To his supporters - I don’t wish to jinx him.
Found this article that says he has 97-99% chances at the point -
http://www.infowars.com/political-science-professor-trump-has-97-99-chance-of-becoming-president/
Would you agree? Are the chances so high?
97-99% chance? Nah.
But, looking at the polls and delegate math, he’s in a very good position. 75-80% maybe. And if he isn’t the nominee, it’ll likely go to a brokered convention.
That’s just to get the GOP nomination though. I don’t think he’ll win the general election for president.
Eh, every recent election has a bunch of poli-sci profs come out with these “post-diction” models. Here’s one predicting the inevitable Romney landslide in 2012. I guarantee that once the general election starts, you’ll be able to find people hawking ones that say Hillary in inevidable/doomed.
They’re kinda fun to play with, and as a starting point for conversations about what factors determine electoral outcomes, but don’t take them too seriously as actual predictions. The fact is, elections just don’t happen frequently enough to make the kind of statistical analysis you’d need to make an effective model.
Strong yes. Very strong, it’s debatable. Very very strong, not at the moment.
First I’m sure there are lots of people who predicted the last three presidents correctly. I did for one though not nearly this early in the process. So I don’t think that the credentials are a strong endorsement.
Second Trump at age 69 has about a 2% chance of dying within a year. So say 1% before the election. That caps his probability of being next President at 99% right there.
Third even 75% is wildly high. It’s got to be much closer to 50-50 regardless of whom the two candidates are.
Thread relocated to the Elections forum from IMHO.
He’s definitely in the strongest position to win the Republican nomination, but the field is still thick enough there that even if Cruz, Rubio, and Kasich all have only small chances, combined they’re decently likely. Plus, of course, if nobody gets an absolute majority of the delegates (which seems quite likely), then we’ll have a brokered convention, which could choose absolutely anybody, including someone not yet running, like Romney. Put it all together, and Trump has perhaps a 50% chance at the Republican nomination.
And then comes the general election. Clinton and Sanders both poll significantly better than Trump, enough so that there’s almost no chance that Trump could beat either of them.
Yes. He will be the next President.
Infowars isn’t as unreliable a cite as timecube, but it’s pretty close.
In modern Presidential elections my rule is: The coolest cat wins.
Trump vs. Hillary - probably Trump, but he’s not as cool as he once was, but, neither is Hillary. And neither is as cool as Obama is, or Bill was. And if it’s Hillary vs Trump it’s going to be a very UGLY general election where each will try to salt-the-earth of the other. It’s hard to seem cool when that’s happening.
So, I say it’s a toss-up. It’ll be very different if Rubio wins the nomination, it’ll be about the same if Cruz get it, but, Cruz is not very cool to begin with.
I liked this bit from the linked article, “‘You think “This is crazy. How can anything come up with something like that?”’ [Stony Brook University Professor Helmut] Norpoth said. ‘But that’s exactly the kind of equation I used to predict Bill Clinton winning in ‘96, that I used to predict that George Bush would win in 2004, and, as you remember four years ago, that Obama would win in 2012.’”
In other words, he successfully predicted the reelections of the past three incumbent presidents.
Although not very reliable, polls of the matches of Rubio with Clinton showed that Rubio was the more likely Republican candidate to beat Clinton, it is almost now a moot point.
Trump always did worse (and continues. More recent polls become a bit more valid) to do worse than other Rep candidates in the general election.
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton
http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-sanders
Call me on 2 March and I’ll let you know.
If somebody is willing to read infowars, much less believe anything they have to say about anything, there’s nothing much useful we can do here.
Note that, based on a Google News search on his name, this professor’s prediction was widely reported by a variety of news sources. Here is the story from the student newspaper at Stony Brook, which is the source of most stories about this, including the one on infowars.
I’d say Truml has about a 70% chance of being the Republican nominee, and a 35% chance of being elected president.
And like I said in the thread about this professor:
Point is that there is indeed a war of misinformation going on when you see iffy talking points like this one come up as news.
Wait - how can this dude’s electoral model have accurately predicted every election since 1912? I wouldn’t be surprised if this cat has tenure at SUNY, but has he had tenure for 102 years?
Who now? 
There is that and to the OP I have to say that besides that bit of news being close to nut picking, the point I make here is that like with Romney I have the strong feeling that “news” like this become viral among supporters of what in reality is the underdog; because many other more serious sources don’t have such rosy scenarios of victory for Trump.
In reality, based on current polls and projections, this bit of “news” is like going to the bottom of the barrel; and articles like the one quoted by the OP actually tell us that many of the sources from the right are having virtually nothing good to offer about Trump’s chances in the general election so this will have to do to keep the minions happy in the meantime.