Presidential election, 2016

[pbrower2a]

...Could it be possible that what seemed like the "new normal" of the Democrats  and Republicans getting overwhelming advantages in most states that they win, with very few states being truly contested, could be  coming to an end? Could it be that Barack Obama is, whatever his virtues, the most polarizing Presidential nominee that America has ever had?

Hillary Clinton seems to be winning, but not by as great margins, most of the states that Barack Obama won, but by far narrower margins. She also seems to be losing much the same states as Barack Obama lost, but also by far smaller margins. Maybe one can impute that to people having a visceral dread and loathing of Barack Obama due to ethnicity  in some places and looking at policy and not ethnicity in other places.

Say what you want about Barack Obama being above average in just about all matters that concern most Americans (economic stewardship, a cautious but decisive foreign policy, avoidance of scandal and corruption,  respect for precedent, working well with the intelligence agencies and the Armed Forces, and taking the side of social progress on social issues as the political culture changes), Barack Obama is the most polarizing President since Lincoln.

Making any further comparisons between Barack Obama and Abraham Lincoln is blasphemy. The polarization in part represents campaign strategies of Barack Obama -- play well to crowds in medium to giant cities and their suburbs and abandon rural America. Except for Arizona, Texas, and Utah, such allows him the ability to win the most urban of states. It also ensures that he gets clobbered elsewhere. It also means that the Right can utterly destroy Democrats in Congressional elections in any Congressional district that is significantly rural.

Hillary Clinton is not as polarizing a politician as Barack Obama has been.  She is also more likely to win a state like Michigan by 6% instead of by 16% and lose a state like Tennessee by 6% than by 16%. Barack Obama played a beat-the-cheat strategy in 2008 and 2012, and Hillary Clinton seems to trust in being on the right side of history more than in any coherent political strategy.

In an ordinary year, a Republican nominee should be winning Oklahoma with well over 60% of the vote3. In 2012, which was not a good year for Republicans, Mitt Romney got nearly 67% of the vote. In the most even election ever (2000), George W. Bush got 50% of the vote. (Obama must be incredibly polarizing). Donald Trump will win Oklahoma, but he really needs to win it by at least a 20% margin to be winning nationwide.

Oklahoma, -Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates

Trump 48%
Clinton 28%
Johnson 6%
Undecided 18%

http://newsok.com/article/5498100

One of the last states from which I would expect a poll.

One of the last five states in which I would expect Hillary Clinton to have a chance. Trump will win it, but perhaps not by the 60% or higher levels that one usually expects.  

   



Hillary Clinton vs. Donald Trump