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Date of Prediction: 2016-11-07 Version:37
Prediction Map
Confidence Map
Prediction States Won
Confidence States Won
State Pick-ups
Prediction Score (max Score = 112)
Analysis
I'm incapable of doing anything resembling detailed analysis at this point, as I'm just mentally exhausted from this campaign, so I'll keep this brief. During the last week of this election, it does look like Hillary Clinton has stopped the bleeding that had started about two weeks ago and intensified after the Comey announcement about reviewing Hillary's emails one last time (and then finding only duplicates). There is also likely a substantial surge in Hispanic voters that has not been picked up very well by the polling, but which is showing up clearly in the early vote, making me more confident about states like Nevada and Florida than I otherwise would be. I am terribly disappointed that this election is unlikely to be a landslide rejection of Donald Trump's candidacy, as it bodes ill for what is going to be acceptable in our country's politics (both in terms of personal candidate behavior and in terms of policy) going forward, but at this point, with an unstable authoritarian banging against the gates of our republic, I will take whatever victory I can get without complaint. And while I do believe Hillary Clinton will win, I remain extraordinarily nervous about tomorrow night, given the grave nature of the threat that I believe Donald Trump represents to our civil society. Lastly, as is my tradition for my presidential predictions, I leave you with one final word: VOTE
Prediction History
Comments History
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Version: 36 Getting more and more nervous as things get down to the wire. While I am comforted by the fact that Hillary Clinton's numbers are generally holding up better in the higher-quality state polls, I am worried by just how much variability we are seeing. The early vote signals are also mixed, with indications that African American turnout is down, but that Hispanic turnout is likely substantially up. Perhaps what worries me the most is the weakening we have seen in the New Hampshire polling, a state that by most people's assessment should be going Democratic if Hillary Clinton is to win. I'm hoping for things to be more clear, and more clearly positive for defeating the sack of excrement that is Donald Trump, by my final prediction on Monday night. I do think I will be breaking from my tradition of not using Lean states on my final map, as there are just too many unknowns this year. Brace yourselves. Version: 35 I continue to feel increasingly at a loss as to what is going on in this election. There seems to be a stunning lack of high-quality state polling, leaving me to extrapolate where various states ought to be based on the national polls, something that I'm not enthusiastic about doing. Things feel as volatile as they have felt all election cycle, especially with what increasingly feels like a partisan role being played by the FBI, or at least by agents within the FBI threatening to do end-runs around Director Comey in order to force his hand. I'm not quite in full-blown panic mode yet, but I'm a lot closer to that state than I was two or three weeks ago. Version: 34 I don't know what to make of this god awful election anymore. I just want it to end, and for the fascist not to win. I hope neither of those is too much to ask. Version: 33 Cutting down a bit on the number of Lean states as we enter the final two weeks of the campaign. Hillary's lead nationally and in the states seems to be holding around where it was a week ago. To put it simply, Donald Trump is running out of time to make up the ground he would need in order to significantly shift this race. Unless he is capable of running a far more professional and productive campaign in these final two weeks than he has shown in the entire rest of the race up to this point, he is quite likely to lose. Suffice to say I see no reason to think that that will be the case, and if anything I think his campaign could get less coherent in what is likely to be a higher-stress environment. I'll be doing updates more frequently during this final stretch as polling data is likely to start coming at a fairly rapid pace. Version: 32 Just a few minor shifts from last week's prediction. The Access Hollywood tape seems to have had a fairly minor impact initially, although the damage to Trump's campaign may be growing as several women have now come forward to accuse him of sexual assault. I suspect that these developments will further compound the problem that he was already likely to have (and that he had during most of the primary season) of convincing late-deciding voters that he meets the test of basic fitness for office. In addition, his campaign is increasingly becoming a campaign solely targeted at the hard right, descending into rhetoric about international conspiracies to supposedly steal the election from him that probably strike most normal voters as alarming and unhinged, and thus it is quite unlikely that things will improve for him going forward. Version: 31 Holy crap has it been a wild two weeks. Hillary Clinton's position in the election had already been steadily improving after Donald Trump's poor performance in the first debate, his attacks on a former Miss Universe contestant, the revelation that he tried to do business in Cuba during the embargo, the disclosure of the fact that for years he has been paying no federal income taxes despite making millions of dollars, and his defense of the wrongful conviction of the Central Park Five. Now we add to it the publication of the Pussygate tape of him essentially bragging about committing sexual assault, the subsequent calls by many prominent Republicans for him to exit the race, him reflexively attacking the leadership of the Republican party for not defending him, and rumors that there may be more stories that are as bad or even worse for him to be revealed in coming days or weeks. To me, there is no question that Trump's position is going to deteriorate further as undecided voters make up their minds that they cannot vote for this sociopath: it is merely a question of how much his position deteriorates. I genuinely cannot imagine the scenario that would have to take place for Donald Trump to win the election at this point. The only reason I'm not yet giving Secretary Clinton 270+ electoral votes categorized as "Safe" is out of recognition that perhaps there are limits to my imagination. Version: 30 A few more shifts toward Donald Trump, as the race has continued to remain tight, though still with a narrow lead overall for Hillary Clinton. I don't really have a whole lot to add right now, as the state of the race seems pretty clear. The biggest question at the moment is what happens with the large group of voters who are currently saying they will either vote third party or that they are undecided? I tend to hold the view that most of these voters are probably more comfortable with the idea of Secretary Clinton as President than Donald Trump, based on things like candidate favorability and the "Who do you prefer handling such-and-such issue" questions that get asked in the polls, but if they sit this year out or stick with third-party candidates then the election will likely be sickeningly close. Version: 29 Well, two weeks on from the last prediction, and it seems safe to say that the race for the presidency has tightened somewhat. Hillary Clinton has, once again, been the focus of continued negative press coverage due to her email practices while Secretary of State, driving her favorability and trustworthiness numbers down. It is entirely possible that her numbers may rebound back closer to where they were earlier now that this most recent wave of coverage seems to be dying down, but that does not feel like a safe assumption at this point. Right now, Donald Trump is in contention in this race, which is something I find simultaneously alarming and difficult to believe. A candidate like Trump whose own party was openly mulling kicking him off the ballot a month ago really has no business being in a close race. Version: 28 It's been an interesting two weeks since my last prediction. Donald Trump began to attempt something of a pivot on his signature hard-line stance on immigration, but it has been done in such a ham-handed way that I am doubtful that it is winning much of anyone over, and in the last few days he seems to be retreating back to something closer to his original position. The developments within the campaign have been interesting as well, given that he has promoted/brought on both more reasonable voices, such as Kellyanne Conway, and decidedly less reasonable voices, such as Steve Bannon of Breitbart. The polls do look a bit tighter, but I hesitate to attribute that to anything other than statistical noise at this point, particularly given the quality of some of the polls and the seemingly preposterous conclusions some are coming to - like the Ipsos polls that have Hillary Clinton doing better in Kentucky than New Hampshire, a result at odds with everything that the fundamentals of the race would suggest. As such, I am mostly standing pat with this prediction, with only a few minor changes on percentages and confidence levels. Version: 27 Unlike a month ago, when the race for the presidency appeared to have an increasing potential for charting a volatile course, things now seem significantly more predictable. The combination of Donald Trump's poorly-recieved Republican convention (the first to ever produce more voters saying in polling that they were less likely to vote for the nominee as a result), a comparatively well-received Democratic convention, and Trump's subsequent two weeks of extremely public melting down, epitomized by his outrageous and widely-condemned feud with the family of a deceased US soldier, seems to have been the breaking point for many Republicans and conservative Independents who had only been reluctantly supporting Trump to begin with. Trump's behavior over the last two weeks has dramatically reinforced the argument that Hillary Clinton has been making that Trump is an unserious and irresponsible figure who is not temperamentally suited for the responsibilities of the presidency. When combined with the fact that Trump has shown little interest and essentially no ability to "pivot" to presenting a more professional and presidential candidacy, that he has an extremely skeletal campaign organization, that more Republican elected officials are now beginning to come forward and state that they cannot support him, and that the RNC is fairly openly mulling pulling what organizational support they are giving his candidacy and shifting resources to down-ballot races, it is becoming challenging to see how Trump can rebound into serious contention. Though it seems very early to be saying such things, there is a strong argument to be made that either outside events changing the fundamental dynamic of the race or some dramatic missteps on the part of the Clinton campaign are at this point more realistic paths forward to competitiveness in November for Trump than any scenario that relies on his campaign actively improving. While I am still categorizing the upper Midwest as Lean Clinton for this update, it is entirely possible that those states may rapidly shift to Safe Clinton if the polls going forward continue to show Trump trailing there by double-digit margins. On a related note, as we are now getting deeper into the general election campaign, I will be updating my prediction more frequently from this point forward. Version: 26 Right before the conventions and the election seems to have, somehow, higher potential for volatility than it did a month ago. As such, I'm not making any moves toward greater confidence, and have instead reluctantly switched Pennsylvania to Tossup status. I was hoping to do the next update in about three weeks, but I'll probably delay it to about a month again since I'll want as much time for extra clarity as possible. Version: 25 My first real prediction of the 2016 election, now that all of the primary contests have finished. The race right now looks more or less what I expected it to look like when I started to seriously consider Clinton-Trump scenarios in my head in the fall of last year: Anything ranging from a narrow Trump win to a landslide Clinton victory seems possible. I've gone with more tossup and (especially) lean states than I normally would at this point in the cycle, due to the fact that there seems to be higher than usual support for third party candidates, which potentially indicates what could be a chaotic polling season (I am expecting third party support to drop somewhat as we get nearer to November). This is in addition to the fact that Trump seems to be a candidate with almost unlimited downside risk, given his complete lack of any prior campaign experience, his penchant for unpredictable, offensive, and downright idiotic behavior in public, his lack of policy knowledge, and his alienation of large segments of the leadership of his own party. Indeed, the fact that he was able to win the Republican nomination through a combination of personal insults, conspiracy theories, and racist demagoguery, and has not learned to value the things that matter in a general election environment, like policy detail and voter turnout operations, may have actually brought him out of the primary with even more weaknesses than he had going in, because he has likely been left with the impression that campaigning for the presidency is easy and requires little effort. My next map should be up in about a month, shortly before the party conventions, when I hope to have a bit more of a sense whether or not some of the more dramatic landslide scenarios are going to be in play or not. Version: 24 6:00 AM ET: The final states called are Texas and Missouri, both narrowly going for Donald Trump. The Republicans have also narrowly held onto a majority in the House of Representatives, though it is unclear if Paul Ryan will have the support to stay on as Speaker. Trump has not formally conceded the race, claiming that only "massive fraud" could have possibly denied him a victory, but Hillary Clinton delivered a victory speech late in the night after it became clear that no concession was to be forthcoming. Democrats throughout the country breathe a sigh of relief at the outcome, while Republicans are already angrily debating whether Trump lost because he was too conservative or not conservative enough. Version: 23 3:45 AM ET: Donald Trump is projected the winner in Alaska. Version: 22 3:00 AM ET: Eight hours after the polls closed there, Hillary Clinton is projected the winner in Georgia. Version: 21 2:30 AM ET: Donald Trump is projected the winner in Montana. Version: 20 2:00 AM ET: Hillary Clinton expands on President Obama's 2008 electoral performance for the first time of the night, as she is projected to win Arizona. Version: 19 1:45 AM ET: Donald Trump picks up the 1st congressional district in Nebraska. Version: 18 1:00 AM ET: Polls close in Alaska, the final contest of the night, and the state is described as too close to call. Version: 17 12:15 AM ET: Repeating its result from the 2008 election, Nebraska's 2nd congressional district goes Democratic. Version: 16 12:00 AM ET: South Carolina is called for Donald Trump. Version: 15 11:45 PM ET: Indiana is projected for Hillary Clinton, and Democrats are also projected to regain the Senate, as they hold onto Harry Reid's Senate seat in Nevada. Version: 14 11:15 PM ET: With her lead in expanding as more of the vote comes in from the Raleigh metro area, Hillary Clinton is projected the winner in North Carolina. Donald Trump, meanwhile, wins South Dakota. Version: 13 11:00 PM ET: Hillary Clinton is projected as President-elect as the polls close on the West Coast. She has already matched the electoral vote total that President Obama received in 2012, and very well may pass his total of 365 from the 2008 election. Version: 12 10:30 PM ET: Donald Trump picks up the state of North Dakota, adding three more electoral votes to his total. Version: 11 10:15 PM ET: Donald Trump picks up wins in Louisiana and Mississippi, where polls had closed earlier in the night but which had been too early and too close to call, respectively. In North Carolina, Hillary Clinton has had a lead most of the night, but the vote count has been very slow due to high turnout. Indiana, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Arizona, and Missouri are all very close, with neither candidate having a consistent lead, and results are not expected in any for at least another hour. Across the country, Clinton is doing better than typical for a Democratic candidate in the suburbs, while the more rural areas have seen less of a shift from the norm. Version: 10 10:00 PM ET: Hillary Clinton adds two more states to her total as polls close in Iowa and Nevada, while Donald Trump is projected the winner in Utah (avoiding an embarrassing loss that had been thought of as plausible earlier in the year). Version: 9 9:30 PM ET: Though it doesn't count for much in the electoral college, Donald Trump scores a small psychological victory as he is projected the winner in Bill Clinton's home state of Arkansas. Version: 8 9:00 PM ET: Another large wave of poll closings brings another batch of good news for Democrats, and bad news for Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton sweeps Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Colorado with ease, while the Republican stronghold of Texas is deemed Too Close to Call. The damage to Republicans in the Senate is also becoming apparent, as Pat Toomey, Ron Johnson, and Mark Kirk have all lost their Senate seats. Kelly Ayotte holds a small lead in New Hampshire, while Democrats have a lead over Rob Portman in Ohio and in the open seat in Florida. Control of the House remains uncalled as well. Version: 7 8:45 PM ET: Calls are made in two states that had previously not been called: Tennessee for Donald Trump, and Ohio for Hillary Clinton. Trump's hopes of making inroads into rust belt states have been dashed. The conversation on the networks turns to a conversation not of who will win, but of how badly Trump will lose. Version: 6 8:30 PM ET: Polls close in the state of Arkansas, which is described as too early to call. In the states that have previously closed, things generally look bleak for the Trump campaign. Ohio has not yet been called due to a lack of data from Cleveland, but his poor performance in and around Columbus does not bode well for him. Meanwhile, must-win states like Indiana and Georgia look like they will not be called for several hours. Version: 5 8:00 PM ET: The biggest wave of poll closings of the night confirms the worst fears of many Republican pundits. The typically close states of Florida, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire are called for Hillary Clinton the moment the polls close (Florida due in part to what appears to be a historically poor performance by Trump in Miami-Dade County), while normally solidly Republican states like Tennessee and Mississippi remain uncalled. Trump himself has gone conspicuously silent on Twitter. Version: 4 7:45 PM ET: Less than an hour after the close of the polls, Hillary Clinton is projected the winner of Virginia. Donald Trump is substantially under-performing Mitt Romney's 2012 performance in both the Washington DC suburbs of Northern Virginia and in the Hampton Roads area, where he is trailing in Virginia Beach. Version: 3 7:30 PM ET: The next round of states close their polls. Donald Trump picks up his second state of the night, in West Virginia, while Ohio is described as Too Early to Call and North Carolina as Too Close to Call. Version: 2 7:00 PM ET: Polls close in the first six states, and Donald Trump is projected the winner in Kentucky, while Hillary Clinton is projected the winner in Vermont. Georgia, Indiana, and South Carolina are all described as Too Close to Call, while Virginia is characterized as Too Early to Call. Trump takes to Twitter to remark on his winning of a state that Bill Clinton carried twice, but Republican commentators on the networks seem much more gloomy about the state of the race. Version: 1 Rather than posting a conventional prediction map, I've decided to begin this cycle by doing an election night simulation over the next several weeks. Every day that passes in real life shall represent a fifteen minute increment of election night. States where the polls have not yet closed shall be represented by Independent at 30%, while states where the polls have closed but where a winner has not been projected shall be represented by Independent at 50%. Every state will be classified as Tossup until this simulation is complete. The candidates are Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R). This scenario will not be taking into account any major third-party or independent candidacies. This scenario is not necessarily the outcome I consider most likely with those two candidates (though I do consider it to be a fairly likely result), but rather the outcome that I hope would occur in that situation. We begin at 6:45 PM ET on November 8, 2016, fifteen minutes before the first statewide poll closings.
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