--I can sense the desperation that their ideology could very well be exiled to the lost woods of politics.

Putting my Fourth Turning hat on, by the time this turning is over I could easily see the Seventh Party System begin with a new realignment.  How that will turn out, we still have a very long way to go.  But here are my two guesses:
--1) The Democratic Party turns into a dominating centrist party, kind of like the PRI in Mexico, with powerless rump parties on the right and left.  While it would put the Republicans out of power, I don't particularly want a Clinton-style corporatist party running the show.
--2) The Republicans finally get the hint that their increasingly extreme economic agenda, paired with pandering to bigots, is a losing game, and they finally cast out the bigotry and evolve to the point of other center-right parties in the world that understand the value of things like universal health care, paid family leave, higher minimum wages, and the like.  This is my preferred realignment, as it would also push the Democrats further to the left.

Of course, none of this is going to happen unless advice is heeded that I recall Eric harping about frequently: people, especially Millennials, need to get out there and vote, and not just once every four years!  Midterm elections are incredibly important, and that message needs to be made clear on the Democratic side.

[TnT]

What makes me fearful is my being a fan of H.L. Mencken who said,

"No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

[playwrite]

(05-08-2016, 08:33 PM)pbrower2a Wrote: Here is how the States and DC aligned in 2012.

---

538.com has an insightful piece about "tipping states" being more important than "swing states" and identifying Pennsylvania as being perhaps the key tipping state this election.  While appearing to still be solid Blue, PA has actually been trending toward more GOP with the eastern half formerly steel and coal mining unions being replaced by more dog-eat-dog energy fracking; if anything, their coal heritage has them pissed off at Hillary and welcoming Trump's mirage that he actually gives a crap about them.  The PA cities on the other hand, of particular note, Pittsburg are becoming much more diverse and sophisticated and thereby even more Blue - it's' a horse race to see if the 'Kentucky-like' rural areas can offset that.

By the way, VA is solidly Blue; that will be apparent in this election.  Florida will follow in 2020 with Texas, Georgia being the replacement as the battleground states joining Ohio which will remain as the only one of the three major battleground states (OH, FL, VA) from the last two elections

[playwrite]

(05-10-2016, 03:45 PM)Kinser79 Wrote: Since PBR mentioned the Q poll...I think I'll leave this analysis here.

http://www.breitbart.com/2016-presidenti...t-bad-boy/

--

Quote:The highly respected Quinnipiac Poll tells us something interesting: This presidential race, Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump, is neck-and-neck.

Consider the data from the new “Q Poll,” dated May 10: Florida, Clinton 43/Trump 42; Ohio,Trump 43/Clinton 39; Pennsylvania, Clinton 43/Trump 42.

Could it really be that Trump is that close with Clinton? Well, there it is—there are the numbers. We can note that most other polls have Clinton leading by a wider margin, but they are generally national polls; this new “Q Poll” is focused on only three large swing states. And, as we know, in the struggle to win 270 electoral votes, it’s a state-by-state battle.  

We might note something else in the Q Poll: Even though Clinton is ahead of Trump in two of the three states, she is well below 50 percent in all of them. And since Clinton, representing, as she does, the Obama administration, is virtually the incumbent, that’s a really bad sign for her. That is, in an election between an incumbent and a challenger, if the incumbent is below 50, then the undecideds typically will break for the challenger. To put it another way, if the incumbent can’t “close the deal,” then, at the last minute, the loose voters will opt for the non-incumbent.

So what’s going on? How could Clinton, backed by all her billions and Brocks, be in such trouble?  

Here’s a theory, based on a universal experience of American life: high school. We’ve all heard the phrase, “Life is just a giant version of high school,” and, like most clichés, there’s a lot of truth to it.

We all remember, back in high school, that there was a bad boy, someone known as a troublemaker. Yet at the same time, more often than not, he had a kind of swaggering, alpha-male charisma. C’mon, admit it: You remember him. Maybe that person was you, or maybe instead you were one of the wannabes who wanted to hang with the Big Duck, or maybe you were one of the wallflower-nerds who just gawked from the distance. But you do remember, because you were there—as we all were.

And remember, also back in high school, there was that shrill and priggish teacher who taught Latin or something? You know, the spinsterish schoolmarm who was always telling you to shush, and maybe writing up slips for bad deportment? The one who shouted all the time and had no sense of humor? You might have feared her, maybe respected her, but chances are, you didn’t like her.  

Of course, Miss Latin Teacher had her own following in the school; her base was the teacher’s pets—and most high schoolers loathed them. But possibly, plenty of other students figured, well, it’s best to behave and play by the rules—even the dumb rules.

So in our imaginary high school, maybe it’s sort of even: Bad Boy vs. Latin Teacher. And here we are: The Donald vs. Miss Hillary.  

But then, if the Latin Teacher is shown to be a hypocrite, or worse, well, her support erodes—and maybe collapses. And that seems to be happening to Clinton: Her dubious ethics over the decades are catching up with her. Today, she is embroiled, of course, in the e-mail issue, and there’s also the looming, dooming, iceberg-like reality of Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash: The Untold Story of How and Why Foreign Governments and Businesses Helped Make Bill and Hillary Rich, which is soon to be, also, both a graphic novel and a movie.  

Sure, Facebook has probably done its best to shield Clinton from any bad news, but nonetheless, the truth is out there—and coming into focus.  

Poring through the internals of the new Q poll, The Wall Street Journal’s Neil King tweeted, “Is Hillary honest/trustworthy? FL: 66% no; OH: 69% no PA: 67%; no. What about Trump? FL: 57% no; OH: 58% no; PA: 55% no.”

Reacting to King’s tweet, The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza tweeted in response, “If [Trump] wins–or has a chance of winning—it’s about the honest/trustworthy question.”

So as we can see, Trump is mistrusted, but Clinton is mistrusted more. And yet one of them must win this November. Indeed, we are reminded of the the old joke about two guys walking in the woods and coming across a bear, which starts to chase them. The punch line is that one guy says to the other, “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you!” And that could be the key question of 2016—who is mistrusted more?

Yet we can add that Clinton’s problem is not just that she isn’t trusted, it’s also that she is trusted. That is, if she she wins, she can not only be trusted to be a continuation of Barack Obama; she can also be trusted to implement her own further liberal agenda. As she said in March, touting her Green credentials, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” She later apologized and has promised an unfunded, and unspecified, $30 billion welfare program as a way of making up, but the damage was done.  

Moreover, Clinton has, throughout her campaign, chosen to stand with the Obama administration and with business-as-usual.  The Washington Post’s David A. Farenthold examined Clinton’s wonky policy platform and drew this unflattering conclusion: “At its heart, this wordy list amounts to a statement of Clinton’s confidence in two things. The status quo.  And the federal bureaucracy.”

Stand up for the status quo? And the bureaucrats? For an incumbent, that sounds like a formula for being stuck in the low 40s in the Q Poll.  

Continuing, Farenthold wrote, whereas Trump and Sanders “want to overhaul American government,” by contrast, “Clinton mainly wants to tinker with its parts.”  

We can observe: At a time when the RealClearPolitics polling average shows that just 26.6 percent of Americans think the country is going in the right direction, while a whopping 65.1 percent think we’re on the wrong track, Clinton’s stand-pat stance would seem to be more suicidal than shrewd.

Finally, there is one slight flaw in this everything-I-need-to-know-I-learned-in-high-school analogy: Trump wasn’t really a bad boy in high school. How do we know? Because he was in military school, at the New York Military Academy in Cornwall-on-Hudson NY. Not only was he a student there—forced to live within the tight discipline of short hair, shined shoes, and creased pants—but in his senior year, he was named a captain of the class. To be sure, Trump was also listed as a “Ladies Man” in his school’s 1964 Yearbook, and we can further allow the possibility that he was, uh, high-spirited in other ways, too. Still, his record in high school is clear: On net, he must have been a good boy, not a bad boy.  

A half-century later, Trump is who he is; his sometimes bad-boy-ish life is an open book.  Indeed, he has written many books, and in them, we can see that he has mostly fond memories of military school and its shaping influence. And so today, we can judge him, and his works, as we might wish. Trump isn’t perfect, but as we have seen, politics is relative—and the biggest difference for the voters to evaluate is that Trump, unlike Clinton, is no fan of the incumbent status quo.  

Meanwhile, Clinton’s life is an open book, too—and that seems to be a bigger problem for her.  

And the real campaign is just getting started.  

Anyone references a Q-pac state polls this early is clearly indicating their cluelessness.  For a good laugh, see the 2012 Q-pac polls at a similar point in the cycle.

Those in the know suggest that one only look seriously at the average of national polls, and take into account likely temporary bumps resulting from such events as consolidating the nomination.

Or, one can remain clueless.

[playwrite]

This is not only a problem for the Trump campaign but puts the GC argument into question at its roots -

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2...213897?o=1

Quote:Donald Trump Is Not Expanding the GOP
A POLITICO analysis of early-voting data show little evidence for one of the Republican nominee’s core claims.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-polling-turnout-early-voting-data-213897#ixzz48vmQZ44u 
Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook

[pbrower2a]

(05-17-2016, 11:20 AM)playwrite Wrote: Anyone references a Q-pac state polls this early is clearly indicating their cluelessness.  For a good laugh, see the 2012 Q-pac polls at a similar point in the cycle.

Those in the know suggest that one only look seriously at the average of national polls, and take into account likely temporary bumps resulting from such events as consolidating the nomination.

Or, one can remain clueless.

As a pattern, Quinnipiac does not encourage leaners to say which way they are likely to vote. This is my experience with Quinnipiac polls.

We are at the point in which I typically end up with polls to average, which is typically a week apart or so.

...Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania all tend to drift D from the spring, so if they are at all close, then Donald Trump will be in deep trouble as Election Day looms. A slight lead for Clinton in Florida indicates that the Trump campaign has its work cut out.

My favorite pollster, PPP has something to say about Arizona, a State that has gone only once for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1948.

Quote:The Presidential election is pretty competitive in Arizona at this point. Donald Trump leads Hillary Clinton just 40-38, with Gary Johnson at 6% and Jill Stein at 2%. There's a significant 'Never Trump' contingent among Arizona Republicans. While Clinton gets 80% of the Democratic vote, Trump is only getting 68% of the GOP vote at this stage. That number tracks with our finding that just 65% of Republicans say they're comfortable with Trump as their nominee to 22% who say they aren't. When you narrow the field to just Clinton and Trump though, Trump's lead goes up to 45/41 because his share of the GOP vote increases to 77%. 15% of Republicans are undecided compared to 8% of Democrats, so if the party really unites around Trump eventually he'll get close to being up by the kind of margins Republicans are accustomed to in the state but for now it's tight.

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/main/....html#more

Arizona is within range of being the equivalent of Virginia, 2008 this year. Symptomatic of the troubles of the Republican Party in Arizona, venerable Senator John McCain is at risk of losing the primary election to get re-elected. But that is for a thread on 2016 Senatorial elections.

[Odin]

Boston men jailed for Trump-inspired hate crime attack

Expect thugs like this to have full reign to whatever they want under a President Trump.  

[pbrower2a]

(05-14-2016, 04:01 PM)Bronco80 Wrote:

Quote:So, Donald Trump.  He both terrifies and excites me.

What's terrifying is obvious, and it starts with him having access to the nuclear codes.  My #1 fear of Trump is him as Commander-in-Chief running foreign policy.  It continues in that I think Trump would be more interested in appointing sycophantic yes-men in his Cabinet to stroke his massive ego, instead of finding people that are actually qualified to run major federal departments.  Then, of course there's the bigotry.  To be fair, the GOP has been exploiting bigotry ever since the Southern Strategy, but it has at least been in a controlled, calculated manner to benefit the nation's elite.  Trump, on the other hand, is chaotically declaring open season on disadvantaged groups.

At the least, Republicans used to promise something in return for trickle-down economics and lax regulation of business. One might find some job security in being underpaid and overworked -- at least until one wears out, as was the norm in the Gilded Age. Low wages allegedly promote investment and hiring, even for those who have endured discrimination in the past.

Quote:So what's the exciting part?  Not only do I think he's going to lose, and lose badly, but I hope that he has irrevocably splintered the Republican political alliances to make them unelectable, at least on the presidential level, and over time hopefully that will filter downticket.  The GOP elites that have running their weak government, pro-corporate agenda have always been small in number, with that agenda being quite unpopular unless it's buttressed by pandering on Southern strategy style wedge issues.  But there was always the risk that the masses would overrun the elites. Trump has masterfully exploited that, and even if he loses in 2016 he's created the blueprint for himself or another Trumpist to do it again in 2020 and beyond.  It's been amusing listening to the #NeverTrumpers--I can sense the desperation that their ideology could very well be exiled to the lost woods of politics.

The wedge issues can work when the Democratic President is... well, you know. But ignore the melanin, and his policies have worked.

Quote:Putting my Fourth Turning hat on, by the time this turning is over I could easily see the Seventh Party System begin with a new realignment.  How that will turn out, we still have a very long way to go.  But here are my two guesses:
--1) The Democratic Party turns into a dominating centrist party, kind of like the PRI in Mexico, with powerless rump parties on the right and left.  While it would put the Republicans out of power, I don't particularly want a Clinton-style corporatist party running the show.

That is a parallel to the Republican Party from 1865 on. Any agenda can become conservative, and Barack Obama has some very conservative traits. He's more conservative than Lincoln or FDR for his time. Even his support of same-sex marriage is consistent with homosexuals deciding that they are going conservative on issues of child protection. Homosexual rights are not simply compatible with law and order (usually a conservative objective); they are necessary for law and order.

Quote:--2) The Republicans finally get the hint that their increasingly extreme economic agenda, paired with pandering to bigots, is a losing game, and they finally cast out the bigotry and evolve to the point of other center-right parties in the world that understand the value of things like universal health care, paid family leave, higher minimum wages, and the like.  This is my preferred realignment, as it would also push the Democrats further to the left.

Maybe the Republican Party survives as a non-ideological safety valve for dissidents from the Democratic majority, for people challenging machine politics, and as an alternative for the incompetent, out-of-touch, and corrupt Democrats when those appear.

Quote:Of course, none of this is going to happen unless advice is heeded that I recall Eric harping about frequently: people, especially Millennials, need to get out there and vote, and not just once every four years!  Midterm elections are incredibly important, and that message needs to be made clear on the Democratic side.

Yup! But as significant -- Millennials are entering the age in which their first figures start getting into high office. Someone who talks the Millennial lingo can excite the Millennial generation. We are going to see lots of aging Silent and first-wave Boomers disappearing from public office through death, retirement, and defeat.

The oldest Millennials have begun to turn 34 this year.