Reality Check on the Election: Ignore the noise: Hillary's likely opponent to be Trump (with Rubio as VP)

Time for a reality check. South Carolina had its Republican primary and Nevada held its Democratic caucuses. Hillary Clinton won 'by only 6 points' but in reality she won much more. Donald Trump won by 10 points yet his victory was quite hollow. A lot of silly punditry will now be going on, so I want to make this 'reality check' blog after the third date of voting in the US Presidential race primary season.

HILLARY NOW WON THE RACE

So first off, Hillary Clinton. She now has won the race and will be the Democratic nominee for President. Bernie Sanders had given her a nice scare and put up a more impressive challenge than probably anyone had imagined, but sorry, the reality is, that its now over. Bernie will soldier on for many more weeks to come, but its over. If Bernie can't win in Iowa and can't win in Nevada, and is behind by about 20 points in South Carolina, and is behind in most states that vote on 'Super Tuesday' on March 1, then he is done. Hillary was leading nationally in most polls by about ten points or more. Now with the momentum coming out of Nevada and her victory out of South Carolina next, she is now unstoppable. Bernie is likely to still win a few more states, like his home state of Vermont where he was up in the last poll by over 60 points but nationally, Bernie is toast. That dream that some had, whether very liberal progressive and even Socialist voters, or the Republicans fearing Hillary as the opponent, that dream is now dead. Deal with it. Hillary Clinton will be the nominee in 2016 (and trust me, she will be picking Julian Castro as her Vice President).

TRUMP IS NOT STRONG WHILE HE WINS

Donald Trump won in South Carolina with what could be considered a commanding lead. He won by 10 points over Marco Rubio and closely following third place of Ted Cruz. Normally ten points is a convincing victory. Except not if the candidate had built a 10 point lead ten WEEKS ago, that had climbed to a 15 point lead a week ago, and was damaged in a self-induced unenforced error. Same as in New Hampshire. Same as in Iowa. Trump makes amateur errors as the voting gets near and throws away big leads. It cost him victory in Iowa. It cut down his vote totals by many points in NH and SC. Trump should have won by 15 points, he was lucky that he got away with 10 points and the win.

So far Trump has polled nationally in the high 30s before each of the last races but he has only managed low 30s when he wins. This is a weak candidate who makes huge mistakes and gambles away his leads. It hurt him once in Iowa, its a pattern; it will cost him in some random states to come again. But Trump's victory out of SC is hollow in that a necessary rival suddenly quit. Trump has a low ceiling. He probably cannot get to over 40% nationally anymore ever, his ceiling could be as low as 35% and its certainly not higher than 45% (nationally, so some states can be a bit higher than this but other states will be lower). So for Trump to win, he needs many rivals to split the rest so that nobody can take the other 60%. If it was a two-man race, Trump would lose to anyone else, at 40-60 whether that was Cruz or Rubio (or Jeb Bush or John Kasich or gosh, even Ben Carson. Trump is hated by 60% of the party, they will never vote for him and will vote for anyone 'other than Trump').

So Trump needs many rivals to stay and split the vote. Dr Ben Carson is taking some valuable conservative votes away from Ted Cruz, keeping him nearer 20% than 30%. Marco Rubio could have had 38% and would have won SC had Jeb Bush and John Kasich both been out of the race and assuming all of the moderate supporters of those two candidates had then come to Rubio, the least conservative of the very conservative remaining field (with the assumption of a solid non-Trump ceiling). So Trump would have dearly loved for Jeb Bush to have remained in the race until his home state votes, Florida, on March 15, to drain votes from Rubio. This outcome is great news to Marco who can now hope to become the unifying candidate for the moderate and establishment wing of the party, and hope to get something near to 40% of the voting support. So while Trump won 'with a big margin' its actually doubly bad news for him. His margin was far weaker than he should have had. And Jeb dropped out, making Rubio a far more dangerous rival into the rest of the race.

Remember that Trump has only won with 31% and 33% of the Republican votes so far. This is not a strong juggernaut of a campaign. This is a weak campaign pandering to an extreme racist wing of the party and unable to grow beyond that fringe. Yes, its a big fringe but its not even a majority of the smaller of the two parties in the USA. If Trump cannot build his support past that level, he is utterly doomed to lose the general election, while under certain competitive conditions yes, a 35% level of support can win you the nomination. It requires two or more rivals to split the other votes and some luck in the delegate hunt.

TRUMP IS LIKELY TO WIN NOMINATION

The race is for delegates. Did you see the early projection out of South Carolina? Trump got 33% of the votes. SC has 50 delegates. So Trump should 'mathematically' earn about 17 delegates. As of now, he is listed as having won... 44 out of 50 (with the last 6 not allocated yet, Trump may take even more of those). How is this possible? There are various rules in how each state allocates its delegates and yes Trump was lucky in winning this state where he happened to actually gain 88% of the delegates (or more) by only winning 33% of the votes. When I did my delegate projection for the full 2016 season on the Republican side, I calculated that while Trump didn't get to 50% of the actual votes cast, he would earn more than 50% of the delegates across the whole season, because of such rules as what now happened in South Carolina. A significant factor to that is what is called the SEC Primary on March 1, when a huge haul of delegates are awarded, but on various rules of rewarding winners with extra delegates or assigning minimum thresholds, which help Trump right now, before his rivals can gain momentum and eat into his leads in almost all of the polling.

The race is built to help a front-runner build on a lead and to put the race away, early. The Republican party set it up this way to try to avoid the trouble Mitt Romney want through in 2012 when he had a long painful nomination battle. It should help the establishment 'strong' candidate put away 'protest' candidates such as what Trump would have been in most normal years. But now, this year, with so many candidates, and with Trump's unconventional campaign, he has achieved that front-runner status who is HELPED by the system and it would take Herculean achievements to knock him off the lead. Its not that it cannot be done, but that would almost necessitate a collapse of Trump by himself (not beyond the realm of possibility, he makes so many unenforced errors habitually).

So Trump is likely to get the most delegates when voting has finished on June 7. I still expect Trump to actually 'clinch' the nomination on June 7, ie to get to a majority of delegates (50% plus one) but its a close call with him coming first but not clinching, ie falling short of 50% of delegates, but having the most of them. To have a plurality of delegates. In that case, almost certainly Trump would have to pick a vice president from among his rivals and he is smart enough to pick Marco Rubio ahead of Ted Cruz. And even if Trump finishes second to Cruz, if Cruz doesn't have over 50% of the delegates, Trump would pair with Rubio to get over 50% of the delegates as a team, and again the pairing would be Trump & Rubio. So that is why I say, even if the final finish is Trump-Cruz-Rubio or Trump-Rubio-Cruz, Trump would pick Rubio as his VP. Thats why I say the most likely general election pairing in 2016 is Trump and Rubio on the Republican side, going down to epic election loss to Hillary Clinton and Julian Castro on the Democratic side. The only scenarios where Trump is not on the ticket is if Rubio wins the most delegates (whether majority or plurality) because Trump will not be VP to anyone; or if Cruz wins the majority of delegates. These three scenarios are extremely unlikely but certainly plausible. They are more likely to happen due to a major mistake by Trump, than by brilliant campaigning by Cruz or Rubio to actually 'defeat' Trump.

CRUZ WEAKER THAN SEEMS

Ted Cruz has a great campaign with a lot of money and excellent organization and a good Big Data operation. But the candidate is flawed (and has been severely hurt by attacks from Trump). In both of the most conservative, religious states, Iowa and South Carolina, Cruz has not managed to get most of the evangelical and very conservative voter support. He has only gotten roughly speaking about half of it. Cruz is not appealing to moderates of the party and is hated by the establishment. If he cannot 'lock' the most religious and conservative voters, he is flawed as a candidate. So while Cruz can show on national polling support levels in the high 20s, I think we now have seen enough of him, to know his real potential is less than that. If Cruz can only take 22% out of SC, he will not be winning the nomination. But he has enough money and organization, on the wild day of the SEC Primaries of March 1, to take victories in several states simply because so many states vote on the same day and each candidate has to optimize their time, money and effort. But after March 1, expect Cruz to fade but not to quit. He may end up with significantly less than 20% of the final delegates. But he is also a talented politician and the best debater of the candidates left, he can also turn it around if he has a good moment in a debate. I believe Cruz is also unnecessarily limiting his upside potential by not attacking Trump strongly and consistently including at the debates. I do expect that to change. He could therefore do better than his early form has shown. Cruz certainly is showing signs he learns and adapts.

RUBIO IS UNPROVEN

Then Marco Rubio. He had his big stumble in the debate before New Hampshire which hurt him badly. He has now gotten past that and is back to the path he was on before. His luck was that Jeb quit already now. Rubio can very well now make the claim that he is the only viable moderate left (ie that Kasich should quit) and to try to steal Kasich's supporters. If he gets all non-Trump moderate supporters, Rubio's natural voter support would be around 40% of the Republican primary vote, when measured on a national level. His misfortune is that the SEC primary is mostly in states that are not favorable to him right now. But the bigger question is how will Rubio fare when Trump turns both barrels upon him. Rubio is not afraid to attack and to respond to attacks but Trump has so far has a perfect record in terms of causing damage while not taking it. Scott Walker, Rick Perry, Bobby Jindal, Lindsay Graham and Jeb Bush all were forced out after fighting with Trump. Ben Carson and Ted Cruz both were kicked off a momentary polling lead, after Trump attacked them. Cruz too has been occasionally hit by Trump but mostly Trump has not bothered to attack Marco much. That will now change. Rubio might emerge as the 'dragon slayer' that I have been asking for, to destroy Trump but the odds would be with Trump, that he is likely going to be able to damage Rubio more than Rubio can damage Trump. Most of the best attacks against Trump have already been used and seem to have done no lasting damage. Rubio could be the one who wins and defeats Trump but I would not be holding my breath that he is that person.

Rubio's race to get wins in states won't really come until after March 1. He may win one or two states on March 1 but both Cruz and Trump will win many more on that day. So Rubio has to have a really strong finish to be in the hunt for becoming the nominee. He certainly has to win his home state of Florida where Trump is far ahead by latest polling. Florida is a winner-take-all state and Trump therefore is also going to invest heavily into keeping his lead in that state. If Rubio loses Florida he is almost mathematically eliminated from being able to get a plurality of delegates ie to win the nomination. In that case he would be only running for the VP slot.

KASICH AND CARSON ARE DEADWOOD

So then John Kasich and Ben Carson. They are both dead men walking in this race. They will be soon quitting. Kasich probably after Nevada. Carson might make it to March 1 and then quit. So this is a three-man-race on the Republican side, with Trump holding the keys to his victory, essentially its Trump's nomination to lose. Note he still also has the ultimate threat, if he doesn't get the nomination, he could still run as an Indepenent and just further cock it all up for the Republican ticket.

HILLARY WINS BY 20 POINTS

Marco Rubio out of the three is by far the strongest candidate for the general election but even he would lose easily to Hillary. Hillary can now spend the remaining weeks that Bernie pesters her, in party repair mode. Long before June she will have the party fully behind her as Bernie will have quit and endorsed her. Meanwhile Trump has given us the nastiest nomination fight in the television era and he has not even fully warmed up yet. As Cruz and Rubio have to give it their best, to attack Trump (and as Carson and Kasich who refused to attack Trump will wither away and no longer feature in the race) it means Trump will be angered to attack both even harder. The Republican race will not be decided before June 7 and may well go to a deadlocked convention (or worse, an Independent run by Trump - or worse yet, both). So the nastiest televised national political race in history will only get more bloody and fierce. The voters will tune in to see the fireworks similar to how we are drawn to watch the aftermath of the car accident on the highway as we drive by. And it will only turn off moderate voters from the Republican candidates and the party on the whole.

So its most likely that Trump will be the nominee and that he'll end up picking Rubio as his VP because he was not able to get to enough delegates. Trump on the top of the ticket will mean that the gender gap will be atrocious. Hillary already has a strong gender gap advantage before this gift. Her advantage in the gender gap is greater than what Obama had to Romney. Hillary will also have a racial voting advantage with Hispanics. It will be greater than Obama had, and she will improve up on it by picking Julian Castro, the most popular Hispanic politician on either side of the aisle. Trump is the Republican nominee whose racial disadvantage is greatest among any candidate and is indeed the greatest in history. This is before we add in the racial advantage Hillary has with blacks and how much Trump again makes that worse. The generic vote (without any nominees) is slightly in the Democrats' favor, about 2%. Add to that a surge in voting, from the historic female voter turnout surge, to the historic Hispanic voter turnout, and as high turnout favors Democrats, that lead grows to about 5%.

Then add in the democraphics, the gender gap, the racial voting gaps, and the voting gap will be around 15 points already. This is before we look at the utter collapse of Republican support to the doomed Trump-Rubio ticket, and the various moderate Republican politicians who will be running away from Trump to endorse Hillary instead. Finally the organization, funding and disciplined campaign advantages will all favor Hillary. She will also have the ultimate cast of surrogates to support her campaign starting with former President and most beloved living President, Bill Clinton, and adding sitting President Obama, two of the best orators in living memory. So then the final election outcome looks like 40-60 loss by Trump-Rubio to Clinton-Castro. Hlilary will flip the Senate to Democratic control and fliip the House and whether it is Obama's Supreme Court nominee already confirmed, or her nominee in her first months, Hillary will also have a liberal Supreme Court to support her agenda and her historic landslide 'mandate'. Conservative pundits and writers will be saying 'what were we thinking' and asking why didn't anyone stop Trump when they had the chance. But Rubio will arise from that experience to run again for President in 2020 when he'll probably face Ted Cruz for the nomination fight.

Comments

[Wayne Borean]

And the answer to Donald Trump is to make the system less democratic. Right...

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/01/donald-trump-2016-two-party-system-213502

I can't argue with most of your post Tomi. The only factors which might throw it off are:

1) Trump showing some intelligence. I still think that he's smarter than he appears. Of course considering some of his recent comments, that's looking less and less likely.

2) Cruz managing to look human. Had an image pop into my mind, Ted Cruz's head on top of a Dalek body...

So I'm in agreement with you. Unless something major and unexpected happens, your numbers on the Republican race look solid.

So do your numbers on the Democrats. Here I expect some interesting shenanigans from the 'Right Wing Pundits' like Rush Limbaugh. The attacks on Hillary will become more strident, with lots of invented HillaryGates. You think the attacks on Obama were bad? By the time November rolls around, those attacks will look positively sane.

But they won't affect the race. They will however cause a resurgence of the Tea Party, which could dampen Rubio's chances in 2024.

[Pekka]

Remember everybody, I was the first one on this blog saying Donald trump will be much better canditate than people were expecting. Much Much earlier than Tomi, but I still feel that rubio has a decent shot to win the nomination.

[cornelius]

@Wayne
I think the democratic vote issue boils to this: should all votes be equal? Should an uninformed vote weight as much as an informed vote?
In my opinion they shouldn't have the same weight but because it is either costly (a quiz before the vote for example) or outright impossible to quantify voter knowledge then the super delegates system, although far from perfect, seems the best solution. The only remaining problem is finding the sweet spot in terms of number of super delegates versus elected delegates.
I like Sanders' ideas, they are wonderful ideas that look so good in theory, but, assuming he is going to be the president, how is he going to be able to push anything on his agenda if the Congress will be dominated by Republicans? Wouldn't a more moderate Clinton have a better chance at getting bi-partisan support?
Maybe Sanders' supporters are not concerned about that but someone has to. That's why the super delegates is actually not a bad idea.
Similarly for Trump. He is proposing such idiotic ideas that look good (to his electorate) in theory but are either impossible to implement or outright idiotic to any person that has an above average IQ. The GOP wish they had more super delegates to prevent Trump from reaching the nomination.

[Winter]

@Cornelius
The answer to Donald trump in a two round district voting system is to take the parties out of the loop and make it a genuine two round voting system like the French have.

In round 1, everyone who wants can compete in every district. In round two the top two candidates compete in every district for a majority if no onegot a majority in round 1.

This ensures the winning candidate got a majority vote.

This has some strong disadvantages: More than two parties will compete and the winning candidate has to have to win the popular vote. At least, that is how the British and USA parties see the disadvantages.

Under this system, Trump would lose even the Republican nomination.

[Catriona]

@Tomi, South Carolina got an exemption from the RNC. They award 29 delegates to the winner, plus 3 for the winner of each congressional district. So Trump won all 50 delegates.

That said, the Establishment is coalescing around Rubio now that Bush has finally dropped out. Romney is going to endorse Rubio tomorrow. Who cares if Rubio is unproven? So was Obama in 2008, and he took down Hillary Clinton.

Even if Trump is at the top of the ticket, the GOP isn't losing the House. You are dreaming if you think they will. The Senate is likely going to flip either way (it's just simple math with all the 2010 class up for re-election), but it is likely to flip back in 2018.

As for SCOTUS, I think we could see a surprise. If Obama decides to "outsmart" the GOP by nominating a liberal version of Kennedy, it's possible that the GOP Senate calls his bluff (particularly if it appears likely that the GOP nominee is going to lose by, say, September). A rubber stamp SCOTUS (because, quite frankly, liberal justices don't believe in the separation of powers and have abdicated the court's responsibilities) would only last until Ginsberg and/or Breyer retire (my guess is that this is after 2018 for both, barring unforeseen death).

As for "stopping Trump," what exactly could they have done? Clearly he's bringing new voters to the primaries. GOP vote totals are hitting record highs (while, notably, they are well below 2008 on the Democratic side).

Also, you grossly overestimate Hillary. She has all of Obama's surrogates, but she doesn't listen to them because, after all, she's the smartest person in the room and who are they to question her? She had this "dream team" and still got a scare from Bernie Sanders (who did far better than anyone imagined). Had she faced Elizabeth Warren she probably would have lost (since Warren would have taken away Hillary's undeserved gender advantage among older women). All that data mining and over a year on the ground in both Iowa and Nevada and she barely escaped Iowa and nearly gave away a 25-pt lead in 5 weeks in Nevada. She's going to cruise to the nomination on the backs of African-Americans in mostly red states, despite the fact that she championed the very policies she now decries (3 strikes laws, welfare cuts in the 1990s, etc.).

@Winter, adopting the French system would be next to impossible. SCOTUS has ruled that freedom of association (i.e. the First Amendment) allows political parties to set their own rules for determining their candidates. I doubt very seriously either party would be willing to agree to agree to a "jungle primary" system at a national level.

Up until the 1960s, the party leaders chose the candidates (much how the parties choose their leaders in Westminster systems). Popular vote primaries are a relatively recent addition, and became universal only in the late 1970s. I doubt we'll see a return to smoke-filled rooms, but the Democratic "contest" this year was pretty close to that (the DNC effectively chased away any credible challengers to Hillary, much as they tried to do in 2008).

@cornelius, what you are proposing is authoritarianism. Who decides who is "uninformed" vs "informed"? Arguably, Democrats do better among "uninformed" voters (since they generally do better in higher turnout years), so should we weight their votes at, say 90%?

@Wayne Borean, of course Trump is smarter than he appears. He's a smooth talker and tough negotiator in business, which is how he got himself out of 4 bankruptcies virtually unscathed. He's a master of social media, and has managed to dominate the airwaves while spending less than all the other major candidates of either party. In some respects, he's like Ronald Reagan in that he is able to connect to the white working class in ways that the other candidates in either party cannot. However, Reagan was able to do so without turning off the rest of the GOP establishment, and he was an uplifting orator (far better than Obama as he didn't get flustered as easily). Trump is a bit too crude to pull off a Reagan. The times are different, too (we are much more politically correct and self-censored now than in the 1980s).

My guess is that Trump would actually be a fairly competent president in practice. Like Obama, where he'd struggle is that he'd leave the policy details to others but wouldn't delegate as effectively as either Reagan or Bill Clinton. I wonder about his SCOTUS nominees, but they'd probably be better than Hillary's. On social issues (e.g. drug laws, gay rights, social welfare, even abortion), Trump is far more moderate than any recent GOP nominee (even McCain or pre-2008 Romney).

That said, I'm sticking with my prediction of Rubio. The DNC is most concerned about a Rubio-Haley ticket. It would be the most ethnically diverse ticket of any major party in history, and Haley is also a good public speaker and governor of a state that has adapted very well to globalization. She's no Sarah Palin.

[Catriona]

@Wayne (and Tomi), you are committing the common fallacy I hate most about "progressives," which is to assume that people you disagree with must be stupid. That explains why the media is at a loss to explain Donald Trump's fervent popularity with his core, and how they can't reconcile how he scored well in both moderate New Hampshire and solidly conservative South Carolina.

[winter]

Panick

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/22/us/politics/donald-trumps-victory-south-carolina-spurs-renewed-scrambling-among-republicans.html

[Catriona]

@winter, always take anything the NY Times writes with several grains of salt. Yesterday was a bad night for Cruz. After March 1, the map doesn't look good for him. If Trump manages to overtake Cruz in Texas and Rubio takes some northern states then Cruz might underperform on March 1, as well.

[Wayne Borean]

@Pekka,

Agreed. While Donald Trump has made mistakes, he's made less than most of the rest of the candidates. A Front Runner's mistakes tend to be more visible.

@Cornelius,

The only 'Western Democracy' which has Super Delegates (that I know of) is the United States. When only one country does something they are either ahead of everyone else, or being incredibly stupid. I think that the second sums up the situation.

Admittedly the US tends to have a far less educated population than any other 'First World' country. Talking to Americans can be painful because you keep on having to explain things!

Sanders ideas have been proven in several countries. Please explain why they would not work in the USA.

@Winter,

So you want to replace one undemocratic system with another? What a wonderful idea.

@Catriona,

One word. Demographics. Yes, the Democrats could take both the House and the Senate. The House is less likely, though if Ted Cruz was the Republican candidate it would be certain.

As to overestimating Hillary, Tomi isn't. He may be underestimating Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio though.

Yes, Hllary did champion policies which have hurt the Black community. At the time I thought they were a good idea too. I've since learned better, and changed my position. I think that she has too.

Also you appear to have no idea how Westminster systems work. The Party Leaders don't pick the candidates, the candidates pick themselves. Overall it has worked damned well for Canada. Whenever a party leader gets out of touch we turf him. That's what happened to Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in the fall 2015 election.

Comparing Trump to Reagan? LOL. Yes, Reagan was a better speaker, but not as good as you are implying. Oh, he may have tricked Americans, but he would have had issues in any other country. He wasn't a good governor, and he wasn't a good president. Passable, yes, but not good. He was another of a long line of American politicians who did not believe in Democracy.

Trump might make a decent President. He has management background, and that counts for a lot. But I don't know that his SCOTUS nominees would be better than Hillary's.

You commented that 'Liberal justices don't believe in the separation of powers' however reading court rulings (and yes, I do that if the subject interests me) I do not see that.

I also read lower court rulings on subjects that interest me, which is one of the reasons I suggested that Richard Posner would make a great addition to the court.

There are two issues, one that appointments can be too political (ideologically driven) or two, disconnected from the reality of life in the United States. Either can be a disaster.

Hillary, being a lawyer, should know this. I suspect her nominees would be better than Trump's, but that's just a guess.

A Rubio-Haley ticket? I can't see that working, I mean I can't see a Rubio-Haley ticket beating a Clinton-Whoever ticket. Demographics again. Too many GOP policies are toxic electorally to too many Demographic groups.

Oh, and I'm a Conservative. A real Conservative, unlike the Americans who don't have a clue what Conservatism means.

[Wayne Borean]

From NJ.cm

'A whopping 85 percent of young people in Nevada went for Sanders, but as Sanders found out, those energetic young people don't necessarily win you elections.

A CBS News entry poll showed that Nevada race seemed to break down along gender lines: Clinton lead Sanders among women 55 percent to 42 percent while Sanders took 55 percent of male voters to compared to 41 percent who said they were backing Clinton.

Given that women make up 53 percent of the U.S. population and turn out to vote at rates 10 percent higher then men, female voters may be all important this cycle.'

*****

Remember what I said about Demographics? What percentage of women vote Republican? In some demographic groups the majority. The problem that Trump and Rubio have is that in most demographic groups it is a minority. Even adding Nikki Haley as VP choice is not likely to have a huge impact.

Politics tends to be regional, but the regions that support the GOP are shrinking. Without gerrymandering the GOP would be unable to hold onto power. If the Democrats can get rid of gerrymandering in five states, the GOP will have no chance of holding the House and Senate.

At which point the party will have to change, and become a 'big tent' party once more.

[tz]

Hillary's husband is a serial rapist. Slick willie.
Trump v.s. Clinton will mean Trump wins with 20 points - worse, a 48+ state landslide (do you even know about the electoral college).

[Flower]

Tomi why is Sanders giving Clinton such tough race? I'm disappointed she isn't stronger.

[cornelius]

@Wayne
I didn't argue Sanders' ideas won't work. I only said that he will not be able to implement them because he would have to get the approval of a Republican majority in the U.S. Congress and that will never hapen, ever.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Wayne & Pekka

Wayne - first on Trump intelligence. We've had this discussion before and I still agree with you, he has to have a smart plan for stage 2 which has to be different from this part of stage 1, winning the nomination. Part of his path so far has been perhaps luck but much of it has been bold brave moves (and plenty of gambling that has mostly worked). Some of his errors have been almost missed (or dismissed) because his overall game plan has succeeded so well. Certainly he knows the territory well and is proven to be a very competent politician while he of course claims to not be one. But he is making a ton of unforced errors too - mostly because his personality and business meant he could rule as a dictator at Trump and is surrounded by yes-men. Did you catch Trump answering a question a few weeks ago about his staff (at Trump, not the campaign) and does his staff say no to him? Trump didn't answer directly (nobody dares to say no to him, if he was the rare exec of that type, he would have jumped at the chance to explain how important that is) but he said he has 'the smartest' people around him and he listens to them BUT THAT HE SOMETIMES GOES AGAINST THEIR ADVICE. Because, Trump gut feeling is obviously smarter than the best experts in the world (or supposedly best ones). Yeah. I know this type well haha. We saw another of those in Stephen Elop over at Nokia haha. Yeah, the boss knows better than all experts and will gamble the future of the company on some silly plan.

At Trump its meant four bankruptcies ie utterly failed projects. Many more failed projects by other measures, whatever they might be. How many were projects where Trump executives and experts strongly urged Trump not to do that? We'll never know. But as a President to the USA gosh that is a horrible idea - and we've seen how many times already his gut reaction is to do or say something really dumb. So again, yes, I am 'convinced' that he has to have a smart plan for 'stage 2' but he is also illustrating the longer this run goes on, that he is a totally 'seat of the pants' and 'gamble every time' and 'shoot from the hip' type of boss. And without any even remotest chance of listening to wiser heads - on most related US Government issues he WOULD be the novice, not the expert. Just take the Mexico-pays-for-wall idea. Would he even BOTHER to listen to the State Department? Or the Commerce Department? Or the Office of Budget and Management? No, he'd just declare that we're doing this now, I've signed contracts to start the building and we'll tell our Ambassador in Mexico City to get the deal signed, or I'll fire him next. (Like that would result in a deal).

All that being said - this is a SHOW for Trump. He is acting the role of ultimate Republican nominee, similar to how Reagan acted the role of President. This is not the real Trump although it might not be very far from it. He is putting on an act. Some of the lunacy is by design and intentional. And most of it is working (to his base which is rock-solidly for him now).

On Cruz appearing human.. yeah its a stretch haha but seriously, Cruz is continuously learning and improving. His natural performance and campaign (if we ignore the constant barrage from Trump) would be worth about 30% or so. Its the relentless pressure from Trump that suppresses Cruz's peak and going into the SEC Primary, in most states that Cruz picks, he gets to mostly appear alone without the constant badgering by Trump. And likely in the next debate, Rubio will be upping his attacks on Trump and Trump likely will be turning his fire on mostly Rubio (if Trump is at all smart, he lays off Cruz and lets Cruz steal some of Rubio's voter support).

On the nasty campaign vs Hillary, yeah. I am also sure that is inevitably coming. But also.. so is the Hillary campaign. She will not be the clueless target like John Kerry with Swiftboat attacks. But this Trump show is an exceptionally good observation platform, where the Democrats can see what kind of attacks can the nastiest politician ever, come up with, and how will otherwise also competent rivals (Rubio & Cruz) react to them and deflect and counter. Probably most of the best ideas will be run and tested now in the Republican primary, they will not have the luxury of keeping any in hiding for Hillary. This fight is very likely going to the wire or beyond. That means all hands on deck, every idea will be tried.

LOL the Tea Party yes. As long as its Trump on top of the ticket, the Tea Party can continue to believe that 'if only' they had nominated a true conservative, they could have won. So as I said before, if its Trump in 2016 losing catastrophically to Hillary, then the Tea Party will run Cruz in 2020 and he will lose in similarly epic numbers - and only after Ted has had his run and total failure, can the Tea Party sickness be cured from the Republican party. Even then it may not be over in one election cycle (2 years) might take 4 or even 8 years. It was 8 years from Mondale's catastrophic loss to Reagan in 1984 to the moderate solution finally by the party in Bill Clinton in 1992. That might be how long it takes for the Republicans to grow up too, to become a modern inclusive and open party that has a chance at a national election (even if the election is not rigged like with gerrymandering).

Pekka - very true, you were first thanks. But on Rubio, no, he has a VERY distant chance only. Pekka its the math. The first time Rubio starts to win will be later in March, IF he manages to do well going that far. And he has been mostly spared Trump's relentless attacks. Nevada will be won by Trump and most of the states on March 1 will be won by Trump, with Cruz winning most of the rest. Rubio can win one or two on March 1, and those would be among the smaller states. His delegate haul will be trivially small still on March 2, when about a third of all delegates have already been awarded. Rubio would have to literally win half of all remaining delegates SIMPLY to catch up with Trump (assuming Trump stops winning and only takes token delegates from proportional states from then on). Yes, Rubio might do it. But that almost requires either Trump or Cruz to stumble so badly that their run is essentially over. So health crisis or sex scandal... but if both continue till June 7, and looking at how poorly Rubio currently polls for March 1 states, its nearly mathematically impossible for him. Not quite impossible but highly unlikely.

Its more likely that Cruz gets the nomination. Its even more likely that Trump wins the most delegates while not winning the nomination directly. And the most likely scenario is that Trump wins the majority of delegates. But we'll see Pekka, thats why this blog is fun, we can come back to the matters later to see how it went. Its like a 'time machine' haha..

(more replies coming)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cornelius & Winter

cornelius - haha thats a nice touch - lets run a test of eligible voters.. Now on Superdelegates, the parties may decide however they want on how to elect their candidates. And then when things go wrong, they adjust their methods. This year's Republican process that gave them Trump is clearly flawed. So they will adjust after 2016 and very likely they will adopt a modest proportion of genuine Superdelegates (the Republicans do have special delegates but those are not free to pick who to support, they are bound to support their state's winner). The first time the Democrats used Superdelegates was in 1984 when they had 14% of them, today their number is about 20%. So maybe something like 10% might be what the GOP could do - they could have stepped in and tilted the balance in favor of Rubio earlier - and if Rubio started with 10%, then if Trump wins 40% of the rest, his actual delegate count is only 36% and if Rubio wins 30% his pledged delegates are 27% but with the 10% Superdelegates he 'wins' with 37% of the total (give the rest 27% to Cruz..).

This year's Republican race will be studied and many remedies will be made haha. They also may set some kind of eligibility criteria that clear outsiders can't get into the party like Trump did, and/or that they cannot threaten to run as Independents etc. But of course all young and hungry future politicians in the system will not want to see their chances damaged by rules that favor the old guard too much, so it will be interesting HOW they fix or attempt to fix the mess they had this year. Also the primary calendar will once again be tweaked (perhaps also the number of debates - and possibly even the 'penalties' if someone skips a debate).

Oh, by the way, EVERY year the candidate who doesn't have most Superdelegates complains about it. Often its more than one of the 'losing' candidates who complains bitterly how this is not democratic and their supporters complain on TV etc... It isn't. But it helps make sure that those who have invested a career and leadership into the party, don't find their party suddenly hijacked by some outsiders like haha Trump or Cruz now.

On Bernie's ideas. Its not just the Republicans in Congress. To make college free would be INCREDIBLY expensive (as would national healthcare). Yes, the USA could of course afford it, but it would mean HUGE increases in taxes. HUGE increases. And most of those taxes would go to people who are NOT about to go to college. Which is why the youth edge of the Democratic party loves this idea - they are mostly in college or wanting to go to college or so recently left it, they still remember it. But most Americans do not, certainly not if it means raising taxes by say 10% to everybody. If something like that is to be done in the USA, it almost certainly has to be done in gradual stages where then rigorous testing will determine who truly earns the free college seats. It can't be that everybody can go in and study French Literature for the fun of it, for 7 years without graduating, then change majors to Anthropology for another six years, and all for free.

So plenty of DEMOCRATS would not want to jump on a 'free college' idea for all. The Hillary way is the sensible way. The practical way to go by small steps. Bernie is too old to do that, he wants his revolution. But thats not in the cards.

Winter - yeah good idea but probably not going to happen nationally for the major parties. But something like that is being tried for example in California, which then has its own side-effects. What would be in my mind the better and more plausible solution is a genuine third party. Much as I hate the Tea Party, it would be healthy for it to split away from the Republican party. The Republicans could then become a more moderate party and let the Tea Party take the Trump and Cruz wing. While in the short run both parties would fare disastrously in the elections, over time they'd find their footing and obviously both would steal some support from the Democrats. And as the large party in power for a bit too long, the Democrats would soon fall into typical ruling party problems of scandals and abuse, which would hasten the end of their reign.

(more replies coming)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Catriona

(nice long comment haha..) ok, it went as I thought it might now as the results came in, and Trump ended up with more than I had in my projection for him when I did the forecast for the full primary season, so Trump is now well ahead of where I thought he'd be (and I predicted he'd win the nomination).

Ok Senate going to flip in any case? I sense thats a shift from where you were earlier? Maybe I am remembering wrong. But the House? If its Rubio, no, I don't think Hillary can flip the House. If its Cruz, she might. If its Trump, the House goes. With Trump Hillary wins by 20 points. The gerrymandering only protects the GOP for about ten points. Its the end if Trump is on the ticket. And we have not had a situation in recent years where the party splits on its nominee into the general election and individual politicians rush to the opposition actually endorsing the rival party's nominee. That will happen in droves if its Trump. Total utter disaster. The rats will desert the sinking ship and many will go down in those flames and nobody benefits from a united party winning against odds. Look at how many Republicans have already said that they will rather vote for Hillary than Trump - saying this NOW - four months before the bloodiest pinnacle of the nastiest campaign in history. Trump loses by 20 and that means the House. Sorry Catriona. But you know I said even without a Trump, Hillary wins by 12 and then the House is in play. If Its Trump, the House is also flipped. That is unavoidable.

I didn't understand what you meant with your argument about the Supreme Court. So if Obama nominates a moderate (did I get that correctly?) then you think the effect is short-lived because Ginsberg or Breyer might retire soon? They would be then replaced by Hillary and she'll nominate a very liberal judge in either of those cases. And she'll have at least a majority of the Senate, might even have a filibuster-proof Senate to rubber-stamp her nominee. If Hillary has 60 Senators, she'll nominate Obama... (she may run him even if Hillary doesn't have 60 but probably he'll be filibustered, although I think the remaining Republicans after the total shellacking of 2016 may become a different beast by 2017, when Hillary is the boss and Obama is gone. Hillary could threaten that if they don't approve - MODERATE - Obama, she'll nominate a firebrand liberal instead - in the style of Elizabeth Warren haha. Is she an attorney? - oh yeah.. Harvard Law - yeah.. Hillary will say if you don't approve Obama, I'll force you to eat Warren...). Incidentially that is Obama's incentive to fight for 2016 and Hillary. If they can get to 60 Senators (including the Independents caucusing with them) that means Obama is the next Supreme.

As to me overestimating Hillary. Have I? Or is it you who constantly underestimates her. Wasn't it you who said she'll crumble under emailgate and Benghazigate and that Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden will join the race, and then when all that failed, that Bernie would whip her? I said before she joined the race, that its no contest. I said Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden will not join, and they didn't. I said emailgate and Benghazi are non-issues as they aren't. I said she's the FAR superior debater to Bernie as she's proven to be. I said Bernie will give her a challenge but only that, he will win some states but he doesn't have a prayer of getting the nomination. Your position has shifted every time. My position has not shifted one iota. I think I was - with the benefit of hindsight - quite insightful and had foresight. You did not. You were blinded by your hatred of Hillary.

On Trump like Reagan, you make a good point, Trump is able to - rare for a Republican - connect with working class voters. That is partly because most of his 'faults' are not worthy of attacks by fellow Republicans. He is easily painted as the nastiest worst boss that any working class voter can imagine but that is the 'class warfare' part that the Democrats (and Newt Gingrich) ran against Romney to modest success but which will play far better against Trump. His support among moderate working class will fall quite fast once Hillary and the Democrats start their turn in attacking him, pretty well immediately after Bernie has stopped running and long before Trump has gotten past his rivals. Now, the hard core base REPUBLICAN working class - those will remain with Trump, and yes there are plenty of those too. But they are in that slice of 20% or 25% where is Trump's solid floor. Its only a small fraction of that, so if we say 5% of Republicans are working class who support Trump - thats 2% of the national electorate. Hillary will win the working class overwhelmingly. But that part of Trump's vulnerabilities has not been explored yet, because the Republican party is the party of rich entrepreneurs so that is not a 'fault' to be a ruthless boss there haha. (Same fault as in Carly Fiorina, also not mentioned when she was attacked).

You're also correct about Reagan vs Trump that Reagan didn't turn off vast numbers of voters when he appealed to the blue collar 'Reagan Democrats'. That was the Gipper's charm and style, very good. Similar to how Obama won over (in 2008 more than 2012) Republicans.

As to Trump as President. I did think that too, that he'd probably be an above-average one. But that was until we saw this campaign. Now we see how nutty he is in his reactions and how petty he is, and how utterly he refuses to listen to any reason at all. He'd be dangerous as a President and he'd run the nation into total chaos and the Congress and Senate would be in revolt by March of 2017 if he was somehow elected President. His own party would desert him and he'd be impeached before the end of 2018. But he might get the USA into several wars before that happened and he'd be by far the worst President in history. Luckily he won't be getting that far.

Rubio, yeah, he is the biggest worry over at Hillaryland. But not the Rubio-Haley ticket. That would be dumb on so many levels. Haley-Rubio would make some sense against Hillary. But she isn't going to be the nominee, not even out of a deadlocked convention. And to put her as VP would not give the Repbulican ticket ANYTHING it doesn't already have, or that would matter. Haley as VP would not neutralize Hillary on the TOP of the ticket as a woman. Would not matter. Only a woman on top can do that in 2016. So what about South Carolina. Its safely a red state. Absolutely no sense in 'wasting' the VP pick to 'lock' SC. Will she bring in Hispanics or blacks? No. A far better pick would be John Kasich with Rubio, so that Ohio would almost certainly go red. Or pick a black woman (like say Condi Rice, cover the military and foreign policy side far better than modestly competent Rubio himself, plus add blacks) or a Hispanic woman Susana Martinez who would probably bring New Mexico into play. Etc. Nikki Haley is pure press fantasy and in the very unlikely event that Rubio were to get the nomination with an actual majority of delegates (very very VERY unlikely, if he wins the delegate hunt, it will be by plurality only, meaning his VP will be Cruz, with all that baggage that brings) he'd never pick Haley for this year. Not happening. But 2020.. that could be a ticket yes. Rubio runs gallantly in the epic loss that is Trump-Rubio 2016, then emerges as the new hope and savior of the party for 2020 - then he could run with Haley. Even then I'd pick a candidate who also wins a state but yeah they are a pretty pair haha.

(more replies coming)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

Trumpzilla is already aiming at Rubio:

Marco Rubio Laughs off Donald Trump Appearing to Question His Eligibility to Run for President
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/marco-rubio-laughs-off-donald-trump-appearing-question/story?id=37092859

[Stephen Reed]

Hi Tomi,

Certainly the upcoming histories of this election will mention the rejection of the neocon agenda by Mr. Trump, in South Carolina during the week leading up to its critical primary. I believe it is another brilliant tactic which helped push Bush to quit, and removed a Republican vulnerability in the general election.

Likewise, Mr. Trump deftly handled an attack by the Pope on Trumps' Mexican wall proposal. Then we learned via Twitter that the great Vatican City walls were constructed to repel slave-seeking Muslim invasions.

Probably Cruz and Rubio are doomed to stay in the race to a bitter end, neither willing to quit in time to coalesce support to a single anti-Trump.

Regarding general election predictions, I suppose your largest error is to ignore the enthusiasm gap between Trump and Clinton with respect to their base supporters. It would not surprize me to see Trump polling ahead of Clinton immediately after the Republican convention.

I observe that events continue to unfold in a situation best for him. Next summer, a best possibility for Mr. Trump would be for Hillary Clinton to face a national security grand jury investigation - after the Democratic convention.

I believe that Trump will win the presidency in a landslide and keep the Senate in Republican hands. I am eagerly awaiting evidence.

[Winter]

@Stephen
"Next summer, a best possibility for Mr. Trump would be for Hillary Clinton to face a national security grand jury investigation - after the Democratic convention."

Yeah, the best option for the GOP is to deny Democrats a vote for their candidate. That that seems to be how they prefer to win elections.

[cornelius]

This is hilarious. The Donald starring in the new season of Game of Thrones.
https://youtu.be/I0tE6T-ecmg