Note that this article is from May 2015, before the Trump race began.
I do feel that Republicans are indeed “coming home”.
I have a friend who regularly votes Republican. I know he very much doesn’t like Trump. While he mostly can’t bring himself to defend him, I have seen him test the waters a bit. I know he won’t vote Clinton. I’m pretty sure that in the end he will hold his nose and vote Trump, if he hasn’t already. He’s not the kind of guy to throw away his vote.
In his defense, a lot of Democrats would do the same (and by all reports, some feel they are).
My opinion is that even if you believe Clinton is moderately corrupt (which I do not), her skills and experience trumps Trump’s iconoclasm. But others have different opinions- some believe she and her husband are the most crooked and ineffective politicians ever; some believe she is devil spawn, if not the Devil herself; and some believe that extreme iconoclasm is the only way to bust through dysfunctional Washington politics (hopefully to find something better on the other side). And many reasonable Republicans who don’t like Trump may trust (or hope) that the institutions of government will check his worst excesses; who knows, maybe he’ll grow into the job. Anyway, a win is better than a loss, for both parties, at least short term.
Lastly, and I’ve said it before, there’s judges. Anybody who is wobbly on either side can justify voting for their party on the basis of Supreme Court appointments.
Didn’t know that; thanks.
Trump has exposed one weakness in the wall - blue-collar white labor, especially in steel, manufacturing, coal and rural areas. Ohio and Pennsylvania, maybe Wisconsin.
If the Nevada gurus like Ralston are right in saying that it’s all over there, then the blue wall is back up again because the latest polls from CO look good and NH wouldn’t much matter.
I just now realized I’ve been confusing “blue wall” with “firewall.” What I described above is the latter. Mea culpa.
IMHO, state should not be considered a ‘wall’ unless they’re really solidly red or blue.
States like California, Massachussetts, New York, Maryland, Hawaii etc. are the blue wall. Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida are not.
States like Montana, Alaska, Oklahoma, Alabama, etc. are the red wall. North Carolina, Arizona, etc,. are not.
That is exactly why I voted for Clinton.
I like it, keeps the unmotivated away from the polls. It would be sweet irony if triumphant liberals kept Democrats away from the polls on election day in Nevada.
That’s the ticket.
Elections decided by whom has the greatest number of entrenched, polarised, uncompromising ideologues with a disenfranchised centree because look at the quality of results that approach has produced for the past couple of decades.
I will be interested to see what the exit polls show for the latino vote as a % of the electorate. Especially in Texas, Florida, North Carolina, the southwest, etc.
Texas has serious problems with latinos not voting, hopefully Trump has ‘awoken a sleeping giant’ of sorts there and radically driven up turnout.
But even if so, it could be a one off thing and latinos in places like texas go back to not voting after this.
To be honest when I started this thread I wasn’t being very precise and was thinking more of the Hillary firewall rather than the blue wall but I think the question is interesting for both.
I think a reasonable definition of the blue wall is the states that the Dems have won the last six times. I believe that is the Kerry states - NH and that gets you 242 EV on today’s map which is a great springboard to 270. While Hillary isn’t in any serious danger of losing any of these states, I believe that Trump has exposed some genuine weakness in states like PA and MI which is masked by the deep incompetence of his campaign. A more competent right-wing populist could have won them which should concern Democrats for future elections.
The firewall is the states which add up to 270 and where Hillary has been polling +5 points or better as recently as a few weeks ago including states like CO, NH and VA which aren’t part of the blue wall as defined above. CO and NH have looked quite vulnerable in the last week which is what prompted me to start this thread. CO is looking better now and many believe that Nevada is a done deal in which case the firewall is reasonably strong though not nearly as solid as two weeks back.
Thank you, Lantern, for summing up the situation well. I agree on all counts.
I’m a bit surprised Hillary hasn’t spent more time in Colorado these closing days of the campaign (or maybe I missed that she had). I think the state might end up being more of a nail-biting key player than many assume. If I were her, I’d have spent these past five days just in North Carolina, Nevada, maybe briefly New Hampshire – but more than anything, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Maybe she should spend this morning in a couple of Colorado locations, and finish things up this evening (Monday) in Philadelphia, giving foot massages to the SEPTA union organizers (who called off their strike just hours ago). 
I absolutely agree with the bolded part. Not just Clinton but the Democratic party’s relationship with the white working class (the white working class in particular, but not at all exclusively) is weakening and I think there are real opportunities for the GOP to exploit if they had a more unified and competent party that could put together a new type of platform. This year, the Reagan democrats are back in the red column. It’s just that there will probably be enough minority, female, and more highly educated voters to defeat them.
I also see potential fault lines in the relationship between the Democrats and working class African Americans, particularly given all the attention that the Left has been dedicating to locking up the Hispanic vote. Some African Americans feel abandoned by both parties. That won’t manifest itself in terms of African Americans voting for Trump or Republicans, but I think we’re definitely beginning to see it in terms of a somewhat depressed turnout.
I think the key to this election is that Trump has smashed the blue wall, most spectacularly by winning Wisconsin by 2.5 points. This is a state that Obama won by 7 points. And Trump didn’t actually produce a surge of voters. He get slightly fewer voters than Romney but Hillary got fewer still.
This election is not a fluke. A lot of it has to do with Hillary’s weakness as candidate but beyond that the Democrats have alienated key parts of their white working class base in blue states and have paid the price. They have a lot of soul-searching to do and it will help if they don’t blame this election on racist voters or whatever .
Asahi’s post #34, including the OP’s quote, turned out to be spot on. Fired-up whites in PA and WI (and MI), with uninspired blacks in same.