“Vanquish the Vulgarian” will be a series of commentaries on the state of the 2016 General Election between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. The vulgarian, needless to say, is Trump.
Last October, I wrote an article pointing out the significant advantage Hillary Clinton enjoyed in the democratic primary because of the demographics of the democratic electorate. That analysis for the most part proved to be true as she went on to win the majority of pledged delegates and is now the presumptive nominee. Looking at the electoral college, Sec. Clinton enjoys a similarly significant demographic advantage over Donald Trump.
Blue Wall States
A generic democrat has a built in advantage in the electoral college — namely the blue wall, the set of states that have voted for the democratic candidate in every presidential since 1992. These states (CA,NY,WA, WI, MI, PA,MN,MD,VT,ME,DE,RI,MA,OR,IL,NJ,CT, HI as well as DC total 242 electoral votes) and represent an, even if potentially shallow, starting advantage for the democratic candidate. Of these states, I am of the opinion that they are all near certain victories for Hillary Clinton, with the possible exception of Pennsylvania. Indeed, Pennsylvania has been tabbed as a potential tipping point state by 538, due to its aging white population and right ward drift over the last 24 years in presidential elections. So let’s allow for the possibility that Trump wins PA.
Obama States
In addition to the blue wall, President Obama won the following states twice: OH, CO, NM, FL, VA and NV. Of those states, due to trending demographics, ie younger, more brown populations, NM and NV are tough to win by a generic Republican in a presidential match up against a generic Democrat. And the republican candidate this year is no generic Republican, with Donald Trump being strongly disliked by latinos. Additionally, among these Obama states are the two reasons why winning the electoral college will be a near impossible task for Donald Trump: Virginia and Florida. The demographics of each state mean that these states are tough to win for a candidate like Trump who is focused on turning out the white working class vote. Nate Silver’s first general election forecast has Hillary winning both these states by 6-7% and current polling for Florida, in particular, looks sexy.
Clinton is opening a nice lead in Florida.
In my opinion, neither Virginia nor Florida will be especially close, with Hillary winning both by more than 5%.
Adding these up and Hillary has a *base* of 275 electoral votes (274 if you allow for the fact that Trump could win Maine’s second congressional district). And that’s without PA, OH, NC, IA, NH, CO — all states that she could win. With 270 needed to win the general election, it is very difficult to see a path for Donald Trump to get to the White House. The only potential path I see available to Trump is to somehow win OH *and* PA plus one other big midwestern state — like WI or MI, while winning every other state out there that isn’t part of Hillary’s base in my analysis. Silver projects Trump to lose both WI and MI by double digits, so that is a very narrow path. Nate gives Trump about a 20% chance of winning the White House, I would suspect his actual odds are somewhat smaller than that — in fact Silver calls his 20% figure “conservative”.
In my mind Hillary Clinton is very likely going to be our next President — the real question is the size of the mandate she can get as she seeks to run up the score against the vulgarian.