The 2016 map if Kasich was the nominee?

[538Electoral]

Kasich 325
Clinton 213

This is what I think the map would've looked like.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Clinton wins in an extremely stable race using the Obama 2012 “out-of-touch Republican” strategy. The map is the same as 2012 except Iowa and Ohio go for the GOP.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

[President Johnson]

✓ Governor John R. Kasich (R-OH)/Governor Nikki Haley (R-SC): 302 EV. (49.05%)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY)/Senator Timothy M. Kaine (D-VA): 236 EV. (47.96%)

[Politician]

[Thunder98 🇮🇱 🤝 🇵🇸]

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

Why do you have a weird fetish for ""moderate"" Republicans winning in a landslide? there's no way in hell this would've happened.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

[RINO Tom]

Clinton wins in an extremely stable race using the Obama 2012 “out-of-touch Republican” strategy. The map is the same as 2012 except Iowa and Ohio go for the GOP.

I know you’re a big believer that Trump was this uniquely well positioned candidate to beat Hillary, but Kasich would not have been seen as out of touch and would have held up better with suburban Republicans.  I’ll actually predict he wins the exact same map plus New Hampshire and maybe Minnesota.  While Trump fanned the flames of voters who thought the Democrats “left them” or whatever, Democrats did a plenty effective job of earning that impression, themselves.  Hillary couldn’t run the “out of touch” campaign vs. anyone, lol, and Kasich wouldn’t provide the vote tradeoff Trump and Hillary had.

[Technocracy Timmy]

272 Kasich victory off suburbs and Latinos

[Politician]

272 Kasich victory off suburbs and Latinos

Kasich would not lose his home state.

[Some of My Best Friends Are Gay]

272 Kasich victory off suburbs and Latinos

Kasich would not lose his home state.

Of course you think he was being serious with that map.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

Why do you have a weird fetish for ""moderate"" Republicans winning in a landslide? there's no way in hell this would've happened.

Kasich would definitely win trump’s states and also MN ME NH NV CO  and VA


I have him getting OR as I have Stein doing way better than she did in OTL

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

2016 Senate: 54R-46D; D gains: IL; R gains: NV
2018 Senate: 61R-39D; D gains: NV; R gains: WV, MI, OH, IN, MO, FL, ND, MT

[Averroës Nix]

Does anyone making predictions for this abusrd scenario want to clarify under what plausible sequence of events the GOP nominates the single most loathed candidate among Republican primary voters and elite party actors alike?

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Clinton wins in an extremely stable race using the Obama 2012 “out-of-touch Republican” strategy. The map is the same as 2012 except Iowa and Ohio go for the GOP.

I know you’re a big believer that Trump was this uniquely well positioned candidate to beat Hillary, but Kasich would not have been seen as out of touch and would have held up better with suburban Republicans.  I’ll actually predict he wins the exact same map plus New Hampshire and maybe Minnesota.  While Trump fanned the flames of voters who thought the Democrats “left them” or whatever, Democrats did a plenty effective job of earning that impression, themselves.  Hillary couldn’t run the “out of touch” campaign vs. anyone, lol, and Kasich wouldn’t provide the vote tradeoff Trump and Hillary had.

I don't think Kasich is particularly more out of touch than any other Republican. What I do think is that his status as a relatively "normal" Republican nominee would have encouraged the Hillary people to stay the course with a proven general election strategy that trusted in the existing toxicity of the GOP brand, as opposed to the strategy they ultimately went with against Trump which painted him as something special or different, reinforcing what his most enthusiastic voters actually loved.

I also maintain that the double whammy of Trump's interconnected anti-trade and anti-[illegal?] immigrant message had unique appeal to undereducated blue-collar voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. I appreciate and understand that Trump's wins in these states can also be attributed to depressed Democratic turnout, but I am still very unsure whether Kasich would have excited the voters he needed to excite to do what Trump did.

In 2012, at least at the time, it felt like conditions were right for the incumbent president to potentially lose. Romney surely had his own problems, but if he couldn't meaningfully break into the Rust Belt firewall, I am not sure how Kasich could have done it either, especially when we can pretty easily guess that he would have tried to hit on the same campaign themes. Even if he did manage to do marginally better, I can't see him winning all three, especially against a candidate Clinton who would not have been so apt to underestimate her opponent.

People are forgetting what a shock it was that Trump won where he won. It was a surprise because he did something different to actually resonate there. GOP success in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin was not "baked into the pie" for any nominee before the race even began.

[Mr. Smith]

Clinton/Kaine: 279 EV, 50% pv
Kasich/Cruz: 259 EV, 47% pv


Kasich tries Trump's tactics, but he's too nice and overly boring to completely pull it off. Also Hillary does the smart thing and uses the Obama strategy to the fullest, which means minority turnout does a lot better. The 1976-esque situation flips back to the 1988 sorta landslide it literally would've been if Trump weren't there. Kasich barnstorms Wisconsin and follows a Pat Toomey sort of strategy to flip Pennsylvania...but he can't quite flip New Hampshire, Michigan, or Florida.

Closest States

New Hampshire D+0.1
Wisconsin  R+0.4
Pennsylvania R+0.5
North Carolina R+1
Florida D+2 (tipping point)

[Ilhan Apologist]

Yeah, the actual 2016 map with NH and maybe without MI would probably be the most accurate.

[BigVic]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

How would Stein win 5% of the popular vote.

[Continential]

Kaisch is overrated, remember in Iowa, nobody knew him.

[Ilhan Apologist]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

How would Stein win 5% of the popular vote.

More Bernie-or-Busters, since there's no fear of a Trump presidency

[I Can Now Die Happy]

Does anyone making predictions for this abusrd scenario want to clarify under what plausible sequence of events the GOP nominates the single most loathed candidate among Republican primary voters and elite party actors alike?

This is a massively underrated post. ANY hypothetical election matchup must describe the scenario in which the alternative nominee became the nominee. If Kasich became the nominee, that would suggest events and fundamentals different from those that made 2016, 2016.

HagridOfTheDeep is also spouting the actual and the factual in this thread, kudos to him.

[Stranger in a strange land]

Kasich wins a huge win 52-45

Kasich/Haley 362 52%
Clinton/Kaine 176 45%


Oregon Vote:

Kasich 47%
Hillary 46.8%
Stein  5%

Stein Spoils the state for Hillary and gives it to Kasich. Without Trump on the ballot Stein probably does much better and Johnson much worse. Also the PVI of Oregon in this scenario is +7 Dem , in OTL it was +8 Dem and I'm not doing a uniform swing either since Kasich only wins this state due to a third party presence.

OR would basically be the IN of 2016 , a solid state flipping in a wave.

How would Stein win 5% of the popular vote.

More Bernie-or-Busters, since there's no fear of a Trump presidency

I doubt Stein would have done any better than Nader did in 2000.

[Kingpoleon]

Does anyone making predictions for this abusrd scenario want to clarify under what plausible sequence of events the GOP nominates the single most loathed candidate among Republican primary voters and elite party actors alike?

Kasich was at 69/24 at the end in favorability among Registered Republicans, compared to 58/37 for Cruz and 74/24 for Trump. How is that “the most loathed candidate”??

[Averroës Nix]

Does anyone making predictions for this absurd scenario want to clarify under what plausible sequence of events the GOP nominates the single most loathed candidate among Republican primary voters and elite party actors alike?

Kasich was at 69/24 at the end in favorability among Registered Republicans, compared to 58/37 for Cruz and 74/24 for Trump. How is that “the most loathed candidate”??

Take issue with my description if you like although an unsourced polling snapshot from the end of the campaign is hardly much to go on. This NPR article provides enough of an overview of Kasich's polling at the height of the campaigns for you to see what I mean.

In any case, he was never a plausible nominee. It would be like John Hickenlooper holding on and consolidating 10-20% of Democrats by virtue of being the sole "moderate" option in a tightly contested Harris-Sanders race or something.