I predict that Donald Trump is going to win the election for POTUS this year.

Politics & Elections
1

I’ve said it in a couple of threads, but I figured I’d start a thread so there’s no doubt about it: Donald Trump is going to win the election for POTUS this year.

Here’s a recap of what I posted previously in other threads:

On why I think Hillary Clinton’s strategy of taking the high road (or even the low road) will fail:

I can’t think of anything I’d rather be wrong about, but right now I don’t see anything short of his death that will stop Donald Trump from winning the election.

Again I say (please please PLEASE): Prove me wrong, kids. Prove. Me. Wrong.

2

Since you did not reply to this that I posted before, I have to take it then that you were indeed proved wrong already.

Things is that, as usual, the plural of anecdote is not data. (As it seems, you did miss the first time that that was directed to your union guys tale)

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton

It was said that Polls are not reliable early (and indeed very early Hillary was way ahead of Trump, but now she is still ahead and averaging 5 points ahead of the diseased yak), **but on this election the same pollsters that consistently have showed Trump ahead in the Republican contest also have showed Hillary ahead of Trump, for months already and it looks like Hillary is increasing her lead lately. **

As I said in the poll made on this subject in the SDMB, I do think that the past and most recent polls point to what I voted for there, a close election, but Hillary will get ahead by a good margin. Not only because of the minorities, but also because a significant number of moderate and smart Republicans will put country before party and do the right thing.

If you are worried about Hillary’s negatives, you really have not paid attention to the ones Trump has.

3

Hillary’s negatives are baked into her polls. Trump has nowhere to go but down.

I agree that Trump has a base. I disagree that it will put him over 50%. The folks that the OP reports on don’t seem like very regular voters. So it might not take much mud to discourage them from going to the polls.
Still, we’re in untested waters and the election is far away. Elizabeth Drew: “Do Democrats cheering on Trump because they assume he’ll be easy to beat know what happened when Democrats did that re Reagan in 1980?” and

“Not Poppy: Dems thought '80 Reagan preposterous candidate & easily beat. Just like now some Dems re Trump.”

https://twitter.com/ElizabethDrewOH/status/705151820906295298

Movie stars are dangerous. Masters of reality television could be worse. I could imagine Trump suffering the worst wipeout in 100 years, but I can’t rule out a Trump victory either. Especially when the odds of recession are elevated from the baseline (though still lower than 50%).
ETA and hijack. E Drew: Heh: “Has anyone reported on what happened to that $6 million that Trump said he raised for veterans when he skipped the debate in Iowa?”

4

I think Snowboarder Bo is onto something, but I’m looking at it a different way.

The Clinton Democrats don’t get it. The Clintons never really had a majority of Americans behind them, they just tried to hang onto what they thought was a “center” position. And after 2008, the Washington “centrist” is non-credible. It’s possible that Hillary can win election, once, on the sex card, and she might have coattails–once. But I don’t think you can build a functional party out of Clintonism, and I don’t think either Goldman Sachs connections or pretending the 1990’s were “the good old days” will get very far these days.

The TEA Party wave was the first fully post-crash election, and the anger at Obama wasn’t really about PPACA, but about economic failure. The new class that came in weren’t part of the old consensus. Some of them barely have any awareness of the traditions & norms of Congress that they reject.

The economy isn’t really that good now, either: inequality is up, and poverty is up. Lots of people don’t have jobs.

Bernie Sanders marries Democrat Party rhetoric to an agenda that speaks to these problems, and attracts young progressives. He seems like he could have a shot, by more or less being what Democrats pretend to be, while being more personally admirable and trustworthy than the Clintons. But older Democrats in the South clung conservatively to the Boss Lady.

Unfortunately, the Boss Lady has worryingly high negatives, and a cloud of criminal accusations. Well, they may reduce the Democrats to a weak conservative party with a nostalgia for a misunderstood past for a few years.

I’m afraid this may also translate to low turnout for Democrats this year, even with the drive to stop Trump (or Cruz).

If Cruz somehow pulls this together, I’m afraid he would beat Hillary easily, simply because most voters don’t know him well enough to hate him but they already despise her. And maybe he could beat Bernie, too, but that’s a different fight in character, more ideological & more wrapped up in religious identity.

Trump, I’m not so sure about. Maybe his base is more a vocal minority, really. But there’s a certain kind of voter that would vote for Trump mostly out of sick curiosity to see what’d happen.

5

It sucks, but you’re right.

Why oh why anyone thought it was a good idea to have Hillary run again for the Dems is a mystery. :smack:

6

More to the point:

Both parties are cracking up because the 2008 crash discredited the neoliberal Washington mainstream. Hillary, as candidate of that mainstream, is at a disadvantage because of it, and a party that follows her will likely end up in minority status, even if she triangulates herself into office.

7

The 2010 TEA Party wave, the rise of the Freedom Caucus, and now the rise of the Trump fascist wing, are all vaguely attempts at remaking the GOP, if in different ways.

Sanders is attempting to remake the Democrats. If they continue to rebuff him, they may be left behind by history. But if they embrace him, they could lose the moneyed establishment. That’s a terrible choice, from a certain point of view.

So if the Democratic Party continues to be a weak national party, then maybe Trump has a shot as an apparent candidate of hope and change. (Even though he’s really a giant troll.)

8

Screw it. Bring Trump on… Let’s go down in flames.

As a wise man once said… When you’re born, you get a ticket to the freak show. When you’re born in America, you get a front row seat.

And he would be loving this.

9

I totally agree with the OP. I was listening to C SPAN this morning and basically everybody who called in was getting ready to vote for Donald Trump, even lifelong Democrats. People really do not want to vote for Hillary Clinton. Who wants to listen to her cackling and yelling at you for the next 8 years? That would just be torture. At least Donald Trump is just a clown.

10

Well, no, it wouldn’t be. Torture is what Donald Trump want to do to prisoners of war (“Even if doesn’t work”). Real torture. On real people.

I am starting to have a sinking feeling that the adults in this country may end up helplessly watching as we turn over the most powerful military in the world, along with the nuclear launch codes to an unpredictable, vindictive, demagogue.

11

So you’re saying she’s “shrill,” eh?

12

I apologize for not replying to your post in the other thread, GIGO.

I don’t think the polls will remain the way that they have been. Trump’s campaign is snowballing right now and as I’ve said, people tend to jump on a winner’s bandwagon. I think we’re going to see that happen to a tremendous, even unprecedented, degree in the next 8 months.

And it’s not that I’m worried about Clinton’s negatives and ignoring Trump’s, it’s that the general public is and will ignore Trump’s negatives. Every time he’s attacked it’s going to make him look stronger. Every time someone acquiesces to him, like Christie did, it’s going to make him look stronger. And make no mistake, the GOP will acquiesce to him this summer. Oh, there will be some, perhaps quite a few who don’t and who actively oppose him, but I think that will only reinforce his air of strength because people are mad as hell at the establishment and it’s largely only the establishment members of the GOP who will repudiate him.

I hope I’m wrong. I actively want to be wrong. I think a Trump presidency would be disastrous for the country. But so far, the trends I see have that disaster occurring.

13

The fever will break. First of all, Trump’s negatives are higher than Hillary’s. They’re going to get higher. Obama will campaign hard for her in places where he is popular. He’s going to motivate the black vote to come out in droves, which won’t be hard as she is quite popular with minorities anyway. Hispanics will also be highly motivated to vote against Trump and his blatant racism. If anything, Hillary is going to expand her map and use her high numbers among blacks to force Trump to defend the south.

Then there’s the debates. Trump will be like the guy who skimmed through the Cliff Notes while writing his book report, Hillary will be the one who wrote notes on every page of the real book. She is going to make him look even less prepared than he seems now.

Let’s not forget the economy. It’s picking up steam. Unemployment is falling. This has been a long continued recovery. That favors the party in power. Hillary can hug Obama’s approvals all the way to the White House. Despite what you hear on the right wing media, Obama is fairly popular for a president in his last term.

Oh, and the women voters. Now that Scalia has assumed room temperature, this will motivate women to come out and vote to put a liberal justice on the court and make Roe impossible to overturn. The anti-abortion people have been reliable Republican voters for 40 years. Now the pro-choice side will be motivated to come out for Hillary. Trump has a problem with women- he’s a chauvinist pig. It’s going to be hard for even Republican women to get past that.

Finally, he’s going to say something that will offend about everybody. Don’t know where, don’t know when, but that loose cannon he calls a mouth will fire off something so reprehensible that his supporters will stop and wonder why they supported this guy.

No, he isn’t going to win. Take it to the bank and deposit it, this check will not bounce.

14

Way, way too early to make such a prediction with any sort of confidence. Many, many things can still happen. I’m very interested to see for how long the constant drumbeat of white supremacism news items related to Trump will last… if black and brown people are beat up or thrown out by Trump supporters every week, that might start to take a toll, as might continuing support from prominent white supremacist radio hosts (like the one who the Trump campaign granted press access).

The general election is not the same as the primary – the audience is very, very different.

15

I think Trump wins a Trump vs Clinton election, it’s one of the reasons I’ve decided to support Sanders. Republican primary turnouts are hitting records, and it’s because Trump voters are excited to vote for Trump. 60% of the Republican party might not want him, but that other 40% is going to vote like crazy. Clinton will get no such enthusiasm. She’s a John Kerry if there ever was one.

16

Again, snowballing in the Republican dungeon. (someone made a reference to Trump having a lot of rolls of the die in a D&D setting) Now Trump has to face the world over the dungeon and the same polls that showed Trump winning in the Republicans are now as consistent, Hillary has been ahead for months now.

That is exactly my point, the only difference is that I look at the data available and a lot of what Trump and the Republicans are telling us is indeed political bullshit, like when Trump crowed about Hispanics voting for him.

Hispanics in Nevada voting for Republicans were actually few and the media swallowed the idea that the 45% of them voting for Trump was meaningful outside the dungeon.

So far I see you relying on anecdotes and not very good data.

17

Trends last until all of a sudden they don’t. Trump’s appeal strikes me as likely to crash hard after it peaks (especially once he has to win over the population at large rather than Republican primary voters, who constitute a fairly small and non-representative minority). Further, most of his appeal is based on his personality and schtick rather than his message, and that sort of thing gets old quickly. It’s like the political equivalent of being a one-hit wonder boy band. Six months later, no one will admit they even liked you.

I could be wrong, but honestly, I think Clinton vs. Trump would be a landslide of the sort we haven’t seen since 1984 or 1972. (Just about everyone regarded Nixon as unlikeable and crooked, too, with far more justification than Clinton. Under the circumstances, it didn’t matter.)

18

Three questions:

  1. Does Donald Trump win Hispanics? Not “can he drive his negatives down a few points”, I’m asking what you think the exit polling will show after a Trump vs. Clinton contest. There is only one non-stupid answer to this question.

  2. Does Donald Trump win black people? Against Hillary Clinton?

The answer to both these questions being “Fuck no!” means he has to make up the difference with white people, right? I mean he has to do really well with white people to make up those deficits.

So, question 3. Does he win white women? Against Hillary Clinton? Try to step back from the anecdotal stuff, and look at the big picture here: Trump vs. Clinton with white women?

That leaves one demographic he has a prayer of breaking fifty with: white men. And he’ll have to absolutely destroy her with white men to win the popular vote. He’ll have to do better with them than Romney did. Better than McCain. While being Donald Trump.

Is any of this making you feel better?

19

I am offering anyone who wants to bet on Trump three to one odds. Anyone who wants to make a bet with me can PM me. His chances are way, way lower than people seem to think.

20

For one thing, a lot of crazy people do call into CSPAN. One of my favorite recurring bits on Last Week with John Oliver is when they show the most patient man listening to crazy people calling in and politely thanking them. Also, I was just reading an article that surveyed some Republican voters, and a few said they would vote for Trump, but several said that they wouldn’t vote or that they would vote for Clinton. Neither the CSPAN show or the slate article is a reliable poll of who will be cross-over voters in either way.

But from polling, it does seem that Trump is not liked among independents, and really not liked among Democrats. And here’s a poll from January where his favorable ratings with Democrats is -70. His popularity has gone up a bit with Republicans, but matched by his popularity going down with independents. I can’t imagine that non-Republicans will start viewing him more favorable. Even if he goes back on some statements he’s said, no one would know which version of him to believe.

It’s true that Clinton is disliked or hated by a not insignificant number of people. But she’s still doing better than Trump:

There are a lot of Republican voters who will not vote for Trump. Some could come over and vote for him if they were convinced to by other party leaders, but few of them are enthusiastic about him, and some are actively opposed.

I agree with everything in this post. It’s not impossible for Trump to win, but it seems pretty unlikely.