Why Trump Will Likely Win a Second Term

[pbrower2a]

Of course he is favored. He is  an incumbent president with a good economy and strong intraparty support. Ultimately the Dems will have to pick either a progressive or an establishment candidate and unless said candidate runs a great campaign to unite the party someone will be disenchanted.

Just because we have had three consecutive two-term Presidents does not mean that we have a pattern of 'incumbency wins' set in stone. The previous three Presidents consistently had approval numbers at or above 45%, which means that with even a lackluster campaign for re-election they would get re-elected. But that is at the national level.  

If he should win the same percentage of the vote in 2020 as he did in 2016, he loses unless the Democrats face a split of the vote on the Left side of the political spectrum. 45.93% of the popular vote (which Trump got) is less than

Romney 47.15%
Kerry 48.26%
Ford 48.01%
Nixon 49.55% (1960)

and little better than

McCain 45.60%
Dukakis 45.65%

...and he is closer to Adlai Stevenson in 1952 (44.43%) than he was to Hillary Clinton in 2016. Those three lost to winners who won 365, 426, and 457 electoral votes, respectively.  

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Trump is doing a fine job in uniting Democrats. He has gained only one constituency: well-heeled heels who thought that Hillary Clinton would be safer because she is not a populist demagogue. Of course, those people have the money. He has lost much else or has never had a big part of his 2016 electorate really in hand.
 

[pbrower2a]

If electoral votes are proportionally distributed among how states have voted, it would make sure that every vote isn't wasted, while still slightly favouring rural states.

I think Trump is favoured to win a second term.

He is not favored to win either Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin (his three closest wins), and he is not favored to win either Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine, or Nevada, his four closest losses. He can forget Colorado, Virginia, and New Mexico, the only other states that he lost by 10% or less. 

He is in trouble in every state that he won by less than 10%, the only such state that he has a good chance of winning is Texas. Texas straddles 400 electoral votes for a Democrat.

Trump wins if nothing has changed from 2016.  Much has. Let farm incomes fall in the Great Plains, and he could find himself losing states that Democrats usually concede before the election is underway.

[pbrower2a]

To see how Trump could lose, simply look at how Obama could have lost in 2012. Maybe the economy goes bad. Maybe a shaky ally has an anti-American revolution much as Iran did in 1979. Maybe he decides to use the treasury as a piggy bank for patronage or has a corruption scandal. Maybe he cheats on Michelle with a white woman who has a child by him. The states would not be the same, as America would still be highly polarized.  


It's really simple to figure how Obama would have done in 2012 had his approval numbers been 5% lower, which is about where I see Trump's approval numbers. Cut Obama's percentage of the vote by 5% and raise Romney by 3%, figuring that 2% would have gone to left-leaning  third-party nominees (Green, largely)

Obama, 10% or more
Obama, 5-9.9%
Obama under 5%
Romney under 5%
Romney 5-9.9%
Romney, 10% or more

Obama 187, 46% of the popular vote
Romney 351, 50% of the popular vote

As you can see, this hypothetical scenario would be nearly an inverse in the the numbers of electoral votes of 2012. of how things went in 2016.

So how do I see Trump doing if such a scenario applies to him? Figure that the Democrat does not lose so many votes to third-party, left-leaning nominees, that about 3% of usual Republican voters end up voting for third-party, right-leaning nominees, with the Democrat getting just over 50% of the popular vote and Trump getting about 46%, Basically, Trump loses everything that he lost in 2016 and everything that he won by 10% or less with the exception of Texas -- but Indiana, Missouri, and Montana get shaky for him.  

Again, margins, which I consider the real measure of winning and losing.


Democratic nominee, 10% or more
Democratic nominee, 5-9.9%
Democratic nominee under 5%
Trump under 5%
Trump, 5-9.9% -- not shown
Romney, 10% or more -- not shown

I'm using polling and not adjusting any previous election.

When the losing nominee gets 45% or so of the popular vote, strange things happen that start showing characteristics of an electoral blowout that rapidly diverges from the close Presidential elections to which we have been accustomed since 2000. The easiest thing to remember in accordance with what I have seen for polls for a very long time is that Texas straddles 400 electoral votes for a Democrat, which has been so since the 1992 Presidential election.

It's up to President Trump to shore up the approval numbers -- and more importantly, pare the horrid disapproval numbers that bedevil his Presidency. As a partisan Democrat, I lack the imagination to see how such is possible. Disapproval means giving up. I have no idea of what states would go to Trump by high single digits because the only ones that could are those that seem very solid for Republicans.

Yes, my model for an Obama loss is crude, but that is what one gets with an alternative history.