Forget everything you know. This is a realigning election.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

This election has broken and will continue to break all the rules.  It will blow away the old red/blue firewalls.  Trump is not a typical GOP candidate, he will lose support in traditional GOP areas and gain support in traditional Dem areas.  We could very well see something like this:

Clinton 315
Trump 223

I mean, who knows?  Your guess is as good as mine.

[President Johnson]

LOL. This map is not going to happen.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

LOL. This map is not going to happen.

Everyone last July: LOL, Trump is not going to be the nominee.

I'm not saying this map is going to happen.  I am saying I have a suspicion the map we do see is going to look like an LOL map today.

[Dr. Arch]

Trump is not winning FL or Maine or Wisconsin or New Jersey. Clinton is not winning Utah or South Carolina or Mississippi. Forget about it.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Trump is not winning FL or Maine or Wisconsin or New Jersey. Clinton is not winning Utah or South Carolina or Mississippi. Forget about it.

When Trump surges among white suburbanites, and evangelicals and Mormons abandon him in droves?

[This account no longer in use.]

Realignment election =/= half the states flipping.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Everything that's happened so far, shouldn't have happened.  The fact that Trump is the nominee, hell, anything is on the table at this point.  We call Trump crazy when he talks about making NY and CA competitive.  Now I'm not sure he's crazy.  Up is down and black is white.

[Eraserhead]

Trump is not winning FL or Maine or Wisconsin or New Jersey. Clinton is not winning Utah or South Carolina or Mississippi. Forget about it.

Trump could certainly win Florida. The rest of those flips are extremely unlikely.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

As one of those who never underestimated Trump, I call this map highly implausible.

[Dr. Arch]

Trump is not winning FL or Maine or Wisconsin or New Jersey. Clinton is not winning Utah or South Carolina or Mississippi. Forget about it.

When Trump surges among white suburbanites, and evangelicals and Mormons abandon him in droves?

The Trump persona will not play well in the upper Midwest, and even if Mormons abandon him in droves, it will only lock down NV and flip AZ. It won't be enough to flip UT.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump is not winning FL or Maine or Wisconsin or New Jersey. Clinton is not winning Utah or South Carolina or Mississippi. Forget about it.

When Trump surges among white suburbanites, and evangelicals and Mormons abandon him in droves?

The Trump persona will not play well in the upper Midwest, and even if Mormons abandon him in droves, it will only lock down NV and flip AZ. It won't be enough to flip UT.

Absent a strong Romney write-in campaign, or something even more substantial in the same direction...

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

As one of those who never underestimated Trump, I call this map highly implausible.

It's impossible, but only because it's one of hundreds of possible LOL permutations, one of which I think will happen.

I think if someone showed us November's map NOW, we'd look at it like they grew an arm out of their forehead.

[RaphaelDLG]

LMFAO at people not getting the joke.

You forgot to say that Christie will deliver NJ for Trump and that many experts have said that "Clinton is the candidate who could bring the South back to the democrats."

[Figueira]

I'm still not sure what a "realigning election" is.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

LMFAO at people not getting the joke.

You forgot to say that Christie will deliver NJ for Trump and that many experts have said that "Clinton is the candidate who could bring the South back to the democrats."

If Christie is on the ticket NJ goes 70% for Clinton.

[RFayette]

As one of those who never underestimated Trump, I call this map highly implausible.

It's impossible, but only because it's one of hundreds of possible LOL permutations, one of which I think will happen.

I think if someone showed us November's map NOW, we'd look at it like they grew an arm out of their forehead.

Really?  All I see from the polling is that Romney '12 states minus NC will all go to Trump with smaller margins, plus maybe Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Florida.  Nothing too unusual.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

This "Utah going for Hillary" silliness must end. It's not funny, it's not clever and, most of all, it doesn't make any sense.

Sometimes I wish we would disable the EVC until November, because deformed maps posted frequently on this board are worse than Victor Frankenstein's creation.

[RFayette]

Also, with respect to the "None of this should have ever happened" claim, keep in mind that Trump has led every national primary poll for over half a year.  The polls are still pretty reliable.

[ag]

This is are realigning election. But I would be more sanguine about NJ. The realignment is going to happen on the nativism/diversity axis. NJ is quite diverse.

[Virginiá]

I'm still not sure what a "realigning election" is.

It's an election where coalitions of voters change somewhat substantially and lead to a party rising or falling from dominance. FDR's 1932 election ushered in generations of Democratic control, while arguably 1968 was the beginning of Republican dominance at the presidential level until 1992, where their success soon trickled down to Congressional races in 1994 (albeit after they lost their presidential dominance). 1992 I believe was sort of the start of a realignment towards Democrats, but wouldn't become apparent until 1996 - 2008, when demographics and an entire generation (Millennials) that is overwhelmingly Democratic, like, FDR-levels, finally asserted their electoral power. A lot of this is due to Millennials being heavily diverse and overall much more liberal lots of issues.

If you want my personal take - I don't believe single elections tend to cause a real realignment. FDR/1932 was an aberration due to the depression, and FDR's New Deal cemented their power. I believe realignments take place over many years, and the major elections we see are just the manifestation of the realignment. It is simply the result of long-changing public attitudes and/or demographic changes that modify party coalitions. Realignments don't always cause the newly-dominant party to control all branches of government, either. In Democrats case right now, we have a coalition that is heavily influential and formidable at the presidential level, which could give us several more elections before Republicans break it, but because our coalition's power comes from 18 - 40 year olds and almost unanimous support from minorities, both of which have poor midterm turnout rates, we won't see Congressional dominance until the 2020s, most likely. This is very similar to how Republicans dominated presidential races from 1968 - 1992, but not Congress. As soon as their presidential dominance ended, their voters grew old enough where they started voting more in midterms, and finally overpowered Democrats downballot.

I love this subject, and I could go on even more, but I won't

[SillyAmerican]

As one of those who never underestimated Trump, I call this map highly implausible.

Agreed. However, I do think that we will be presented with more than a few surprises come November.

[Hammy]

Also, with respect to the "None of this should have ever happened" claim, keep in mind that Trump has led every national primary poll for over half a year.  The polls are still pretty reliable.

I agree and I'll add as well that what enabled him to win in the first place was a bitterly divided field of candidates who were all essentially saying the same thing.

[Adam Griffin]

In terms of a "realignment" election and what would maximally-feasible, I think something like this is the most out there that one could still realistically expect:

315
223

EDIT: Crap, looks like someone else beat me to it

[publicunofficial]

"Trump won the primary, SO NOW ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE" is going to be the single most annoying meme of this election.