Previewing Election 2016 One Year In Advance
Four years ago this fall, Barack Obama hit some of his lowest approval marks ever, having been viewed as looking weak after the original debt ceiling fight with Republicans in Congress. He was not in a good place for re-election a little over 12 months away. But I looked at the incredibly weak GOP field and saw Mitt Romney as the only viable contender, and he seemed weak to me for all of the reasons that ultimately played out. I'm not known for my election year optimism but one year out from the 2012 election, despite the troubling fundamentals, I nonetheless went on record predicting Barack Obama would be re-elected. Will I be as lucky looking forward into 2016?
It's harder to say, although after the events of the last 10 days it would seem that the Democratic field is set. Barring major unforeseen scandals arising from Hillary Clinton's e-mails, she's the Democratic nominee. I like Bernie Sanders and am glad he's around, but he's not a viable Presidential nominee. The Republican field is wide open though, and I think everybody from skeptical Democrats to the GOP establishment is now starting to seriously consider the possibility that the Republican primary electorate will go with one of the two amateur hour radicals contending for the nomination.....Donald Trump or Ben Carson. Against Hillary Clinton, it's 90+% assured that these guys would be crushed in a general election even with Hillary's sinking favorable. Never say never because of the aforementioned e-mail controversy could produce a smoking gun or the economy could collapse and feed right into one of Trump or Carson's narratives, but short of that kind of dramatic game changer, Hillary would not only win the 2016 Presidential landslide, but win in the biggest popular vote landslide since 1984, win back the United States Senate and possibly even the U.S. House for the Democrats, and flip a couple dozen legislative chambers to the Democrats as well.
Notice I said that Hillary would win the 2016 Presidential election in a "popular vote" landslide, probably in the 10-12 point range. That doesn't mean the electoral map would be a sea of blue on the evening of November 8, 2016, even if Trump or Carson was to live up to the absolute worst of my expectations as nominees. Trump or Carson would have to murder a nun at high noon in Central Park in front of several hundred witnesses to not win the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming in a Presidential election. And if they did murder that nun, they'd still win most of those states against Hillary or basically any Democrat. Reagan's 49-state re-election victory in 1984 simply cannot happen in today's polarized America no matter how terrible the losing party's nominee is.
So where would Democrats see the inroads needed for the kind of blowout victory I predicted in a hypothetical Hillary vs. Trump or Carson race? First and foremost, they would run up the score to unprecedented levels in the already blue states of the northeast and the West coast. I could see Hillary besting Trump or Carson in the 70+% range in New York and most of New England while winning 2-1 in Washington, Oregon, and California. I'm less certain about the Midwest, particularly with Trump because his anti-immigration and protectionist posturing would find an audience among some white working class voters who went twice for Obama. I suspect Hillary would do about as well as Obama did in 2008 in states like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. And Obama's 2008 victory in Indiana was such a fluke I might even expect Trump or Carson to prevail there.
As for "red states" that would flip to Hillary, there are few options. Demographics and politics are changing in Alaska so it's possible Hillary could get 3 electoral votes there. Arizona is a possibility although I'm sure Trump's anti-immigration positions would resonate with whites there every bit as much as they'd repel Hispanics, and perhaps be a wash overall. Montana is a red state where I think hypothetical most Democratic nominees could beat Trump or Carson, but I have my doubts whether it would "Hillary country". And demographics are changing quickly in Democrats' favor in Georgia, but given how popular Trump or Carson would be among rural whites, I still think the GOP would be favored there. Texas is a Democratic pipe dream and the best Hillary could expect there would be to hold Trump or Carson to a single-digit margin of victory by squeezing out lopsided margins among the few Latinos who bother to vote there and picking off a few country club Republicans.
But such a Hillary blowout would be unlikely to portend a realignment or anything resembling the "permanent majority" both parties regularly fantasize about attaining based on a couple of positive trendlines. Most of the gains that Hillary would make against Trump or Carson outside of the traditional GOP orbit would likely revert back to Republicans two years later. And the demographic that would assuredly hold strongest for Trump or Carson compared to 2008 and 2012 would be the white working class, a demographic that compensates for its declining population by simply raising its margins of victory for Republicans every election cycle. And should Hillary dominate in the 2016 Presidential election, the Democrats would be looking at an extremely defensive midterm cycle in 2018 where Democrats control 25 Senate seats and Republicans control only 8. Democrats won a bunch of seats they shouldn't have in 2012 in a perfect storm and have rentals on several of them. Even if the Dems win back the Senate in 2016, they will almost certainly lose it again in 2018 if Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2016, and a big GOP victory in 2018 would set the groundwork for Republicans to control the redistricting process again after the next census, locking their gains in place and creating an unwinnable Congressional and legislative map for Democrats once again just as they did in 2001 and 2011. For all the talk of the Democrats and their "coalition of the ascendant", the Republicans currently dominate government beneath the Presidential level in a way neither party has done before since the Democrats in the mid-30s under FDR, and a Hillary blowout next year would not likely do anything to reverse Republicans' downballot momentum moving forward.
That's why I question the conventional wisdom that if Republicans nominate a nutjob who loses in a landslide, the base will be humbled and learn they can't do that again next time. After all, two years after their landslide defeat in 2016, they're likely to have a landslide victory in the 2018 midterms when dozens of new anarchists are elected to Congress. This will embolden the same GOP base that nominated Trump or Carson to nominate someone else from that ilk in 2020. Rinse and repeat.
Now obviously I just got way ahead of myself based on the mere potential of a Trump or Carson nomination, which despite current polls is no sure thing by any stretch. At this time in 2003 and 2007, neither John Kerry nor John McCain, respectively, seemed likely to win their party's nominations but the flavor of the month frontrunners for their parties nominations those years burned out before people started voting. I long thought that Jeb! was the strongest establishment candidate whose warchest of campaign money could help him withstand early primary season turbulence better than most, but Jeb!s campaign seems to be in deep trouble right now and will need a major course correction at this point to be viable in the early primaries. Absent Jeb!, Ohio Governor John Kasich would be a conceivably tough nominee but is also struggling to gain any traction among the radicalized GOP base. Best positioned to seize the not-Trump-and-not-Carson vote now would seem to be Marco Rubio, who would probably put up the stiffest challenge to Hillary as the nominee. Both Kasich and Rubio have vulnerabilities of their own, but given that this is a defensive cycle for Democrats and their nominee has high unfavorables that will likely elicit lower turnout among key Democratic demographics, I would give them both 50-50 odds against Hillary should either of them get the nomination.
As might be expected in a year without an incumbent, it's no real surprise that a year before the 2016 Presidential election it's harder to predict the most likely outcome than it was in 2012. It's similar to where we stood at this point in 2003, where Democratic nomination frontrunners were Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, both of whom would likely have lost in landslides to incumbent George W. Bush, but Democrats shifted towards John Kerry at the last minute and suddenly put forward a nominee that kept things close in the 2004 general election. Similarly, if Rubio or even Jeb! is able to wrestle away the GOP nomination from the current frontrunners, then we'll have a race on our hands this year. What can be more easily predicted is that the nation's existing ideological stalemate and pattern of wave elections every two years is unlikely to end regardless of who wins in 2016.
It's harder to say, although after the events of the last 10 days it would seem that the Democratic field is set. Barring major unforeseen scandals arising from Hillary Clinton's e-mails, she's the Democratic nominee. I like Bernie Sanders and am glad he's around, but he's not a viable Presidential nominee. The Republican field is wide open though, and I think everybody from skeptical Democrats to the GOP establishment is now starting to seriously consider the possibility that the Republican primary electorate will go with one of the two amateur hour radicals contending for the nomination.....Donald Trump or Ben Carson. Against Hillary Clinton, it's 90+% assured that these guys would be crushed in a general election even with Hillary's sinking favorable. Never say never because of the aforementioned e-mail controversy could produce a smoking gun or the economy could collapse and feed right into one of Trump or Carson's narratives, but short of that kind of dramatic game changer, Hillary would not only win the 2016 Presidential landslide, but win in the biggest popular vote landslide since 1984, win back the United States Senate and possibly even the U.S. House for the Democrats, and flip a couple dozen legislative chambers to the Democrats as well.
Notice I said that Hillary would win the 2016 Presidential election in a "popular vote" landslide, probably in the 10-12 point range. That doesn't mean the electoral map would be a sea of blue on the evening of November 8, 2016, even if Trump or Carson was to live up to the absolute worst of my expectations as nominees. Trump or Carson would have to murder a nun at high noon in Central Park in front of several hundred witnesses to not win the states of Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming in a Presidential election. And if they did murder that nun, they'd still win most of those states against Hillary or basically any Democrat. Reagan's 49-state re-election victory in 1984 simply cannot happen in today's polarized America no matter how terrible the losing party's nominee is.
So where would Democrats see the inroads needed for the kind of blowout victory I predicted in a hypothetical Hillary vs. Trump or Carson race? First and foremost, they would run up the score to unprecedented levels in the already blue states of the northeast and the West coast. I could see Hillary besting Trump or Carson in the 70+% range in New York and most of New England while winning 2-1 in Washington, Oregon, and California. I'm less certain about the Midwest, particularly with Trump because his anti-immigration and protectionist posturing would find an audience among some white working class voters who went twice for Obama. I suspect Hillary would do about as well as Obama did in 2008 in states like Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Ohio. And Obama's 2008 victory in Indiana was such a fluke I might even expect Trump or Carson to prevail there.
As for "red states" that would flip to Hillary, there are few options. Demographics and politics are changing in Alaska so it's possible Hillary could get 3 electoral votes there. Arizona is a possibility although I'm sure Trump's anti-immigration positions would resonate with whites there every bit as much as they'd repel Hispanics, and perhaps be a wash overall. Montana is a red state where I think hypothetical most Democratic nominees could beat Trump or Carson, but I have my doubts whether it would "Hillary country". And demographics are changing quickly in Democrats' favor in Georgia, but given how popular Trump or Carson would be among rural whites, I still think the GOP would be favored there. Texas is a Democratic pipe dream and the best Hillary could expect there would be to hold Trump or Carson to a single-digit margin of victory by squeezing out lopsided margins among the few Latinos who bother to vote there and picking off a few country club Republicans.
But such a Hillary blowout would be unlikely to portend a realignment or anything resembling the "permanent majority" both parties regularly fantasize about attaining based on a couple of positive trendlines. Most of the gains that Hillary would make against Trump or Carson outside of the traditional GOP orbit would likely revert back to Republicans two years later. And the demographic that would assuredly hold strongest for Trump or Carson compared to 2008 and 2012 would be the white working class, a demographic that compensates for its declining population by simply raising its margins of victory for Republicans every election cycle. And should Hillary dominate in the 2016 Presidential election, the Democrats would be looking at an extremely defensive midterm cycle in 2018 where Democrats control 25 Senate seats and Republicans control only 8. Democrats won a bunch of seats they shouldn't have in 2012 in a perfect storm and have rentals on several of them. Even if the Dems win back the Senate in 2016, they will almost certainly lose it again in 2018 if Hillary Clinton is elected President in 2016, and a big GOP victory in 2018 would set the groundwork for Republicans to control the redistricting process again after the next census, locking their gains in place and creating an unwinnable Congressional and legislative map for Democrats once again just as they did in 2001 and 2011. For all the talk of the Democrats and their "coalition of the ascendant", the Republicans currently dominate government beneath the Presidential level in a way neither party has done before since the Democrats in the mid-30s under FDR, and a Hillary blowout next year would not likely do anything to reverse Republicans' downballot momentum moving forward.
That's why I question the conventional wisdom that if Republicans nominate a nutjob who loses in a landslide, the base will be humbled and learn they can't do that again next time. After all, two years after their landslide defeat in 2016, they're likely to have a landslide victory in the 2018 midterms when dozens of new anarchists are elected to Congress. This will embolden the same GOP base that nominated Trump or Carson to nominate someone else from that ilk in 2020. Rinse and repeat.
Now obviously I just got way ahead of myself based on the mere potential of a Trump or Carson nomination, which despite current polls is no sure thing by any stretch. At this time in 2003 and 2007, neither John Kerry nor John McCain, respectively, seemed likely to win their party's nominations but the flavor of the month frontrunners for their parties nominations those years burned out before people started voting. I long thought that Jeb! was the strongest establishment candidate whose warchest of campaign money could help him withstand early primary season turbulence better than most, but Jeb!s campaign seems to be in deep trouble right now and will need a major course correction at this point to be viable in the early primaries. Absent Jeb!, Ohio Governor John Kasich would be a conceivably tough nominee but is also struggling to gain any traction among the radicalized GOP base. Best positioned to seize the not-Trump-and-not-Carson vote now would seem to be Marco Rubio, who would probably put up the stiffest challenge to Hillary as the nominee. Both Kasich and Rubio have vulnerabilities of their own, but given that this is a defensive cycle for Democrats and their nominee has high unfavorables that will likely elicit lower turnout among key Democratic demographics, I would give them both 50-50 odds against Hillary should either of them get the nomination.
As might be expected in a year without an incumbent, it's no real surprise that a year before the 2016 Presidential election it's harder to predict the most likely outcome than it was in 2012. It's similar to where we stood at this point in 2003, where Democratic nomination frontrunners were Howard Dean and Wesley Clark, both of whom would likely have lost in landslides to incumbent George W. Bush, but Democrats shifted towards John Kerry at the last minute and suddenly put forward a nominee that kept things close in the 2004 general election. Similarly, if Rubio or even Jeb! is able to wrestle away the GOP nomination from the current frontrunners, then we'll have a race on our hands this year. What can be more easily predicted is that the nation's existing ideological stalemate and pattern of wave elections every two years is unlikely to end regardless of who wins in 2016.
posted by Mark at 3:22 PM
3 comments
