This is the second of my monthly series of the Communities Dominate blog Election Scorecard (to see the first, published August 1 right after the Conventions, its here). The sleepy summer days are past and we now get into the nitty-gritty of the last two full months of the election, when the stakes get raised and we will get into the debates starting at the end of this month. This blog is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the race covering every aspect from the candidates to the campaigns, from fund-raising to staffing to issues to debates to TV wars. Anything that can be measured will be. Everything is 'rated' hence the term 'scorecard'. I will update this every month until the election on November 8. I will use as much empirical data as possible, plus then various observations and my own best evaluations of the other aspects of the race. First lets do a numerical summary of where the race stands:
NUMERICAL SUMMARY
As of 31 August (numbers in parenthesis are 31 July, 2016), with 68 days to go in the contest, the race measures stand as follows:
POLLING AVERAGE (via RCP):
+4.4% advantage to Hillary Clinton on Aug 31 via RCP on 4-way race (was +1.1% advantage on July 31)
Gallup Favorability vs Unfavorable Aug 30 (vs July 28):
Hillary Clinton +39% / -55% = -16% . . . improved +3 in 30 days . . . (was July 28) +38% / -57% = -19%
Donald Trump +33% / -61% = -28% . . . worsened -5 in 30 days . . . (was July 28) +36% / -59% = -23%
ELECTORAL COLLEGE STATUS (RCP):
362 Clinton vs 176 Trump on Aug 31 'No Tossups' map on RCP (was 322 Clinton vs 216 Trump on July 31):
Hillary Clinton leads RCP average of polling in: CO, FL, GA, IA, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI
Donald Trump leads polling in: AZ
Since July 31, Trump lost leads in Florida, Georgia and Nevada; Clinton lost lead in Arizona
TV AD WAR
Campaigns or SuperPACs have ads on TV in:
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air at start of September in FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA
Donald Trump TV ads on air at start of September in: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA, VA
(Bolding indicates states where both campaigns are on the air)
Since July, Hillary has taken Colorado and Virginia TV ads off the air, Trump has added Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia
UPDATE 1 September - note Politico reported at time this blog was posted, that Trump had not run promised TV ad buy, in 9 states, only 5 states and worth half what was promised. It may be early/prelim reporting and more TV ad buy to also appear. I will discuss on TV ad wars below
FINANCIAL RACE
Financial Race Numbers Lag One Month so Numbers for End Of July (June):
Hillary Clinton raised $52.3M ($36.2M) from supporters; has $58.6M ($44.4M) in bank
Donald Trump raised $36.7M ($22.9M) from supporters; has $38.7M ($20.0M) in bank
Democratic forces in total raised $94.6M ($146.3M); have $140M ($139M) in bank
Republican forces in total raised $67.9M ($81.1M); have $78M ($61M) in bank
(totals include the campaign numbers of the above, plus SuperPACs and the party funds)
STAFF
End of August (July) Clinton Campaign has 889 (651) full-time paid staff
Trump Campaign has 83 (74) full-time paid staff, but Trump also employs consultants, total including consultants 148 in August
The Trump Campaign has 'outsourced' the 'ground game' to the Republican Party. The party has allocated 251 paid staff currently to support Trump at end of August, so the 'apples-to-apples' valid comparative number of paid staff for Trump, own paid, GOP paid, plus consutlants is 399
Total Democratic Party Presidential and Local Election paid staff (including above) 2,503
Total Republican Party Presidential and Local Election paid staff (including above) 893
REPORT CARDS:
Clinton as Candidate: 4.0 (grade of A) . . . was 4.0 (A)
Clinton on Issues: . . . 3.6 (grade of A-) . . was 3.6 (A-)
Clinton Campaign: . . 4.0 (grade of A) . . . was 4.0 (A)
Trump as Candidate: 1.3 (grade of D+) . . was 1.3 (D+)
Trump on Issues . . . 1.8 (grade of C-) . . . was 2.0 (C)
Trump Campaign: . . 1.7 (grade of C-) . . . was 1.1 (D)
The Trump campaign has a bad candidate, running on bad issues, with a campaign that is horrid. He faces a great candidate, running on great issues, and on a campaign that is brilliant. This is not going to be a close race. It cannot be.
COMMUNITIES DOMINATE RATINGS
In the early primary race I posted my evaluations of the contestants in both primary races, looking at strengths in areas like fund-raising, debating, polling, etc. For the General Election 2016 I will post 4 ‘report cards’ of my ratings based as much as possible on independent metrics but also often on my own personal evaluation. These will allow comparisons not only of the two competing campaigns, but also to see how they performed compared to the previous month. I will be using the US school grading scale, where A is excellent, D is poor (and there is no E, but F is failing). In mathematical conversion, an A is worth 4 points, B worth 3 points, C worth 2, D worth 1 and F worth 0 points. For non-Americans, they will understand how the numerical values will be thus derived. There is a ‘plus’ and ‘minus’ grading also, which adds or subtracts one third of a point, and I may use such grades if needed, ie a B+ would be worth 3.3 points or a C- would be worth 1.7 points.
Note that all grades are ‘graded on a curve’. The race will be a two-person (or possibly becoming a 3-person) race. I will not grade current candidates against those politicians who have dropped out of the race (comparing them to say Marco Rubio or Bernie Sanders). I will not compare them to previous candidates (like say Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan). And I will not compare the top of the ticket to the VP choices (Tim Kaine and Mike Pence). While Hillary Clinton is the second least liked candidate to ever run for President in any year as far as Gallup has measured candidate attributes (and Donald Trump is obviously the worst) I will be assigning Hillary the A grade on ‘likeability’ because she is the BETTER OF THE TWO FINALISTS. Even as she is historically incredibly poor on this metric, would have scored an F on any other year, she gets an A because we have to ‘grade on a scale’ - the comparison is not against a hypothetical idealistic candidate, the comparison is Hillary vs Trump. And because Trump is the worse of these two candidates, it means Hillary is better on this attribute - and thus she gets an A.
The question then becomes, how do we rate TRUMP against Hillary on this metric. As you will see below, compared to Hillary, on likeability, Trump scores a C (he is down from a B). Again, we are scoring on ‘grading on a curve’ and we will not force each scale to have an A and an F, but we force each grade to yes, have an A. Whoever is the better of these two choices will always get the A (and if Johnson gets into the debates so he would be reasonably 'viable', I will then adjust to allow his measures to be considered too). In general one could say, a Presidential race has five sets of variables. First there are the candidates. Then we have their political positions and third we have the campaigns (their resources such as fund-raising and staffing, plus the tactical decisions of deciding where to compete, and what kind of assets are deployed there, etc). I include the VP choice on the ‘campaigns’ as nobody really votes for the VP ahead of the President but they do impact the race, somewhat. These three items all are in the control of the campaigns. Then there are outside issues, beyond the control of the campaigns but which may affect the campaign, such as say a foreign policy incident, a dramatic change in the economy, or for example a terrorist incident. And lastly there are of course the voters.
CANDIDATES
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Likeability . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Likeability . . . . . . . C (B)
Competence . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Competence . . . . . D
Temperament . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Temperament . . . . F
Public speaking . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Public speaking . . D (F)
TV interviews . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . TV interviews . . . . C
Debating . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Debating . . . . . . . C
GRADE POINT AVERAGES ON THE ISSUES (that matter to moderate/undecided voters)
Hillary Clinton 4.0 (A)
Donald Trump 1.3 (D+)
(Note Trump has one failing grade: temperament, as well as 2 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has a perfect score of all A's)
Trump has two scores changed from end of July. His public speaking is now far more on Teleprompter and Trump has made far less spontaneous gaffes. Hence his public speaking score improved by one grade from failling F to poor D. Meanwhile Trump's likeability gap has grown signficantly worse since end of July, hence his likeability (relative to Hillary) score falls from B to C. Trump's overall average stays unchanged. Hillary scores unchanged in the past 30 days.
Gallup Favorability vs Unfavorable Aug 30 (vs July 28):
Hillary Clinton +39% / -55% = -16% . . . improved +3 in 30 days . . . (was July 28) +38% / -57% = -19%
Donald Trump +33% / -61% = -28% . . . worsened -5 in 30 days . . . (was July 28) +36% / -59% = -23%
The two are the most disliked candidates ever to run for President on a major ticket. Hillary Clinton’s favorability has improved a bit in the past 30 days but is still the most underwater if measured against any previous election year, at -16%. Its a 3 point improvement in 30 days. If the same trend were to continue, she'd still be at -9% by election day. She may get a bump on this score from the debates, however. Trump's score of -23% was the worst measured ever, after the Conventions but in the past month, Trump has only seen his unfavorability proceed to get worse. He is now at -28%. Trump is falling more by this score than HIllary is gaining, which suggests this trend is driven by Trump's own political self-destruction.
On the scoring, Trump now has a significant difference in unpopularity vs Hillary which is why Trump's score was reduced. On Competence, there is no question Hillary is the most experienced candidate ever to run for President, as Marco Rubio said. Or how President Obama said in his speech at the Convention, Hillary is more competent than Barack himself was when he was nominated, as well as more competent than Bill Clinton was - to which Obama jokingly apologized to Bill who was in the audience and laughed. But the vast pouring of support by over 120 foreign policy and national security leaders from both sides of the aisle, sing loudly the praises, that Hillary is definitely qualified. The Republicans may want to question her ‘judgment’ (on which score again Trump would sink far worse) but on experience, Hillary is clearly the most qualified candidate not just this year, but of anyone at least going back to Dwight Eisenhower. Even if we graded against all past candidates, Hillary would still score an A on this attribute.
On Competence Trump is almost disqualifyingly incompetent. He gets a poor grade D but not an F, because he HAS run several giant Billion-dollar construction projects and run hotels etc. He has run many of them poorly, including six to bankruptcies, but he ALSO has employed thousands and while he often has been convicted of discriminatory practises, of underpaying and not paying his staff and suppliers, and of hiring foreign labor to undercut local salaries, etc; that is still all some type of somewhat-successful business competence. Perhaps not the ideal type of competence for a businessman to attempt to run for President (compare to for example how much more ethically and far more successfully fellow New York Billionaire Michael Bloomberg had built his business) but it still is some achievement. A survey of living members of the Council of Economic Advisors to the President, of 50 prominent economists on both sides of the aisle, serving 8 Presidents back to Nixon and Ford, including 5 Republicans, found not one former Economic Advisor being able to support Trump. This has never happened. For the 'businessman' this is catastrophic un-endorsement of his core area of comptetence.
Temperament was an attribute I was not expecting to include in the Report Card, but Trump has made this such a major issue, we have to include it. Trump’s childish obsessive temper tantrums which include such outrageous and deeply disturbing behavior as the attacks on the Judge Curiel (the US born Judge who has Mexican parents); the requests to have Russia hack into the email servers of Trump’s political opponent; and the attacks on the family of a fallen US soldier. Trump has a dangerous temperament that suggests a hair-trigger and a wafer-thin skin. The office of the President is often faced with global crisis where information is not immediate and not clear, and may change drastically over days or even weeks. As John F Kennedy thought of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the nearest moment the planet was to a nuclear war, the main factor that kept the world from that nuclear nightmare, was the cool heads and patience on both sides during a crisis that lasted over a week. Trump cannot go hours without lashing at anyone who pokes a Tweet at him. Hillary Clinton showed her temperament in the 12 hour grilling of the Benghazi witch-hunt (a Congressional commission which some Republicans admitted was set up only to damage Hillary’s favorability). If there is a politician who can take attacks and still hold her calm, its Hillary. Even against most historical comparisons, she would rate an A. And Trump, he is by far the worst candidate on this scale. The rating of A for Hillary and F for Trump does not do justice for how poorly tempered he is.
A candidate is not just the internal person, how good or bad they would be as a President; for a Presidential election, it is also about ‘selling’ that candidate. The candidate has to appear at mass audience events and rallies, do TV interviews and debates. Some candidates are great at campaigning and better at that than actually governing - compare W Bush to his dad, George HW Bush. Daddy Bush was not very good at campaigning but a better executive; his son W Bush was far better at the showman to campaign but then a disaster at governing. And here we do have a showman in Trump and a boring ‘technocrat’ in Hillary Clinton. You’d think Trump easily dominates Hillary on all promotional attributes. But we’ve now seen both, and we know how this goes. On public speaking, if you put Trump in front of Teleprompters, he will deliver a speech that he has not authored himself, in a wooden, cumbersome way, often interjecting his ad-lib repeats of various lines. That makes it sound like Trump was a moron. But even so, when forced to read a ‘proper speech’ with Teleprompters, Trump does a weak job. That is Trump at his best. When he is without a Teleprompter, he is a total train-wreck. Since the Campaign Manager ('Chairman') Paul Manafort was fired and fresh management was brought in as Bennett and Conway, Trump has now stayed on Teleprompters and he has done marginally better in public speaking, but only earning him a D score rather than the failing F he had a month ago. Hillary? She’s no Obama, she’s no Bill Clinton, she’s no Elizabeth Warren. But she will deliver a well-rehearsed speech and do it adequately well. This is a binary choice, the better of the two gets the A, and Hillary scores the A.
On TV interviews the situation is not as bad. Trump got over $2 Billion dollars worth of free publicity in the primary season, where a rival who might run $100 million dollars of TV ads, was totally crushed in the airtime wars. But current TV visibility is now based on ‘fairness’ where most networks try to give equal time for both sides. Fox will always give Trump more and similarly MSNBC will do that for Hillary. But of the four moderate networks, ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN - the race is even. A Media Matter survey for June of total TV interview air-time found Trump leading Hillary by 2 to 1 in total time; but that was only because of the enormous visibility given to Trump by Fox. When Fox and MSNBC are removed (talking mainly to base voters already fully committed) the four other networks had nearly even total time between the two. Trump’s only advantage he had in the primary race is now neutralized. Then it comes an issue not of quantity but quality. Whenever Hillary Clinton is on TV, she stays on message. When most of her surrogates are on TV, they tend to be promoting her issues and mostly get to stay on the positive side of issues about Hillary (or on Trump’s latest mess). Again, his TV interviews could be run in continuous loop by the Hillary campaign and it would only help her. Now, the Trump surrogates spend most of their time trying to defend the indefensible, rather than advancing Trump’s messages. As a TV interviewee, Hillary is reserved and seems calculated, and comes across at times like she’s got something to hide. That is true. But Trump comes across as a petulant child, an overbearing bully, and utterly incompetent. He makes Sarah Palin’s interviews seem like interviewing a Nobel Prize winner in Physics. That said, the TV interviewers have not yet figured out how to control Trump. He just interjects his maddening ‘Excuse me, excuse me’ and then pushes onto his silly statements, ignoring questions and babbling onto whatever comes next to his tiny mind. So Trump kind of ‘wins’ in many interviews where the TV interviewers are made to look like incompetent morons. So while Hillary gets the obvious A on this grade, Trump gets a C, because he can overpower interviewers and steal the situation.
As to debates. We saw in the 2008 season and now the primary race, that Hillary is one of the best debaters in politics. She is not the most polished like say Obama was, but she is so prepared, she knows every detail and pounces and destroys rivals on the issues. Trump in his primary debates survived many rounds by the rivals being intimidated and because the field was so wide, all rivals thought ‘the other guy’ should go attack Trump. Then Trump cancelled on two debates of course, being the coward he is (both with the moderator Megyn Kelly who utterly skewered Trump in the other two debates she moderated). But Trump can counterpunch, he can attack and he can play a live audience. Trump is experienced in reality TV situations and is not as bad a debater as his reputation suggests. So as a comparative rating when I give Hillary the A, I give Trump a C.
Note that as we have just over 2 months left in the race and Trump is far behind, one of the ways to try to catch Hillary would be if Trump the candidate was stronger. He isn't. So by this measure there is no hope of Trump catching Hillary by November. Lets see about the Issues.
ISSUES
Probably most voters vote for the candidate more than the issues. Like this year that will be even more true than usual, because of the strongly polarizing people on the top of both tickets. But issues do matter. Here is my gut feeling ratings of where the major issues are and how the candidates are viewed:
ISSUES BY CANDIDATE (Rated by the opinions of moderates/Independent & undecided voters only, excluding partisan supporters on both sides)
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Terrorism . . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . . Terrorism . . . . . . . A
Foreign Policy . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Foreign Policy . . . F
Taxes . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Taxes . . . . . . . . . C
Economy . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Economy . . . . . . D
Immigration . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . . . Immigration . . . . A
Gun Control . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Gun Control . . . F
Education . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Education . . . . . D
Family issues . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Family issues . . . D
Womens issues . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Womens issues . D
Minorities . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Minorities . . . . . . F
Employment . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . Employment . . . . C
Religion . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . . . Religion . . . . . . . A
Environment . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . . . Environment . . . . D
Crime . . . . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . . . Crime . . . . . . . . . A
(above are all subjective grading by Tomi T Ahonen, included based his guess of what issues are likely to be most relevant to voters in 2016, in no particular order; and graded based on recent political views and the opinions of those expressed in moderate publications and by moderate pundits and experts. Future Report Cards will reflect any polling done on those issues)
Note I added 'Immigration' as a new issue. Should have been included already last time.
GRADE POINT AVERAGES ON THE ISSUES (that matter to moderate/undecided voters)
Hillary Clinton 3.6 (A-) . . . (was 3.6 (A-))
Donald Trump 1.8 (C-) . . . (was 2.0 (C))
(Note Trump has three failing grades: Foreign Policy, Gun Control and Minority issues, as well as 5 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has no scores worse than C passing grade)
Trump has seen his support among women fall ever worse, which is the main reason why his score fell a little vs a month ago.
Perhaps the single biggest issue is the Supreme Court. It is driving partisan voter activity on both sides, there is no obvious ‘advantage’ for either side because Republicans want a conservative Justice, and Democrats a moderate Justice; and nationwide there is no clear preference one way or the other. This may evolve into more of an issue as the Campaign continues into the next months. But on the issues overall, no salvation there for Trump. He is far behind with 70 days left in the race, and the issues are not stacking up so to help him overcome his increasing deficit to Hillary. Maybe a strong campaign can fix things?
CAMPAIGNS
Part of winning is the candidate. Part of winning are the issues. But part of winning is the Campaign. A losing candidate with bad issues, but an excellently-run campaign can win, as we saw in the W Bush 2004 campaign against John Kerry. The Campaign consists of fund-raising - in the US election money plays a disproportionately large part governing everything from TV ads, to travel budgets, to campaign staff hiring, to polling to data analysis. But the Campaign also means surrogates, the TV ads, the electoral map, etc. And I will include the VP here in this section, because the VP really does not matter much in most races except perhaps modestly in winning the home state of the VP.
CAMPAIGN SCORES (in parenthesis old score from July 31, if there has been a change)
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
Fund-raising . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Fund-raising . . . . . . B (C)
Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Staff . . . . . . . . . . . . C (D)
Management . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Management . . . . . . D (F)
TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . TV ads . . . . . . . . . . . C (D)
Surrogates . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Surrogates . . . . . . . . D
Big Data operation . . A . . . . . . . . . Big Data operation . . D
Vice President . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . Vice President . . . . . C
GRADE POINT AVERAGES
Hillary Clinton 4.0 (A) . . . . (was 4.0 (A) at July 31)
Donald Trump 1.7 (C-) . . . (was 1.1 (D) at July 31)
(Note Trump has no failing grades anymore: but still 3 poor D grades; Hillary Clinton has a perfect score of all A's)
The Trump Campaign is improving on many scores. Its overall score went up by nearly a full letter grade, from D to nearly full C (achieving a C-) But the Trump Campaign was such a total mess that almost anything would be seen as some improvement. Still the aspects a 'Campaign Manager' can impact, such as stafffing, TV ads, fund-raising - those have improved since the departure of incompetent Cory Lewandowski and then the distrusted Paul Manafort. The pair of Stephen Bannon and Kellyanne Conway has been able to give the Trump Campaign signs of sense and sensibility, while still stuck with the lunatic candidate that is Trump himself. The Campaign struggles still to find any competent staff and spends much of its effort putting out fires and attempting to find solutions to bridges long since burned by Trump in the previous 15 months. For contrast, while Hillary Clinton is no angel pussycat as a candidate, she has a perfectly-tuned finely-oiled machine as her Campaign, firing on all cylinders, capitalizing on Trump's mistakes and hammering him in battleground states with barrages of deadly TV ads. So as the Candidate is weak, and he's weak on the issues, can a powerful Campaign help Trump catch up to and overcome Hillary. Not this Campaign, at least not so far what we've seen. That also means, we can well see another round of firing of the top Campaign management before election day.
FINANCIAL RACE
Financial Race Numbers Lag One Month so Numbers for End Of July (June):
Hillary Clinton raised $52.3M ($36.2M) from supporters; has $58.6M ($44.4M) in bank
Donald Trump raised $36.7M ($22.9M) from supporters; has $38.7M ($20.0M) in bank
Democratic forces in total raised $94.6M ($146.3M); have $140M ($139M) in bank
Republican forces in total raised $67.9M ($81.1M); have $78M ($61M) in bank
(totals include the campaign numbers of the above, plus SuperPACs and the party funds)
The Clinton Machine has outraised the Trump Machine every month of the race. We do not have August numbers yet, but Trump shows no signs of catching up to Hillary, and from September there are only two more months left. The Clinton Campaign has signalled they have reached the half-way point of their target of raising one Billion Dollars and all signs suggest Hillary will end up winning the money race, similar to how Obama did in 2008 against McCain and in 2012 against Romney. A large number of Republican fund-raisers have said they can't support Trump and some have come out saying they'll vote or even raise funds for Hillary instead. Now Republican Meg Whitman, ex CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who ran for Governor of California and who has been a vocal moderate business wing Republican, and voice in fund-raising for the GOP, has started to appear with Hillary Clinton at her rallies. Trump is resorting to 'Nigerian prince' style email scam language in raising money online and sells various campaign items like lawn signs to raise money. Trump also paid out 8 million dollars to a Texas online provider who handles Trump's online outreach - including its fundraising. Those payments, a tax of 22% of all money raised by Trump in July - have received a lot of attention. It seems they are a commission-type of payment to the online fund-raising, which makes Trump's fund-raising a very expensive enterprise, similar to how Dr Ben Carson paid out an incredibly high percentage of money taken in, as commissions to those raising money online.
One way to win a race is to just overspend the other side, to outraise them and to use the money to crush the other side, like W Bush did against John Kerry in 2004. Trump is behind, but he is also behind in money, so if anyone is threatened to be crushed in the money race, thats Trump, not Hillary.
STAFF
End of August (July) Clinton Campaign has 889 (651) full-time paid staff
Trump Campaign has 83 (74) full-time paid staff, but Trump also employs consultants, total including consultants 148 in August
The Trump Campaign has 'outsourced' the 'ground game' to the Republican Party. The party has allocated 251 paid staff currently to support Trump at end of August, so the 'apples-to-apples' valid comparative number of paid staff for Trump, own paid, GOP paid, plus consutlants is 399
Total Democratic Party Presidential and Local Election paid staff (including above) 2,503
Total Republican Party Presidential and Local Election paid staff (including above) 893
The actual reported numbers of 'paid salaried staff' are misleading. Hillary seems to be ahead by 889 to 83 (over 10 to 1 advantage). A more accurate measure includes Trump's paid consultants. He is more eager to use non-salaried consultants, who can be fired more easily (typical of businessmen working in short projects) and probably also reflects the problems the Trump Campaign has in hiring competent political professionals. For example recently fired former Fox News boss, Roger Ailes, is said to be advising Trump in his debate prep. He'd be the type of 'business' friend and colleague that Trump could hire on a short-term basis, as a paid consultant, to advise the campaign on some aspect(s) of it such as debates and possibly also other media visibility matters. It is quite common comment on Trump staff that the given hired person had no previous political experience such as his media boss, Hope Hicks, or the freshly-hired current Campaign CEO, Stephen Bannon. Meanwhile first Campaign Manager Cory Lewandowski had never done that job before and who had only managed local campaign appearances and never even been near the top of a national campaign. Same is true of latest hire, Kellyanne Conway with the nominal title of Campaign Manager but apparently working under the supervision of Bannon, who has never run a Campaign and who is by profession a pollster. Trump's paid salaries on average are nearly twice what the Clinton campaign pays (75,000 dollar annual salary level vs 44,000 dollar) and this too suggests there is not a rush of competent political staff hoping to find jobs with Trump. Thus his staff + consultants headcount is the far more accurate one, in terms of actual Campaign staff. And that means 889 vs 148, a 6-to-1 advantage for Brooklyn vs Manhattan. But even that is not the correct 'apples-to-apples' count, because Trump has done an unusual split of work with the Republican party. Trump is the figurehead, does the TV, helps with fund-raising but the party has been outsourced the 'ground game'. This very unusual arrangement has the GOP supplying currently 251 paid staff to help Trump, for a total of 399 paid staff from both sides including the Consultants. Now the staff imbalance is only about 2 to 1.
Nationally, that means that the GOP is spending precious resources and staff to support (a sinking ship in) the Trump Campaign. There may be various conflicts-of-interest where a given local 'dedicated' Trump staffer may end up working partly instead to help a local politician, but in any case, it means that a part of the GOP's overall hired staff is NOT available to help in the local races. As the GOP is underfunded and undermanned to begin with, compared to the Democrats, this means the Republican down-ticket races (Senators, Governors, Members of Congress, Mayors, local government) have less support than their rivals on the other side. As total paid staff, including the above, the Democrats have currently 2,503 nationally for the 2016 election while the Republicans have 893 with the Democrats enjoying a 2.5 to 1 advantage in full-time paid employees. Note that a related calculation is the allocation of the staff, which we have an estimate for, out of the number of campaign offices, that is discussed below in the analysis of the battleground states.
Again in terms of the 'magic bullet' to come from behind and win in a political race, some have done it with a strong ground game, like Obama did in 2012 moving from a razor-tight election into a dominating victory against Romney. But the side with the ground game advantage is not Trump and again this bodes better for a Hillary landslide than a Trump come-from-behind recovery.
TV ADS INTO AUGUST
Campaigns or SuperPACs have ads on TV in:
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air at start of September in FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA
Donald Trump TV ads on air at start of September in: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA, VA
(Bolding indicates states where both campaigns are on the air)
Since July, Hillary has taken Colorado and Virginia TV ads off the air, Trump has added Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia
Brooklyn has taken TV ads off the air in Colorado and Virginia. They feel those states are safe. They never were bothered with Wisconsin or Michigan. Manhattan meanwhile is now rushing ads not just in the actual 7 battleground states - Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Caroline (the 4 states Trump has to win) and Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada as a safeguard hail-Mary play; but they're now also going on the air in Colorado and Virginia. Trump is behind by 10.5% in Colorado according to latest RCP average in 4-way match-up and in Virginia its 11.5%. These are utterly hopeless states to try to win with just over two months of time left. But Trump has to do something and nothing seems to be working. So they waste some of their precious resources in a hopeless bid for states Trump cannot win, instead of pouring all money into the four states he has to win. As I said, this is not a properly and professionally run Campaign (yet). Note I will have more analysis of the TV ads in the battleground states part of the analysis below.
As to 'saving' the campaign on a miraculous victory? That would require saturation of TV airwaves - and it makes things worse that early voting starts soon, so if Trump can't do this now it will soon be too late. But if anyone is winning the TV ad wars, its again, team Clinton.
UPDATE Sept 1 - Politico reported at same time as this article was published, that Trump's promised 10 million dollar ad buy had not materialized, and only half that was purchased AND its dramatically different from what was promised. Its possible both are true, that Trump campaign has added a state, and another 5 million dollars are booked in coming days. BUT as of now, there is no Trump campaign on air in those 9 states. According to Politico, its only 5 states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and... Michigan (WTF?) yes, Michigan, where Hillary is safely ahead by nearly 9% in 4-way race by RCP and Trump has no resources on the ground and where Republicans have no chance of winning. But Trump wants to spend money advertising there? Ok. And its obviously as stupid as when he campaigned in California or hired staff to try to win New York State.
THIRD PARTIES
We have two candidates with a national third-party run plus a spoiler local-run also now in the calculation. Gary Johnson the Republican ex-Governor of New Mexico is running on the Libertarian ticket, and Dr Jill Stein is running on the Green Party ticket. The US debates commission has set the limit at 15% in national polling to be included in the televised debates, and currently Johnson is polling at about 8% and Stein at about 3%. It seems unlikely Stein can make it, but Johnson may gain support in particular from disgruntled Republicans and his support could grow. If he can’t make it to the debates, his final election support is very likely to be well below what the polling suggests.
A new twist to the third-party game came in August in the form of a total political unknown, by the name of Ewan McMullin who is running as an Independent Republican and has qualified already for four states but will definitely not qualify for enough states to have a chance of winning an outright majority of the Electora College votes. He is an ex-CIA man from Utah and a Mormon. McMullin is running a 'spoiler' campaign on a one-state strategy. He will try to win the state of Utah with its 6 Electoral College votes. Utah is a state that normally is the most 'red' most reliably Republican of all states, similar to what the District of Columbia is to the Democrats. The most reliably Republican state, and no recent Democrat has bothered to campaign for Utah. But as its a heaviy Mormon religion state, and the Mormons have not fallen for Trump, and their own boy, Mitt Romney has strongly campaigned against Trump, the popularity of Trump in Utah is so weak, he has been polling neck-to-neck with Hillary. Utah also is appealing to the former Governor and Republican from the neighboring state of New Mexico, now running on the Libertarian ticket, Johnson. That vote is drained mostly from Trump. So Utah could go to Hillary as Trump and Johnson split Republican votes. Now McMullin joins the race. He is a local boy, a Mormon, an ex CIA guy, knows his foreign policy and he's a reliable Republican, running as a Republican not as a Libertarian. He has qualified already for the Utah ballot. In a race where each of the others split the vote its possible to win Utah with as little as 35% of the vote. That is all McMullin wants. He wants to win one state. Then if McMullin is lucky, and neither Hillary nor Trump get past 270 Electoral College votes, in that case the choice of President goes to Congress. Then the states will vote, each state gets one vote (50 votes) and whoever gets to 26 votes becomes the President. And here is where small states vs big states would help the Republican. Many of the Democrat states are the large ones like California, Illinois and New York, which all would only get one vote in this tie-breaker in Congress. But Republicans are spread across many more tiny states like North Dakota, Montana and Alaska so if it comes to states picking the President, then its likely there will be about a 33 to 17 imbalance of red states, who get to pick the President, even as the Democrats may have gotten a larger proportion of the total vote nationwide. And then the ex-CIA guy McMullin calculates, that if the Republicans in Congress are offered the choice of Trump or McMullin, they will go for McMullin; and even more, if thats a tight race, that if the DEMOCRATS in Congress see they dont' have the votes to get Hillary, they will not want Trump, and will cast their votes too for McMullin.
The McMullin one-state Utah strategy is a wild 'Hollywood plot' type of scenario, but if the race becomes tight for November and the race is withing 2% in polling, and if McMullin can win his home state - then its possible that Hillary gets to 269 Electoral College votes, and Trump to 265, and McMullin with 6. And then the tie-breaker goes to Congress, and then if Trump has continued to burn all his bridges and be as undesirable as he seems eager to become, then it could be that McMullin becomes the new President. Its yes a wild scenario, but it is now in play. McMullin has to win Utah. His primary gains should come from Trump. If McMullin starts to gain meaningful polling out of Utah it would depress Trump's support and could easily also flip Utah so that Hillary wins it. A part of the contest is the Libertarian ticket, Johnson and Weld. They had hoped for a Utah pick-up. If they fight hard for Utah it would diminish McMullin's chances. If Johnson and Weld play smart, they go where there are 'low-hanging fruit' and abandon Utah. A four-way fight for Utah could well give the state to Hillary. And just on que, the Clinton campaign has opened its first campaign office in Utah (something no Democrat has done in decades) and Bill Clinton has already been sent to Utah to campaign there as Hillary's surrogate.
Nationally McMullin will only get on so few state ballots, he is likely to be held to 1% of the national vote. I am including his totals with those of the Green Party candidate Jill Stein (both and other third-party candidates, combined, get about 3% nationally). But while Jill Stein has no viable path to win any state, McMullin could win Utah. It would be a devastating blow to Trump because then if Trump manages to flip Ohio, Florida, Pennsylvania and keep North Carolina if McMullin 'steals' Utah, Trump still doesn't win 270 electoral college votes. Trump would be at 268 EV votes, Hillary at 264 EV and McMullin 6 EV votes, and the decision would go to Congress. As to Trump having to campaign in Utah, I think he'd have about as warm a reception as he got in Mexico, and Romney and McMullin and Bill Clinton would all be on the air mocking Trump. But to be clear, I talk about a 4-way race. Its technically a 5 way race but McMullin will only get to about two handfuls of states where he will be on the ballot. He can't win outright. But in a lucky scenario, McMullin might become President. And the most likely impact of McMullin is that Trump loses another 6 EV votes where he doesn't get usually very reliable Utah. Note that RCP currently has the race 362 EV votes for Hillary and 176 EV votes for Trump. The McMullin play could just end up delivering Utah to Hillary and then this current RCP view would become 368 EV votes for Hillary and 170 EV votes for Trump.
OUTSIDE EFFECTS
The race is not just the candidates, the issues and the Campaigns. Also the race can be impacted by outside effects, and in this cycle, especially any ISIS related terrorism. So lets look at the outside effects and how they are in play now at the start of September. Note there is no change from last month, but Putin and Russia may become an issue, there are troop movements at the Ukrainian border. With Trump's previous campaign boss Paul Manafort's close ties to Putin, this could be particularly damaging development for Trump. But as of now, the outside effects have the same impact as a month ago.
OUTSIDE ISSUE SCORES
HILLARY CLINTON . . . . . . . . . . DONALD TRUMP
8 Year Cycle . . . . . . C . . . . . . . . . . 8 Year Cycle . . . . . . A
Obama approval . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Obama approval . . . C
Economy . . . . . . . . . A . . . . . . . . . . Economy . . . . . . . . . B
Terrorism . . . . . . . . . B . . . . . . . . . . Terrorism . . . . . . . . . A
The 8 year cycle is a strong force that makes most elections swing from one party to the rival every 8 years. Since WW2, only twice that cycle was broken - by Carter losing his re-election in 1980 and by Daddy Bush extending a third term after popular Reagan. But while this is a strong cycle, it is not a perfect cycle. It can be beaten. I thus give Trump the A and Hillary the C on this scale. I will not be adjusting this grading. It is something which is in play, which favors Trump but will not change. The incumbent President’s approval rating is a significant factor in that candidate’s or his/her party’s success in the election. When Reagan was popular, he got his successor Daddy Bush elected inspite of the 8 year cycle in 1988. When Bill Clinton was not as popular, he was not able to get Al Gore to do the same in 2000. Unpopular W Bush was not able to get John McCain elected in 2008. And unpopular Jimmy Carter and unpopular Daddy Bush both lost their re-elections. Obama is the most popular incumbent by July of his eight year and this is helping Hillary. I rate it the same effect as the 8 year cycle but in opposing direction, so they cancel each other out. Of the outside environmental factors, the economy is ok but not great. That favors Hillary but only slightly (hence Trump gets the B). Meanwhile terrorism is a concern but most of it is abroad still so right now, its not dominating the news, hence Trump gains but only modestly right now (hence Hillary gets the B). These two also cancel each other out for the start of August. We’ll see how that goes into the coming months. Also note, any new issue may emerge, a natural disaster, a foreign policy crisis (Putin, North Korea, etc) or a worldwide economic crisis or something like that. Any such matter will be added to the outside effects if such item emerges.
VOTERS
I want to mention a few items of voter preferences. The 2016 season will feature the most extreme demographic divisions in voter support ever seen. The gender gap has been about 10% in the recent years for Democrats, but the reason why this is even more damaging is that there are more women than men, and women are more registered than me, and women vote more than men. In the past few elections, women have been 6% more of the final electorate than men. This year the female vote will surge because for the first time in history, American women can vote for a woman on the top of the ticket. Many ‘lazy’ voters will show up specifically among women, so the total female vote will surge. Even if it surges by only about 10% over its normal amount, that would mean women will have an 11% gap in their NUMBERS over men. That's before we consider a gender GAP among voters, which will also be larger for Hillary against Trump than any recent gender gap ever measured. A Pew survey across various demographics in June found Hillary up by 16% over Trump in the gender gap among female voters.
Among minorities the race is even worse. The Mitt Romney ‘autopsy’ after the 2012 election loss, conducted by the Republican party said the Republicans must improve their standing with women, with the youth voters, with blacks and with Hispanics (they did not; in the interim years, the party has taken positions consistently against all of those groups while the Democrats have taken positions defending those groups). In Trump the Republicans nominated the candidate with the worst reputation among all four groups. Against him, the Democrats nominated their candidate on their side who was best on three of the four demographics (Bernie being better among youth). The Republicans clearly studied what went wrong in 2012, and what they had to do to prevent another election loss. Then they went and did the exact opposite. It seems like the Republicans picked Trump expressly to have an even more disastrous election loss in 2016, than they had in 2012. So lets study. In the Hispanic vote, Romney’s ‘self-deportation’ statement sunk his chances and he scored the worst Hispanic support of any nominee as far as Exit Polls have been conducted. Romney only got 27% of the Hispanic vote (McCain got 31% four years prior). The Republican autopsy said in 2016 the Republican nominee will not win the White House unless the party gets 40% of the Hispanic vote. The latest mid July poll by Univision of 1,000 registered Hispanic voters found that only 19% would vote for Trump. He is the single most disliked politician by Hispanics ever measured. (Note this is before the Conventions and VP selections where Tim Kaine is likely to serve to swing some more Hispanics to vote for Hillary and against Trump).
How about the blacks? Against the first-ever black Presidential candidate, its perhaps not fair to consider how badly Romney did (6%) or McCain (4%). But now that Obama is no longer on the ticket, and its two whites against each other, perhaps Trump can do better. Or perhaps not. A July poll by NBC and Wall Street Journal of voters in vital battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania found that Trump’s support among blacks was zero. 0%. Yes. The support is zero. In both states. Zero percent. Even Romney and McCain got a few percent. Trump has truly hit rock bottom. No candidate on either side has ever hit zero in black support. Trump is that toxic. Trump is only aiming for white male voters. And less-educated ones at that. The typical Fox viewer. The single best metric to identify a Trump voter is ‘do you believe Obama was born in Kenya’. Those who believe this myth, they are Trump voters; and those who know he was not, they are Hillary voters. Its the single easiest measure of the two rivals. The informed intelligent better-educated voter is for Hillary. All demographics except white men, are for Hillary. And even among white men, the Trump voter skews to the least educated blue collar Fox viewer.
The initial Campaigns on both sides play true to form. Trump feuded with a judge who is a US born American but whose parents came from Mexico. Trump’s supporters and speakers at their Convention claimed Black Lives Matter to be a terrorist organization. Trump paraded a series of politicians hated by women and the youth. Trump started a new feud with Muslim parents of a fallen war hero. The American Nazis, KKK and White Supremacists all celebrated the themes and speakers and positions of the GOP convention. Meanwhile the Democrats featured a rainbow of speakers of every demographics, took the position to give amnesty to undocumented Hispanics, supported Black Lives Matter and parents of blacks killed by cops, and featured women after women including leaders such as Cecile Richard of Planned Parenthood in a key speaking slot. If the Republicans really continue on this mad demographic strategy, it is exactly as Republican Senator Lindsay Graham said, there are not enough old white angry men to get anyone elected.
In the past month Trump has now managed to add a white supremacists (Bannon) from Breitbart to his team. Its not playing well with minorities. Then on the gender gap, Roger Ailes is accused of sexual harassment by 20 women who worked for him (he was fired for that issue at Fox News). Meanwhile Bannon was himself involved in domestic abuse, and Conway has said dumb things about women too, especially about rape. (Republicans should be taught never to mention that word, didn't they learn the lesson with Todd Akin). The Mexico trip brought fresh reminders about Trump's troubles with Hispanics. Trump's outreach to Black voters managed to push a polling level of 1% to 2% down to 0%. So yes Trump is still digging himself further into that demographic hole from which victory is not possible.
ELECTORAL MAP
362 Clinton vs 176 Trump on Aug 31 'No Tossups' map on RCP (was 322 Clinton vs 216 Trump on July 31):
Hillary Clinton leads RCP average of polling in: CO, FL, GA, IA, NV, NH, NM, NC, OH, PA, VA, WI
Donald Trump leads polling in: AZ
Since July 31, Trump lost leads in Florida, Georgia and Nevada; Clinton lost lead in Arizona
Campaigns or SuperPACs have ads on TV in:
Hillary Clinton TV ads on air at start of September in FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA
Donald Trump TV ads on air at start of September in: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, PA, VA
(Bolding indicates states where both campaigns are on the air)
Since July, Hillary has taken Colorado and Virginia TV ads off the air, Trump has added Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia
In May Trump was promising a silly map that he would put California in play and he’d do well in New York and New Jersey etc. Trump wasted 3 weeks in California (the state hated him so much, the polls moved AGAINST him). One of Trump’s few new hires in June was a pollster for New York. In July Trump met with the Congressional Republican caucus in a closed-door meeting where he showed his map - it didn’t have California or New York of course. But it had 17 states including wildly optimistic target states that have’t voted Republican in ages like Minnesota and Michigan. There has been a lot of talk, but the real test of what a Campaign thinks is worth fighting for, is TV ad money. 'Putting your money where your mouth is.' And clearly only 9 states are worth the while of Trump Campaign to fight for - Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Virginia. There is no magical race to win Oregon or Michigan or New York state. Those are the 9 states where Trump Campaign thinks there is a legitimate chance. And to see how hopeless that list of 9 is, two of those 9 states are ones that Hillary Clinton has moved away from. She has stopped advertising in Colorado and Virginia because in both states the polling shows her up by double-digits with less than 70 days to go. Trump is never going to win Colorado or Virginia. When we get the September TV ad counts, we will probably see only a nominal effort there. The real race is down to 7 states: Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Hillary Clinton leads the local polling in all those 7 states. Trump has to win Ohio, Florida, Pennyslvania and North Carolina to become President (while not losing any state that Romney carried, such as Arizona, Georgia or yes, indeed Utah).
BATTLEGROUND STATES (bolded is side who leads)
State . . . . . . . . . EV Votes . . . . RCP Polling . . . . TV ads run in August . . . . . . Offices
Florida . . . . . . . . 29 . . . . . . . . . 3.2% H . . . . . . . . 529 H / 542 T . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 H / 1 T
Pennsylvania . . . 20 . . . . . . . . . 8.0% H . . . . . . . . 521 H / 140 T . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 H / 2 T
Ohio . . . . . . . . . . 19 . . . . . . . . . 3.6% H . . . . . . . . 558 H / 538 T . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 H / 16 T
North Carolina . . 15 . . . . . . . . . 3.0% H . . . . . . . . 429 H / 142 T . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 H / 0 T
Wisconsin . . . . . 10 . . . . . . . . . 9.0% H . . . . . . . . 0 H / 0 T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 H / 22 T
Iowa . . . . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . 0.2% H . . . . . . . . 275 H / 0 T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 H / 9 T
Nevada . . . . . . . . 6 . . . . . . . . . 2.3% H . . . . . . . . 52 H / 0 T . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 H / 7 T
The US Presidential election is not one national vote, even though it will be simplified often to just count the total vote. It is 51 separate simultaneous elections in each of the 50 states plus the District of Columbia. Based on the size of the state, each is awarded a count of 'Electoral College' votes, so with 29 EV votes out of Florida, that state is worth nearly 5 times as much as to win Nevada with 6 EV votes. The magic number is 270 EV votes. Most states are not 'in play' so Alabama and Kansas are reliably Republican states while Massachussetts and Oregon are reliably Democratic states. Neither side bothers to go campaign in those states, because their election result is already known. The race each year boils down to about a dozen or so 'battleground' states. That map is then 'shrunk' as both sides start to abandon states they don't think they can win or states they think they already have won. And if one side is feeling very confident, they can add new states towards the end, to pick up more victories, such as President Obama did in 2008 when he fought till the last day to win a narrow victory out of Indiana, an usually Republican state but next door to his home state of Illinois. It was such a hard-won victory, that in 2012 when Obama had a harder fight, he didn't bother to try to win Indiana again.
We now know what the final 7 states are, that will decide the election. It is that list above, or Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump will try to claim Colorado, New Hampshire and Virginia are also in play - they are not, as Hillary isn't bothered to run TV ads there. The polling in each of those states is at 10% or better for Hillary, far far past the level that could be reversed in intense campaigning. Even Wisconsin is a total outlier in the above list, probably there more because its the home state of both Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus, so they are using Trump's campaign to ensure their own re-elections, but Wisconsin is not seriously in play. Practically from a mathematical point of view, Trump has to run the four large states, he has to win each of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and North Carolina. Obama won all of them in 2008 and all but NC in 2012. Hillary is ahead in polling in all four states and up by a demoralizing 8% in Pennsylvania. To be clear, Trump cannot lose any of those four states or he won't be President (plus Trump cannot lose any other states that Hillary may contest for, like Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, Indiana or even yes, Utah).
That above table tells how tough Trump's last 70 days are. He is behind in field offices in all of the 7 states except Nevada where the two sides are tied. In TV ads, Hillary is ahead in 5 of the 7, one of the 7 states is not fought over in TV wars (Wisconsin, which again suggests its not really in play) and only in one state is Trump slightly ahead in the TV ad wars - Florida. But in Florida Hillary has 34 field offices while Trump has.. one. In North Carolina Trump has yet to open the first field office while Hillary has 30. At the same time Hillary has a TV ad advantage of 3 to 1, in a state where she also leads by 3% in polling. For Trump to have any realistic chance to overcome any challenges, he has to do something better than Hillary. And at this point, that happens truly nowhere.
The field office and staff hiring race is not yet set. Trump is still ramping up, so by next time we'll have a better view of the reality on the ground. Trump has also bought more TV ad time into September (a 10 million dollar ad buy) while Hillary has reserved 77 million dollars covering the next two months. She has another 15 million dollars in radio ad bookings for the two months.
The Candidate's Time is the most valuable resource. Its the only asset for which more cannot be generated. A Campaign may send a surrogate but its never the same. And the Candidate's Time is the best measure of the priorities of the Campaign. A Candidate should only be seen doing 3 things - events in battleground states, fund-raising, and selected TV appearances that enhance the campaign. Hillary Clinton's campaign is textbook of how it should be done. Donald Trump is typically undisciplined and even counter-productive. Like just now he went suddenly and spontaneously to Mexico. No EV votes from Mexico. It was such a sudden decision they didn't even arrange a press pool of US media to join Trump. A political disaster and a waste of time. But Trump also has recently been campaigning in Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Arizona. None of these are battleground states. Trump doesn't like talking to the small town audiences in the battleground states where moderate and Independent undecided voters should come listen to him to be convinced to vote for him. Rather Trump wants to campaign in reliably red regions where his loyal fans can come and have a rowdy rally, and these serve nothing to help Trump get more voters to support him. I hope to find some online resource to catalog all the time so we can see how the two Campaigns have prioritized the time of the most valuable resource.
RACE COMMENTARY: AUGUST
The August month is often quite sleepy and with the Olympics taking the attention this could have been even more so than usual. But Trump gave us campaign turmoil firing Manafort his campaign boss (technically, he was asked to resign) who was under the title Campaign Chairman. This was the second campaign leader firing in two months (Cory Lewandowski was fired). Lewandowski had worked on the 'Campaign Manager' title and for a month both had been fighting about the campaign leadership. The relevant point is that no Campaign has fired two campaign bosses so close to each other in time, or this late in a Campaign. It is the ultimate sign of crisis in a Campaign and Trump has clearly signalled two 'near death' experiences SINCE he has clinched his nomination. And even after those events, his polling has only gotten worse.
Trump's latest hires are Stephen Bannon the former boss of Breitbart white supremacists blogsite, and Kellyanne Conway a Republican pollster and on-air TV pundit. Neither has any experience running a Campaign. Bannon has the title of Campaign CEO, Conway the Campaign Manager. For two days before Manafort was forced to resign, he was even in the mix under his title of Campaign Chairman and yes, Trump still pays Lewandowski a fee and regularly consults with him too. And then Trump brought in former Fox News boss, who was forced to resign after 20 women accused him of sexual harassment. Ailes is advising Trump too. A few cooks yes, plus Trump listens to his kids and trusts them so this is one army where there are probably more Generals than foot-soldiers.
Trump has made a noticable major change in style. He now speaks from prepared speeches on Teleprompters, where he typically takes few ad-lib comments that he then throws at the audience. The speeches are far more reasonable and moderate in tone than Trump used to deliver but his ad-libs often then water the effect down again. Trump also has taken deliberate steps to try to seem more caring of, and appealing to minorities, especially the Blacks and Hispanics. These have not been seen as even INTENDED to win over their votes, but rather to reassure troubled base Republican women voters who worry Trump's rhetoric about the minorities is too divisive. So Trump has delivered major speeches about Blacks to all-white audiences in voting districts that are 95% white. He has also refused all invitations to speak to groups supporting minorities. The immediate effect has not helped him. Trump was polling between 1% and 2% with Black voters, and one national poll had him already down to 0%. This trip to Mexico and the renewed fight about the Wall etc, is again raising worries among Hispanics, etc.
In his policies Trump has issued several policy speeches that have been widely mocked as being contradictory and flip-flops and taking over positions of his rivals that Trump had previously ridiculed, such as taking Hillary's plan for ISIS or taking Jeb Bush's immigration plan. Meanwhile Hillary has wisely stood aside, let Trump continue to damage himself. She has been assembling videos of Trump's own words and expanding a breathtaking array of Republicans and Conservatives who now endorse her or at least are in public saying Trump is unfit for office. I expect Hillary's campaign to wait to collect those until some point when she feels she has enough, and then unleash a devastating series of TV ads, where known Republican national security experts skewer Trump on national security, known Republican economic experts destroy Trump on his Economic positions and tax ideas etc. The next big move however will be the debates, and we will have to wait to see, will those happen. I am still thinking Trump may skip out on them, at least the first one. But Trump is so far behind, it would be a foolish thing to do. Yet to step into the ring with Hillary, that will be an instant collapse of at least 5% of his remaining support, overnight. Trump is utterly outclassed in a proper two-person debate on live TV.
MY FORECAST (UNCHANGED FROM AUGUST)
Now the polling has settled past the Convention bounces. RCP has the race as 4.4% in the four-way race as of August 31. Hillary is further ahead at this point, a month after the Conventions, than Obama in either of the past 2 election cycles against McCain or Romney. That RCP average includes 8.9% undecideds. When we factor the undecideds in, the race is about a 7% lead for Hillary. It is all-but-certain that the debates will push Hillary over the 10% level. Thats when Republican support will collapse and money will vanish. Trump will limp into November on something near 15% behind, to lose the 4-way race, after the ground game advantage is factored in, by 18%. Now, by my August forecast I expected Hillary to be a bit further ahead at this point. So that 18% may be a bit 'wobbly' as a forecast, could be a bit less than that, maybe 16% but I'll stick to 18% for now. We will know much more after the first debate.
I believe that the demographics will feature a strong surge of female voting and a mild surge of Hispanic voting. The black vote will remain at roughly the 2012 level but not as high as the 2008 level. The youth vote will not be as high as either of the 2008 or 2012 elections but will still be above its historic averages. Hillary will have historic gender gaps and minority voting advantages. The race which is at about a 10% race in August, will fall to a 15% race after the first debate (Trump may chicken out of that debate which would result in the same damage). And as the rats flee the sinking ship, a 15% race in early October turns into a 20% rout in November. BUT.. there are the 3rd party candidates. I am now revising my previous forecast, to include the two third party candidates and I forecast this outcome:
FORECAST OF 2016 ELECTION (as of 1 September 2016)
Hillary Clinton, Democrat . . . . . 53%
Donald Trump, Republican . . . . 35%
Gary Johnson, Libertarian . . . . . . 9%
Jill Stein, Green Party . . . . . . . . . 3% *
* Note: The Green Party count includes all other third party votes including Ewan McMullin
Forecast by TomiAhonen Consulting at Communities Dominate blog 1 September 2016, same as 1 Aug, 2016
The above forecast may be freely shared
Electoral College Vote based on the above:
Hillary Clinton, Democrat . . . . . 448 EV Votes
Donald Trump, Republican . . . . . 90 EV Votes
Hillary Clinton wins: AK AZ CO CT DC DE FL GA HI IA IL IN ME MA MD MI MN MO MT NC NH NJ NM NV NY OH OR PA RI SC TX VA VT WA WI
Donald Trump wins: AL AR ID KS KY LA MS NB ND OK SD TN UT WV WY
(Note Hillary Clinton wins every battleground state Obama won, plus NC, AZ, GA, MO, IN, TX, AK, MT, and SC)
So I am predicting an 18 point landslide crushing defeat for Trump but also, a 9 point good showing for Johnson, meaning Trump will lose dramatically in the Electoral College. To put this in context, Walter Mondale lost to Reagan in 1984 by 18 points. Walter Mondale was essentially exiled from politics. He still lives today but nobody cares about what he thinks or wants his opinions on anything. If Trump loses by 18 points and brings a disaster with it that also flips the Senate, the House and the Supreme Court to the Democrats, he too will be exiled and that may be his worst nightmare. Not the loss, but its aftermath, when nobody will ever want to hear his views on anything again.
This is my Sept 1, 2016 update to my measurement of the race of the General Election of 2016. I will revisit monthly. And before you laugh too hard about how this forecast went, please remember, I was among the first in the world, in August of last year, to say Trump can win his nomination (I calculated the primary math here, you won't find many who said in August Trump could win) and I predicted the Trump primary victory in January, before any state had voted, so accurately, I had the top 3 finishers in the race AND the right sequence AND I had the number of states Trump would win, off by only 1. My GOP forecast even pinpointed correctly the dates when his rivals would be eliminated and the date Trump would clinch. As to Presidential elections, I got the 2012 election so precisely, I was off by one state. (That's exactly as accurate as the legendary Nate Silver of 538 blog). And I predicted most of this year's election (as seen so far, including issues such as Obama's rise in popularity and Hillary Clinton's huge fund-raising edge) as far back as October of 2014. But I will also keep you abreast of where my thinking goes. As we learn more about this race, I will also discuss any changes to my forecast. Currently? 18 point landslide election drubbing. Hillary wins 36 states and territories; gets 448 electoral college votes, where Trump wins 15 and gets only 90. Stay tunes and stock up on your popcorn. Also note, we have a very smart discussion panel here among my readers, so please do also engage with us in the comments.
Hi Everybody
An immediate update. The tactical issues of the day, may be totally forgotten by Oct 1 but do seem relevant today..
The schizophrenic Trump. He's spent the last 2 weeks or so trying to sound like a moderate and appeal to minorities. So he said he had 'regrets' while not actually identifying what those were, and then he seemed to want to appeal to blacks and Hispanics, while speaking to lily-white audiences in 95% white neighborhoods but Trump seemed to be trying. And he spoke on the Teleprompter. And it did seem like a mild pivot towards a kinder-gentler Trump. One with messages and messaging driven by the polling insights from Conway.
But where is the Breitbart-Nazi, Bannon? Well, the Arizona Border-Wall speech with the return of the Deportation Force, thats the Nazi side. One, clearly Trump has not settled on a new less abrasive style. Secondly, he's clearly conflicted. Third, there is an internal power struggle (again) in the Campaign - Conway vs Bannon. One of the two is a 'CEO' and the other 'Manager'. One is a woman the other a man. I wonder who will win haha, and who will soon be fired.
Also yeah, Trump is inconsistent. Why? Because he only listens to the last person who spoke to him. So as long as he gets split messaging (like now Bannon/Conway, or in June when it was Lewandowski/Manafort) it will be this circus again for us.
But its entertaining for sure. Haha, the Mexican President already saying he told Trump no of course Mexico won't pay for the wall, and only hours later Trump tells a live audience, Mexico will pay for the wall. How incredibly stupid is this of Trump? He's only making anyone still staying with him seem more ridiculous and inviting all who left Trump - moderate Republicans and foreign policy Republicans - to come out and say that Trump is unhinged.
Pass the popcorn (and another shot of whisky)
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | September 01, 2016 at 11:22 AM
Hi Reco
LOL yeah. Hillary just announcing they'll go six-figure TV ad buy in Arizona. That silly Wall Speech is what probably killed Trump's chances in Arizona. And now Hillary has committed the money to the state. She can afford one more state at that level because she pulled out of Virginia and Colorado, I am expecting that to be Georgia in coming days but this Arizona ad buy, its purely the stupid stunt by Trump. He's committing political suicide, and Hillary has decided now she's going for it. I also am curious to see how John McCain plays it - he has just won his primary so he can now safely attack Trump and won't have his right flank vote him out. Meanwhile Arizona Senator challeger to McCain should be tying McCain to Trump. The battleground just got massively worse for Trump and as Hillary is nearly tied in Arizona, she can very well flip the state. That would end Trump's chances..
Tomi Ahonen :-)
Posted by: Tomi T Ahonen | September 01, 2016 at 01:10 PM
Hi, Tomi;
Are you seeing the same race that I'm seeing?
FiveThirtyEight shows Hillary peaked at 79.5% chance of winning on their polls-plus on August 8th. She's had a slow, steady decline ever since. As of today, she's down to 70.0%. When I eyeball the trend line, it looks like it will drop below 50% 4 or 5 days before the election.
RCP is a showing similar narrowing of the lead. Hillary had a 7.6% lead on August 9th. Yesterday she had a 4.1% lead at the end of the day. This morning I woke up to see she has a 3.6% lead.
In other words, looking purely at the trends on these two sites, it would seem that Trump has a winning strategy going. Not sure why because every time he opens his mouth I'm positive he's just lost another 10% of the electorate. Instead, the opposite seems to be true. (shakes head in wonder)
If Hillary is not going to lose and instead is going to outperform the way that your analysis would suggest, she has to have a huge turn around very soon. I'm not sure that Trump ducking the debates or losing badly at them would be enough on their own to give her that boost.
I'm curious to know what you think. What do you think it would take to reach that landslide?
Posted by: sgtrock | September 01, 2016 at 04:42 PM
It is as if Donald does not want to win:
The Daily 202: Trump triples down on a losing immigration position in Phoenix
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/09/01/daily-202-trump-triples-down-on-a-losing-immigration-position-in-phoenix/57c78349cd249a6fa9f8207d/
"-- Why was Trump’s tone so much different in Mexico City than Phoenix? Here are the three likeliest explanations:
1. The candidate struggles to weigh conflicting advice. Kellyanne Conway, his new manager, wants him to be softer and gentler so he can improve his standing with women. Steve Bannon, the head of Breitbart who is now his campaign CEO, and Stephen Miller, a former aide to Jeff Sessions, crafted last night’s speech.
2. Like many politicians, he is intentionally trying to be all things to all people. A chameleon in plaid, you might say.
3. Trump is so desperate that he’s willing to try everything. Dana Milbank writes that the trip to Mexico was a “HAIL MARIA,” and only someone who was losing would try it."
Posted by: Winter | September 01, 2016 at 05:36 PM
@sgtrock
"In other words, looking purely at the trends on these two sites, it would seem that Trump has a winning strategy going."
The GOP does not think so. See the previous link. They are panicking.
Posted by: Winter | September 01, 2016 at 05:38 PM
More on the unpivot on immigration:
Trump’s visa problem: The Donald renews his anti-immigration push — and...
http://www.salon.com/2016/09/01/trumps-visa-problem-the-donald-renews-his-anti-immigration-push-and-the-hypocrisy-is-mind-numbing/?google_editors_picks=true
"That’s a line echoed by dozens, if not hundreds, of Donald Trump’s former employees from virtually every business he’s run. But this one runs afoul of Trump’s signature campaign policy and shows him to be on the wrong side of federal immigration law. I know the bar for Trump is lower than for any presidential candidate in history but surely charges of running an illegal sweatshop exploiting underage girls on tourist visas should garner at least a little attention for the man who promises to put his rival for the presidency in prison?"
Posted by: Winter | September 01, 2016 at 05:50 PM
RE: TV air time
It's still a barrage of trump, trump, trump on all broadcast tv (and online publications).
http://television.gdeltproject.org/cgi-bin/iatv_campaign2016/iatv_campaign2016?filter_candidate=&filter_network=AFF&filter_timespan=LAST30&filter_displayas=RAW
Posted by: grouch | September 01, 2016 at 06:40 PM
Trump Invested in Safe States, Lagged on Battleground Staff
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-safe-state-spending-494856?google_editors_picks=true
Posted by: Winter | September 01, 2016 at 06:43 PM
@sgtrock:
Maybe it's because Trump has had pretty few brainfarts in the last two weeks. Well, that has changed as of today...
The old Donald is clearly back in play now.
Posted by: Tester | September 01, 2016 at 06:53 PM
@Tester;
Sure looks like it. I see that both 538 and RCP have swung back a little in Clinton's favor in the past couple of hours.
It's just mind boggling to me that the race is as close as it is at this point. As bad as Trump has been, how could any decent person see him as a viable President?
Posted by: sgtrock | September 01, 2016 at 07:28 PM
@sgtrock:
I think the main reason is that Hillary Clinton is the second least liked presidential candidate in a long time. Against any serious opponent I'm sure she'd sink like a stone.
Also have a look at the developments in many European countries where the right wing troglodytes are coming to the surface. A main factor here and there is that many people are thoroughly frustrated with career politicians and grasp at any straw if someone promises to be different.
Posted by: Tester | September 01, 2016 at 07:39 PM
@Tester;
I have to ask, WHY are they so frustrated? I mean that very seriously. According to Gapminder, the entire planet's population is in far better shape now than it was 10 years ago, 25 years ago, 50 years ago... by any variable that you care to name. (Well, with the single glaring exception of maternal mortality rate in the U.S. where it's been going in the wrong direction since 1980.)
I guess Newt Gingrich was right in one respect. People vote their emotions, not the facts.
Posted by: sgtrock | September 01, 2016 at 08:18 PM
@sgtrock:
"I have to ask, WHY are they so frustrated? I mean that very seriously. According to Gapminder, the entire planet's population is in far better shape now than it was 10 years ago, 25 years ago, 50 years ago...
I agree that it's better than 50 years ago - but 10 years? Sorry, no. I'd say things have been going downhill since 2001, and - oh the irony - the GOP is one of the main reasons for that.
Just a few things people may believe in:
- politicians are selling out to greedy multinational corporations.
- politicians will lie as much as necessary to win the next election.
- most politicians are bought.
- the entire political system is corrupt and rotten to its core.
and so on and so on. The worst thing is, there's a grain of truth in any of these statements, so it's very hard to convince such people to act responsibly.
Posted by: Tester | September 01, 2016 at 08:23 PM
@Tester;
Remember, the media makes money by drawing in an audience by hyping problems, not by telling the sober, boring truth. I strongly urge you to visit Gapminder.Org and play with any set of variables that you wish. Pick a variable for the X and Y axes, then let the historical record play out. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. :-)
Posted by: sgtrock | September 01, 2016 at 08:30 PM
One other thing that I forgot to say: I am in total agreement that the GOP in general and the Tea Party in particular has been holding back progress in the U.S. We could be a LOT better off if they were willing to govern from facts and not prejudices.
Posted by: sgtrock | September 01, 2016 at 08:32 PM
@sgtrock
"I have to ask, WHY are they so frustrated?"
It is a worldwide phenomenon, going from Denmark to India and from Russia to China to the USA. There are only three intimately linked phenomenons of equal wide ranging spread: market liberalization and globalization where the spoils of these are inequally distributed. We saw the same poisonous mix in the run up of WWI. We know how that ended.
The world is coming closer and closer and the "natives" are not the ruling elite they once thought they were. Note that it is always people who hardly see the "foreigners" that want to exterminate that threat (the proposed solution always comes down to ethnic cleansing).
Posted by: Winter | September 01, 2016 at 09:13 PM
I agree with sgtrock. It looks increasingly likely that there won't be a landslide. I would love to see in 2016 the biggest landslide victory in the history of US elections but it won't happen. The Republicans have managed to damage Clinton a lot. I think her victory will be similar to Obama's 2012 victory. I think Trump will come to the debates more prepared that many of us will expect. There is a good chance that the debates will leave the race mostly unchanged.
A few things about the ground game (I've participated in a few volunteer events here in LA, helping with data entry and building the contact info database). Last Sunday we called Democrats in Nevada. The plan is to call every single registered Democrat in the country. In addition, volunteers from LA are hauled by bus to Nevada to try to talk and convince Nevadans to vote for Clinton. I haven't heard of any trips to Arizona though (yet). I was told that we are going to start calling Republican women soon (that should be fun).
So besides Clinton's paid staff advantage, I think she has an even bigger advantage with volunteers. I doubt the Republican Party and Trump are anywhere near this level of activity that I've seen here in LA. Also the number of offices in a battleground state may be misleading since offices in the neighboring states may play an important role in the battleground states.
Posted by: cornelius | September 01, 2016 at 10:52 PM
Hi - I just discovered this site yesterday when doing a random Google search. I read the long article breaking down the 2012 Obama vs. Romney GOTV/data operations. What a great read! Has there been anything posted regarding Clinton's operations to date? Thanks.
Posted by: Craig | September 01, 2016 at 11:40 PM
@Craig
Not yet. Clinton could not use Obama's data operations system during the primaries because she was still competing with Sanders (it wouldn't be fair). I think she started building/updating Obama's data operations system only after she became the official nominee. And most likely Clinton won't release any information about the system until after the election, because that information might help Trump.
Posted by: cornelius | September 02, 2016 at 01:43 AM
Mrs Trump is forging ahead on the lawsuit about whether or not she was a paid escort.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/melania-trump-daily-mail-suit
Discovery should be a blast!
Posted by: Millard Filmore | September 02, 2016 at 03:30 AM