Trump supporters and opponents may return to their corners because Cook Political Report just threw a moist blanket over Republicans as we prepare to take on the Clinton political machine. Yes, voter turnout is high in the GOP primaries, but the map simply favors Democrats by more than 100 electoral votes. Chris Cillizza of Washington Post wrote an article about doom and gloom in the face of Republicans:
In each of the last six elections, there have been 19 states that have voted for Democrats. Those 19 states account for a combined 242 electoral votes. By comparison, there are 13 states that have voted for the Republican presidential candidate in every election since 1992. Those 13 account for just 102 electoral votes.
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If the election is held as a prologue, the Democratic candidate will begin this fall with a 140 electoral vote advantage over the Republican candidate.
The Democratic candidate only needs to win 28 additional electoral votes to get 270 votes and be elected president.
Now for some more math. If Hillary Clinton wins the 19 states that every Democratic presidential candidate has won since 1992, plus Florida, she will be president. It’s that plain. Or if she wins 19 states and takes Ohio, New Mexico, and Nevada, she will be president. Or if she wins 19 plus Iowa, New Hampshire, and Ohio. You get the idea. There are MANY plausible paths to 270 electoral votes for the Democratic candidate.
Now let’s do the same for Republicans. Give Donald Trump the 13 states that every GOP candidate has won since 1992. (By the way, it is not entirely certain for Trump). And give him five states that the Republican candidate has won in five of the last six elections. And seven states that have voted for the Republican candidate four times since 1992. Add them all up, and you get 219 electoral votes. That means Trump or Ted Cruz or whoever needs 51 electoral votes to win. Give Trump Colorado, Florida, and Nevada—three of the four most undecided states in the last six presidential races—and he still only gets 263 electoral votes.
By now, we should all be reaching for a bottle of bourbon (or, in some cases, several bottles) as we bid farewell to a Clinton-era America. The Supreme Court will certainly swing left for the next generation. Obamanomics will survive, more or less, another term; it’s the death of the country. What’s more, both Trump’s and Cruz’s paths to victory, as Cillizza notes, are tough—and neither man certainly has the charisma or gravitas at this point to convince enough undecideds and independents to defect to the GOP. But it does show that even without Trump, it’s still going to be a tough year for the GOP, given the map. The Northeast alone, plus California, gives the Democrats an advantage. But that could change.
If Hillary is accused of mishandling classified information, then the entire election will change. At the same time, let’s say Senator Bernie Sanders defeats Hillary for the nomination because of the news of her impeachment, he will still defeat Cruz AND trump card conveniently. What’s even more depressing is that you can look and see how unappealing Trump and Cruz are to the broader electorate, considering that a run-of-the-mill democratic socialist who is also a mile wide and an inch deep on policy issues is capable of defeating them both.
Assuming Hillary dodges the impeachment bullet, there is no doubt that Democrats have an enthusiasm gap this year. The core of the Democratic Party is not thrilled with her or simply dislikes her, but if Trump or Cruz wins the Republican nomination, it could enhance Democratic turnout. A enormous portion of Democratic voters may not like Hillary, but they will not sit back and let Trump and Cruz take over the White House. On the other hand, the number of Republicans who say they will not vote for Trump will be shrinking. I find it tough to believe that the most ardent conservatives who deeply dislike Clinton will stay home. It would be like people saying that if Bush is reelected, they will move to Canada. That did not happen en masse. I am willing to risk that the Republican base will come out to meet whoever wins the nomination in Cleveland in July, but we will certainly have to climb the political equivalent of Everest to ensure victory. There is still a path to victory, however, with Trump the favorite, as Ed mentioned in your column Down Week in February, although he admitted that it was not uncomplicated.
