Just looking at the GOP crop, none of them seem electable and poised to seriously challenge Hillary, Warren or whoever the Dems nominate.
The fact that it is so far away. The political world can turn upside down in two weeks, never mind two years.
It is far away, but I think it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion that Hillary will win. In my book, anyway.
It’s pretty early. The best bet right now is a large Democratic victory, IMO, due to demographics alone – but it’s still very early, so such a bet can’t be particularly certain.
I agree with this. Remember what a lock it was that Hillary Clinton was going to get the Dem nomination back in 2008?
Low Obama approval ratings, Dem base lukewarm at the prospect of Hillary and not scared of some dopey vanilla GOPer, the Rep faithful shambling out of the retirement villages to drive a stake through the she devil’s heart – wouldn’t exactly take a miracle, ya know? I think Hillary might actually energize the Dem base tho, since they’ll get to vote for the first woman POTUS and they don’t want to miss the entertainment value when she makes the collective right foam at the mouth.
I am laughing very hard at this—not at the idea of Hilary winning, but at the idea of anything being a foregone conclusion at this point. I remember during George H. W. Bush’s (first and only) term there was a time when he was considered unbeatable in 1992.
I don’t sense the mood of the American people or the condition of the economy to be good enough to favor The Party In Power.
Well, perhaps the salient counterpoint is that nobody actually likes Hillary. She is the old guy who’s been around forever just waiting for everyone else to die so he wins by default.
That’s not a particularly compelling candidate for the POTUS.
Just ask Bob Dole.
It’s way too early to call the 2016 election.
It’ll be an open election so it will attract a lot of candidates. There’s no telling who might pop out of obscurity in the next two years.
One big factor working against the Democrats will be party exhaustion. The voters just like to change parties after a while. Neither party has held on to the presidency for more than three terms since the Roosevelt/Truman streak. And there’s only been one time since then (in 1988) when a party won a third presidential term in a row.
For the last 60 years, the only time voters have kept either party in the White House for more than 8 years was Bush 41 succeeding Reagan in 1988. Unless things change dramatically, Obama will not be anywhere near as popular as Reagan in 1988. He may not even be as popular as Clinton or Bush 43, the last two guys who were unable to elect their party’s successors. The default assumption should be that voters will want to switch, because they usually do.
And if you think Elizabeth Warren is more electable than safe midwestern purple-state types like Walker, Pence, or Kasich, you’re seriously misguided about the nature of the American electorate.
A major question is how does her positions differ from Obama? I haven’t noticed much except she is a much stronger friend of Israel and much more hawkish. So she should be able to attract Jews–but there aren’t that many of them. While it is not clear how Iraq/Syria is going to play out I predict U.S. involvement there will be having very negative results of one kind or another–and Americans will be much more inclined to pull out than go in deeper.
Overall I think a potential Clinton administration will be looked at as an Obama third term, just like a potential McCain victory was looked as a Bush, Jr. third term. And people aren’t interested.
I don’t think there have really been enough elections for statistics like this to be meaningful. This is especially so given that you need to impose an arbitrary cutoff to make the statistic work at all: The Democrats of the 1940s managed to do something to hold onto the Presidency, and it’s possible the present Democrats might too. It’s possible that the electorate might get tired of Democrats in the White House, but it’s also possible that they might not. We’ll have to wait and see.
There were factors that no longer exist.
One was the incumbent factor. Incumbents have a general advantage over challengers because the voters have already decided once that they’re presidential material. The incumbent just has to hold on to that while the challenger has to win it. The Democrats of the thirties and forties had an advantage that they had four straight elections with an incumbent running.
Two was the South. The Southern states used to be a base of solid Democratic electoral votes. Democrats could count on winning the South and just had to work for enough extra votes to put them over the top. Republicans could only count on Vermont as their base.
Three was the times. The Great Depression and the World War meant the stakes were higher and people were less willing to try something new.
No, its not enough to make a definitive declaration, but eight out of nine is a bit unlikely to be coincidence, and it also matches up with what many moderates tell pollsters.
FDR and Reagan bucked the trend for an obvious reason: they were both enormously popular and successful. Yes, obviously things could change, but Obama is nowhere near that level of popularity. His polling is much more like Bush 43’s.
FWIW, here are chances for 2016 Presidential winner estimated from BetFair.com
39% Clinton
7% Rubio
6% Rand Paul
6% Christie
6% J.Bush
6% Romney
4% Warren
3% Biden
2% Perry
2% Ryan
These would approach 100% with the inclusion of 1% shots led by Carson, Cuomo, OMalley, Walker, Huntsman, Martinez, Portman, Manchin.
BetFair’s estimates for the 2014 Senate race are
17% 51 Dem Senators (not including Biden, independents)
60% 51 GOP Senators
23% Neither Party has 51
(much more optimistic than the prediciton at tippie.uiowa.edu.)
The conventional wisdom appears to be that Hillary will be an unstoppable behemoth in 2016 but I think that is wrong. People have forgotten how average a campaigner she was in 2008 and I doubt she will be any better in two years, if anything the opposite because of less practice and greater age. Don’t be fooled by her high poll numbers, as Secretary of State she was above the political fray, you can bet that the numbers will come down after months of partisan attacks. I hope she is put to the test in a tough primary because otherwise she will be seriously unprepared for a general election. In fact I suspect the Democrats may just be better off with some other candidate like Warren.
I think 2016 will be wide open as is usually the case after a two-term presidency. The economy is OK but median income is stubbornly flat so many people are frustrated. There is opportunity for a candidate who can tap that frustration from either left or right but it will be someone who can craft a compelling message like Obama in 2008 and I don't think Hillary is that person.Ignoring the presidency for now as I agree we’re too far out, I think the more important question is the Congress. That’s where a real landslide would be seen. I suspect the Democrats probably can’t get the House back due to the gerrymandering in many states, although the gerrymander could wind up working against the Republicans faster than expected depending on demographics. The Senate is more interesting, with the Republicans defending New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Florida, and Arizona. All the rest of the seats with a Republican incumbent are presumably safe states (NC, SC, ND, SD, ID, UT, KS, LA, AR, OK, AL, GA, KY, and IN.) The Democrats only have to defend Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, Colorado, New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, and probably Hawaii. This far out, I’d put Nevada and Colorado as the only possibly pickups for the Republicans but I think the Democrats can and should contest all the states I listed.
Eight out of nine what? Nine opportunities for the White House to change hands? No, there have been more than that. Opportunities for it to change after at least eight years of the same party? No, there haven’t been that many. You have to slice the description of what’s happening pretty thin to get that statistic, and whenever you slice that thin, there are going to be a lot of ways to slice it.
Yes. Also, GDP growth during the first three quarters of the election year makes a huge difference, and that can’t be meaningfully forecast now. It’s true that the Republican base is aging, younger voters trend Democratic, and Republican fear mongering with respect to health care reform is hot air. Also, the Republican primary is likely to be a repeat of the 2012 clown car. But it’s the economy during the election year that really provides the swing.