Trump Likely to Win Re-Election, According to a Dem Strategist

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

2020 election definitely shouldn't be considered an autowin for dems. That said, Trump almost threw an automatic win vs a terrible candidate after 8 years of an only decent democrat president (he only got particularly popular after people saw Obama in comparison to Hillary and Trump). You have to be a special kind of incompetent to almost lose Hillary Clinton (the person who made the 2000 New York senate race somewhat competitive).

Also, the worst people floated around for 2020 candidate (Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris) are both still leagues better than Hillary Clinton. You have to really try to pick a worse candidate than Hillary Clinton. And you also have to really try to run a worse campaign than Hillary.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Aside from Trump's blunders, the reason the race was so close was because Trump spent only pennies on the campaign. He won't have this problem in 2020. He spent less than $5 per vote in 2016, so all he has to do is double that and he's good to go.

But before the election, literally on the night of the election, Hillary had an impeccable campaign and her ground game would be the reason she wins. I love seeing revisionist history in action lol.

Hillary showed that the effect of money doesn't mean much in presidential races (it matters a ton in local and state races though). The reason why money doesn't matter as much in presidential races is because presidential races have massive media coverage, whereas in more local / state races the only coverage they usually get is campaign ads so whoever has more $$$ gets more exposure. Does this logic seem sound to you?

Also Trump will have more money this cycle, but the donors are really angry at the GOP for not getting anything done. This is supposed to be the easiest time for a new president, yet Donald Trump has accomplished basically nothing. I doubt Trump is going to have an easier time getting things done after midterms.

Also you have to admit that Hillary was a particularly dogpoop candidate -- the only time we heard from her was when she said "Trump is bad!" and about her emails. She never gave anybody a reason to vote for her besides "I'm not Trump". I legitimately struggled to find people who liked Hillary.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Hillary showed that the effect of money doesn't mean much in presidential races

Except if you're Russian. Then $100,000 in Facebook ads is the most devastating campaign strategy ever lol.

You're totally right on that. Honestly I hate how democrats are blaming the russians. Russia did hurt Hillary a slight bit probably (how the hell do you even quantify this), but the ad attacks wouldn't have been effective if Hillary was someone people could actually trust.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Georgia will be winnable for democrats very soon. Look at the age gap in the CNN exit polls -- it's MASSIVE. The younger generation is so much more democrat than the older generation (largely because of the huge miniority population, but the youth white vote is also becoming less polarized).

Compare this to states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, PA, etc. where the youth vote is only a slight democrat win or even a slight loss. I expect Minnesota to start trending republican fast because it's a pretty wealthy and white state -- the older generation just has a dear attachment to the democrat party compared to other states.

That said, Wisconsin is a super elastic state so I wouldn't discount it for democrats yet (George Bush only lost this state twice by less than 0.5% FFS - how could anyone call this a "blue wall"?). Georgia won't be to the left of it until at least 2024 - but probably until 2028.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

You're totally right on that. Honestly I hate how democrats are blaming the russians. Russia did hurt Hillary a slight bit probably (how the hell do you even quantify this), but the ad attacks wouldn't have been effective if Hillary was someone people could actually trust.

It's called Hysteria. Induced by losing what they deemed to be their rightful throne, and any reasoning behind their loss CANNOT be legal or logical as it was rightfully theirs. Therefore, it was clearly Russian interference.

However, isn't this "Clinton was one of the worst candidates/ran a terrible campaign" revisionist history? Literally on election night everyone was talking about how her campaign was impeccable, her ground game was better than Obama's, her data was the best in the history of Democracy, Trump only had a 2% chance to win, etc. etc.

I agree the media sucked. I personally believed Hillary would barely win the deciding state of PA by less than 0.5%. I got Wisconsin and Michigan wrong (thought it'd be between 1-2%), but I never thought Hillary would win Florida / NC. The polls showed she was losing in those states, yet the media decided she had a lock on those states? The media was literally ignoring the polls in the last week that showed Trump ahead in Florida / NC and that Trump was barely behind in PA. The media was also dumb and ignored the huge undecided numbers.

Cable news networks have sucked for a while. IDK why people just realized this in 2016.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Georgia will be winnable for democrats very soon. Look at the age gap in the CNN exit polls -- it's MASSIVE. The younger generation is so much more democrat than the older generation (largely because of the huge miniority population, but the youth white vote is also becoming less polarized).

Compare this to states like Minnesota, Wisconsin, PA, etc. where the youth vote is only a slight democrat win or even a slight loss. I expect Minnesota to start trending republican fast because it's a pretty wealthy and white state -- the older generation just has a dear attachment to the democrat party compared to other states.

That said, Wisconsin is a super elastic state so I wouldn't discount it for democrats yet (George Bush only lost this state twice by less than 0.5% FFS - how could anyone call this a "blue wall"?). Georgia won't be to the left of it until at least 2024 - but probably until 2028.

When Georgia actually elects a democrat statewide, then we can talk about it being possibly in play, until then its not.

Look at how close Michelle Nunn and Jason Carter were in 2014 (a terrible year for democrats overall). They both lost by less than 7%. Granted they were both pretty good candidates, but that's still a fairly small gap!

Now imagine what happens 6 years from then.

And let me inform you of the flaw in this logic -- Georgia elected a democratic governor for 130 years. 130 years between 1873-2003. However, republicans won Georgia on the presidential level quite a few times between this time period.

I know my state fairly well!

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

It was everybody, not just news networks. Look at posts in the 2016 election board pre-November 9th.

This is why the reaction has been so intense. People went from "The election can't be hacked. The election can't be rigged. This is a free and fair election. Donald, quit whining. It's not rigged, you're just losing!" to "OMG THE RUSSIANS AND COMEY AND SPAGHETTI-OS CAUSED US TO LOSE THIS WASNT FAIR WE NEED A RE-ELECTION OMG OMOG WE WERE HACKED EVEN THOUGH THE VOTING MACHINES DONT CONNECT TO INTERNET OMG RUSSIAS 100,444 ADS ON BOOKFACE HAD MORE OF AN EFFECT THAN CLINTONS $1.2 BILLION!!!!!"

This is what happened to the Republicans as well when they lost to Trump. They had to cope hard. The Republicans tried to rationalize it the same way - Trump was colluding with the Clintons; Trump just wants to promote a new TV show; Trump doesn't really want to win the Presidency; etc. etc.

It's like a victim of a crime - they cope. They rationalize it in their head. Both the GOP Establishment and Democratic parties were victims of Trump's absolute dominance so now they're coping.

Dude we aren't in disagreement here. News (and people in general) are so reactionary. Remember when Bill O Reily said the republican party had no leaders and was dying in 2009? Republicans had absolutely NOTHING in 2009 - democratic dominance everywhere (many thought Sarah Palin would be the new leader of the repub party, lol)! And then 2010 happened.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah but hindsight is 20/20. Before the election, virtually no one (even Trump supporters) really thought he could win. Now after the election all I have heard was "I knew Trump would win" or "I knew Clinton would lose/was a bad candidate."

How could 99% of people know that Trump was going to win PA, WI, and MI by less than 1 point? Makes no sense.

Hey I didn't say Trump was gonna win MI and WI! I thought he was going to lose those because of the polls there. Trump legitimately destroyed the polls in these two states.

But the polls in NC PA and FL showed a Trump win or a very close Hillary win! The media, Hillary supporters, and even Trump supporters got it into their head that somehow Hillary would overperform the polls! (Probably because Nevada showed a Trump win but then Hillary won it by a fair bit). People were literally ignoring the data lmao.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Lets look at 2014, Deal beat the best candidate the Dems had by 8% points, 2% higher than his 2010 margin.

in 2002 Perdue won by 5% over Barnes. That doesn't show a trend to democrats to me, and neither does the presidential vote

In the senate Race Nunn (the second best candidate the Dems had in an open seat lost by 7, the last time that seat was up incumbent Saxby Chambliss won with less than 50% of the vote by 3 points. the Time before that Chambliss won by 7, and before that Cleland won by 3%.

People keep talking about demographics, and exit polling numbers, but Georgia hasn't show any ACTUAL shift towards democrats when it comes to actual votes being cast.

I cannot think of a state that has flipped from a consistent voting record in a presidential that doesn't have at least one statewide win for the party.

If Georgia democrats actually get a statewide victory, then we can start talking about exit polls and demographics

I literally just gave you an example of a state that flipped from a consistent voting record in a presidential without one statewide win for the party -- Georgia itself! Newt Gingrich was one of the first republicans to win even a house seat in that state! They didn't elect a republican governor until 2000.

Remember the southern republican vote didn't actually max out until late 2000's. There were still a lot of ancestral dems in a lot of these southern states (look at Tennessee in 2000 - there was a MASSIVE age gap where the younger voters voted way way more republican than the older voters. Aka ancestral dems!). Also Remember Gore tied w/ younger voters vs Bush whereas he won fairly big among 65+. That's because there were a lot of dems from the New Deal era still around! Most of those dems have been dead since the late 2000's. So we have lost the dems from the New Deal, but the republicans from the Reagan era are for the most part still alive and healthy! (Remember -- the age you grew up in matters a lot in your voting habits!).


EDIT: Oops, I meant they didn't elect a republican governor until 2000 (after 1873 or so)

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

The whole kneeling thing is a slight win for Trump. Protest movements are never popular at first (remember love it or leave it in Vietnam? Remember how people hated MLK until he was assassinated? remember how people hated the Tea Party demonstrations and then they won big in 2010?) Republicans can mask their very unpopular policies with random social wedges.

If you are a Trump supporter, you should be very concerned about Trump's accomplishments 9 months (I guess there's Goursich and a hurricane bill?) in. Look at how productive Obama's first congress was compared to Trump's.

And this is supposed to be the easiest part of a president's term. Bill Clinton may have been able to recover, but that was because he moved to the right and started compromising. Will Donald Trump be able to move to the left and start compromising?

Granted a Trump strike in North Korea would probably raise his approval rating by at least 7%, so if he's successful in North Korea he could do well.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

TBF to GA statewide wins, I'd imagine John Barrow is probably gonna win in 2018. Not sure about the governor race -- Abrams seems like a likely loss, while it's probably a tossup for Evans.

Also the people that tend to turnout in midterms are the people most against the party in power.

Also lol the GOP is not getting a super majority in 2018. It would have gotten one if Hillary was in the white house though.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

The difference between Vietnam and MLK protests is those people were protesting real injustices. The Tea Party also protested real things, while the "Resistance" protested nothing of substance. If they would have waited for the travel ban (just 1 week) they would have made more sense.

you do realize people hated the mlk protests too right lol? many people thought that mlk was being too radical and needed to find a more peaceful way of protesting. you really think people liked that people were marching down streets and blocking people from going to work? idk what is up w/ this revisionist history where the civil rights protest was all goody two shoes.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah, this thread is quickly turning into a ridiculous MAGA circle-jerk so I'm just gonna spend my Saturday elsewhere.

I understand that you're passionate but I think ahugecat has been pretty reasonable for most of this thread. Most of his points are good (except for the GOP supermajority which is just ignoring the basic facts of midterms), but he just misses a crucial part of the puzzle. This forum should be a little more reasonable to ahugecat.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Also lol the GOP is not getting a super majority in 2018. It would have gotten one if Hillary was in the white house though.

I am mad at Ayotte and Heck for their stupidity in 2016, but it's still within reach:

Manchin switches to Independent or parties outright - or loses to a Republican, then there's Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. And possibly Florida.

If Ayotte and Heck didn't go full stupid then it'd be much easier. But oh well can't cry over spilled milk.

97% of people from the party opposing the presidential party in the senate win reelection. 97%.

I don't see any way GOP wins PA, Wisconsin, or Ohio. PA and Wisconsin are purple states, whereas Ohio is a rematch of a failed candidate from 2012. 2018 will be a more favorable environment for dems than 2012.

Michigan is a purple state but I won't rule it out because of the Kid Rock factor. I doubt he wins but I'm not going to rule it out. Florida is also somewhat unlikely because it's a purple state but Rick Scott is a strong competitor so I won't rule it out.

MO, IN, ND, WV, MT are all arguably tossups / only tilt D, but even if republicans win all of these, they'd still be 3 seats short. This is also ignoring NV / AZ.

My personal guess is dems lose Missouri and one of IN / ND / MT, and republicans hold both NV / AZ.