Calling it Now - Trump wins Re-election

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Trump loses the EC by at least 273, and has lost ground in MI, PA, and WI and Gillespie lost VA, solidly, he has a 45% chance of winning given the ethics.

[All Along The Watchtower]

At this rate, I tend to agree with the OP. Though it would be more of a matter of whomever Democrats put up losing than Trump winning (hey, sounds like 2016!).

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

51% agree with Trump on the economy now, vs. 42% on the tax cuts approval. That bolds well for the GOP congressional midterms. But, the EC is still stacked against Trump.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

2018 may or may not flip the House, given that TX state Crt decision that nulified more Latino gerrymandering. OH12 will tell us if the House flips, because OH and FL are big Trump states. On 8/7, and O'Connor is behind. But, if he pulls it off, I would be bold and say House flips

[Cold War Liberal]

Who's the real Democratic "frontrunner"?  I know it's early, but running for President is a 3 year deal now.

Trump wasn't the front-runner by a longshot in 2013.

Obama wasn't the front-runner in 2005.

Hell neither of them were the front runners 8 months before the convention they were nominated at (Obama didn't even really stand a chance until Iowa and Jeb!, Cruz, and Carson were all front runners before Trump IIRC)

[super6646]

 Two years out and making predictions about the election. The political environment will be completely different in a few weeks (things move quickly now days)... we cannot with almost any certainty predict what the election outcome will be in 2 years. Lots of people regardless will be eating crow, so...

Trump becomes dictator for life and demands posters of kek everywhere... because why not?

[BigVic]

If the election was held now, Trump would win his 2016 states plus ME-AL, NH and MN giving him a total of 322 electoral votes over the Generic D 216 with Trump narrowly winning the popular vote by 1.6%.

George Bush was the last one-term president and as history goes by, one-term wonders are rare.

Pres. Donald Trump/VP Mike Pence 322 50.4%
Generic Democrat Candidate/Generic DEM VP Candidate 216 48.9%

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

No, he wont he would gain NV, and lose CO, WI and Va a narrow loss

[Fuzzy Bear]

Who's the real Democratic "frontrunner"?  I know it's early, but running for President is a 3 year deal now.

Trump wasn't the front-runner by a longshot in 2013.

Obama wasn't the front-runner in 2005.

Trump was the frontrunner almost from the day he got into the race.  It didn't take him long to pass Jeb!

[cvparty]

If the election was held now, Trump would win his 2016 states plus ME-AL, NH and MN giving him a total of 322 electoral votes over the Generic D 216 with Trump narrowly winning the popular vote by 1.6%.

George Bush was the last one-term president and as history goes by, one-term wonders are rare.

Pres. Donald Trump/VP Mike Pence 322 50.4%
Generic Democrat Candidate/Generic DEM VP Candidate 216 48.9%

rare =/= won’t happen

[pbrower2a]

I wish someone were running simulations now, but if I were to guess, then the Democrat on the average would get 305 or so electoral votes with about a 6% chance of getting 269 or fewer and losing. This is close to what I predicted for Obama vs. Romney around August 2012 for a Democratic win. Donald Trump has more time in which to recover, and Democrats have more calendar pages to watch flip than did Obama in August 2012.

More time means more variety of results. Having a sure 275 in October 2020 is far more valuable for a Democrat nominated for the Presidency than is having only a 94% chance of winning an election as a proposition even if the mean result is higher.  

Current polling suggests that just about any Democratic nominee will win everything that Hillary Clinton won in 2016 except perhaps Nevada, and the combination of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which is good for a 274-264 win for the Democrat, and 280-258 with Nevada. I see Iowa and ME-02 very shaky for Trump, bit those are only seven electoral voters.

My mode is 280, which allows for Trump picking up Minnesota while losing Arizona, or something like this. Now why do I have a mean above the mode? Because after 280 and ignoring 6-EV,  ME-02, and somewhere in the series NE-02, the states beyond 280 include

Florida (29)
Arizona (11)
Ohio (18)
North Carolina (15)
Georgia (16)

If the Democrat wins any two of those five states, then we will not have a close Presidential election.

No, President Trump has practically no chance of winning Virginia, Colorado, New Jersey, Connecticut, or Oregon... which keeps his possible wins even if he finds a way to re-connect to the Rust Belt below 300 electoral votes. Wisconsin is probably the tipping point state in 2020.

states with significant numbers of electoral votes. Beyond that is the second-biggest prize on the electoral map -- TEXAS (36) -- but that is in the zone of a Democratic landslide w8ith over 400 electoral votes  

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Trump's only path to reelection is WI, with Walker, Va, and NV, and that's not likely due to Walker probably not going to win

[pbrower2a]

If the election was held now, Trump would win his 2016 states plus ME-AL, NH and MN giving him a total of 322 electoral votes over the Generic D 216 with Trump narrowly winning the popular vote by 1.6%.

George Bush was the last one-term president and as history goes by, one-term wonders are rare.

The elder George Bush lost because the world changed under his term and he had no idea of what to do next, even if those changes (end of Communist rule in several European states) was a good thing. He was not a really bad President as Trump is. Donald Trump is not a one-term wonder; he is awful for multiple reasons even if one agrees with his ideology. He is convincing the rest of us of how right we were about him or that he was even worse than we expected.

This is not parallel to Barack Obama. Yes, millions thought Barack Obama awful for reasons that Americans will not hold in high regard in twenty years, and thought him an obvious one-term President. But this said, Mitt Romney was the strongest challenger ever against a good President and would have beaten a mediocre-to-bad Presidential nominee -- like Hillary Clinton.

just about any Democrat Candidate/Generic DEM VP Candidate 277
legitimate swing states 84
Pres. Donald Trump/VP Mike Pence 134 from reasonably-certain states

[All Along The Watchtower]

Honestly though: I know we're still nearly two and a half years out and a lot can change obviously, but are there any candidates associated with the Democratic brand who can pose a real threat to the Trump Cult and the Republican "Establishment" that has all but heeled to him in the critical* states? Who is going to carry that banner?

I echo and will expand upon what Averroes Nix said in another thread: that, as unpopular as Trump is outside of the Republican Party electorate, the Democratic Party as a whole is pretty damn unpopular and untrusted too - especially the dreaded "Establishment", which is broadly popular if you compare them to their mostly NeverTrump Republican counterparts. Damning with faint praise, and all that.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I just don't see anyone on the Democratic side who can simultaneously drive up partisan turnout, register many new voters, persuade a decisive number of the vanishing pool of "undecideds" or those Trump voters who are experiencing buyer's remorse right now but don't like anyone else, persuade left-wing third-party voters or just Democratic voters who leave their presidential ballots blank (there were a lot of both of these in 2016), and be acceptable to the woefully and scandalously out-of-touch party "gatekeepers" (read: the Establishment) who never gave up on their single-minded desire for a Hillary Clinton Presidency even after the 2008 primaries (and some of whom likely still haven't given up...sigh. Not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not Kamala Harris, not Kirsten Gillibrand (lol) or Joe Biden (lmao) or Deval Patrick (are you f**king kidding me) or Cory Booker (*vomits violently*) or uh, Tulsi Gabbard (afjdskdfh).

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

_{*In terms of electoral math: I don't see the much-hyped Texas, Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina going Democratic in 2020, while Ohio and Iowa likely stay in Trump's column, very probably Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania too - only Michigan seems pretty likely to flip back. Note that Trump came dangerously close to winning New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia too...}

[pikachu]

Honestly though: I know we're still nearly two and a half years out and a lot can change obviously, but are there any candidates associated with the Democratic brand who can pose a real threat to the Trump Cult and the Republican "Establishment" that has all but heeled to him in the critical* states? Who is going to carry that banner?

I echo and will expand upon what Averroes Nix said in another thread: that, as unpopular as Trump is outside of the Republican Party electorate, the Democratic Party as a whole is pretty damn unpopular and untrusted too - especially the dreaded "Establishment", which is broadly popular if you compare them to their mostly NeverTrump Republican counterparts. Damning with faint praise, and all that.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I just don't see anyone on the Democratic side who can simultaneously drive up partisan turnout, register many new voters, persuade a decisive number of the vanishing pool of "undecideds" or those Trump voters who are experiencing buyer's remorse right now but don't like anyone else, persuade left-wing third-party voters or just Democratic voters who leave their presidential ballots blank (there were a lot of both of these in 2016), and be acceptable to the woefully and scandalously out-of-touch party "gatekeepers" (read: the Establishment) who never gave up on their single-minded desire for a Hillary Clinton Presidency even after the 2008 primaries (and some of whom likely still haven't given up...sigh. Not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not Kamala Harris, not Kirsten Gillibrand (lol) or Joe Biden (lmao) or Deval Patrick (are you f**king kidding me) or Cory Booker (*vomits violently*) or uh, Tulsi Gabbard (afjdskdfh).

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

_{*In terms of electoral math: I don't see the much-hyped Texas, Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina going Democratic in 2020, while Ohio and Iowa likely stay in Trump's column, very probably Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania too - only Michigan seems pretty likely to flip back. Note that Trump came dangerously close to winning New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia too...}

I disagree with this mainly on the basis of "it's 2.5 years out and I've seen so many smart people be hilariously wrong with their predictions this early," but on that note, it's way too early to judge the quality of a field. It's worth remembering that at various times between 2012 and 2014, smart people thought the 2016 GOP field was one of the strongest in recent memory and that people like Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, and Scott Walker were pumped up as perfect candidates who'd be able to appeal to both the GOP base and general electorate. (And ofc, let's not even talk about what the views were on Trump's ability to win a primary, let alone the general.) If we want to go back to 2012, there were five minutes where we all thought that Rick Perry was a legitimate presidential candidate who could challenge Obama.

Not to say that I love this field and there isn't a decent chance it'll suck, but I think even the extremely observant watcher of politics doesn't have much of an idea of how the candidates are going to play to general public once all of them have reasonable name recognition. We're arguably not even at the time in the cycle where we know what the major issues the election will be about - at this point in previous cycles the Gulf War hadn't started, Bush had yet to go to the UN about Iraq, the Great Recession hadn't begun, and Sarah Palin still felt like a very relevant political figure.

[here2view]

the WWC have become more in-tuned to populism rather than democratic ideals. Trump exploited this. He was able to get these voters to see him as their populist hero against a corrupt establishment. And, to everyone's surprise, he won. But Trump himself has dug his own grave with this group. He has ruled more as a typical Republican than the populist he fashioned himself as, and the elastic WWC sees this.

Great point. This is 100% accurate IMO, and will be the major point of contention for 2020.

[CookieDamage]

If the election was held now, Trump would win his 2016 states plus ME-AL, NH and MN giving him a total of 322 electoral votes over the Generic D 216 with Trump narrowly winning the popular vote by 1.6%.

George Bush was the last one-term president and as history goes by, one-term wonders are rare.

Pres. Donald Trump/VP Mike Pence 322 50.4%
Generic Democrat Candidate/Generic DEM VP Candidate 216 48.9%

He has horrible approval ratings in MN, WI, MI, PA, NH, ME, and IA. How on earth would he be winning Maine and at Large and New Hampshire? How would he retain all the states he is totally underwater in if the election were held today? How on earth is he getting a majority of the PV?

Did you bother answering any of these questions? Or did you just go off your feelings which are clearly not rooted in reality?

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Dems don't have a nominee yet, and calling a race, before the nominee is chosen, isn't right.  Trump's path is WI and NV and NH

[pbrower2a]

Honestly though: I know we're still nearly two and a half years out and a lot can change obviously, but are there any candidates associated with the Democratic brand who can pose a real threat to the Trump Cult and the Republican "Establishment" that has all but heeled to him in the critical* states? Who is going to carry that banner?

Because that Establishment demands much and offers little, unless you want to claim that"pie in the sky when you die" in return for suffering in This World as the elites demand is particularly generous -- especially when those elites did nothing to create the alleged delights of Heaven.

What has changed in a year and a half is that we know what Donald Trump is. We know that he can never deliver on his promises to the Common Man -- but he could certainly sell out the Common Man to his class.  If life gets worse because of the conscious choices of the elites without any promise of amelioration, then we get dissent.

Of course it is possible that Donald Trump will benefit from some economic boom related to some great technological innovation, or that he could facilitate some investment that proves a rip-off that richly rewards his cronies and impoverishes us all (like turning free highways into pricey toll roads). A housing boom like the one that Dubya promoted with predatory lending? We are too wise for that now. Try again around 2070, when people who remember the last one are no longer around.

The great fault of the Democrats now is that they have their own quarterback controversy for President, and if it goes badly, then we are stuck with Donald Trump, and likely a fascist political order indefinitely as people are obliged to vote as their employers dictate. In my case I'd like a nice, quick coronary because in such an America death solves all my problems.

 

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I see dissent forming within the Republican Party -- from the real small-government, market-centered Republicans who have no use for crony capitalism. Let's remember that Democrats have won the plurality of the popular vote in six of the last seven Presidential elections. The political map has changed to the extent that an arc of states from Louisiana to West Virginia in the Deep and Mountain South that went for Clinton twice  have all gone decisively for Republicans since 2004. On the other side there are Colorado, New Mexico, and Virginia that seem to have moved from usually R to decidedly D.

(OK, Democrats win the plurality of the popular vote in part because they successfully run up the vote totals in a few states such as California, Illinois, Maryland, and New York... and winning California 53-47 means just the same as winning the state 70-30. 55 electoral votes).
  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Donald Trump got nominated in a fluke (Republicans still have most states as winner-take-all even if the winner is the one of eight who gets 20% of the vote)... and Trump won lots of primaries that way. He did not have to modulate himself to Republican special-interest groups (although he sold out to them quickly). I see Democrats so loathing Trump now that they know him that they will congeal behind anyone who wins the Democratic nomination for President.

The 22nd amendment precludes the best person to be President... but he has a political legacy. Barring the ability of the Republicans to cheat to win (something more a question of character than of ability to offer an attractive agenda) I see the Democrats winning against a wildly-unpopular President.

Do you want an analogy? Carter's people were delighted to see Ronald Reagan win the Republican nomination because he was allegedly too extreme to win. With a President as unpopular as Carter was, the opponent matters little. Democrats tried to cast Ronald Reagan as a dangerous extremist, but that did not work.

But, you say -- Carter had stagflation and a messy international situation. Right. But Donald Trump has multiple scandals, cabinet appointments who have proved either fanatics or self-serving shysters, and a tendency to praise dictatorial leaders.  The economic well-being that comes from America growing its way out of the 2007-2009 Little Depression can come to an end without cause -- or with a trade war that tears at a finely-tuned machine.

Scandals will be enough to wreck a re-election bid by this President in a free and fair election -- something of which I have doubt because the President has shown his admiration for leaders who would never let a free election get in the way of their power. Nixon may have dealt with Chinese leadership that had blood on their hands -- but he never forgot that the leaders with whom he was dealing were killers and fanatics.

Americans do not like scandal. Even in a good year for the party of the soiled pol, and even in a state or district that should be safe, corrupt politicians can lose elections. Need I remind you of Rep. William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, the only incumbent Democrat to lose a congressional seat in the wave year of 2008? Obama coat-tails were long that year, but they did not reach into the gutter of bribe-taking. In the Republican wave election of 2014, two Republican incumbent Republicans lost bids to remain Governor -- Sean Parnell in Alaska (shady stuff) and Bob Corbett in Pennsylvania (trying to cover up a culture of sexual abuse of minors at Penn State).
  

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I have my own fear, a different one from yours, namely the integrity of the electoral process. It is not that we have the Electoral College -- we are stuck with that. The question is whether Republicans can outpace the outrage against them with chicanery that rigs a Presidential election. Remember that America has some well-heeled heels who would like America to have hunger as an enforcer of workplace discipline and political obedience, if not torture chambers and execution pits. Donald Trump has no moral compass, and he encourages such with his political allies. For such people all that matters is their gain, indulgence, and power irrespective of the human cost.

To spoof Michigan's state motto,

Si quaeris dictaturam foedam, circumspice  

(If you seek a nasty dictatorship, look around ye)

might be an apt description of America under a second term of Donald Trump with the Republican Party holding onto some 'leading role' in political life much as the Communist Party was the leading force in politics in the Soviet Union.    

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Disdain for this President is widespread and deep enough  that he cannot win a free and fair election -- but we cannot assume that there will be a dree and fair election. Donald Trump admires dictators who hold rigged elections and so far as I can tell, he might seek assistance in ensuring his re-election from such dictators,

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

At this rate, I tend to agree with the OP. Though it would be more of a matter of whomever Democrats put up losing than Trump winning (hey, sounds like 2016!).

I don't know. I fear it's going to be a sort of race to the bottom, with Trump and his various scandals (and likely disasters and atrocities) on one hand, and an uninspired D nominee making various campaign mistakes on the other.

Still, if I had to put money down, I'd bet against Trump, at least in a free and fair election. He almost lost to Hillary Clinton. His numbers are not going up, and I think some sort of disaster (economic, military, natural) will dragging him down by then.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Honestly though: I know we're still nearly two and a half years out and a lot can change obviously, but are there any candidates associated with the Democratic brand who can pose a real threat to the Trump Cult and the Republican "Establishment" that has all but heeled to him in the critical* states? Who is going to carry that banner?

I echo and will expand upon what Averroes Nix said in another thread: that, as unpopular as Trump is outside of the Republican Party electorate, the Democratic Party as a whole is pretty damn unpopular and untrusted too - especially the dreaded "Establishment", which is broadly popular if you compare them to their mostly NeverTrump Republican counterparts. Damning with faint praise, and all that.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I just don't see anyone on the Democratic side who can simultaneously drive up partisan turnout, register many new voters, persuade a decisive number of the vanishing pool of "undecideds" or those Trump voters who are experiencing buyer's remorse right now but don't like anyone else, persuade left-wing third-party voters or just Democratic voters who leave their presidential ballots blank (there were a lot of both of these in 2016), and be acceptable to the woefully and scandalously out-of-touch party "gatekeepers" (read: the Establishment) who never gave up on their single-minded desire for a Hillary Clinton Presidency even after the 2008 primaries (and some of whom likely still haven't given up...sigh. Not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not Kamala Harris, not Kirsten Gillibrand (lol) or Joe Biden (lmao) or Deval Patrick (are you f**king kidding me) or Cory Booker (*vomits violently*) or uh, Tulsi Gabbard (afjdskdfh).

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

_{*In terms of electoral math: I don't see the much-hyped Texas, Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina going Democratic in 2020, while Ohio and Iowa likely stay in Trump's column, very probably Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania too - only Michigan seems pretty likely to flip back. Note that Trump came dangerously close to winning New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia too...}

Trump still being strong in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida is a tough thing to conclude in the current political environment based on polling and special election results.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Trump still being strong in Ohio and Florida is a tough thing to conclude in the current political environment based on polling and special election results.

[libertpaulian]

Honestly though: I know we're still nearly two and a half years out and a lot can change obviously, but are there any candidates associated with the Democratic brand who can pose a real threat to the Trump Cult and the Republican "Establishment" that has all but heeled to him in the critical* states? Who is going to carry that banner?

I echo and will expand upon what Averroes Nix said in another thread: that, as unpopular as Trump is outside of the Republican Party electorate, the Democratic Party as a whole is pretty damn unpopular and untrusted too - especially the dreaded "Establishment", which is broadly popular if you compare them to their mostly NeverTrump Republican counterparts. Damning with faint praise, and all that.

I hate to be a pessimist, but I just don't see anyone on the Democratic side who can simultaneously drive up partisan turnout, register many new voters, persuade a decisive number of the vanishing pool of "undecideds" or those Trump voters who are experiencing buyer's remorse right now but don't like anyone else, persuade left-wing third-party voters or just Democratic voters who leave their presidential ballots blank (there were a lot of both of these in 2016), and be acceptable to the woefully and scandalously out-of-touch party "gatekeepers" (read: the Establishment) who never gave up on their single-minded desire for a Hillary Clinton Presidency even after the 2008 primaries (and some of whom likely still haven't given up...sigh. Not Bernie Sanders, not Elizabeth Warren, not Kamala Harris, not Kirsten Gillibrand (lol) or Joe Biden (lmao) or Deval Patrick (are you f**king kidding me) or Cory Booker (*vomits violently*) or uh, Tulsi Gabbard (afjdskdfh).

I hope I'm wrong, but I fear that I'm not.

_{*In terms of electoral math: I don't see the much-hyped Texas, Arizona, Georgia, or North Carolina going Democratic in 2020, while Ohio and Iowa likely stay in Trump's column, very probably Wisconsin, Florida, and Pennsylvania too - only Michigan seems pretty likely to flip back. Note that Trump came dangerously close to winning New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Virginia too...}

Trump still being strong in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida is a tough thing to conclude in the current political environment based on polling and special election results.

Not necessarily.  Bill Clinton won Arkansas handily in 1996 while a Republican in that state picked up the US Senate seat for the first time in over a century.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

This isn't just one race though. The Democrats have picked up multiple seats in those states including some pretty Republican districts and flipped a R+11 House seat in Pennsylvania. The Republicans haven't had a good race in Wisconsin since Trump took office.

[TDAS04]

Maybe, but I doubt he'll win the popular vote (not that that's what matters).