Yes, it’s Politico. But, while I haven’t been able to listen to the podcast, the write-up is still worth reading. Glen Thrush interviews “Hillary Clinton’s pollster and strategist Joel Benenson”:
Joel Benenson is a world-class worrier, but he isn’t especially worried about Donald Trump in the fall…
Benenson, the Clinton campaign’s bearded principal pollster and chief strategist, can’t even bring himself to pay lip-service to Trump, whom he sees as a one-man Democratic turnout machine and a turn-off switch to moderates in both parties. His analysis of the 2016 landscape leads him to this conclusion that Trump has virtually no path to the presidency (He won’t say the same thing about Bernie Sanders) and Trump presents Clinton with renewed opportunities in purple states – especially North Carolina and Arizona…
“It’s not real,” a grinning Benenson said of Trump’s repeated claim he can defeat Clinton (or Sanders) by wrestling away swing-state voters.
“I don’t see any state that Democrats have won five out of six times, or six out of six times, that Trump, you know, at face value, poses a threat in. I just don’t see it,” said Benenson, who was the top pollster in Barack Obama’s two successful presidential campaigns.
“What’s the evidence of it? The evidence of it, they’ve turned out a lot of people. I think he’s broken 50 percent in only one state, right? … If you look at the states that Democrats have won… in five out of the last six [presidential contests], it adds up to 257 electoral votes. It means you only need 13 more to get to 270 if we perform that way.”
Other Obama alumni — including ’08 campaign manager David Plouffe — are basically on the same page, although they think Trump’s unpredictability (coupled with Clinton’s innate caution as a candidate) could cause unexpected problems. Benenson said he hasn’t polled extensively on Trump yet but he thinks Trump has so antagonized minority voters — and turned off moderate whites with his harsh rhetoric and chaotic rallies — that Clinton might exceed Obama’s 2012 total of 332 Electoral College votes…
More polling breakdown, among other details, at the link. Benenson was an Obama staffer in 2008, and he’s… not tremendously impressed with Bernie Sander, shall we say?
(via Al Giordano’s twitter feed, IIRC)
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Yeah, but what good is it winning 300 or more electoral votes if the outcome of the election doesn’t count? And it won’t count if the Republicans hold the Senate. After all, 2012 didn’t count for anything. That’s why President Obama doesn’t get to appoint a new Supreme Court justice. Elections only count when the Republicans win them.
rk
Only thing I’ll say is don’t get cocky or take anything for granted.
NotMax
And so we bid a fond (?) farewell to proportional primaries.
Also too, no. Nothing on Politico is worth reading.
Patricia Kayden
Optimism is needed right about now because it’s hard to believe that Americans would be stupid enough to put Trump in the White House. I’m really looking forward to President Obama campaigning on behalf of the Demcratic nominee since he is well loved and can motivate our side to get out and vote.
Just saw Trump supporting the old White guy who sucker punched the Black guy. Amazing what Trump has gotten away with. I really hope he takes Republicans down with him. They truly deserve him.
shomi
Buh…but MarkyMux and wrong way Cole both say we should be so very concerned about Drumpf.
So Plouffe and this guy are both wrong obviously. What do they know anyways. Not like they were senior people in past presidential elections or anything.
Also Cole made a long blog post recently where he basically said that he has decided to agree with people that the sky is blue and grass is green. There were lots of words and everything so he must really know what he is talking about.
schrodinger's cat
@Patricia Kayden: The Republican party has MSM on its side tipping the scales their way in ways subtle and not so subtle.
StellaB
@shomi: The time change makes some people crabby.
dedc79
Not sure how anyone can feel too good about Democratic prospects in North Carolina given this:
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
If the Democrats win the Presidency they will flip the Senate back.
scav
@StellaB: “The” time change? A nameless few are seemingly set off by that new second following the old second.
trnc
@rk:
Got that right. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Trump shows up to a post nomination debate actually knowing something about policy. Clinton and Sanders should prepare as if the debates will be something other than the republican primary sideshow.
PsiFighter37
Ever since Plouffe worked for Uber, any opinion he has is worthless. I was watching Axelrod on CNN a couple weeks back – same thing as well. It is incredible how quickly outsiders will sell themselves in order to cash in.
Trump will get beat like a rented mule if he is the GOP nominee. Clinton (or Sanders, on the off chance it happens) will beat him by a wider EV margin than Obama got in 2008, never mind 2012. It’ll be closer to 1988 margins than anything.
lamh36
Good Lord…does Christie have ANY pride left?
PsiFighter37
@trnc: There is zero that illustrates Trump has the facility to learn a meaningful thing about policy. He went to the same school I did (Penn), and he is one of those kids who sat in the back of the classroom and slept through class.
Steve in the ATL
@PsiFighter37:
Do you think he’s the one who decided that the app should possess its users to shoot people? I’m torn.
redshirt
Don’t fear the Trumpengruper.
I don’t, not yet at least.
dp
What scares me are the raw numbers of Republican primary voters compared to Democratic primary voters. The maniacs seem much more motivated, and that’s frightening.
redshirt
Question for someone more knowledgeable than I: Are all these new Voter ID laws set in stone, or are they still being actively challenged?
Also, are there any groups actively working to “trump” them?
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
NBC/WSJ — Poll — March 3 thur 6
Trump:
Favorable………..25%
Unfavorable…….64%
Gallup — Poll — March 14
President Obama:
Favorable………..51%
Unfavorable…….46%
Mai.naem.mobile
If the Dems can’t win against the Trumpster they might as well pack up their bags and go home. That isn’t to say that I think Trumpster is going to be easy to beat but if this country is that retarded we need to stop wasting money on winning elections and just move to Canada.
Amir Khalid
@lamh36:
It is hard to even want to feel sorry for such a bully. I do wonder, though why he felt it more important to suck up to the Donald, earning the open contempt of so many, than to go home and govern like his constituents expect him to. His political career is plainly dying. Does he still expect to pull out of Jersey to win?
lamh36
ugh…this fool…
dedc79
@redshirt: Some, like North Carolina’s, are currently being challenged in court. Before part of the Voting Rights Act was struck down by SCOTUS, North Carolina’s scheme would have been subject to pre-clearance review. No longer….
Certain other states’ restrictions have already survived court challenges and are set in stone.
lamh36
@Amir Khalid: he’s ridiculous.
there’s some reporting that he skipped out on a funeral for a slain State Trooper to attend this Trump rally…smh…so yeah…damn him and his soul…if he ever gets it back from Trump that is
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
On Putin leaving Syria:
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@redshirt: Many new laws are taking effect this election. Even though they’re being challenged, people need to try to get compliant IDs.
VoteRiders and the League of Women Voters are two organizations that I know of (and donate to) that are trying to help people get IDs while working to get the laws changed (at least via education, if not via filing suit).
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
geg6
@redshirt:
Don’t know about now, but when they tried the voter ID shit here in PA the last time around, nobody sat around waiting for the PA Supremes to make their decision on the ACLU court challenge (which eventually prevailed). There was a huge drive to get people proper ID. I worked that effort and I can attest that, at least from my point of view, it succeeds. had to renew my license during that period and the license center was the busiest I’d ever seen it with people getting driver’s licenses nd official state IDs for non-drivers. And 90% of them were young and/or African American.
magurakurin
@NotMax: If there are going to be delegates, then proportional is more fair. If looking for democracy, then maybe we should just do it by votes. No caucus, all elections on a somewhat more sane schedule over three months. But the trouble with all this is what do you do when you come into the convention without someone with an outright 50+1 majority? So, we have the delegate system…and super delegates and all the bullshit. If it were simple, it would have already been fixed. I got nothin’ to be honest.
but eyes on the prize, Clinton or Sanders, November is the real election, all hands on deck.
Aqualad08
How about this? Take him seriously, get the vote out like you were tied and when you win 400 EV’s, retake the Senate and the House, then and only then can you start sucking each other off? Sound like a plan?
Mandalay
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Trump:
Favorable………..25%
Unfavorable…….64%
Wow. So in order to keep the myth alive, will our media somehow present those numbers in a good light, or just ignore them completely? (Actually telling the truth would burst their ratings bubble.)
Gex
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Consider if you will a Republican president, Senate, and House. Makes having a Democratic president seem like it’s good enough, necessary even, if Congress maintains it’s GOP majorities.
maeve
To add another data point – my Mom’s friend told her she’s voting for Hillary in the general. No way she’s voting for Trump and Cruz is – to quote her – “creepy”. She lives in Arizona so she’ll vote for McCain also. She’s in her 80s, has always voted and as far as I know voted Republican – at least in national electons. In Arizona it might not make a difference in the electoral college, but there is that. (My Mom, also in Arizona, volunteers at the local Democratic store-front headquarters ( in a 55 and older community where people in gasping “I just moved from Seattle – thank god there are Democrates here!”) She likes Bernie but he is just not convincing her. She supported Hillary in 2008 but happily switched to Obama.)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Their parents must be so proud
redshirt
@maeve: Anecdotal, sure, but I love it.
Tangentally, I’d like to hear about any efforts to get Hispanics registered to vote in the Southwest and Texas. NM seems like it’s pretty solidly Dem, but how nice it would be to take Arizona and then the ultimate prize, Texas. We could do it with Hispanic votes.
Kropadope
He might not want to count the unhatched chickens just yet. I know this obviously isn’t a representative sample, but literally all the non-white voters I know who have expressed a preference are supporting Trump.
Amir Khalid
@Kropadope:
Since you mentioned it, how many non-white voters do you know?
Aleta
Would like to be optimistic, and about the Ds ability to win the presidency, I still am. But I still can’t help seeing the damage done. The number of people who believe in T’s fascist words at this moment is terrible bad news about this country, even if he loses. He’s also clearcut my hope for a better Congress by showing potential candidates what works right now. I would love to be told I’m wrong, and I know for a fact that “depression lies,” but still this is fucking scaring me out of my wits.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta: You are wrong. Trump appeals to a subset of GOP voters. That is all.
redshirt
@Aleta: Trump didn’t start this fire. Newt did. Or Nixon. Or Goldwater. It’s been burning for a long time.
Have you forgotten how angry and heated Palin rallies were at the end of the 2008 campaign?
Eric
OMG!!! Shout it from the roof tops! A paid Clinton Campaign staffer isn’t big on Bernie’s chances in the general!!! Someone alert the media!!!
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus: Thanks, I appreciate that.
Mandalay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
A kind poster in the comments at your link spilled the beans:
Ouch.
Kropadope
@Amir Khalid: I’m gonna go with 6. Which doesn’t sound like many, but it’s nearly as many as the white voters I know, which is a number around a dozen (mostly my family). Most people I know of any race couldn’t care less about politics.
Half of those 6 are pharmacists though and pharmacists are pretty damn Republican.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You know 18 voters?
Bess
@redshirt:
One of the Texas Castro guys as the Democratic VP pick and a concerted registration/get out the vote effort in Texas could make for a very interesting November.
Republicans could help things out by continuing to talk about deportation and walls.
Amir Khalid
@Omnes Omnibus:
An impressive number, isn’t it?
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: I know the presidential preferences of approximately 18 people. I know a few more people who discuss politics, mainly issues, but haven’t expressed a preference for president to me (ETA: This group also includes a few disaffected non-voters). Then I know scores of people who never discuss politics, at least not in social settings.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Aqualad08: Did you read the article? It was a hit piece on Sanders masquerading as Trump porn.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Okay.
gene108
@efgoldman:
Christie has almost two years left as governor. Everyone in NJ wants him gone, as far as I can tell.
If he wants to campaign he should do it on his own dime and not the taxpayers.
Aleta
@efgoldman:I get your point about the numbers, and thanks; however,
is what makes for a foreboding sensation. It seems to change the idea of what is possible and magnify the energy in the air, and further effects can flow from that.
magurakurin
@Eric:
pretty much anyone who can do addition and subtraction isn’t big on the Senators chances at this point. Even after he wins 3 out of 5 states tomorrow, he’ll be another 50+ delegates behind. So, yeah, not winning.
mike in dc
We need to push those unfavorables up to 73%. Hillary’s favorable numbers may bounce back after the primaries are over.
redshirt
@Aleta: Use that fear to get involved, volunteer, sign up voters, etc.
Action is always the best way to deal with dread.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta:
No, they vote for the GOP every year. OTOH, I personally know of Latinos who are organizing voter registration efforts.
Let me ask you this as an exercise in rationality: what states that Obama won is Clinton likely to lose and why?
Adam L Silverman
@redshirt: There’s a significant move on by Hispanic and Latino immigrants in the US who had not previously pursued citizenship, but have been here long enough to qualify, to get it before the election so they can vote against Trump:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/08/us/trumps-rise-spurs-latino-immigrants-to-naturalize-to-vote-against-him.html?_r=0
Adam L Silverman
@mike in dc: as long as she’s running they’ll stay this way. When she’s serving, as she did in the Senate or as Secretary of State, she had more positive numbers. When she’s campaigning they go negative. Some of this is media coverage and some of it is a concerted effort by the GOP and conservatives to demonize her. It is what it is.
Amir Khalid
@efgoldman:
For the life of me, I can’t imagine what Christie has to offer The Donald. Right now, CC’s not exactly Miss Popularity in either the Republican party or in Jersey.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: HRC will destroy Trump in the debates. First, she is really good at it. Second, she’ll laugh at him (guaranteed). Third, while guys have a locker room insult culture if Trump tries to turn in on HRC, it will backfire badly. Badly.
Aleta
@Omnes Omnibus:
Come to think of it, I was using your question as a positive argument a week or two ago. Again, thanks for that, I’ll try to come down from the roof now. I’ve watched parts of 5-6 Trump rallies in the last few days.
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: That is the only count that matters for the Pres election. For the downstream elections and coattails, other factors come in.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: “Establishment” cred. Every “respectable” Republican that supports Trump bolsters his argument that he’s got the majority of Republicans on his side.
Aleta
@redshirt: True.
Calouste
@efgoldman: Trump got 52% in Massachusetts.
Omnes Omnibus
@Aleta:
Well, there’s your problem. Stop doing that. TCM has some very good movies.
redshirt
@Calouste: I was just in Saugus and saw several YUUGE and classy Trump signs. Ergo, Mass is going Trump this fall.
redshirt
@efgoldman: It’s the friction between “establishment” republicans and tea party troglodytes. Will the WSJ support Trump? Will David Brooks? If more and more R governors and senators and the like come out in support, they will, earlier. They will anyway if he gets the nomination, but you know, optics.
MomSense
We know how to do this. It will take voter registration, lots of voter contact and strong voter protection teams in all the states but especially the suppression states. The fundraisers will do their thing and the nominee and her (I’m hoping anyway)team will have to be on their game. Of course the President will be campaigning. Seeing no fucks Obama on the campaign trail is going to be fun. We are good at this.
If anyone is feeling nervous, check out FLOTUS’ speech today introducing the Hamilton cast to the students in attendance. She challenged the students to have fun, learn, engage, ask questions and then take that energy out to their peers and communities. The culture is changing and the more inclusive and kind we are the uglier and less appealing the Trumpster divers are by comparison.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus:
All of them, Katie. And why? Talk to a few people outside the lefty blogosphere and get back to me. The one thing that unites those 18 people who stated their presidential choice to me, the politically engaged people whose choices I don’t know, and the mostly disengaged people is a decided antipathy toward Hillary Clinton.
She has the support of committed partisan Democrats. To win in November, she needs something resembling a majority.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: You are predicting a 50 state wipe-out?
MomSense
@redshirt:
Signs don’t vote, even the yuuge ones!
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
Maybe Trump is content to have just the YOOOGest Republicans on his side.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
Be afraid. Be very very very afraid.
Cacti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is there a way to quantify the lack of self-awareness one has to possess to spray paint racist messages in a church, while carrying around the surname Morales?
Omnes Omnibus
@MomSense: I am trying to decide between laughing uproariously and looking for a money making opportunity. That bet…..
redshirt
@Cacti:
AMERICA! FUCK YEAH!
Omnes Omnibus
@efgoldman: “1, 2, 3, many.”
Kropadope
@efgoldman: I was riffing off Adlai Stevenson and I would like to let you know I’m a freaking whiz at my job.
redshirt
@efgoldman: I’m sure there’s some equation which could lay out the most passionate people with the most signs as subsets of partisans overall, but it doesn’t necessary translate to actual election results.
That said, I can’t figure out who the heck would be so pro Ben Carson as to advertise it.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: If you’re counting singles, you’re doing it wrong.
trollhattan
@Mandalay:
Holy crap! Apple, tree, distance, et al. Judge dad got some s’plainin’ to do.
redshirt
@MomSense: The people that put up these YUUGE signs – and they were almost billboard like – clearly had some passion. I wish I could understand their passion and persuade them to use that energy towards more noble ends.
But of course, signs don’t mean that much overall. But they mean something.
scav
All the same, in the masses not paying attention, Hillary is a relatively known quantity so perceptions are already set. They probably don’t even know enough about the other options lurking in wait for them, so their relative preference for the two alternatives that appear before their astonished eyes on the ballot are probably not cast in titanium. When americans chose to be ignorant, they can make an amazing solid job of it. And, although blind tribal habit can usually get you far in make predictions in such instances, this has been such an utterly wacked out campaign season so far, I’d add some definite schosh to the variance.
NR
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pretty much the entire Midwest except Illinois. Her link to Wall Street is something that Trump is going to hammer her on every day of the campaign. Granted Trump has his own problems. But he is going to hit her on her Wall Street ties, and Hillary has no defense. She, and most of her supporters, are utterly clueless about the political liability that those ties create.
It doesn’t help matters that Hillary and her people think that the 90s were great and then the Republicans got into power and screwed everything up. The reality is that neoliberal economics has been a disaster for a huge swath of the country, masked only by stock bubbles. The system is broken. And she has no plan to fix the problem because she doesn’t see the problem.
Also, people all over the Midwest still remember NAFTA. That’s going to be another huge problem for her.
Redshift
@efgoldman: And Trump has shown that he is absolutely incapable of resisting the urge to respond to any criticism or mockery. Remember the table of Trump products at his last “victory speech”?
For anyone who thinks Trump will be able to pivot to the center and learn some actual policy for the general, how much do you think he’ll be able to stay on message while being trolled by everyone from the Troller-in-Chief on down?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: I am more interested in the answer to my questions about you predicting a 50 state wipe-out. You know, the one you didn’t answer.
Omnes Omnibus
@NR: I live in WI. She will win it.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Not at all. I’m highly interested, however, in all this talk from the Repub “establishment” that they don’t support Trump. It’s the possible crack in their long running scam – of rich people goading poor whites into passionate support over hot button social issues. But with Trump it’s all of the social issues, and none of them. It’s reality TV and the utter superficiality of your typical tea bagger. It’s all of the last 40 years of Repuke politics condensed into one candidate and it could break the Republican party, or our country.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Never heard of hyperbole, then?
MomSense
@redshirt:
Seeing as they are Trump supporters, I bet they’re overcompensating for something.
Redshift
@redshirt:
This weekend, I saw a car at the post office with a Ben Carson 16 sticker and a “Who is John Galt?”
Just Some Fuckhead
@Cacti:
Maybe it was satire.
mclaren
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.):
Unbelievable tripe.
More of the usual whining defeatism. “Republicans are infinitely powerful, Democrats are helpless, no matter what we do, we’re doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed doomed!”
Bullshit.
I’ve cited a variety of ways in which the next Democratic president can and will make an end-run around Republican obstructionism. In return, you kooks have screamed that I’m insane.
Stop taking meth. Wake up. Look around. When a prominent law journal publishes a clear and simple way for the president to bypass unconstitutional Republican obstructionism within the law, it’s serious, it’s real, and it’s an entirely viable and constitutionally valid option.
Either the people who continue to claim that a Democratic president is helpless in the face of Republican congressional obstructionism are drunk, brain-damaged, on hard drugs, or they’re simply unable to read.
redshirt
@efgoldman: Sure, but I appreciate anyone on one level who puts up a political sign of any kind. It means they care enough to say something. It’s democracy, even if it’s often filled with dipshits and racists.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’ll lay odds on that bet.
mclaren
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
Unlike Hillary.
If Hillary were president, America would now be mired in Syria, Iraq (again), Saudi Arabia, Oman, the UAE, and a dozen other middle eastern hellholes. The news would be full of all the American kids getting killed, the brown babies getting burned by our napalm and white phosophorus, and the rioting raging crowds in foreign countries holding up signs that read U.S. OUT and DEATH TO THE GREAT SATAN!
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropadope: Sure, but then it’s a non-answer. You don’t know. Fine. My question remains as a measure of whether Clinton wins or loses.
redshirt
@Redshift: Objectivists, then?
redshirt
@MomSense: Male pattern baldness, most likely.
mclaren
@shomi:
John Cole has admitted that he’s unrealistically pessimistic about the Repubs’ shot at winning.
That’s probably an aftereffect of Cole’s long stint as a Republican bagman.
mclaren
@efgoldman:
Adlai Stevenson once responded to a woman who assured him that all the intelligent people were going to vote for him by retorting “That’s not enough, madam! I need a majority.”
Hard to imagine any politician saying that today.
WarMunchkin
I want South Dakota, Montana, Indiana and North Carolina in our goody bag. I’d love Arizona, but I don’t think that’s happening even as an optimist.
mclaren
@Kropadope:
Preposterous. People don’t usually vote for a candidate, they vote against the other candidate.
Trump’s negatives will generate such a huge Democratic landslide that it will permanently change the political landscape in America.
mclaren
@Aleta:
You’re wrong.
You’re depressed.
Watch some MONTY PYTHON episodes and stop being scared. Things are going to turn out very well in November for Democrats, and for America.
Whenever people get hysterical and start bleating “The American experiment is over!” and suchlike twaddle, I always quote this letter by Thomas Jefferson:
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: What about this “Shithole America” about which you write so vehemently on other occasions?
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
Peggy Noonan, the female Bill Kristol!
Anne Laurie
@redshirt:
“He’s such a nice man, so soft-spoken, and a true Christian. Also, I am not a racist — I just hate that Obama guy cuz he’s a Democrat.”
redshirt
@WarMunchkin: I get NC, and yeah Bams won Indiana in 2008, but why South Dakota and Montana? What’s the hook?
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: Well, yeah, but does that cover all of Ben Carson supporters? I hope not. Or do I?
mclaren
@magurakurin:
Yes, and consider for a moment the tremendous effect Bernie’s highly successful run had on Hillary’s campaign and on the Democratic party in general. The Rahm Emanuels and Cass Sunsteins are no longer in charge of the Democratic agenda, true progressives are. Hillary is no longer trying to win by running to the right, now she’s tacking sharply to the left.
Push the perspective forward. What do you see Bernie’s large bloc of delegates doing to Hillary’s vice presidential choice? What do you think Hillary and the DNC will be willing to do to keep that huge swatch of highly-energized young voters in the Democratic party and committed to voting this November if Bernie isn’t the Democratic nominee?
I’m betting that the DNC and Hillary will be bending themselves so far over backwards to cater to progressives and to idealistic young voters that we are going to hear lots of leaks about the highly progressive extremely left-leaning cabinet members Hillary will appoint. I think Hillary’s current white papers suggesting very progressive policies are only the start of her efforts to court progressives.
This is all good news.
Be of good cheer. This is going to turn out very well for Democratics, and for America.
Kropadope
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, what do you want from me? Predictions are hard, especially about the future. I could go for the easy ones; VA, FL, and OH would all have to flip assuming a Democratic loss. NV, NH, and CO would be on the chopping block in that scenario, I assume. If PA, MI, WI, and/or MN are even in contention, it’s too late for her.
Of course, I can’t know how any of this will pan out until election day, but forgive me for being concerned. Of everyone I know, I’m her only guaranteed vote in November in addition to one persuadable, but wavering, Bernie supporter. Sure, my family, coworkers, friend, and classmates don’t constitute a representative sample, but I live in deep blue MA. I should know a Hillary supporter, even if only by accident.
@efgoldman: Stevenson supporter:
Stevenson:
Anne Laurie
@Redshift: In my dreams, there’s a clip from the first Clinton-Trump debate where she’s laughing at him and saying, “Donald, take your hand out of your pants and act like a grown-up.”
You know he’ll give her the opportunity!
Kropadope
@redshirt: Bill Clinton won Montana at least once and it’s usually pretty narrowly decided.
Anne Laurie
@redshirt: Heck, given the major employers in our area, maybe they’re all just medical professionals excited to have one of their own running?
mclaren
Fortunately for all of us, president Obama is not whimpering in the corner and has not decided to curl up in a foetal ball whining “The American experiment is over.”
Source: “ Yes, President Obama Can Still Nominate a Supreme Court Justice,” The Nation,, 14 February 2016.
Look for Obama to nominate a Supreme Court justice. And look for him to crush the Republicans when they feebly try to obstruct his duties as chief executive. Obama is going to beat the Republicans like a rented mule, just the way he did in the debt ceiling standoff.
Folks, this is a win-win situation. If Republicans persist in their obstructionism it will energize Democratic voters and booster Democratic turnout as never before. If Republicans fold and capitulate, the Republican party’s bully-worshiping base will turn on their leadership in disgust and sit this election out.
Either way, we win.
BillinGlendaleCA
@mclaren:
If you’re tweaking, there’s no problem waking up; sleep, on the other hand…
redshirt
@mclaren: I hope you’re right. I have to say I find optimistic mclaren far more inspiring than a “pox on all your houses” mclaren.
redshirt
@Anne Laurie: That’s a better explanation. Most doctors are delusional egotists, so it fits.
Peale
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: meh. I think what makes the most sense is that Russia was telling Assad to get serious about settling. This is Putin’s dimensional chess.
Kropadope
@MomSense:
I would venture to say especially the “yuuge”* ones.
*ETA: Also, fuck spell check. I know how to spell both “you” and “ego,” neither of which I was trying to write above.
redshirt
Fuck spell Chechen, man.
Redshift
@redshirt:
Hard to guess if they actually are, or if it’s just a tribal marker. I guess Carson could appeal to Objectivists, with his pulled-up-by-my-bootstraps biography (of you ignore the public assistance — just like Ayn Rand!) and his IGMFY attitude.
redshirt
@Redshift: I’m sure it’s just tribal marker. They probably only have the vaguest idea what it means, but it sounds cool, and they said it on Fox, and that’s enough.
But still, there’s some small chance it’s actual Objectivists. And that’s cool.
akryan
I hope he’s just throwing up a smokescreen, because I sure wouldn’t take Trump lightly. I know a true blue life long Democrat Teamster that has said he likes a whole lot of what Trump says about trade. Right now he’s a big time Bernie supporter but if he’s in the voting booth and the choice is between Trump and Hillary (whom he hates), I don’t know that he wouldn’t vote for Trump. I think that there a lot of those guys out there.
? Martin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Pretty small subset, too. A good primary turnout is 20% of party registrants, which amounts to maybe 10% of the general turnout assuming an open primary where independents can choose a ballot. Trump is winning no more than 40% of that group, or about 4% of the likely electorate. That’s a pretty small subset, actually, if you assume that Trump voters are particularly motivated to turnout compared to other voters.
SFAW
@mclaren:
No doubt! Absolutely! In fact, I bet that the November turnout of Dem voters would be somewhere between 150 and 200 percent of their registered cohort. And the “independents” — oh, my! I think it would be safe to say that Hillary or Bernie – or even Joe the Dog Catcher (who is much more liberal than his first-cousin-once-removed, Joe the Plumber) — would end up receiving something on the order of 250 million votes, and possibly 547 Electoral Votes.
I’d post more, but the hallucinogens I ingested need to wear off first.
ETA: Wait a second — you mean you WEREN’T being ironic/sarcastic/facetious?
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus:
Until recently, the only available general-election polls in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida showed Trump ahead of Clinton. But the latest ones have changed.
I still hope that the OP is bluster and they aren’t just hoping Trump implodes.
I always find it hard to believe that Pennsylvania votes blue, because the Pennsyltucky part is mostly what I’m familiar with.
Matt McIrvin
@WarMunchkin: There hasn’t been a lot of state-level general-election polling yet, but it’s starting to occur, and from what I’ve seen lately, the map for a Clinton vs. Trump election looks a lot like a repeat of 2012. There’s an outlier poll showing Clinton beating Trump in NC but mostly he’s ahead there. Clinton has a decent margin in blue-leaning swing states like NH and VA. There are still some recent polls showing Trump beating Clinton in Florida (which was very uncertain and went down to the wire in 2012).
Things can change a lot between now and November, and maybe turnout differences will shake out to help us, but I wouldn’t expect any kind of landslide that gets the Democrats a bunch of red states or flips the House.
That said, I’ll take a repeat of 2012.
Kay
I wish the “data team” were a little less confident and a little more concerned about how they missed Michigan, since Michigan is one of the states Trump is claiming he will be strong in versus a Democrat. He never answered the Trump question, which is PA, MI, OH, IL and WI. It may be bullshit that Trump will be strong there but there’s nothing in this piece that specifically supports that.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I actually am not too concerned about the polling miss in Michigan. Primary turnout is much, much harder to predict than general election turnout.
Michigan in particular was hard because there was no recent model that was any good. Michigan had a caucus in 2000 and 2004, and in 2008, the state had a fight over scheduling with the national party that caused the convention delegates to be stripped, making the primary meaningless, and Obama and, I think, Edwards actually took their names off the ballot. So naturally primary turnout was way down in ’08 and confined to the most likely voters. And of course 2012 didn’t have a contested primary. Nobody had any idea how primary turnout might look in 2016. But the general election is anther story.
Matt McIrvin
@redshirt: The earliest election signs I saw in the 2016 cycle were for Ben Carson, in southern New Hampshire. His fans have been incredibly devoted. I think they’re mostly religious conservatives who see Carson as a nice upstanding guy.
He had this devoted 8-10% of Republicans who never deserted him (I think he temporarily lost maybe 2% when Trump first exploded onto the scene, but they came back for Carson’s boomlet). When Carson dropped out it looked at first like Kasich and Cruz were getting his voters, but his Trump endorsement might have changed that.
SFAW
@Kay:
Kay –
Don’t worry, I thought I heard that Benenson is starting to assemble a team of experts to help him puzzle things out, and to help restore confidence.
The key persons he has signed up so far are Bob Shrum, Joe Trippi, and Mark Penn. He keeps trying to get Tad Devine on board, but he can’t seem to track down where Devine is these days.
ETA: Maybe Alex Castellanos can also help?
Weaselone
@Kay:
That 5% lead vs 1.5% loss is also significantly more accurate that what was being shown by external pollsters prior to the Michigan primary. It’s probably explainable by the crossover that was observed combined with a depression in turnout of would be Hillary voters who thought she had it in the bag courtesy of the published polls.
feebog
General election polls are pretty useless at this point, but Omnes asked the right question; what states does HRC lose that Obama won in 2012? Two states with a lot of votes and were very close in 2012 are Ohio and Florida. I would be watching the polling in those two very carefully, and HRC needs to spend a lot of time in both states. If she carries those two, there is not way Trump comes close in any of the others.
Paul in KY
Well, he fucking damn well better be worried. This sounds like some ‘Shrum’ shit to me. The last thing needed is ANY kind of overconfidence.
Paul in KY
@Aqualad08: Sounds like a plan, to me.
Paul in KY
@efgoldman: When Pres. Truman heard than Eisenhower had declared himself a Repub, he decided not to run for re-election.
Paul in KY
@Redshift: I have a dude here at work who’s a Carson supporter. Nice guy, very religious, think wife is even more religious, etc.
Paul in KY
@mclaren: Maybe it could be done, but Pres. Obama is not going to do that. He’s going to let it play out the way it is supposed to be played (nominate good person, shame Repubs into giving hearing, etc.)
Paul in KY
@mclaren: You are overconfident.
Aleta
@mclaren: Thanks much for the excerpt from Jefferson. I remember seeing the first part but not sure I ever saw the last.
(as you wrote)
Greatly appreciated.
Matt McIrvin
…On behalf of Bernie fans, I’ll mention that the other thing about state-by-state polling is that if a Sanders v. Trump election were held today, Bernie Sanders would probably win in an amazing electoral blowout such as Democrats haven’t seen since 1964. He’d take all the traditional swing states by comfortable margins, he’d win NC and Missouri, might even win Kansas. That suggests he could be competitive in red states where there hasn’t been any polling, like Nebraska and the Dakotas.
Now, I have very little confidence that these numbers would persist after a few months of general-election campaign aimed at him. Nobody’s really been slinging personal dirt on Bernie Sanders, apart from Trump’s absurd accusations that he’s the puppetmaster of disruptions at Trump’s rallies. Sanders wrote a lot of typical Seventies-radical stuff back in the Seventies which is probably ripe for exploitation. But he actually starts from a really good place, if you ignore that he’s probably not going to get the nomination.
Matt McIrvin
(I could be hallucinating, but I seem to recall some super-early general-election polls from 2008 that suggested that Obama might be able to carry Montana and Texas.)