Regarding the 2016 election and why Clinton lost, it seems that many people think it was several things coming together and not just one thing. There was Clinton’s lack of charisma, the letter released by Comey towards the end of October, the lack of rallies in the upper Midwest states that swung the election, etc. None the less Clinton managed to keep most of the traditionally blue states blue. Is it safe to assume the 2016 map is a floor for the Democrats and that it’s unlikely for 2020 to go worse, on the theory that it’s unlikely for so many different things to go wrong again?
I cannot conceive of a state that voted for Hillary in 2016 would vote for Don the Con in 2020. My best case scenario.
I think whoever the Democratic nominee in '20 is had damned well better not assume anything. The Democrats assumed all kinds of things in '16 (the “Blue Wall”) and look where that got us.
Of course, in a sane world, any Democratic candidate short of the revivified corpse of Joseph Stalin should win all 50 states; but in a sane world, Donald Trump should have been laughed right out of the race long before he even won the Republican primary, let alone the Presidency.
A state like Virginia or Colorado, which has urban liberals but a strong conservative rural population could flip. Especially if there’s another 3rd party candidate playing spoiler.
The narrowest HRC states were: NH, MN, NV, ME, CO, and VA. I wouldn’t call any of those states a “sure thing” in 2020.
assuming the next person has a brain, they will actually campaign in the so called blue wall states in the midwest such as Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.
Here’s the electoral map from 1980. That was a pretty sad showing for the Democrats, wasn’t it?
Now here’s the map from 1984.
Compare that to the map from 1988, vs. the map from 1992.
No, it isn’t safe for the Democrats to assume anything. OR the Republicans, for that matter.
It’s pretty simple, when the economy is bad the incumbent party has a hard time staying in power. Just ask Carter or Bush Sr. Of course other factors can play a role such as a scandal like Watergate.
I do think we’re in a different place that we were as recently as 1992. It does seem that fewer states are in play these days. Most blue states since 1996 have remained blue and red states have remained red, leaving just a few states for the campaigns to fight over. Sure, they’ll be flukes such as Obama winning Indiana in 2008. I’ll have to look at Pennsylvania in more detail, but Hillary Clinton lost Michigan and Wisconsin mainly due to votes for Jill Stein as well as people not voting the top of the ticket and pointless write ins. Now, it shouldn’t have gotten that close, but 2016 was a weird election with an even weirder primary season.
Is it safe to assume that all the 2016 blue states will remain blue in 2020?
No.
Not because of dislike of Democrats, but because of GOP-aided-by-Russian intervention and mischief in everything to do with elections, from social media fake news to vote-suppressing rules to actual meddling in voting machine software and hardware.
Count on it.
And, also with the help of third party spoiler candidates. I really want to know why Jill Stein, who has only achieved the office of Lexington Massachusetts Town Council, was meeting with Vladimir Putin and sitting with Michael Flynn.
Yeah, in a less insanely-packed-with-incidents news environment, ol’ Jill Stein would probably be receiving a bit more scrutiny.
We’re just over 1/3 of the way from the 2016 election to the 2020 election. Way too early to make assumptions.
Nothing is safe to assume:
The Democrats may select another dud in 2020.
The economy may continue to grow steadily and Trump’s popularity along with it.
Trump may be gone and the Republicans may have a more competent candidate.
If I had to guess, I think the Democratic candidate will win the election including all the Hillary states but there is obviously a lot of uncertainty over three years.
New Hampshire to me would be the most likely to go from Blue to Red.
2016 vote:
46.98% For Clinton, 46.61% For Trump. Less than 3,000 votes picked the winner here.
A key point. Gary Johnson, the Libertarian candidate received 30,000 votes ( 4.15% of the votes in the state ) , and usually Libertarian’s positions are closer to Republican. Take a stronger than normal 3rd party out, and I think Trump might win it
You can also make a case for Maine.
and don’t base 2020 predictions on what happens in 2018 midterms. Dems lost a total of 69 seats in Congress in 2010 but yet Obama did not have trouble beating Romney in 2012.
States can swing around quite a bit from one Presidential election to the next. For example, BHO won Ohio in 2012 by 3% but HRC lost it by 8% in 2016.
Why, that’s almost exactly what happened in Maryland, when Bush41 won it by 3% in 1988, lost it by 14% in 1992.
In elections, nothing is ever a sure thing. That should be the key lesson of 2016.
Things do indeed change from cycle to cycle but does anyone really believe that the current president is winning over new voters from the other side? If the Dems can motivate Millennials from their current anemic participation, that group of voters – some of whom weren’t eligible to vote in '16 – favors blue candidates generally by 55-40 margins. Where are the people saying “Hey, Trump has been way better than I thought he would be? I’m switching to him in '20.”