Trump VP Choice Mike Pence - So When Your Campaign Wasn't In Trouble Enough With Women, Perhaps?

So its Mike Pence the sitting Governor of Indiana. The media are just reporting a leaked story that its Pence. Donald Trump has finally made his VP selection. Lets start with the vast lost opportunities. Trump is behind in the gender gap. He is facing the largest gender gap ever measured on polling between the two choices for President. Did he pick a woman? No, Pence is obviously a man. What about minority support. Trump has the worst measured support among Hispanics of any candidate on either side. Trump polling percentage with Hispanics is down in the teens. He could have picked a Hispanic. No. Pence is obviously not Hispanic. Trump has an even worse demographic shortfall with black voters. Two local polls in Pennsylvania and Ohio just found Trump with literally zero percent support among black voters. This is unprecedented in how bad it is. Trump could have picked a black Veep. Pence is white. Trump also faces an age gap. He could have picked a young Veep to try to appeal to the youth voters. Pence is 57 years old. The Trump-Pence ticket probably has the highest combined age of any ticket in US election history. As I just put on Twitter, its the Grumpy Old Men Ticket.

NO BENEFIT

So understand, he had better choices. He could have picked a woman AND minority AND youth candidate, like say South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley or Nevada Governor Susana Martinez. He could have taken two of the three target demographics, with say Former Secretary of State Condi Rice (black and woman but not young) or Marco Rubio (Hispanic and young but a man) or Ted Cruz (another Hispanic and young but a man). Instead Trump selected a candidate who does nothing to help with ANY demographic shortfall - each of which for Trump is at historically bad levels.

Did Trump pick up a key battleground state? No. Indiana is not a battleground. If Indiana ends up in play, it means Trump has already lost the election and Hillary Clinton is fighting whether she wins by 10 points or 15 points. That is the level when Indiana starts to be in play. Now, what of alternatives? John Kasich, an older white man similar to Pence, is the popular Governor of Ohio and would have all-but-guaranteed a Republican victory in the critical battleground state. Governor Rick Scott of Florida, a younger white man than Pence would have probably won Florida, another critical battleground state. Marco Rubio would have put Florida at least in play and possibly helped win it. Governor Scott Walker yet another white middle-aged man of Wisconsin would at least have brought Wisconsin into the game and could have won his home state, another battleground state.

If you asked Democrats who would they most fear as a pairing, about two months ago, when the table was relatively open (before several said they will not want to be on the ticket with Trump) they’d probably list among the most dangerous pairings for Trump to be Trump-Martinez, Trump-Rice, Trump-Haley, Trump-Kasich and Trump-Rubio. Each of these would have gone a long way to ADDING voters to Trump, taking from the middle, making it far harder for Hillary and her ticket to win. A Mike Pence Vice President is close to the best possible wish the Democrats have had (arguably Newt Gingrich was the ultimate hope of simply two very white and rich and bigoted, arrogant Dirty Rotten Scroundels).

RELIGULOUS VOTERS

There is one voter demographic that finds Mike Pence appealing, it is the religious right. Pence pushed through and signed the ‘religious freedom’ law which made it legal to discriminate against gays in Indiana. That was then faced with fierce national push-back by all sorts of companies and organizations and Pence was forced to revoke the law. That push-back also killed Pences’s chances to run for President. A loser. Exactly the type of person Trump would look for in a Veep.

But the religious voters do love Pence for that act. He at least tried. So Trump would gain support from this slice of Republican voters. Note, they are VERY strongly base Republican voters, most of whom are already onboard Trump’s train and the rest that all pundits had already counted, would be coming home to Trump anyway. Especially as the gays and abortion-lovers are all in Camp Hillary. Trump should never have had to try to SECURE the support of the religious right. Just giving his ultra-religious pals like Jerry Falwell Jr, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachmann prominent speaking slots on the convention would have brought most of his religious voters home. Yes, Pence does deliver this one voter segment but most of it was Republican to begin with, many were already onboard with Trump, and the last who were not (who now will pick Trump) they were among the 20% undecideds - that were already FACTORED in to eventually migrate to Trump just like most undecided Bernie Sanders supporters will come home to support Hillary. Trump could have gained one, two or even possibly three demographics from the MIDDLE to help him win. Instead, he wasted his VP pick on Pence.

Does Pence win Trump with the National Security crowd who are in the middle, moderates (like say Condi Rice would have). No of course not. What about the business wing of the party, also in the middle. Moderates? (..if alleged Billionaire and supposedly solvent and self-proclaimedly successful ‘businessman’ Donald Trump in gold letters, has not won over the business wing, nobody will). Of course not. How about the modest-size Libertarian wing who is lukewarm to Trump and who have their rival candidate in Johnson? No of course not, Pence is the epitome of anti-Libertarian bathroom police nonsense the Libertarians hate.

MIDWESTERN GOVERNOR

But he’s a Midwestern sitting Governor. Surely that will help in the battles for Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota. Really? Those are MODERATE states that tend to lean blue, not red. Pence is a highly divisive Governor who only won by under 3% and didn’t get to 50% of the vote, in a 3-way race in his only Governor election (he would be up for re-election now but cannot run on both tickets, so the Republicans of Indiana have to get a new candidate to run). That was before his severely conservative agenda that has alienated many of his voters, damaged his state, and has his popularity in the toilet right now. In May his popularity was measured at 40%. This guy to be ‘popular’ in neighboring states that are less red? Me thinks not.

Those racists and extremists, under-educated white older male voters who loved Trump in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin etc, they have already discovered their man. The rest hate Trump. Putting disliked Pence next to Trump will not help Trump win those states. A MODERATE Governor like Kasich or Christie would have helped. Not an extremist like Pence. Trump already has that end of the electorate cornered.

What Pence will do, is he will move some national polling into Trump’s favor (to a moderate degree, taking mostly from undecideds, rarely from Hillary) but this will be counterbalanced and possibly hidden in the noise that is tumbling the polling now (Conventions, Hillary’s VP pick, and Bernie’s endorsement). But the point is - those voters will be in RED STATES and among religious voters. Trump’s performance will improve in Oklahoma, Alabama, North Dakota etc. Those are states Trump will win anyway. He was in no danger there. If we see some improvement nationally in Trump's polling after Pence is on the ticket, that national polling is reflected in RED states. What Pence spectacularly fails to do, is to help Trump win in the middle, in the purple states, and among Independent and moderate voters. The moderates do not like him and the more they learn of him and hear him speak, the more they will hate this ticket. Pence is a typical conservative who is against most populist positions that American voters want in 2016 like minimum wage, gun control, equal pay, environmental controls etc. Then Pence helps energize women (if that was needed) against this ticket because of the severe anti-abortion stands he’s taken. Meanwhile he will activate the LGBT community to lead a minority voter revolt against Pence because of the ‘religious freedom’ ie anti-gays legislation he pushed for and signed in a lavish press event.

A NICE LITTLE NAZI

So then what of Mr Mike Pence? He is a Tea Party member. He has never seen a war he didn’t love. He voted for the Iraq war. He paraded in Iraq claiming the area was peaceful when John McCain had arranged a huge defensive force to keep that area quiet for the press event (oh, its THAT guy, yeah..). But his perhaps most cute idea was an official Indiana Government propaganda media channel, like Russia Today is for Putin. A formal Indiana government propaganda vehicle, paid of course, by taxpayer dollars, to celebrate how great a Governor Pence was. That was ridiculed even by most conservatives and eventually the idea was killed. When the USA took in Syrian refugees Pence tried to block them from coming to Indiana (but was unsuccessful). As to intellect and ability, at best considered a mediocre mind if we want to be kind. He's not a moron like fellow Indianan Dan Quayle but this is no rocket scientist. What he does know, however, is to speak Republican. He knows how to sound like one of the good old boys of the rich white man's party. That is our Mike Pence. A nice little Nazi alongside David Duke's personal fave candidate Donald Trump. Yeah he'll go over real well with moderate voters... NOT! Mike Pence, duschebag, with values and beliefs wonderfully well aligned with Trump. Its like its Trump and his new MiniMe.

There is a little bit of nuance here, if Trump felt he hadn't quite hit every note in his bigoted campaign. So take women. Trump has been remarkably insulting to women yes, but he hasn't advocated hostile anti-women positions (at least, not consistently). So women may have felt that Trump sounded nasty but was still just a big pussycat. Not anymore with Pence. He has been consistently fighting against women his whole career. But Pence never really was rude towards women, he just pursued an agenda that wanted women back into the kitchen and to put abortions into the back alleys. Meanwhile the gays. Trump had been rather good at his hostility to Mexicans and Muslims and Jews (and women) but Trump seemed to have a soft spot to gays. That was one minority group that Trump had not hit particularly strongly yet. Mike Pence fixes that deficit. He's probably the one Governor most hated by the LGBT community. Good job Trump, you have managed to still prove your Campaign is ever more bigoted than what we've seen in the past 13 months.

And on a personal note - I didn't know this until I researched Pence a bit deeper now as the VP gossip got stronger. Mike Pence is one of those exceptionally despicable politician-whores who sells his beliefs for organizational killers. He has taken massive amounts of cigarette industry funding and then dares to proclaim that cigarettes don't kill. Scumbag. Go f*ck yourself and your pretend-Christian values. You are a disgrace. Mass-murderer. I will laugh really hard when you lose with Trump, Mike Pence. You are precisely why so many people hate politics.

Once again Trump has managed to not help his campaign. Did this dramatically hurt it, perhaps not much. Might be a little bit. That also gets the modest bump in national polling from the religious voters so perhaps its a wash. But consider how much stronger the ticket would have been if someone like Marco Rubio was on the trail campaigning for Trump as his VP or say Nikki Haley or Condi Rice or Susana Martinez. This was a huge wasted opportunity and it will not significantly move the race in Trump’s favor. He managed to pick a real loser. Democrats will sigh a big sigh of relief on this one.

PS Massive MASSIVE opportunity now for Hillary to pick Julian Castro as her VP and mobilize the Hispanic voter base where there is no Rubio or Martinez or Cruz on the Republican ticket.

Thank you to reader Andrea McKellar (@AMcKellar on Twitter) for spotting the error in Nikki Haley's state (obviously its South not North Carolina, now corrected)

Comments

[cornelius]

Here is some interesting stuff about the process of selecting Trump's VP. It explains why Trump passed on Chriestie and Gingrich.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-wavered-pence-pick-after-news-leaked-sources-n610651

"Trump is described as torn because he felt former House speaker Newt Gingrich would be "too volatile" to manage. Trump told others that he had favored New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, but could not choose him because of his own family loyalty. Christie, as U.S. Attorney, prosecuted Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law and close advisor Jared Kushner. Multiple sources said Kushner strongly opposed Christie as the running mate. Working with Christie behind the scenes on the transition team and strategy is one thing, but Kushner could not accept Christie as the running mate."

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

A few quick notes. The Convention is an ongoing mess. Tim Tebow has pulled out (was apparently not asked). Now Trump's daughter's rabbi will not deliver a Jewish prayer to the Convention.

Then the online arrangements about Pence were equally a total mess. Many obvious things were not done, links to the campaign, a biography summary for journalists covering the story etc.

And a little bit of delight.. Jon Stewart will join Stephen Colbert to comment on the GOP convention. That is great news HOWEVER, I would guess it will be 'less funny' than how people remember Jon Stewart, because these will not be packaged, pre-written comedy pieces. He will be commenting live on the news during the broadcast (I assume) similar to how they did in past Conventions and while Jon has a great mind (he may be rusty by the way, a year out of TV) its not the same VERY crisp style of laughs that The Daily Show was known for. And while there is a big genuine personal chemistry between Jon and Stephen, what we saw repeatedly between Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and Stephen Colbert's CHARACTER of the arrogant right-wing pundit/host - THAT was funny. Because it was an act. Having them 'on the same side' takes away the supposed antimony between the two acts before. Yes, great idea and yes I will watch but I am afraid, we'll feel disappointed that Jon isn't as funny as we remember him. I hope I am wrong (also, to be fair, Jon is a great comedian, he must have thought of a ton of good jokes about Trump and the GOP, and he may well have four hours of solid stand-up jokes all ramped up to unload on the broadcasts at any instance.. we know his political views lean towards liberal, he could have a field day for a week unleashing on the GOP convention).

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

Now on the past 12 hours or so... Gosh. Wow. What a total mess. So this is how Trump runs things.

What do we know. Manafort told Pence to get onto the plane BEFORE Trump had formally told Pence its him. Nice Machiavellian move there Manafort, be careful you won't get fired soon by your boss.

Then Pence leaked the story he's going to be VP before Trump & team had all their ducks in order (hence the total cock-up in the online digital aspects of the roll-out, none of the pages were linking to each other etc). But Pence obviously then created friction with his new boss.

CNN and NBC have confirmed that Trump was having second thoughts in the night, and calling people to try to get out of his fresh announcement of Pence. One, it means Trump was not solid on Pence to begin with; two, it means Trump REALLY was willing to go back on his choice; three, Trump is not happy with the early performance of his choice; four, Trump CURRENTLY has a 'preferred' candidate AHEAD of his VP pick, Pence (ie Newt or Christie would in Trump's mind be better).

The total roll-out is AGAIN the Keystone Cops. Its a Mickey Mouse operation. Its pinheads working with airheads. This is the FIRST formal act of Trump as the presumptive nominee and shows his style of behavior as President and his judgment. Its a farce.

People usually don't much care about the VP choice in the general election but if it goes wrong, it can be used AGAINST the candidate. All the signs are strong that Pence will be more a drag on the ticket than a gain. And Trump seems pretty pissed off at his VP - the choice he was 'forced' to take by Manafort against the wishes of his kids. Then on Newt, he went off on his desperate last-second attempt to get onto the ticket - and Trump says it was going too far - haha. Newt. Going too far - for Trump? Thats a first. So Captain Moonbase is not too far, but now, Newt was going too far, for Trump. Wow.

Koch brothers say picking Pence will not bring in their money. OUCH. But at least Trump had the love of Adelson. Wait, Adelson came with Newt. And now, what? The Jewish rabbi pulls out (Adleson is Jewish and a fierce supporter of Israel). And now what? The Convention begged Adelson to come in and pay the 6 million dollar shortfall the Convention is having with loss of sponsors. Adelson said no, and was angered. It turns out, at least a couple of the names 'signing' the letter - had NOT GIVEN permission to use their names to write to one of GOP's biggest donors. So Trump? I think one of your sugar-daddies is walking out of the door while the others are definitely not walking in.

The TP logo.. Toilet Paper (Beavis and Butthead called, they want the 1990s back.. when a Clinton was President). The logo? The letters? Its like the T is penetrating the P (nice iconography there) but worse, @LOLGOP one of my faves on Twitter, made the point - its like the P is giving a handjob to the T - gosh, now I cannot get that image out of my mind and its making me sick...

Like Twitter handle @WillMcAvoyACN (fake account around the character played on the TV series Newsroom) said, the TP logo makes the Hillary Clinton logo look brilliant by comparison. Its a running theme for Trump. He somewhat systematically goes after all of Hillary's negatives, and manages to outflank them, showing Trump is worse than Hillary haha.

This is what you get when 1, you don't know what you're doing and you've never done this before. 2, you don't hire top people (or can't hire them because they refuse), 3, you don't have full staff (especially - no Campaign Manager to make sure all is done and properly), 4, you have your family meddling in with more amateour nonsense, and 5, you are underfunded so you cut corners. This is a train-wreck of a campaign. Wait until the HEAT starts, during the Democratic Convention, and then gets hotter and tougher in August, and September, then the pressure leading up to the debates, and then the ultimate pressure in October. This is a train-wreck TODAY. In July. When the VP was picked.

If you've seen the movie Game Change, about the John McCain pick of Sarah Palin, it is apparently by many close to that situation to be very accurate. In it McCain was forced to pick Palin over his preferred choice, his friend Independent (and ex Democratic VP candidate) Joe Lieberman. McCain didn't know Palin, the vetting was too light, she initially was loved by the base, she turned out to be obviously a total ditz, and by the end of the campaign McCain clearly despised her.

Now fast-forward to Trump-Pence. Trump is ALREADY disgusted by Pence. He was forced to take Pence ahead of his friend Newt Gingrich. Pence was not vetted thoroughly and Trump clearly was shell-shocked by the severe Twitter hostility that brought out a ton of Pence's baggage that probably Trump had not considered, and possibly didn't even know. Pence is not even particularly strongly liked by the base (nowhere as much as Palin was in 2008) and while Pence's brain is not a total brick, he's pretty simple when it comes to his marbles. His past is a series of gaffes with the media (nowhere as polished as Christie - a bully - or as brave and bold as Newt - while also yes a bully). And if Trump was trying to dump Pence on Thursday night, gosh, he IS already despising him. How much can Trump even BOTHER to praise his forced choice. How much will paranoid Trump now fear Manafort is a puppet-master out to destroy Trump's vision for a 'Greater America'. Is this the count-down date when Manafort is ousted - OR... Is Manafort the Mafia Don's pick, the man Trump cannot fire because Putin paid Trump's loans and now owns Trump via Putin's man, Manafort. If Trump keeps Manafort on for more than a few weeks, I think something smelly is going on there.

But other than that, this Trump alleged campaign is going on swimmingly (if by swim you mean you are drowning, the sharks have already attacked, you're swimming in battery acid and the air is filling with poison gas)

I am loving this so much, I cannot imagine life after November when we will never again be treated to a reality based ongoing fiasco as grand as Trump

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

Then a snapshot from our fave online polling tool. Reuters daily tracker. If we set its range to one month (and likely voters of course) we get a monthly polling size of over 8,000 people and VERY precise polling tool. Also its the same methodology and consistent daily polling by the same organization, the TREND is very reliable. So, as most pollsters will say, the early polling of candidates is a 'name recognition' measure more than preference. But as the primaries get under way, early head-to-head polling starts to approach reliability and around the time both candidates have clinches, the head-to-head polling becomes reasonably accurate as a measure (then improving towards November of course, closer to the election, ever more accurate). As we are on the eve of the Conventions, lets take those polls from January to now.

For 30 days ending 15th of the month, we get this split of how much Hillary was ahead of Trump:

January 6 points
February 7 points
March 8 points
April 10 points
May 5 points (Trump clinched, Hillary still continues)
June 11 points
July 12 points

Thats nearly a linear trend (excepting obviously May) and a CONSISTENT one point gain EVERY month. If this trend line were to continue, August 13 points, September 14 points, October 15 points, November election 16 points (toss in GOTV and Big Data advantage, 20 point epic landslide victory/loss).

Excepting for RCP (which incorporates this data, they take a weekly snapshot of the Reuters poll into their average) this is the largest voter survey we can get, covering about 60,000 surveys during 2016 - and it shows a CLEAR consistent steady INCREASE in the advantage Hillary has. Its why her campaign is cool-as-a-cucumber with all the daily noise, their INTERNAL data is 10 times more accurate than this and this is the best data WE have and it shows a MASSIVE essentially unstoppable trend now. (and against that trend, we have the clowns of Trumpsylvania)

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

Then the money race. Trump is literally behind on absolutely every metric and one of the most important ones is the money. We will get the individual campaign numbers on 20 July but the joint fund-raising between campaign and party, they had to report now on Friday. Trump and RNC together raised 32 million dollars. Hillary and DMC together raised.. 82 million dollars. This is likely the 'best' number for Trump because it involves the RNC, the gap with the SuperPACs is likely to be massive (Trump's SuperPACs keep complaining that Trump isn't supporting them at all) and the actual campaigns are likely to be somewhere there in the middle. In terms of ratio, the joint fund-raising ending June has Hillary and Democrats outperforming Trump and Republicans by 2.6 to 1. Note: it has ALWAYS been the Republican PARTY that was stronger than Democratic party in fund-raising, even when Obama PERSONALLY got more money than McCain or Romney. Now, at least early on, its not just that Trump is behind Hillary, it seems like the Republican party also is behind the Democratic party.

So for example the total fiasco of the Convention funding. Six million dollars under-budget by the 'brilliant business man' Trump. Yeah. This looks pretty much exactly like his casino business 'competence' yes. The businessman who so loves debt, is starting off by pushing his party into debt. Good move Trump. Can't wait for this part of his 'competence' is brought up by someone who is good at the economic argument at the Democratic Convention haha, like say... Bill Clinton or say ... Elizabeth Warren haha. Yeah, what Trump just did to the Republican Convention, that is what Trump did with his casinos - and that is EXACTLY what he promises to do to the US economy next, if he is elected... Really good 'audition' for the job. If Trump knew the LEAST bit of what he is doing, he'd have made the GOP Convention the smoothest-running extravaganza ever seen. Instead, its a raging dumpster-fire

Can't wait to see July 20 filings - I am so certain Trump did not forgive his loans..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[grouch]

Tomi:

I've been partaking of tv network news for a couple of weeks. (It feels like the media equivalent of the McDonald's diet; my brain is clogging and corroding). It's a different world, there. The candidates are equivalent*, but Trump gets about twice the air time, the race is tied, and Pence is great for the ticket. That's pretty much all there is to their reporting. There are no tough questions and no history.

Do the polls take into account the boob-tube effect?

*Even on PBS, "divisiveness" was brushed evenly on both candidates this evening.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi grouch

The current polling takes 'everything' into effect that voters have been exposed to, up to now. So Benghazi is there, emails are there, Trump's rude comments about Mexicans and Muslims are there and the fear of terrorism is there. Its all 'baked in'. Currently, we can't yet measure the effect of Pence, that comes in a couple of days, and Bernie's endorsement should now start to show. But those will be both distorted strongly by the big noise around the two biggest political propaganda-shows on the planet, first the Republican Convention, then the Democratic one.

So the 'boob-tube effect' as you mentioned, and I take you mean here the bizarre fake 'balance' of say Trump wanting to behead prisoners and kill innocent family members of terrorists (war crimes) is somehow 'equal' to Hillary having had an email server in her basement. Now. What will this be like into the future? I think there are three plausible 'realities' in play. From least likely to most likely:

1. Its possible, certainly, that Trump has truly 'broken' the system, that his mastery of TV shows and omnipresense of TV screens totally 'trumps' any other paid media exposure and his massively unconventional campaign from bizarre speaking schedules to his Twitter rants, truly does 'trump' decades long, tried, and measuredly-effective older ways to campaign. This has happened in the past. For example Obama's SMS and Facebook campaigns in 2008 and 2012 were far more powerful than the old way of sending snailmail to voter homes and email. It may be. If so, its possible that Hillary's campaign is now 'fighting the last war' and wasting most of her resources in that way, to nearly no gain. It does seem like at least to some degree, this is how Trump won in his primary race. (I would argue, Trump won because his rivals abdicated their challenges, didn't take the issues to Trump and let him get away with his bullying, and that Hillary very clearly is not doing that now). Even if that is the case, Trump is far behind currently and seems incredibly self-destructive and disorganized, so he seems not able to fight his way back, even if he were to possess 'super weapons' that Hillary arguably doesn't have. If this is the case, we should see a continuous tightening of the race, getting close to tied into August and September and then Trump to move ahead of Hillary around October. I say this is highly unlikely but it is plausible. Some Republicans and conservative pundits, especially many around Trump's campaign or his endorsers, seem to think this is the case.

The second scenario is that we get into the most negative campaign in history and we already have the two most unpopular candidates in history (and Pence is in that category, his popularity at home is horrid, his own party thought he will not be re-elected; I expect Hillary to nominate a VP that will be POPULAR - ie Julian Castro). Usually with negative campaigns the voter turnout becomes depressed as many voters are disgusted by the tone of the election and stay home. I do think many of Trump's supporters are 'die hard' supporters who will not abandon him. So something close to the 33% that he now has, seems very dedicated and will show up. Similarly for most of Hillary's 45% but not all. There is a fierce base Democratic supporter group with very strong minority support among blacks and Hispanics, who are ready to go for her. So I think the likely damage in a severely depressed election would be in the middle. The undecided vote in a 2-way race is about 20%. Some will go to Johnson and Stein. But these tend to be taking those candidates because they hate the two big party candidates. Its likely if the voter turnout is low, the biggest loss will be to the two little parties in the middle, not so much from the dedicated supporters of Hillary and Trump. Lets say the vote is 'locked' for Hillary and Trump, but the middle vanishes and only 2% remain. And 20% of the voters stay home. Then the current polling of 33% for Trump, 45% for Hillary and 2% for the two small party members becomes a final election of 56% to 41% (15 point win for Hillary). Again, because Trump is so far behind today, even if there is VERY SEVERE turnout deficit, it would result in a landslide victory to Hillary because still today, so many are saying 'neither'. Those are the ones most likely to stay home. This scenario is FAR more likely than the above.

Now the third scenario. The race is not for July. The race is for November. EVERYTHING should be built not to win in 'polling' today, but to ONLY win in November. This is how Obama ran his campaign in 2008 and again in 2012. HIS TEAM is now with Hillary, a data-driven and SMART professional campaign. They measure EVERYTHING. They plan EVERYTHING. And they will not pursue nonsense stories or waste their effort on any issues that are not winners. The play SMART. And while they started to attack Trump heavily in late June, they noticed the fear that Trump might quit, they paused their attacks (or severely slowed them down).

A smart campaign has every attack on Trump planned and TIMED. They have video of Trump saying stupid stuff, and of Republicans saying its stupid. They have allocated the vast expenses to the necessary TV budgets to roll out those attacks, but more than that, they will do this in a TARGETED way, by state, even by demographic within that state. The Romney 2012 campaign ran the SAME ad in all states. Trump doesn't have anwyhere near as big a TV ad team as Romney did, and cannot possibly micro-target effectively. Hillary's team is BIGGER than Obama had, and this is one area they have EXPANDED because it worked so well in 2012. What will convince a undecided retired factory worker white male to vote for Hillary in Ohio, is different from what will convince an unemployed recently graduated Hispanic university student in Florida. The Hillary team will target EACH voter specifically, and measure the effectiveness.

If this works, then Hillary will see her advantage over Trump grow, steadily, from August to September to October. And if it is like 2012 (and 2008) then the FINAL result will have a 'bonus bump' out of this method, ie the final polling will still under-count Hillary's final vote advantage. Note that Hillary SAW this campaign run against her in 2008. She then saw it used by Obama against Romney in 2012. She is one of the VERY FEW people fully exposed to all its intricate detail, as only a few at the top of Obama 2012 Campaign management would have seen all that data, and obviously its been now shown to Hillary. She KNOWS that this works. And it is a systematic machine-like method which is essentially unstoppable - unless the other side runs the SAME machine and then they cancel each other out. We thought in 2012, that the Republicans learned and would counter this for 2016 (Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz all would have had such a system if they had won the Primary race as they were investing the required money and effort to build such a machine; Trump cannot do that now in the remaining 4 months).

If this is the case, Hillary has already won. She holds a HUGE lead - BEFORE she has properly started to fight. They wait until the Republicans formally select Trump. Then they turn on the guns, they start the relentless carpet-bombing and Trump will be hated like no politician has been in history. And because Trump is so far behind in his fund-raising, he cannot respond in kind. Because Trump is so flawed as a CANDIDATE, he is the most rich 'target' for negative campaigning. The race is already over. Then what is now measured as say a 4% race, is in reality today say an 8% race. After the weak VP choice and messy Convention, Trump's 'bounce' could maybe move that to 6%. Hillary's endorsement by Bernie is worth more than 2%. So its at least 8% with that. But then Hillary's VP choice and a jubilant Convention, makes the real race in the first week of August at something like 12%. No candidate has ever been behind by so much (in the modern TV era).

The rats are ALREADY escaping the sinking ship. Jeb Bush is already fighting for the soul of the Republican party 'after Trump'. After the epic loss he is headed to. And as the big Republican money is not with Trump, he will be totally handcuffed and has no way to fight back. Trump HIMSELF is already unhappy with Pence haha as his VP. The relatively 'enthusiastic' support Trump got from many in the past weeks was because they thought they had a chance to be Trump's VP. Many WILL now turn on him, because its ok. They will want him to fail. Someone like Newt or Christie, gosh, these are EXACTLY the kind of vultures who will suddenly turn on you and I would not be surprised if Christie ends up endorsing Hillary in the last week of October haha. Newt meanwhile - who loves the debate part of elections - may well be VERY critical of Trump after his debates.

I believe this is the scenario that plays out. Never has one side in US elections been able to hold all the cards. Hillary has polling advantage, Convention advantage, fund-raising advantage, surrogate advantage, a HUGE platform and message advantage (essentially every position a US voter could vote for, Hillary holds the majority position and Trump defends the minority position). And even on the unfavorability, while Hillary is highly unpopular, even on that, Trump manages to be more unpopular. And while Hillary is TRYING to improve her popularity, Trump is actively working to prove he's even more an asshole and dick than people think. (and Pence's selection only proves it further).

It is possible that Trump has re-invented elections and he would then win. This is highly highly unlikely but if it IS the case, we will see clear evidence of him pulling even and ahead in the RCP average in the coming months.

Its far more likely that this is such a poisonous election of negative attacks and lies and nastiness, that many voters stay home and we have historically low voter turnout. Even so, Hillary has such a huge lead, she'll win.

But the MOST likely scenario is that the Hillary campaign know what they're doing, and they have waited strategically, and the 'real' campaign won't start until the Democratic Convention - and from that point, the next three months will be an epic bloodbath where one side shatters the other side. It would be met by an amateur gang that is feuding inside, with an egotistical lunatic in charge, and where all of their allies will desert them to try to save their own skins. I would not be surprised if at some point Mike Pence says he can't support Trump anymore haha... I honestly do not find that impossible. He could say, his 'boss' has now gone too far, he cannot stomach it anymore, and he could for example say he will step off the ticket... I can see Trump as such a bad candidate that this could happen. If my scenario is true, the loss will be so obvious to everybody by October that very very VERY many who have endorsed Trump - will un-endorse him.

Let me make one more comment. Trump will be HATED by the MEDIA. In ways nobody has been hated before. Not Nixon, not W Bush, not Cheney. Trump is continuously making more enemies - in the media. Trump will be suffering ENORMOUSLY once they get their right bit to go after him, when its clear, Trump will go down. He will not have his defenders or supporters. And that is something we have not seen yet. Nobody has set their own reputation and future so much in peril - of a 'celebrity' who NEEDS media attention - as Trump has. They are now using Trump to get ratings. Once its clear Trump is down and will lose, say mid-October - the media will pile upon him in something we've never seen before. I did not see this before, because obviously I thought Trump would run a sane campaign. But he has run an insane campaign. The EDITORS in those newsrooms are SMART. They know not to jump this shark. They want maximum 'Pulitzer-winning' attention to their attacks, they will come and they will be devastating.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Tomi,

If the race is so lopsided, the Hillary camp should delay the real bloodbath to after the closing date of registering presidential candidates. That would be somewhere in September, I believe.

If the No Trump camp is smart, they would have a shadow candidate and team ready for when Trump desides to quit earlier.

[Winter]

About the VP candidate:

Mike Pence used campaign funds to pay his mortgage — and it cost him an election
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mike-pence-used-campaign-funds-to-pay-his-mortgage--and-it-cost-him-an-election/2016/07/15/90858964-49ed-11e6-bdb9-701687974517_story.html

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Winter

On first point. Yeah. Except you know what. The polling shows a reasonably close race (RCP average for example). The only people who really know - are those who are the data bosses in Hillary's campaign. They're the only ones who really know the actual race and whether they were gaining in June (and by how much and with what tools, before they paused it).

As to delay.. I think the best way is to hit early and hard when there still are 'soft' voters left who are not hardened, and can still be moved. Then remember, early voting. Early voting will start and again, the Obama-Hillary machine is built to push in early votes (Trump has no tools currently to even try to do that). The reason you want the early vote in, is that something can happen and the race can turn because of outside effects (terrorist attack etc) and any early votes in, are kind of 'banked'. They cannot be changed anymore.

I'd put that way ahead of registering any candidates on the other side. If Trump takes the nomination now next week, and AFTER that, he drops out at any time, and the Republicans are able somehow to put in a replacement - that person will not save the election but now the loyal Trump supporters will be lost. It would be a total bloodbath for Republicans once they started the campaigning for Trump and then ended it. So that is yes, a theoretical worry but nobody can step in, in say August or September, to 'save' the race if its now Trump. The last moment that could have Trump stepping aside is next week at the Convention. If he stepped aside (and remember, its plausible there is a secret plan say with Paul Ryan, Trump and Ted Cruz, that has Trump step aside on say Tuesday or Wednesday, and gives the last day/s of the Convention to the GOP) then yes, the Republicans could still put in a candidate now that could have some chance, and as long as Trump fully endorsed that candidate - and managed somehow to also keep his supporters happy (they won't be pleased if they feel Trump just conned them out of money that did not go to an election but rather went to Trump's pocket haha) then yeah, it could work. But if Trump is nominated and the Convention ends with the balloons and he's their guy, thats the end. Thats when DEMs can turn on all the attacks and go to ruin him.

About Pence - gosh didn't know that. (this is another Sarah Palin, a horrible VP who keeps on giving) THAT is really REALLY nasty news, because it raises all the concerns aout Trump abusing campaign finances. And should raise big red flags, and more demands of Trump's tax returns haha. Wow, did not know that and thanks.

BTW WaPo is going all out against Trump. I'm sure their editor is taking it personally that WaPo has been blacklisted from Trump press events. Usually WaPo has been a slightly-left-leaning but very FAIR and honest newspaper reporting on political news. Not as left-leaning as New York Times. And ever since Trump took the press credentials away from WaPo, they have turned on their attacks on Trump. This is stupid by Trump. You don't win wars with the press. A politician HAS to play nice with the media. A feud with a major press is utterly self-destructive to the candidate. And WaPo is one of the biggest there is. They will win this fight. Idiots at Trump Tower but thats thin-skinned Trump himself. I am certain Manafort begs every day that they can let WaPo back into the press pool to stop this feud.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Everybody

So on the two contrasts. Hillary is releasing names of her Convention. Yeah Obama, Bill, Biden, Sanders. Also Chelsea (she wants a political career) and .. I told you so .. Day 1 highlight is .. Michelle Obama (she wants a political career). Told you so. If she was only speaking in support of Obama in the past, she would not be speaking now. This is Hillary's show. Michelle speaks because she wants her career and will run for President some day. Her speaker slot has no doubt been agreed with Barack Obama and Hillary discussions months ago, when Hillary and Barack agreed that she will use him extensively in the campaign. He said, Michelle needs a big role to speak at the Convention. Hillary said - sure thing. And we've seen her speak (Michelle) she can be REALLY strong. This will be her best speech yet, mark my words.

Then on the roll-out of the VP. Gosh, is Trump doing this badly. So now, two days after the story was leaked, and after a delay because of the terrorism in France, Trump finally is doing his event to introduce Pence. Not to a great huge excited introduction but amidst stories that Pence was not Trump's first choice, and with plenty of nasty negative stories - including that the GOP in Indiana had actually posted an article saying, Mr Trump take Pence as VP, please (because he was so unpopular at home). I don't think there ever was an intro of a VP where the press was as prepared to HATE the new VP on that first day, as Trump now faces. This has all the makings of another Sarah Palin except in high speed. And gosh, Pence does not handle press pressure well. He could well have a Sarah Palin moment already in the early days...

Boy would it be epic if Pence stumbles badly and has to recuse himself, to ask to be removed from the ticket, just before the Convention starts haha..

But yeah. The narrative on Trump knowing the best people (he only started to CONSIDER Pence 7 weeks before he picked him) and of Trump hiring the best people - Pence is not even the best VP by Trump's OWN opinion haha, this all looks pretty aweful already. BTW how would you feel if Trump NOW came to Newt or Christie and said, hey, would you mind stepping in, I am asking Pence to step down, haha. Gosh. Its a hopeless situation in every direction, a lose-lose situation.

Meanwhile, Pence. Is a climate change denier (that'll endear Trump to the middle and to Bernie supporters) and he is in the pocket of the coal industry too. He's run a long campaign against Planned Parenthood (that'll endear the two to women haha). He's really like all the most toxic parts of the GOP all rolled into one. Did I mention the Iraq war?

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[cornelius]

Hi Tomi,
I think you overrate the impact of the TV part of the campaign.
1. Every year less and less people watch TV while the cord-cutters grow. So the impact of TV is in decline.
2. Looking at the demographics this year, most younger, highly educated people tend to vote liberal and most older, less educated people tend to vote conservative. Couple that fact with the fact that older, less educated people tend to still watch traditional TV while the young, educated people tend to cut the cord and watch Netflix and YouTube. This means that Clinton is spending money on TV ads that target a mostly conservative audience, the core of Trump's supporters. It's like Trump campaigns in California, trying to win over the democratic crowd.
So Clinton spending money on TV ads is not as efficient as it would have been 8 years ago. Maybe that's why Trump can afford to not spend money on TV ads at all. Also my argument explains why, even if Clinton is outspending Trump on TV ads like crazy, her average lead in polls is a mere 3% at RCP.

[Winter]

@cornelius
So what you say is, those wo do not watch TV anymore vote Hillary. So why spend money on them? She has the younger bracket mostly in her pocket anyway. And if she spends a lot on reaching them by social media etc., that is not that easily visible.

I expect that the TV ad budget is targeted at older people who are still not hardened Trump fans. She might still get the to not vote at all, if not persuade a few to vote for her.

[Wayne Borean]

Damned popcorn is ruining my diet.

@Tomi,

I disagree with your description of Trump. Why?

Because dicks are useful. You wouldn't exist if your father didn't have a dick.

Assholes are useful. You couldn't survive without one.

The only way that Trump is useful is as fertilizer. As a human being he is equivalent to toxic waste to most of the electorate.

And it looks like his VP pick while not in the same class as Trump, is trying damned hard.

So where does this take us? If someone was writing a novel about a fictional American Presidential election, and they wrote about a campaign like Donald Trump's, the novel would be panned by reviewers as totally unrealistic. No one would ever believe it. Unless the novel was satire. Stephen Colbert level satire.

The entire Trump campaign is so freaking stupid that I'm having trouble believing it is real. I can see why you've been wondering about a payoff to get Trump out. The problem with that type of scenario is I suspect at this point that the Republican Party is so pissed off at Trump for hijacking the candidate selection process that they wouldn't want to buy him out. They'd rather see him crash and burn, since the damage to this election is so bad that they have no chance of winning. Why not let Trump totally ruin his reputation, and fix things so that in 2020 this is impossible. In fact let him duck it up so badly that even the Tea Party wants to make sure that nothing like this can ever happen again, and so that those who back Trump (Religious Right for example) have their reputations ruined as well, and loose the power they once had to influence the party's direction.

If I'm right, the party insiders could be using Trump to pull the party back towards the centre, in the way that we both agree needs to happen before the Republican Party can contest Presidential elections on an even level with the Democrats.

I have no proof for this. It is just a guess based on how furious I would be as a member of the Republican Party inner circle, who had read the reports about why the party lost in 2008 and 2012.

[Wayne Borean]

Fuck not duck.

[Wayne Borean]

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

It’s their party and Utah delegates are crying not because they want to, but because Trump’s on the ticket

http://www.sltrib.com/home/4120937-155/its-their-party-and-utah-delegates?fullpage=1

[Wayne Borean]

As to the attempted coup in Turkey, I was online chatting with a friend in Instanbul when it started. It sounded so disorganized it could have been organized by the Trump Presidential campaign.

Still dangerous though. A friend of hers was on the Bosphorus bridge when coup troops started firing on the bridge. He is luckily uninjured, but spent a rather scary bit of time hiding under his car.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi everybody

Oh. My. Gosh. That was something. That was Trump Unhinged. Wow, 28 minutes of 'jazz odyssey' before he remembers to introduce Pence?

The total selection process and roll-out and now the official introduction event by Trump of the first official act as the Presumptive Nominee - has been a fiasco of epic proportions. And this speech... oh my gosh. He was channeling his inner Sarah Palin. That speech alone lost him votes.

He should not be allowed to deviate from the TelePrompter ever again. The person who wrote his intro speech was probably sobbing behind the stage by the end. Whole sections of the speech could be run as ads against Trump, possibly with some graphics and facts overlayed onto the screen to make clear how many lies and utterly false statements Trump made. And thats before we see how much of his Trump 1.0 message has returned. I can very well see that the official head speech-writer walked into Manafort's office and resigned during that 'performance'.

And then the logo so weird, it managed to be sexually suggestive on two separate sex acts. Its been removed already from their website and apparently a fund-raising email already went out without it. Yeah. A dumpster fire is not a fair description, this is so much worse than that.

But I had a superb time on Twitter haha, commenting and reading other comments and laughing hysterically. The Trump campaign is managing to discover new lows nobody knew they existed. The 'competent' manager in Trump now showed us first-hand, how he was capable to fail in a vodka business, or to bankrupt casinos.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi cornelius

Great points and partly agree. But its not as if Hillary was doing 'only TV'. She is TWEETING 50% more than Trump. Her Team produces one new ONLINE video every single day (Trump does about two per month). Its EVERYTHING not just TV. But TV is BY FAR the most expensive campaign cost until election day (when human costs of GOTV are highest, but only that one day).

So if Hillary did only (or mostly) TV like the imbalance of old vs new media by Romney in 2012 vs Obama, then yes, I'd be concerned. And I was not clear when I talked about it, so yeah, its easy to get that impression. I did not mean she only does TV. I mean that of this, the most expensive part, she is VASTLY ahead. She's also ahead on radio ads, on billboards, on online ads, on search ads, on email, on Facebook, Twitter etc. Its across-the-board, partly because they can afford to pay for it (buying search terms for example) and partly because they have DEDICATED staff for it. Her team for the Hillary Twitter handle is 5 people !!! Trump used to have only one secretary who types out what he yells out (he doesn't type, she is the typist). Since then - recently - Manafort took Trump off, and put some professional social media person to do his Tweets, at least part of the time (the change-over was obvious because suddenly there were words of 3 or 4 syllables haha)

No, TV ad spend is just a way to measure. The advantage is in absolutely everything (except free TV media coverage, where Hillary gets less but not by a huge margin, she is also now calling in to TV shows etc, and Manafort has several times taken Trump off the air. I expect that to happen now after this 'speech' fiasco today again).

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[EduardoM]

The coup in Turkey seems to have failed

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/17/world/europe/turkey-attempted-coup-erdogan.html?_r=0

Regarding the Pence choice, this is very strange from the standpoint of electoral strategy. Normally the Republican candidate runs to the right in the primaries, then swings back towards the center for the general election, and the VP choice is usually part of this.

Now the Republican establishment knows this, and you would assume they learned a lesson from the Palin fiasco, but nonetheless they seem to have forced a hard-line conservative on Trump. I am thinking maybe this means they have decided the election is hopeless, and are more concerned with party unity over the long term.