Well, if Democrats were terrified of winning, one way to make sure that doesn’t happen is to change this election from Clinton vs. Trump to Clinton vs. Comey.
I’ve stuck with the need to keep Trump out of the White House all this time. There’s only ten days left. Please don’t make me think I need to protect James Comey from an absurd prosecution. If you want to get all the Never Trumpers on the right to turn out, that’s a sure way to provoke us.
Agreed 100 percent and the Dems are really in danger of making a controllable problem a much bigger one with their lines of attack on Comey. He may be a republican but he was nominated by the leader of their party. Democrats were satisfied with his performance in July. They might not like his move now but Comey didn’t create this situation - he’s responding to it. I know the usual partisans here will disagree but they’re not the voters who matter right now. Clinton’s campaign is in danger of creating a false equivalency in the minds of independent voters who may conclude that Clinton is trying to suppress an investigation.
In reality all they need to do is to be aggressive in pointing out the obvious. There’s nothing new here and if there is, then they really ought to make that public now so the voters can decide for themselves. Trump will be Trump and the Republicans are going on the offensive – everyone expects that. But in a scandal that suggests a tendency for Clinton secrecy and dirty politics, the worst possible move the Clintons can make is to make it look like they’re pressuring Comey. Do the opposite – ask for greater transparency. Hillary should keep asking with a smile on her face.
Yeah, her team played it smart initially, the rest of the Democrats need to stick to the talking points.
Back on topic, I think Clinton needs to pay less attention to the red state fantasies of capturing Arizona and Texas and she needs to start a spirited defense of states Obama won in 2008 and 2012. She’s on defense now.
This is getting into “expert” territory, but I’ll bite. I’d concentrate resources in NC and PA. winning those two, where she currently leads, locks it up for her.
Clinton has more than enough resources to cover Florida as well, which would also win the election. Or Ohio, which wins the election. She has more resources than Trump; it would be absurd to attack him on FEWER fronts.
Trump, mathematically, has to win basically every battleground state, or win in scenarios where states we don’t think of as battleground states switch over, like Michigan. The solid blue states are all high value and the solid red states are mostly low value; that’s just the math. Why would Clinton* concentrate* her efforts and take away a major advantage she has over Trump? In military terms, Trump has the smaller army. He can’t protect the entire front.
One could argue that she already is doing just that. She has a strong ground game and a huge organization. Trump has neither. If a state is close, getting your people to the polls is critical- reminding people, offering rides, whatever it takes. Trump thinks you win by throwing red meat to those already committed to voting for you- I think he’s wrong.
She certainly shouldn’t put equal efforts into all states; that’s just idiotic. She should focus more on states which are close to the median, and which are similar to other battleground states so the message can carry over, and which are for one reason or another more easily tipped. But all that said, I also think that it’s good politics to put at least some effort into all 50 states, like Obama did. There’s a big difference between even just one campaign office in a state’s biggest (and bluest) city with five paid staffers, and no campaign office at all, and in an era where a stump speech anywhere can be seen online everywhere, there’s little opportunity cost in making that speech in a historically-ignored state.
Just as I predicted.
The good news, if there is any, is that the impact of the emails will probably bottom out by Friday or Saturday provided that no new damaging details emerge from them. The danger here is that someone like Roger Stone starts cooking up fabricated “facts” and peddling them to the MSM. There would be no time to respond or put out those fires. Any credible suggestion in the MSM of wrongdoing or a new turn or twist in the case – merely the strong suggestion of it – could be the knockout punch for the Clinton campaign at this point.
I still think Clinton will win the popular vote by a modest margin, with a considerably larger electoral win (remember, I correctly predicted Cleveland vs. Chicago in the World Series).
Less likely but more nightmarish: Trump squeezes out a popular vote win, but loses in the Electoral College. The fur flies. :eek::smack:
Not that it’s wise to stretch too thinly, especially since she now has to refocus in response to Comey, but campaigning on behalf of toss-up Senate races can’t be totally overlooked. If Dems can’t take or at least tie the Senate, she’ll face even more obstruction than Obama.
Oh for crying out loud:
Trump +1 in Florida. Now I gotta vote for Clinton. I’ll tell myself I’m there to support Rubio.
Oh come on, in for a penny, in for a pound. Go ahead and vote a straight D ticket, you’ll feel so much better. A Democratic Senate will mean that we won’t have a 5 member Supreme Court in four years, also that the gridlock will partially end. Look at it this way: Rubio has no interest in being a Senator. He only ran 6 years ago to set up his 2016 presidential run. Now he’s just running to preserve gridlock. Go ahead and vote straight D- I guarantee you that you’ll get heaven points for it.
I’m open to Democrats, we’re not as far apart as one might think. I already agree with them mostly on social issues, and my attitude about social programs is that Democrats can spend on whatever they want, as long as they impose a limit on how much, say, 20% of GDP. I’d also like an end to the routine corruption, something which Democrats used to talk about, but now actually seem to embrace, simply because the Tea Party hates it and Democrats must apparently believe the opposite of whatever the TEa Party believes.
But all that aside, when the race was Patrick Murphy, accountant and businessman, vs a Republican other than Rubio, none of whom were impressive, I was ready to vote for Murphy. Then it turned out he’d fabricated that great resume and then Rubio got back into the race.
Is am sorry not to have been specific regarding the silent majority. I believe it could be made up of people who are college educated and yes probably includes a few women, that will be voting republican.
I can’t speak to your evidence as I don’t know to what you refer? Polls? A poll can get any answer one choses depending on how one words the question. So less scientific than many believe. Plus everyone and their dog seems to be conducting polls these days.
Although anything is possible, the current trends and the historical data lead me to believe that one of four outcomes is likely to occur, all of which would result in a president-elect Clinton:
Scenario 1: Clinton has a disappointing night but still wins 278-260. She loses Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and Iowa but still manages to keep New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, and Nevada, plus the other bricks in the blue wall.
Scenario 2: Clinton merely has an okay night but wins 307-231. She wins Florida and Pennsylvania but loses Ohio and North Carolina.
Scenario 3: Clinton has a good night, winning 322-216. She wins Florida and North Carolina, in addition to Pennsylvania.
Scenario 4: Clinton has a surprisingly good night and wins 340-198. She uses her ground game to stun Trump in Ohio and complete the eastern sweep of high-stakes battleground states.
I think scenario 2 is the most plausible, though 3 and 4 could happen. Were it not for the ruthlessly effective voter suppression in North Carolina I would probably be more bullish on the Tar Heel state, but the data show that African American voting is suppressed and I’m not confident that other demographics can pick up the slack in a state that has become pretty red in recent years. So Clinton wins 307 to Trump’s 231.
In case you think the math is weird, remember that Maine splits its electors and that Trump is likely to pick off at least delegate from that state.
While the past four days have been crazy running GOTV for labor in west Michigan, I’ve had several long spells daily where I have nothing to do but look at numbers and crunch them. So that’s what I’ve done. I’ve used Nate’s adjustments on the most recent polls several times per day for NV, CO, MI, PA, ME, NH, NC and FL. I also incorporated his Now Cast and Polls Plus forecasts and every state-by-state forecast from the NYT Upshot page. With each new update I created a new map, and tracked the result.
So my final prediction is: 323-215.
That result just kept showing up over and over and over. Based on all the most recent polls and Nate’s state-by-state forecasts, I don’t see her losing any of those toss-ups. Game over, and get ready to start dodging the musket fire.
The only thing I’m unsure of is ME-2. That might spoil my beautiful, beautiful prediction. There’s a ***very ***slight chance Hills only gets 322.
Based on how easy GOTV has been in this cycle, and how poorly the Trump campaign has done its targeting - walking right past a Clinton-Kaine sign on my yard to knock on my door - I’m going towards the high end of the projections.
Clinton 51
Trump 43
Johnson 6
Others 4
Electoral votes, I’m going with the prediction of 409-123-6 with every state polling within 5 at the end going Clinton’s way. I’m going for “result that’s most likely to win a prediction pool” and note that this gives more blue area than red.
Clinton: ME NH VT MA CT RI NY NJ PA DE DC MD VA NC SC FL OH MI IL WI MN IA NE cd TX CO NM AZ WA OR CA HI AK
Trump: WV KY IN GA AL MS TN LA AR MO OK KS NE SD ND MT ID WY
McMullin: UT