If you had been told a week before the election...

[Sir Mohamed]

... that Trump would receive 46.0% of the PV and the election winner gets over 300 electoral votes? What would have been your prediction and your thoughts on Trump's winning chances?

I would have answered that his winning chances are less than 1%. I thought his overall winning chances are 10-20%. And if he wins, he's just barely crossing the 270 EVs mark.


This would have been my prediction (I think that was even the final map I predicted):

✓ Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (D-NY)/Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA); 308 EVs.; 49.7%
Businessman Donald Trump (R-NY)/Governor Mike Pence (R-IN): 230 EVs.; 46.0%

[here2view]

I almost had your exact map for my final prediction, instead with Trump winning Nevada, so 302-236. I don't remember what I thought for popular vote percents but I probably would have said something like Hillary 48.5% and Trump 45.5%.

So in a way, I thought that your stated scenario would unfold in real life. I just had the winner wrong lol. I think I gave him like a 10% chance of winning outright, under this I would have given him 2-3%.

[SingingAnalyst]

Basically this:

Clinton/Kaine 48.0% / 308 EV
Trump/Pence 46.0% / 230 EV

[Coolface Sock #42069]

I'd have said Trump would win. I thought third parties would do much better than they ended up doing and that 46% could win the popular vote with Hillary pulling 44-45% and the third parties at 9-10% combined.

I'd have actually said Trump would do better than he actually did, his map plus Virginia, Colorado, and Nevada, and minus Michigan and Wisconsin and maybe Utah (that high a third-party vote may have kicked Utah to Hillary). Maine at-large and Minnesota, wouldn't have been on my radar, but New Hampshire may have been. I guess I'd have probably said Trump would win it, too.

Come to think of it, Mormons defecting en masse to third parties probably would have kept Nevada from voting Trump as well, but I'm not sure I'd have been able to make that connection at the time.

[Inmate Trump]

What can I say...I was mostly optimistic in 2016, right up to election day.  It's felt like hell ever since.

I regrettably voted for George W. Bush...hindsight and all that, and I was young and stupid...but I'd rather have him back until 2021 than one more day of Trump.