Chris Cillizza writing in the Washington Post
* * *
Republicans have a major electoral-map problem in
November. Major.
* YEP....
Donald Trump’s victory last week in Indiana’s primary not
only effectively sealed the GOP nomination for the real estate billionaire but also
brought into sharp relief how difficult it will be for any Republican to get to
270 electoral votes and beat Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president this
fall.
Start here: Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia
have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election between
1992 and 2012. Add them up, and you get 242 electoral votes.
By contrast, 13 states have voted for the Republican
presidential nominee in each of the past six elections. Total them up and you
get 102 electoral votes.
There are two important takeaways from these facts: The
generic Democratic nominee starts with an electoral vote lead of 140, and the
Democratic nominee needs to find only 28 votes beyond that reliable base to win
the presidency.
* YEP.
* ACTUALLY, IT'S NOT REALLY THAT SIMPLE SINCE TRUMP PUTS
BLUE STATES INTO PLAY... BUT... YOU FOLKS GET THE AUTHOR'S POINT - RIGHT?
What that means in practical terms is that if Clinton
wins the 19 states that every Democratic nominee dating to her husband has won
and she wins Florida (29 electoral votes), she wins the White House. It’s that
simple.
* THE KEY FOR TRUMP IS WINNING BOTH RED STATES AND BLUE
STATES. (YEAH... "DUH"... BUT... MANY OF MY READERS APPARENTLY NEED
TO BE REMINDED OF THIS!)
Or if she wins the 19 reliable Democratic states and
Virginia (13 electoral votes) and Ohio (18). Or the 19 states plus Nevada (6),
Colorado (9) and North Carolina (15).
You get the idea.
* DO YOU FOLKS "GET THE IDEA?" SERIOUSLY... I
CHAT WITH MANY OF YOU FOLKS READING THIS ON FB EVERY DAY, AND SOMETIMES IT
SEEMS TO ME AS IF A GREAT MANY OF YOU ARE JUST TOO FUCKING STUPID TO FOLLOW THE
MATH. (AT LEAST THAT'S THE IMPRESSION I GET VIA SOME OF THE COMMENTARY...)
There are lots and lots and lots of ways for Clinton — or
any Democratic nominee — to get to 270 electoral votes. There are very few ways
for Trump — or any Republican nominee — to get there.
* DON'T DESPAIR, FOLKS! THAT'S THE THING ABOUT THE TRUMP
CANDIDACY; HE - PERSONALLY - HAS THE BEST SHOT AT WINNING RED STATES! AT LEAST
IN THEORY, TRUMP CAN WIN STATES CRUZ WOULD NEVER HAVE HAD A SHOT OF WINNING.
It’s easy — and, for many Republicans, useful — to cast
this electoral-college morass as Trump’s fault, the obvious outcome of nominating
a candidate who has historically high unfavorability numbers among key groups.
* DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE UNFAVORABLES. FOCUS ON THE
FAVORABLES! (AND SECONDARILY... FOCUS ON CLINTON'S UNFAVORABLES!)
But to do so ignores recent history. Barack Obama won 365
electoral votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012. The Republican presidential nominee
hasn’t crested 300 electoral votes since the 1988 election, when George H.W.
Bush won 426. (George W. Bush won the White House with 271 electoral votes in
2000 and claimed a second term with 286.)
* PAPPY BUSH DIDN'T WIN WITH 426 VOTES FOR ANY OTHER
REASON THAN THE FACT THAT HE RAN ON CONTINUING PRESIDENT REAGAN'S POLICIES.
(AND UPON BEING ELECTED, BUSH STABBED REAGAN IN THE BACK AND STARTED
DISMANTLING HIS LEGACY; THE RESULT BEING CLINTON'S ELECTION IN '92.)
Democrats’ electoral-map advantage echoes the clear head start
Republicans had during the 1980s, when Bush’s 426 electoral votes were the
fewest that the GOP presidential nominee won that decade. Ronald Reagan won the
White House in 1980 with 489 electoral votes and followed that up with 525 in
1984.
The current Republican disadvantage in the electoral map
is less about any individual candidate than it is about demographics. As the
country, and the voting public, has become less white and as Republicans have
proved incapable of winning over non-white voters, a number of states have
moved toward Democrats over the past decade.
* YEP...
(*SIGH*)
* THE DEMOCRATS WERE BRILLIANT IN PLANTING THE SEEDS OF
DEMOGRAPHIC TRANSFORMATION VIA THE 1965 IMMIGRATION "REFORM" BILL.
(*ANOTHER SIGH*)
Perhaps the best example of this movement and how it has
hurt Republicans is New Mexico, whose population is almost half Hispanic. In
2004, George W. Bush won the Land of Enchantment in his bid for a second term.
(His margin over John F. Kerry was 588 votes.) Eight years later, Obama won the
state by 10 percentage points over Mitt Romney; neither side targeted it in any
meaningful way. In 2016, it’s not even on the long list of potentially
competitive states.
* IT COULD BE WITH TRUMP!
What has become increasingly clear is that any state with
a large or growing non-white population has become more difficult for Republicans
to win.
* DUH!
Virginia and North Carolina, long Republican strongholds,
have moved closer and closer to Democrats of late. (Obama won both states in
2008 and carried Virginia in 2012.)
* VIRGINIA IS A SPECIAL CASE: EVEN THE WHITE VOTE... PARTICULARLY
THE MIDDLE, UPPER-MIDDLE, AND UPPER CLASS WHITE VOTE... IS UP FOR GRABS BECAUSE
MANY OF THESE PEOPLE DEPEND UPON GOVERNMENT JOBS (DEPEND DIRECTLY) OR GOVERNMENT
CONTRACT-SUPPORTED (INDIRECT) EMPLOYMENT.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE WELFARE STATE ISN'T JUST
ABOUT FOOD-STAMPS AND THE LIKE; IT'S ABOUT "BRIBING" ALL SORTS OF
AMERICANS VIA ALL SORTS OF GOVERNMENT LARGESS. (FINANCED THROUGH TAXES AND
BORROWING.)
At the same time, as these states have grown friendlier
to Democrats, there are very few states that are growing increasingly
Republican. Wisconsin and Minnesota are two, but neither is moving rapidly in
Republicans’ favor just yet.
Trump isn’t to blame for any of that. But his remarkably
high disapproval numbers among Hispanics and his hard-line stance on illegal
immigration — we are going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it! — could
make what is already a huge demographic or electoral-map problem for
Republicans even worse.
* SEE... THE AUTHOR IS TOO LIMITED IN HIS THINKING TO
UNDERSTAND THAT TRUMP'S STANCE ACTUALLY PLAYS WELL WITH MANY BLACK AND INDEED
EVEN WITH MANY HISPANICS. UNDERSTAND, FOLKS, IT'S OUR OWN POOR AND LOWER MIDDLE
CLASS WHO DIRECTLY COMPETE WITH ILLEGAL (AND LEGAL) IMMIGRANTS FOR JOBS AND A
PIECE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM. THESE PEOPLE - AFRICAN-AMERICANS AND
HISPANIC-AMERICANS - COULD BE AND SHOULD BE NATURAL TRUMP SUPPORTERS.
A poll released Sunday in Georgia shows Trump at 42% to
Clinton’s 41%. Arizona, long a Republican stronghold at the presidential level,
could be in play this year because of Trump’s terrible numbers among Hispanics.
* AGAIN... THE AUTHOR'S WORLDVIEW IS SEVERELY LIMITED BY
HIS MISTAKEN LIBERAL ASSUMPTIONS.
(*SHRUG*)
The counter-argument made by Trump allies is that he can
make the industrial Midwest more competitive than past Republican nominees
because of his strengths among white male voters.
* NOT... JUST... WHITE... MALE... VOTERS...
(*SMILE*)
Wins in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania would
certainly open up the map for Republicans in ways that recent nominees have
been unable to do. But, so far at least, there’s scant polling evidence that
Trump can put those states in play in the fall.
* IGNORE THE POLLS. AND FOLKS... REMEMBER... THE LEFT AND
THEIR MEDIA ALLIES ARE GONNA USE THEIR PORTRAYAL OF THE POLLS AS A WEAPON
AGAINST TRUMP - AS THEY WOULD AGAINST ANY REPUBLICAN NOMINEE. DON'T TAKE
ANYTHING YOU READ AT FACE VALUE. AND REMEMBER... LIKE "DR. HOUSE"
USED TO SAY... "EVERYBODY LIES."
(*WINK*)
Trump doesn’t help matters. But the Republican map
problem goes deeper than him — or any one candidate. Blaming Trump for a loss
in November would not only miss the point but may ensure that Republicans are
doomed to repeat history in 2020.
* PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT. THE AUTHOR
TALKS ABOUT 2020 AS IF REPUBLICANS COULD LOSE IN 2016 YET WIN AFTER FOUR MORE
YEARS OF INCREASING DEMOCRATIC VOTER NUMBERS. RIDICULOUS! BUT THAT'S HIS SUBTLE
WAY OF TRYING TO DEPRESS THE REPUBLICAN VOTE IN 2016.
(*SMIRK*)
* FOLKS... I CAN'T STRESS STRONGLY ENOUGH THAT THIS YEAR
IS MAKE OR BREAK FOR OUR COUNTRY AND THAT THE LEFT... AND THE RINOs... ARE
GOING TO DO EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER TO SEE THAT THEIR POWER IS RETAINED,
STRENGTHENED, AND SET IN CONCRETE VIA A WIN IN NOVEMBER THAT WOULD SIGNIFY
"GAME OVER."
No comments:
Post a Comment