Election Night TV Guide: How To Read Early Election Results Starting at 7 PM

This is the CDB blog Election Night TV Guide. This blog gives you all the insights of which states matter - some do not - and what early results signal a good night for either candidate. I offer my full analysis in a long part below, I start first with just the numbers so you can find these easily on November 8. Please note, I have calculated out four scenarios. The model talks about these four scenarios as one of them will come true:

Most likely is a 5% Election. Most of the polls since the Conventions ended in July, have signaled a 5% election result. Its similar to what Obama won against Romney in 2012. It would mean Hillary wins most states Obama did, but loses Iowa, picks up North Carolina; and instead of the tightest race being Florida as it was last time, this time it would be Ohio. The surprise close state would be Arizona. In the 5% election the Senate is razor-thin contest either way, but the House remains in Republican hands.

The best possible result for the Trump team is a 'Tight Race' scenario. That does not give the Republicans a victory but it means the contest goes to the wire, and the result is very close to a 0% result. This would be like W Bush vs Gore of year 2000, and that election was not even decided that night. The only way Trump can possibly win this election, is if the 'Tight Race' scenario is what develops. In the Tight Race scenario both the Senate and House stay in GOP control.

The 'good news' Scenario for Hillary supporters is 'Big Hillary Win' election where the result is high single-digits, close to a 10% election result. It would be bigger than what Obama had against McCain in 2008. The good news scenario has Texas going blue and the Senate won by Democrats; and the House to be legitimately in play, could go either way.

I have also included the 'blowout' Scenario, ie the 'Election Rout' scenario. I have predicted this outcome. It says the race is a double-digit landslide epic victory in this model of 15%. That is nearly as big as Reagan vs Mondale of 1984. I have consistently predicted a landslide for this election on this blog, based on many reasons from demographics, to 'surge' votes to the GOTV effort (Get-Out-The-Vote) on the Hillary Team side. The current polling data does NOT agree with this scenario but my scenario has explicitly and consistently said, that Hillary would be outperforming the final polling by a big margin. The possibility of an election rout is also measured in the early state results and we'll know very soon if that is even possible. If its an election rout, then the Senate flips and likely the House flips also to Democratic control.

Obviously if you find that the results show 'mixed results' between two of the above, then its likely the mix of the two. So if part of the early state results signal a 5% race, and part signal a 'tight race' in other words about a 0% election result, then those mixed signals tell us its most likely a 2% or 3% final election outcome. The data leading to this is based on over 400 in-state polls covering all 50 states and DC. The rule of thumb I used in creating this TV viewing Guide is, can a state be called when that state voting closes. It is based on 2012 historical evidence, that usually any state that was won by 10% or more, was called immediately, but states that ended up with single digit election victories, were counted longer and not immediately called. With that, lets do the table:


TV GUIDE FOR ELECTION NIGHT, by Communities Dominate Blog:

7PM EST POLLS CLOSE IN:

(Vermont (26%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)

Georgia (-3%) if called for Hillary, its a Rout. If GA not called, its likely a Hillary win but not rout, but could be tight race.

Indiana (-11%) if called for Trump, its a tight race. If IN is not called, its at least a big Hillary win or rout.

Kentucky (-14) if called for Trump, its either 5% race or tight. If KY not called, its a Hillary rout

Virginia (+9%) if called for Hillary, its a big Hillary win & could be rout. If VA not called, its a tight race


It is VERY likely that 3 states or possibly only 2 states are called at 7PM, the rest are likely going to be counted longer. Here is the handy table to see every plausible combination of the above and what it means:

7PM CALLED: VT + GA+VA = Its Hillary rout
7PM CALLED: VT + IN+KY = Tight race
7PM CALLED: VT + KY = its 5% polling outcome
7PM CALLED: VT + KY+VA = its 5% polling outcome
7PM CALLED: VT + VA = Hillary big win but not rout

7PM CALLED: VT + IN+KY+VA = (unlikely) its 5% polling outcome
7PM CALLED: VT (only) = (unlikely) = about 7% Hillary win

The above table by TomiAhonen Consulting, Communities Dominate blog, Oct 30, 2016.
The table may be freely shared.


The Trump supporters will hope that Indiana (and thus also Kentucky) are called. Kentucky alone is not enough. If Indiana is called at 7PM Eastern Time, it means Indiana's roughly -11% polling lead for Trump, as currently indicated in polling ten days before election day, has held, and that the election will be tight. If only Kentucky is called but Indiana not, then Hillary has won the election and its only a question of how big that election win margin will be. Note, its possible on very freaky stats, that they call also Virginia for Hillary (and Vermont will be called for Hillary in every scenario) but if VA is added to IN and KY, then its not a tight race. Then its pretty much exactly 5%, likely not even 6% or 4%, pretty much exactly 5% and then yes, Trump troops will be demoralized. They need to win Indiana but not lose Virginia at the same time at 7PM when polls close in those states.

For Hillary supporters the state to watch at 7PM Eastern Time is Virginia. If Virginia (and of course Vermont) is called for Hillary, it means she is winning. Then other states will tell us by how much. If its Virginia and Kentucky, then its the 5% win. If its Virginia and Georgia called, gosh, thats the super-party, that means its a rout. And if its no other states than Virginia (and Vermont of course) then its a big Hillary win but not a rout. 

We could end this article right here. If you're a Trump supporter, your evening will turn out as nasty as Karl Rove had in 2012, if Indiana is not called. That is the only state that matters to Trump supporters. If you're a Hillary supporter, its very likely she is winning this election but you want to know, is it a modest win or can she win big. That is told you by Virginia. If she wins (Vermont and) Virginia or (Vermont and) Virginia and Georgia, then you are going to have a great night watching election results.

This is ONLY the prelimary view. And as statistics experts will tell, its perilous to make projections on sample sizes that are very small. So if that is what 7PM tells us, we then need to still see, if the immediate next results signal the SAME result. Its possible that our 'instrument' is not calibrated perfectly and a given state might have some weird issue that tilts its election balance. So lets see what the next hour brings us. We will know a bit more at 7:30PM but we'll have a VERY clear picture by 8PM.


TV GUIDE FOR ELECTION NIGHT, by Communities Dominate Blog:

7:30PM EST POLLS CLOSE IN:

North Carolina (2%) if called for Hillary, its a rout. If NC not called, its anything from big Hillary win to tight contest

Ohio (-1%) if called for Hillary, its a rout. If OH not called, its anything from big Hillary win to tight contest

West Virginia (-20%) if called for Trump its either tight race or 5% Hillary win. If WV not called, its a big Hillary win or rout

The above table by TomiAhonen Consulting, Communities Dominate blog, Oct 30, 2016.
The table may be freely shared.


For Trump-fans, if they 'got' Indiana in the first result, or if they didn't get Indiana but hope for some new info to say IN was an anomaly, they need West Virginia called at 7:30PM. Having WV called does not mean its a tight race, it could also be a 5% Hillary win Scenario, but if WV is not called, it can't be a tight race and Trump has lost. If you are a Trump supporter and you saw that Indiana was not called at 7PM and West Virginia was not called at 7:30PM, trust me, the election has been lost. Its extremely likely if WV is not called at 7:30 that also Kentucky was not called at 7PM. You might as well spare yourself the misery and get drunk...

For Hillary fans, if Virginia was called and possibly Georgia at 7PM, now you'll see is the rout happening or only a big win. If either North Carolina or Ohio or both are called at 7:30PM, then a very big win is in play, it looks like a rout. If its only one of the two (then its very likely NC not OH) then its still a big win, could be double-digits even, but unlikely to be quite 15% range. If neither Ohio nor North Carolina are called at 7:30PM but you got Virginia at 7PM, then its a big single-digit win. The big final 'answer' is given at 8PM. We will see so many states coming in, that a clear picture should form, exactly which scenario (or a blend of which two) is in effect for the election night:


TV GUIDE FOR ELECTION NIGHT, by Communities Dominate Blog:

8PM EST POLLS CLOSE IN:

(DC (28%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(Delaware (18%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(Illinois (16%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(Maryland (32%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(Massachussetts (26%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(New Jersey (18%) will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)
(Rhode Island (17% will be called for Hillary, this will not matter)

Alabama (-19%) if called for Trump its either 5% race or tight race. If AL not called, its big Hillary win or rout

Connecticut (+8%) if called for Hillary she is winning. If CT not called, its a tight race.

Florida (+2%) if called for Hillary she wins big, could be rout. If FL not called, its tight race or 5% Hillary win

Maine (+5%) if called for Hillary she wins big, could be rout. If ME not called, its tight race or 5% Hillary win

Mississippi (-8%) if called for Hillary, its a rout. If MS called for Trump its tight race. If MS not called its Hillary win 5% or big.

Missouri (-7%) if called for Hillary, its a rout. If MO called for Trump its tight race. If MO not called its Hillary win 5% or big.

New Hampshire (+7%) if called for Hillary she is winning. If NH not called, its a tight race.

Oklahoma (-17%) if called for Trump its either 5% race or tight race. If OK not called, its big Hillary win or rout

Pennsylvania (+6%) if called for Hillary she is winning. If PA not called, its a tight race.

Tennessee (-14%) if called for Trump its either 5% race or tight race. If TN not called, its big Hillary win or rout

South Carolina (-6%) if called for Hillary, its a rout. If SC called for Trump its tight race. If SC not called its Hillary win 5% or big.


SCENARIO MAP FOR 8PM

For Trump to have chance, he has to have MO, MS and SC called for Trump at 8PM

For a 5% election result signaled, above states not called but AL, OK and TN called for Trump

For a big Hillary win to be under way, CT, FL, ME, NH and PA need to be called for Hillary

For a rout to be happening, MO, MS and SC need to be called for Hillary.

The above table by TomiAhonen Consulting, Communities Dominate blog, Oct 30, 2016.
The table may be freely shared.


Again, if one of the three or more states is not consistent, but two are, you can expect the above map to be pretty accurate. Its likely most states will fit that pattern. If you find a mix of results for two scenarios, then obviously the signal is that its a result in the middle of those two possibilities. But at 8PM, based on how many states have closed and been called, we will know pretty exactly how big the election victory will be for Hillary (or if the unlikely surprise is in store for a tight race into the early morning hours).

Please also note, this is not a 'retroactive' system. If you join in at 8:30PM and look at what all states have been called, then you won't know. This is based on watching the hour (or half-hour) turn, and to see what states were called IMMEDIATELY the moment the voting in those states closed. Note also, if a given state has for any reason a delayed closing time - the above rules apply to that state but with that changed closing time. So if there are very long lines in a given state for some reason, and they decide to give an extra hour of voting time, then please adjust that state to the new changed closing hour. The above TV guide is to help those who are watching in real time as the results come in, and are the best election closing times that I could find, there may be individual errors in a given state.

After 8PM we will know which of the four scenarios is in play. The above TV guide is not really relevant past 8PM. To summarize each scenario from best-to-Trump to best-to-Hillary

For a possible Trump win, and thus the Tight Race scenario, Trump has to have at 7PM Kentucky and Indiana called. At 7:30PM Trump needs West Virginia called for him and at 8PM he needs Missouri, Mississippi and South Carolina called. He could lose one, maybe two from the above list but if those races went into longer counts, this election is over.

For a 5% election result, at 7PM Kentucky was called for Trump (plus some other possible scenarios to that); at 7:30PM only West Virginia was called; and at 8PM only 3 states called for Trump being Alabama, Oklahoma and Tennessee.

For a big election win near 10% for Hillary, at 7PM Virginia is called for Hillary but Georgia is not. At 7:30PM no states are called. And at 8PM Hillary needs to get Connecticut, Florida, Maine, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania all called immediately.

And if there is truly an election rout under way, something near 15% election drubbing landslide catastrophe, then at 7PM Georgia will be called for Hillary. At 7:30PM she will get instant calls on North Carolina and Ohio. And at 8PM Missouri, Mississippi and South Carolina will be called for Hillary too.


WHY THESE SCENARIOS COULD HAPPEN

(This is the non-TV Guide part, explaining the above, and going into the weeds). First off, lets be VERY clear. This election season has been remarkably STABLE. You've probably seen polling that goes from '2% Trump lead' to '12% Hillary lead' and some polls have jumped even massively within one week. Trump has had his bizarre moments from battling with a family of a fallen war hero, to feuding with a beauty queen, to defending his reputation against a dozen women accusing him of sexual assault (and counting). He lost all three of his TV debates against Hillary. The polls seem to have been wildly up and down. Yet, if you take the AVERAGE of polling, over a bit of a longer period of time, like polls over a month, then national polling has been REMARKABLY stable, different from say 2008 the election of Obama vs McCain which had big swings in polling. The average of about 100 national polls out (in 4-way races) of the month of August, the month of September, and the month of October have all been pretty close to a 5% race. It was a 5.5% race for all national polls averaged for the month of August, it was now a 4.4% race for October. That is remarkably stable for a political race. Separate from that, are about 400 in-state polls. When those polls are weighted for their in-state population sizes (California has far more population size than Iowa) and again, averaged, we get .. a 5.2% result for a 'national' outcome of those 400 in-state polls. Any sane statistician says, its HIGHLY LIKELY that the 2016 election result will be close to a 5% result. Give or take a point, maybe two.

By all reasonable analysis and thinking, based on the MATH, the very extensive polling over several months, covering hundreds of thousands of American voters in total, give a result that is NOT SHIFTING into either a 'tight race' as most years, or into a 'blowout' race towards the end. The polling when averaged, reports a steady 5% race even now, while individual polls can be up or down from that by as much as 7 or 8 points either way. You'd have to be a pretty big fool to think all those polls were wrong and somehow a different result will come about (although I am one such fool). Understand what I am saying. Its foolish to think Trump can win this election. The data does not support it AT ALL. If you wanted the 'safe bet' for election night 2016, this is a 5% election similar to Obama vs Romney of 2012. All polling data (when averaged) is consistent with that finding. Even with 3 debate victories for Hillary and p*ssygrabbing scandal by Trump, its still a 5% race. All polling data says so. But there are Trumpsters who think the polling is WRONG.

THE TRUMP VICTORY SCENARIO IE TIGHT RACE

It is possible certainly that the polling is not accurate, and its plausible that one or more factors result in a 'Brexit surprise' or similar to say the Israel election or several other recent elections, where polling suggested a different result up to election day, and an opposite result came about. I do not see a clear Trump victory even plausible but a TIGHT RACE could happen. A race that was within 1% or even 2%, that is plausible. And then its a matter of luck on who wins that. Ask Al Gore and the Florida election recount what might happen in such an election. Gore won more votes nationally, but W Bush became President after a long and bitter Florida vote recount, and the state of Florida (won by W Bush) is what put W Bush into the White House even as Gore won more votes nationally.

Why would or could the polls be wrong? The Trump team has preached since the early Primaries, that there is a 'silent majority' that needs to be awoken, and if they show up to vote for the Republican, then the Republican wins. It sounds great. There is some math to such beliefs, but Republican statisticians and analysts like Karl Rove have debunked that as a myth. The Romney 2012 team did a Republican-district targeted mass-voter-turnout machine that significantly EXCEEDED the Republican turnout of McCain in 2008, and yet lost the election by 5% to Obama. There are SOME voters yes, that are not activated but could be. Their numbers are not big enough. Not alone. But that is a starting point for the Tight Race scenario.

A second and perhaps more plausible secret voter surge on the GOP side, is the ashamed Republican. Because Trump is to toxic, its not often an acceptable thing to pronounce to be 'a Deplorable' and to openly support Trump. This is often very peculiar in its divides, most obviously seen in the most Republican state, Utah, which now might go to Hillary because the locals - Mormons - don't like Trump, and obviously in Utah they have a local boy, Ewan McMullin - a Republican and Mormon - running as an Independent against Trump. But my point is, that some Republican voters may feel ashamed to ADMIT that they will vote for Trump, and in a poll, will say they will vote for someone else instead. A significant last-stage effort is under way by Trump, since the second debate, to try to bring those reluctant but loyal Republicans 'home' to vote for Trump, even if they don't like Trump. I think its a fair argument to make, and exit polls will tell us the truth. How many actual registered Republicans ended up voting for Trump, and is that consistent with the late polling (which suggests around 80% of Republicans would vote for Trump, roughly speaking while 90% of Democrats would vote for Hillary).

A further item that can help Trump in the election is, sadly, voter suppression. The Republicans are resorting ever more to this deplorable tactic which to me, just as an outside observer, tells me the Republicans know they can't win on the merits of their case, so they resort to trying to cheat. Ok, but we KNOW they are doing this, the Trump team bragged about three ways they are suppressing voters (of the Democrats obviously, not their own) and it may help. One of their most frightening tactics is voter intimidation with their 'poll monitoring' goon squad they are trying to set up. We may see some violence at some polling places on election day. I hope it won't come to that. 

And the last but probably not least item that could tip the race for Trump, is voter apathy on the Democratic side. If the Democrats feel they have already won, they will be less energized to show up. A low turnout election is usually good news for Republicans (like the 2014 Midterm Elections) and the stories have tinkered around, but not quite reached tipping point, of a Hillary blowout election. The Hillary team is most worried about this factor, as causing an erosion in their support, knowing that in most elections the Republicans show up more reliably than Democrats, so the Hillary side is far more vulnerable to this phenomenon.

Any one of those alone is not enough to tip a 5% election into a 0% election that could go either way, but a combination of the above, that could happen. And I see where the Trump team and many GOP activists find hope in any of the above arguments, to then look at recent polling mistakes, especially Trump's favorite Brexit vote (which actually is not the same polling situation, as the Brexit polls did show a departure vote as the likely outcome; the Brexit case, applied to the US election, actually would mean Hillary wins, but once again, Trump is the loonie with ridiculous beliefs).

Even if all of the above happened, this election cannot become a 5% victory for Trump. His best case is an election that is not decided until earliest the morning of Wednesday 9th of November and more likely, that the last few states are counted into Thursday.

HOW CAN HILLARY WIN BIG?

So the Trumpsters need hope and they have cooked up some plausible yes, but totally unrealistic hopes for how they might steal this election. Now lets look at reality and the other side. Why might 5% polling be wrong, by UNDERCOUNTING the final result that Hillary gets. Why might she do BETTER than 5%? And here we have too many reasons to even properly discuss, but I will try to do the most relevant items. Lets start with the autopsy.

In 2012 Romney lost by 5%. The Republican party led by Reince Priebus did a written thorough analysis of why he lost, and how the Republican party can avoid a similar 5% loss in the next election ie this one for 2016. It was widely distributed into the public domain, so this is no secret. In 2012 the GOP learned what went wrong and decided it will need to be better with women voters. It needs to be better with minority voters (blacks and Hispanics). It famously calculated that as Romney lost the Hispanic vote by getting only 27% of it, the GOP will not be able to win the White House in 2016 unless it gets 40% of Hispanic vote - because also the Hispanic voter group is the fastest-growing voter block. They also said they have to build a modern data-driven voter system similar to what Obama had built in 2012, and what Romney's rush-job attempted to match but fell far short. We know what it takes for the GOP to win the White House. The doctor has spoken. Since then? The DEMOCRATS have done all that. The Republicans? They have done literally the opposite of all that. They have continued wars on women, on blacks, on Hispanics and Trump even said he doesn't believe in data, so his campaign didn't even TRY to build something to the level of Romney's modest system of 2012, far less the data juggernaut Obama built that now Hillary has.

So the REPUBLICAN PARTY, I do not mean Trump. I mean the PARTY in the last 4 years, has deliberately sabotaged its chances with women, blacks and Hispanics. This while the Democrats have worked to appeal to all those groups. Even the 'generic' Republican loses on those issues against any Democrat, before we add Trump and Hillary into the mix. How much is this worth? Is it worth one point in a general election? i don't know. I am CERTAIN that if Romney ran again now, he would reach less than 47% of the vote, simply because in the past 4 years, the Republicans have made war with these voter groups and at the same time, the Democrats have served those groups. Note that if you take all women (including Hispanics & blacks) and add black men and Hispanic men, then out of the 2012 electorate, thats 65% of the voters! As Lindsay Graham said, there are not enough angry white men for the Republicans to win without minorities and women. Its mathematically impossible. I recognize Republicans hate math, but I deal with numbers on this blog and numbers are my buddies. The math is brutal. If you don't IMPROVE over these groups, better than what Romney did, you CANNOT win. And you will lose by more than Romney did, ie the loss will be bigger than 5%. How much bigger, who knows. But it will be bigger. That is math. Its not wild speculation, its not hyper partisanship. Its math.

Now here is where it gets worse. Trump is the most toxic candidate ever to run, for women, for Hispanics and for blacks. Just take the black vote. Mitt Romney, a white man, ran against A BLACK SITTING PRESIDENT and got 8% of the black vote. Trump is polling at 4% of the black vote - while Trump, another white man is running against a WHITE woman! This is catastrophic. Trump is getting only HALF of what Romney did, and Romney ran against a popular BLACK sitting President!!! 

So as far as a demographic voting gap, Trump does worse than Romney with blacks, worse with Hispanics and worse with women. Again, there are not enough white angry men to compensate. This is a lost election - AND the result will be WORSE than 5%. How much worse, that we don't know. But if you plug in the polled support of women, blacks and Hispanics to a 2012 election voter turnout model, adjusted for the natural growth/increase now in Hispanics, the result just by those measures is a double-digit election. When you find a 9% or 12% polling result that has about the right share of blacks and Hispanics. If you find a 1% or 3% polling result, that has VERY suspicious levels of black or Hispanic (or women) voters; and/or you don't GET the cross-tabs!! I am looking at you, Rasmussen! Their results are always quirky at best, and anecdotal evidence says Rasmussen has ridiculous cross-tabs like Trump winning 17% of black voters haha. Demographics are destiny in politics and Trump is destined to lose more than by 5%. Because of ... math. You did not learn this from me. You learned this from Reince Priebus four years ago when he did the Romney autopsy and said, you have to IMPROVE the standing with women, blacks and Hispanics or you cannot win. Instead the Democrats did all that, even nominated a woman, and the Republicans did the opposite, including nominating the man with the worst gender gap ever measured, the worst support of blacks ever measured and the worst support of Hispanics, ever measured in any election, ever. This man will lose by more than 5%. Its not what I think. Its what Reince Priebus wrote in what could be the preview-autopsy of 2016 as well. Its like listening to your doctor after the heart attack. He says, stop smoking, do regular exercise, and eat healthy foods. Then you lock yourself in your bedroom, order junk-food in, and chain-smoke all day. If you wanted to do a study of 'this is the comprehensive list of things you should not do as a politician' - Trump 2016 campaign is that case study. Donald Trump to 2016 elections is what Stephen Elop of Nokia was to being a CEO of a Fortune 500 sized company. It was a case study of 'everything conceivable that you could possibly do wrong' and how badly it will hurt you. Trump will lose by more than 5%, the question is, by how much more.

And here, I want to say the polls DO support this view. Except you then have to do that despicable thing of 'unskewing' the polls. If you run a polling sample with 75% or 80% white voters, sure you'll get a tight election finding. Except that in 2016 the minority vote will be 30%. Everybody KNOWS this. Why are pollsters showing us 75% or 80% white poll results? But yeah. I honestly do believe, that even without any polls, Reince Priebus in 2012 warned, that if you make matters WORSE with blacks, Hispanics and women, you can't win. I am certain Trump will lose by more than 5%. There is no conceivable logic by which blacks, Hispanics or women could love Trump more than they hated Romney. And those voters account for 65% of the total electorate!

GOTV EFFORT

The second, partly related item, also from the Autopsy, was the data system developed by Obama. The Romney campaign rush-built a database to help them drive up voter turnout. It worked. They pushed voter turnout up by half a percent. They took essentially what was supposed to be a less than 1% election win for Obama, into what was supposed to then become a razor-thin, slim sliver of a 0-point-something slightest advantage for Romney. The Romney team up to the afternoon of election day in 2012 honestly believed that they were winning - because their system was WORKING. They DID boost their turnout! It was only late in the afternoon that they were able to see how much the opposition was steamrolling them with their monster machine. It was built in a radical new database technology called 'Big Data', that had never been used in elections before. It cost Obama 100 million dollars to build, it was their largest election expenditure, it was built over 18 months with 120 data scientists. And it crushed the modest Romney machine. The Obama machine boosted Democratic turnout by 4.5% It cancelled out the 0.5% advantage the Romney machine gave, and then crushed the whole election, turning a 1% nail-biter election into a clear 5% victory for Obama. This blog studied that technology as it was deployed and reported repeatedly about it at that time. We have the definitive treatises of those issues on this blog up to this day, the most detailed descriptions and measurements in the public domain. This blog is sited in numerous books about those political data system ratings and statistics.

Again, do not take my word for it. Reince Priebus in his 2012 Autopsy said, the Romney machine was too weak, the Obama machine bested them, and the GOP has to build a new Big Data based super-data system similar to Obama's, for 2016. Or they can't win. And we saw how the serious expert candidates with proper serious campaigns, started on this journey in 2015. Jeb Bush started building this type of system. So did Scott Walker, and so did Ted Cruz. And Trump did not. Trump said, he doesn't believe in data. This is again, the doctor after the heart attack says, you need to get more exercise. And the patient who used to do some walking and bicycling and swimming, now instead stops it all, and locks himself in bed and eats cheeseburgers every day. Trump did EXACTLY the OPPOSITE of what helped Obama win and what was worth 4.5% in the 2012 election !!!!!! And again, don't take my word on this. The Campaign Manager for Ted Cruz (note, not his DATA boss, his overall Campaign boss) said that their data system would deliver between 2% and 5% more voters on the primary season election days than what they otherwise would have gotten. Inspite of this, obviously Cruz lost, but the point is, that the data system works. It can power a modern GOTV effort that can be as strong as 5% and at LEAST 2% in the final outcome. Especially if the other side isn't deploying one like it.

Now consider Hillary. She didn't just take Obama's system and use it. She has BUILT her campaign AROUND it. Everything is driven through it. And she EXPANDED that system by 60 million dollars and 80 data scientists working on it for another year. Its not just that they have the same race. Its like in the Second World War, when the Germans introduced the world's first jet fighter plane, the Messerschmitt Me 262 Swallow. It was a devastating fighter against propeller-driven planes. But the Americans and British were able to fight it with their fastest propeller-driven planes, to some degree. Some American P51 Mustangs and some British De Havilland Mosquitos - their fastest planes - were able to shoot down some Me 262 jets. Now imagine after the war, one side decides to build even faster and better jets for the next generation - like the Korean War era Mig 15 and North American Sabre jets. And the other side - decides, no, we don't believe in airplanes at all. We don't even bother using those fast propeller-driven planes. Airplanes are for losers...

I did not invent the idea that US elections are won in the data wars. Reince Priebus warned in 2012 that the GOP has to build a system as powerful as Obama's or they can't win the White House. Well, once again, what did the Hillary Team do? They did exactly what the GOP Autopsy said. They EXPANDED their super data system. And what did Trump do? He went AGAINST the recommendations of his doctor and chose to live without data systems altogether. Now, to be fair, its a bit of an exaggeration. We found out that Ted Cruz was renting his system out to Trump and there is a modest data effort - but this is not a GOTV system built to power the election turnout. Its a fringe use of data. Its meaningless. And Hillary has fully embraced data, Robbie Mook her Campaign Boss lives by it.

How much is this worth? If it was worth 4.5% in 2012, and it has been expanded now, and all those lessons were learned and new systems built to more fully capitalize on this power? Its AT LEAST as much. Its probably more. Is it 5% or 6% or 8%, you make that call. But what of Trump? In 2012 Romney spent dozens of millions in his rush-job to try to build a counterpart. And that neutralized a tiny fraction of the gains to Obama, bring the Obama machine net result down from 4.5% to 4% for Election Day. This time Trump has no answer to the Hillary data systems driving their GOTV effort.

Understand next, that this CANNOT be measured in POLLING. It is by definition GOTV effort BEYOND the polls. Until the two sides reach parity on this (likely happens in 2020) where they cancel each other out, then one side gets a GAIN beyond polls. Like in 2012 Obama outperformed the last polls by yes, 4%. I am 100% certain that this year, because Trump doesn't have a countering effort, Hillary will get BETTER than 4% boost to her actual election-result, over what the average of her last polling says, on the weekend of Nov 4-6. This power has been MEASURED. We've measured it here on this blog, Ted Cruz's team measured it in this year's primary race. But note, these effects are not 'cumulative' with the above, they are partially OVERLAPPING with the demographics issue I discussed before. Much of the GOTV effort driven by these data systems will be aimed at DEMOGRAHIC groups. So its kind of difficult to say exactly at what point one benefit starts and the other benefit ends. But certainly their combined effort is enough to turn a 5% election suggested by latest polls, into a 10% double-digit landslide result on election day. That much is certain. How much above that, who knows? We'll see soon enough. I am 100% certain, this election will not be a 5% election, its a far better result for the Democrats.

VOTER SURGE

We get to another aspect that almost nobody talks about, but I wrote about in 2014, in my first preview of Hillary's election victory that was back then still two years into the future. I said she will bring with her, a historic voter surge. I was clear, that I did not mean gender gap. She will have a historic gender gap too. This was certain when the Republicans stupidly did not nominate a woman against Hillary. Imagine if the Republicans instead of Donald Trump had Condi Rice or Susana Martinez or Nikki Haley as their candidate. Then there would be no gender gap, and women (and men) would make their choices irrespective of the gender of the candidate. I did mention in 2014, that this voter surge matter, as distinct from gender gap, was dependent on the Republicans nominating a man. As they did. And then it doesn't matter if its Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or John Kasich or Rand Paul or Donald Trump. If one side has the first-ever woman, and the other side has another man, then there will be one-time-unique surge in voters - women. A SURGE, as distinct from a gender GAP. This surge is ONLY women, who are NOT politically involved or interested, who normally would probably not show up to vote, but who will show up this one time because they get to vote for the first-ever woman President. It has a novelty factor to it. There are plenty of various feminist groups who will be energized by this historic occasion and it will drive also many Republican women to desert their party to vote for the Democrat, because she's the first woman. And please do not misunderstand me. This is not the MAIN reason why women vote! I am talking about DISINTERESTED voters, who normally would be very unlikely to show up to vote. But now, for this historic occasion, they will have a SURGE. It is inevitable.

We have EVIDENCE of this from the only similar incident in the past. When the blacks had their chance to vote for the first black President, their vote surged in 2008 for Obama. A significant surge in normally-not-voting blacks showed up for 2008. This phenomenon WILL happen now. And we have the first EVIDENCE of it for the 2016 election - from as study of the first 10 million votes cast by early voting, studied by NBC (they can't open the votes, but they can count who voted). They noted a significant increase in FEMALE vote. The turnout of early votes was 54% women while recent elections had 53% of women voting. Note if voter BALANCE has grown by 1% for women, it means men are ALSO down by 1% ie instead of 47% men its now 46% men - as this is driven by a surge, it means 2% total vote is an increase of women. Now as women are roughly half of total voters, that 2% actual surge, is 2% of 50% meaning a 4% SURGE in female vote. Yes, I told you in 2014, that Hillary will have a tidal wave election because only her candidacy in 2016 will ever trigger the largest voter segment to surge - ie women. Men don't find any novelty in another man running and there are more women than men to begin with. How big will this be in the end? Who knows, but it suggests women voters early on are surging at 4% level, meaning 2% of the actual electorate are bonus Hillary voters (some who will vote for the other woman, Jill Stein the Green Party but none of these surge voters are voting for Trump or Johnson).

Note this will NOT BE measured by polling. The pollsters will design polling instruments that EXPLICITLY prevent measuring this type of event. The pollsters NEED a balanced polling instrument (survey) and they will ASSIGN a ratio of women to men. So lets say the pollster does a 1,000 person survey. They say we want to see 53% women, 47% men. They will tell their field workers to STOP interviewing women, when they pass 530 women surveyed, and only interiew men to get to 1,000. Or conversely, if they first reach their male voter polling target (470 men) they tell the pollsters to stop interviewing men and now only interview women, to get to the 1,000 interview target. Add a bit of fuzzy math to it, a few person over or under, it might be 537 and 463 or it might be 524 and 476 but thats how they do it. The pollsters will EXPLICITLY prevent this type of surge from BEING MEASURED. Its why the black vote of 2008 was under-counted (and again under-counted in 2012). It requires a 'leap of faith' and inserting the pollster/analyst JUDGMENT over the measured facts. Its anti-thetical to the very process. They won't be measuring for this, by traditional polling that we see reported. Someone like Pew or Gallup MIGHT do a SEPARATE study of what un-interested voters intend to show up this time because its Hillary Clinton, but that is not the polling we get reported and measured. And this type of BEHAVIOR is nearly impossible to measure anyway, because it depends so much on the mood so close to election day. And then haha, yes, this will be accelerated by the GOTV effort on the Hillary side. They know this is coming, they have tools to push it.

As I said, this was seen for the first time ever, in 2008. We see it NOW in the early voter data. But it is a surge in women voters that is not captured into polling data. So a 5% poll is not accurately reporting the SURGE side of women voters - that goes utterly disproportionately to Hillary, not to Trump. So even modest numbers will alter the result. We know this is happening, but we don't know exactly how big it is.

And that brings me to the other voter surge. I predicted a Hispanic surge, driven by Hillary's selection of VP which I thought would be Julian Castro. I was wrong, obviously. And early voter enthusiasm data from July suggested the Hispanic voter enthusiasm for Democrats was below where it was four years before. That has changed not because of the Clinton campaign, its changed because of Trump. As Donald Trump has waged his wars on Hispanics, especially the Deportation Force, dealing with Cuba and Fidel Castro and the continued racist remarks up to Bad Hombre, Trump has activated a Hispanic anger against himself and also against all Republicans. There is a surge of Hispanic voters that is perhaps through luck in part, captured by the Democrats for 2016. They were in the right place at the right time. It doesn't hurt Hillary that she spent an early part of her political career helping get Hispanic voters registered in Texas, and that her VP Tim Kaine speaks fluent Spanish and spent a year as a missionary in Honduras. But the big Hispanic wave is driven by a hatred of Donald Trump. We do have voter data on this. Florida has reported its final voter registration numbers as the voter registration period has ended in the state. Black voter registrations were flat, white registrations were down, Hispanic voter registrations are up. That is a surge. How big a surge, who knows. It will not impact nationally, but very troubling for Republicans, it impacts disproportionately Southern swing and red states (where Obama's black wave impacted more NorthEastern states that tend to be blue like New York, Illinois and Michigan). A Hispanic surge doesn't need to be big to crush Trump in Florida, Colorado, Nevada, and give Arizona and possibly even yes, Texas (when combined with other effects like surge in female voters) to Hillary.

The Hispanic voter surge is NOT captured in polling. Look at any of the major polls published, that give cross-tabs. They don't have Hispanics anywhere near 12% of the national vote. But as the Hispanic wave started to build, the IN-STATE polls all shifted rapidly away from Trump and to Hillary, like Florida, like Colorado, like Nevada and like Arizona (and Texas became incredibly competitive).

FOUR WAY ELECTION AND TRUMP CEILING

We have another issue that nobody deals with. In any normal year, whether its a 2 way race or the rare third party race like we had Ross Perot in 1992, but what the polls say leading up to the election - with a significant percentage of voters undecided, and the final result - the SPLIT in the vote, will be SIMILAR to the polls with or without undecided voters. Because in almost all years, the campaigns and candidates run professional efforts and try to win in the middle. So if the poll say the race is 50% and 40% with 10% undecided, so a 10% race that ends up very near 55/45 final election result, which is ALSO a 10 point result. In most years, the undecided vote is split roughly evenly, yes often one side picks up more than the other but still, roughly evenly. A 10 point race could turn into a 7 point final result or a 13 point final result but in almost all years the candidates on both sides will pick up at least part of the undecided vote.

This year that is not happening. Trump has built an ironclad armored ceiling to his support, roughly at 40%. He is at 41.6% today according to RCP. Those who like Trump, they really love him. Most of the nation hates him. He will get his supporters to show up, even if he shoots someone on 5th Avenue, as he said. But the rest of the nation will not vote for Trump. And normally, if it was a 2-person race, then Trump would get plenty of the 'hold their noses' voters, who just hate Hillary more. Except that this year there are two reasonably-viable third-party candidates in Johnson and Stein. So those Republicans who are truly disgusted by Trump, who will not vote for Trump, don't have to. They have a 'safe' choice to vote for Johnson instead. This is not a vote 'for' Hillary but it IS a vote that Trump cannot win.

This means that the NORMAL polling CALCULATION is wrong. Normally we assume the undecided vote will split, roughly in the same ratio as the polling. Let me illustrate this by simple example. Taking RCP average today, 4-way race. Hillary 45.0%, Trump 41.6%, Johnson 5.0%, Stein 2.1% and undecided 6.3%.  RCP average reports the race today at 3.4%. Now lets allocate the undecided vote the normal, sensible, in-every-other-year way, proportionately. It suggests a final election result of 48.0% for Hillary, 44.4% for Trump, 5.3% for Johnson and 2.2% for Stein. What now shows up as a 3.4% polling result, would then turn into a 3.6% election result. That is a FAIR way to interpret ANY normal election year, where all candidates TRY to win. Where the candidates TRY to appeal to the middle. Where the candidates DO NOT try to alienate all voters they don't already have.

Now consider the alternative. We know the polling says 6.3% is undecided. But what if those have said, I don't know which of the last 3 I pick, I do know it will not be Trump.... I think a LOT of the undecided voters feel this way. Not necessarily all, but by far most of them feel that way. Trump is HATED by 60% of the nation. So now lets allocate the 6.3% among only the 3 remaining non-Trump candidates, and give it proportionately to them. Now the SAME polling result gives an ELECTION result of 50.4% for Hillary, 41.6% for Trump, 5.6% for Johnson and 2.4% for Stein. Instead of 3.6% final election result, it becomes 8.8% for Hillary instead!

I am certain this dynamic is happening in the minds of last voters. Not all of them. Some will be willing to consider Trump. But for many remaining undecided voters, they will not consider Trump. He has shot them out as an option. Because of his divisive campaign. No other recent major-party politician has ever done this since the 1960s. And because it IS a four-way race, that means Trump cannot pick up 'his share' of the undecided voters. How much will this impact election day? You be the judge, but it will. Trump has consistenly under-performed last day voters in the primary race - and those were Republicans! These undecided voters are independents who really hate his sick ideas. And again, the reason most politicos don't talk about this, is that this never happens. You don't get a sick psycopath running a sick campaign whose sole purpose seems to be to self-destruct. If you looked at the total Trump campaign from June 2015 to now, October 2016, and examined it from a purpose of 'how to best destroy the Republican party'  then yes, Trump's behavior is consistent with that goal. it is NOT consistent with trying to win a national election.

STEALTH REPUBLICAN WIVES VOTE FOR HILLARY

Lets take one more. The polls do clearly measure that more Republicans are willing to vote for Hillary than Democrats willing to vote for Trump (usually this is about one in ten voters on either side). The 'Hillary Republicans' as they will be known, are mostly national security minded and women. She has unprecedented level of senior Republican and conservative experts, pundits, current and former politicians who have endorsed her, not to mention nearly unanimous newspaper editorial endorsements including every major conservative newspaper. This voter segment is already 'baked in'. It is measured and factored into that 5% race (like today's RCP polling average saying its a 3.4% race). But there is a new, and mostly un-reported 'stealth' Hillary voter segment too, hidden inside Republican voters who will not show up in polling. It is the wives of Republican men in very conservative often Evangelical households, in often rural areas and in red states. Women some who like Hillary or find her at least palatable. Others who just hate Trump and what he stands for. Many who vote against him as a revenge against sexually abusive behavior by men in their backgrounds. These women often will not admit even to their own husbands that they will vote for Hillary (and may well vote Democratic this time, all the way down the ticket too). We had an interesting anecdotal piece of evidence from a Hillary campaign worker, reporting from a visit to a Republican household. The husband opened the door. When the Hillary worker wanted to talk to the wife, the husband said, we are both voting for Trump and didn't let the worker meet he wife. But the wife then called the campaign worker to say, actually she will be voting for Hillary.

There is that very 'authoritarian' element to Trump supporters, where they obey, where the man is the head of the household and the women are subservient. This is also typical of many older, rural, and Evangelical households. And the women are rebelling. They can do it privately, without the husband knowing, by voting for Hillary instead of Trump. And the sexual groping issue has suddenly arisen an anger among these women, something their husbands (and religious leaders - nearly all men) often cannot comprehend. There will be these 'stealth' women voters and I will predict this - their vote will not even be accurately measured in the exit polling. Because they will often be so secretive about it, they won't admit it to anyone. BUT when the exit polling data is compared to actual election results, there will be discrepancy where the actual Democratic vote will be a bit bigger than the exit polls suggested - and that is mostly this stealth voter behavior. The pain here is, that any SWITCHED vote from Republican to Democrat mathematically counts twice. If the voter just stays home (doesn't vote) or is a surge voter (added voter) or goes to vote for a third party candidate, that counts as one vote. But when voters swich, from Republican to Democrat (or vice versa) that is both a reduction on your side AND an increase in the opposition. Again, a relatively modest amount here is still significant in the final count.

There are other factors also that will matter, but these I think are the big ones. There are real reasons, mostly measured reasons, why the behavior of the election results will not match the polling data. Almost all of those signal a big Hillary wave hidden in polls that tell a story of a tight race. The Democrats don't mind this, they need a big voter turnout to flip the Senate and try to flip the House.

EFFECTS MAY PARTIALLY CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT

There are four semi-valid ways that the current polling might be hiding better Trump performance. And at the same time, there is nearly certainly better Hillary performance, often measured performance, that goes into the opposite direction, suggesting polls may be off. I think its safe to say for whatever Trump gains there may be, they would be more-than-offset by Hillary gains. But also, that Hillary gains MAY be partially cancelled out by the simultaneous Trump gains, We really won't know. We will know on election night. And this guide will help you figure out early, which way it goes.

I am certain the demographics, the GOTV effort with the Big Data based super-powerful database system, the female voter surge, the Hispanic voter surge, the Trump solid approx 40% ceiling and the stealth GOP voters, will result in at least a 5% election polling becoming a double-digit election result. I have predicted a double-digit result for Hillary since my first preview of this election I wrote exactly two years ago, on 30 October of 2014 and in each of my updates since. Even as the daily polling suggested momentarily even that Trump was 'leading' the race, I said he wasn't. I said its a double-digit rout. My current final election forecast from two weeks ago, said the election will end up 16% for Hillary. That is the 'Rout' scenario in this TV Guide. But we will not know until November 8. Thanks to this blog, we will know soon. If both Virginia and Georgia are called at 7PM on Tuesday night November 8, then yes, Hillary is headed to a massive double-digit election blowout. And you heard it here first. Also, I told you here, well in advance, what to look for. If I am wrong, we will know already at 7PM on Tuesday, if Virginia is called but Georgia is not, then its not a rout. Its still a big Hillary win. If neither is called but Kentucky is called for Trump, then its a modest Hillary win of about 5%. And if both Kentucky and Indiana are called for Trump, then I've been a ridiculous fool and the election is headed to a nail-biter finish.

And lastly, if you're as sick-and-tired of the orange buffoon as most of us are, then why not sit back, relax, and laugh at the Trumpster with a joke book? Yes, 1001 jokes about Trump! I wrote the book as my alter-ego, The Seventh Steve, which has been pestering Trump on Twitter with more than 3,000 insults and jokes thrown at Trump and his minions on Twitter and countless more in various online ways I put the best jokes into TRUMP vs the Seventh Steve: 1001 Jokes about the Alleged Presidential Candidate. I even show free pages with lots of the jokes at the book website here.

Comments

[steve]

thank you for being in the weeds for election night data.
PhD level material, you should be proud.

NC and FL are the rout indicators for me, because of new voters registered there by the Dems.

But I agree that GA, VA, and KY , IN will indicate the degree of the win.

I intend to finish my Oban single malt by 9. ;)

With the Comey kerfuffle, I need to see if I have enough xanax for the next 8 days. ;)
s/e

[Wayne Borean]

Posted this in one of the older threads, where folks might not have seen it. Tomi has added it above, but you really should read the article.

Then consider what you are going to do if you live in such an area, or in such a household, and are LGBTQ (like 3 to 5% of the population). Yep, you'll pretend to be a Trump fan, and in the voting booth go Democrat.

Add in those who have Black, Hispanic, or First Nations ancestry not too far back, and look 'White'.

I have no idea what the numbers are, so we don't know how big of an impact this will have. Guess we'll find out in just over a week.

Possibly some of you have heard of Marie Claire magazine. It isn't on my reading list (though it may have been on Catriona's), but a woman blogger who covers the Evangelical movement posted this link.

The article is about those women who live in Deep Red states, and who are rebelling against their husbands, and also against the local culture. While the information is anecdotal, I've seen too many other articles saying the same thing, so I suspect there is a solid grain of truth to it.

The real numbers are impossible to pin down, as many of these women live in households where they are expected to follow their husband's or father's orders as to voting.

Can you imagine a Red state where the white vote splits down the middle? That probably won't happen, but with the number of states which are close, it is possible this could cause a lot of damage to Trump.

http://www.marieclaire.com/politics/a23149/the-secret-hillary-clinton-voters/

[Wayne Borean]

Talking about how racist Trump is, and how racists totally love him...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/richard-spencer-trump-alt-right-white-nationalist

[Eduardo M]

As Tomi explains, the Republican autopsy after the 2012 election said they should appeal to latinos, but the had done the exact opposite.

I have a question about that. In the 2000's the Republicans were split on latino immigration, with many, including J Bush Jr supporting a path to citizenship for illegals. Then at some point (2008?) there was a change where suddenly almost all Republicans became militantly anti-immigrant.

Does anyone know how this happened, and why? Was there some secret meeting, and why did the whole party unite around this political policy and strategy? Has some journalist published a report it?

[Twinsdad9901]

Eduardo: Obama was for it, so...

[Winter]

The Nature magazine has a nice edotorial endorsing Hillary:

Hillary Clinton will make a fine US president
And not only because she is not Donald Trump.
http://www.nature.com/news/hillary-clinton-will-make-a-fine-us-president-1.20823?cookies=accepted

[Millard Filmore]

@Eduardo, @Twinsdad9901: "Obama was for it, so..."

I believe this has become known as "Cleek's Law"

“Cleek’s law” is actually a restatement of a Groucho Marx-ism: “Whatever he’s for, I’m against it!” (“Horsefeathers,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtMV44yoXZ0)

http://ok-cleek.com/blogs/?page_id=18788

As Groucho sings:
"As I've said
since the day
that I commenced it ...
... I'm against it!"

[Winter]

@Millard, @Eduardo, @Twinsdad9901: "Obama was for it, so..."

I think the comment already said it:
"Then at some point (2008?) there was a change where suddenly almost all Republicans became militantly anti-immigrant."

This was the rise of the Tea Party. The Tea Party rose as a reaction of the "Nativist" (=racist) faction against the election of a black president. That nativist are against all emigration is part of their definition and raison d'etre. Nativism is to the USA, what Apartheid was to South Africa.

[Winter]

Some Sense:

Reaction to the Hillary/Weiner Email ‘Bombshell’ is Hilarious, Hypocritical, & Predictable
http://www.mediaite.com/online/reaction-to-the-hillaryweiner-email-bombshell-is-hilarious-hypocritical-predictable/

"To me, you have to remain at least somewhat consistent in your narrative for it be credible, and conservatives especially have been all over the place with Comey. Unless he is some sort of schizophrenic, their theory, what there is of one (Rush Limbaugh theorized today that this is both a conspiracy to help Hillary as well as one to get on Trump’s good side before he is elected!) simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny."

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Eduardo & Winter

Yeah on the immigration reform. Great question. So the 'sensible' Republicans understood that they had to 'be nice' to Hispanics or lose them like they have lost the black vote. So the black vote was lost in the 1960s and has voted for Democrats by about 90% ever since. It means for non-black Americans, the Republicans have to win 55/45 just to get to 50/50 final election result. This is dumb. But the racist wing of the Republicans achieved this in the 1960s against the blacks and had never been able to win those voters back (the Republicans USED to be the PARTY of blacks, by a big margin, up to the 1950s). The GOP treatment of Obama had only angered the newer black voters even more, who would be too young to ever remember the violence of the 1960s.

So yeah, as Winter said, the Tea Party was part of it. The Tea Party came into view in the 2010 mid-terms when the Republicans took over the House. It was strongly fueled by anti-Obama hate on the right wing and received a lot of convenient Koch money in the freshly made Citizens United decision, which allowed suddenly enormous amounts of money from 'dark sources' = Koch brothers to flood the mid-term elections, making Republican candidates wash with cash, to bury Democratic rivals in TV ads and help create that wave election which too the gavel from Nancy Pelosi. The 2012 Presidential election (Romney loss) was the first that the Tea Party witnessed as a 'political power' and they didn't like to be lectured on how to run their country or their party. So the autopsy met immediate objection by the Tea Party, already in 2012.

But the Republicans joined with Democrats in the SENATE to create a compromise by what was known as the 'Gang of Eight'. It was created by a bunch of compromise-oriented older experienced Senators on both sides who honestly wanted to solve this issue, with Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin on the Democrats and John McCain and Lindsay Graham on the Republicans; who then got a few younger Senators to join, most famously.. Marco Rubio on the Republicans. This legislation was to provide a 'pathway to citizenship' for undocumented aka 'illegal' foreigners living in the USA. They would not get instant 'amnesty', they would have to pay some fines etc, but they wouldn't be deported either. And this way the illegals could come out of the shadows, join the society and not live in fear. And everybody could live happily ever after.

So four Republican Senators and four Democratic Senators - when the DEMOCRATS held the Senate - agreed to this and were going to get it approved. Along came a Tea Party Congress, now in the fresh new Congress where John Boehner was the new House Speaker, and the Tea Party screamed 'Amnesty, amnesty!' and the Tea Party torpedoed the legislation. Now, if John Boehner had been any sort of real leader and understood what the nation needed and what his party needed too, he would have put the Gang of 8 law onto a vote in the Congress. All Democrats and at least a quarter of Republicans (most of the non-Tea Party Republicans in Southern states most definitely) would have voted for it, in 2013, and the matter would have been over with and TODAY there would not be the dire split in Hispanics where 18% nationally are voting for Trump. He'd still have bad numbers but probably more like 25% not this bad. The Republican party is seen as the enemy of Hispanics and actively trying to split up their families deport their uncles and aunts and granparents - of legally US-born citizens - and the Democrats are the only friends trying to prevent this from happening.

The power to the hysteria is the Tea Party wing of the Republicans. It was already part of the nationalistic xenophobic racist elements of the Tea Party in the 2010 wave that brought them into Congress but the anger from just being anti-black to being more broadly also anti-brown, that was accelerated by the Gang of 8 'amnesty' law and its backlash. Incidentally, Marco Rubio's calculation in 2013 was that the Gang of 8 law would help Rubio become the first Hispanic President in 2016.. The law which had so strong bypartisan support in the Senate, from Schumer to McCain - would definitely pass in a Democratic-controlled Senate - and then he, Rubio, could refer to this big achievement when he would run to become the first Hispanic President partly powered by the new enlightened Republican Party that would be winning something near 50/50 of Hispanic voters to begin with, and with Rubio on the top of the ticket (against a white woman) he'd actually get to 70% or more of the Hispanic vote - because of his heroism in voting for the Gang of 8 law, even as a Republican, because it was the right thing to do, putting the nation ahead of politics.. Sounded like a good plan back in 2013.

There is a really nasty element to the Tea Party, the nationalists, the KKK and Nazis, the Alt-Right White Supremacists (Pepe the Frog etc). And it is strongly fuelled by the Koch Brothers money who promised to pour 900 million dollars into this election until they saw it will be Trump who was going to be a rogue cannon they - Kochs - couldn't control (and someone they, the Kochs also probably despise). So instead, the Kochs have been funding down-ticket campaigns to ensure they - Kochs - have still power in 2017, especially as the Tea Party is kind of the Koch Brothers private political party. If Citizens United is killed either by a new Supreme Court or by legislation if Democrats can take both the Senate and the House (House now, or in 2018, or in 2020) then the Koch Brothers power base with the Tea Party collapses. BUT up to then, they are propping up their thugs and the longer they stay in Congress, the harder they will be to dislodge because they also have all their other nasty money-grubbing gambits going on with other nice little lobbyists who can fund them and help them stay in power..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Following up on Eduardo's question

So haha, first, I loved the 'was there a secret meeting'.. I love the idea... Did I miss the memo? Was there a secret meeting that I forgot to attend, where my party decided its not enough the blacks hate us, we now will also make the Hispanics hate us? So now 25% of the country will not vote for us?

And I am sure you know Eduardo, that 'type' of meeting did happen in 2009, just as Obama was about to be sworn into office, the Republican leadership including Mitch McConnell leader of the minority in the Senate back then, and John Boehner, leader of the minority of the House back then, plus other Republican leaders like Paul Ryan, came together to decide, they will block everything Obama does. They will not agree to anything on the princples of 'bipartisanship' even if it meant that Obama gave them 75% of what they wanted and took only 25% in the compromise for Democrats. Remember, this mad strategy was announced when the Democrats had control of the Senate and House, and were about to get their President.

There is always a 'honeymoon period' for a new President, when they are highly popular freshly-elected first-term President, and then the opposition in Congress will 'go along' with the new Presiden't mission(s) because of a 'national mandate' from the just-ended election. In 2009 the Republican party decided that there will be no honeymoon period and no legislation will get Republican votes, and they will just obstruct everything.

They honestly feared that Obama with his post-partisan rhetoric would enact a series of very moderate laws, end the unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, close Guantanamo, give citizenship to then-11 million undocumented foreigners, see the end of the great recession so Obama would inherit the corresponding 'great recovery' that was inevitable - and because all of this - he'd be a darned great President to begin with. Then he'd do his Obamacare healthcare miracle for Americans (with a REPUBLICAN idea, stolen from then-Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts) - and Obama would be the single most popular politician in US history, and they would have to put his face on Mt Rushmore.

They literally feared that fact, they feared that Obama's face would be put on Mt Rushmore (where they felt Ronald Reagan deserved to go). So they did hold this semi-secret meeting and after that, no matter what bipartisan proposals Obama made from his cabinet nominees to any legislation, the Republicans stood essentially steadfast and said no. It was mostly a symbolic and shaming-effort from 2009 to 2010, where Obama lost his popularity with his OWN SIDE has Obama tried repeatedly and failed to get Republicans to accept his bipartisan ideas - when the Democrats held both chambers of Congress and even briefly had a Filibuster-proof majority of Senators (60/40 majority in the Senate). And instead of Obama using this power to ram through a broad range of popular progressive/liberal leftist Democratic base ideas, Obama instead wasted all his time on several attempts of various compromises he negotiated with the MINORITY leaderships in the Congress, to get 'bipartisan' agreement to his ideas - giving stuff away for Republicans, who refused to take YES for an answer. Once Obama is dead (you can't get honest political review from both sides until after that politician has died, sadly) this period will be seen as the age of stupidity by the Republicans. They could have extracted FAR more than 'their fair share' of concessions out of Obama to feed a genuinely conservative agenda, just because Obama was so eager to get his compromises, to fulfill his promise to the US voters that he would govern as he promised, as a post-partisan President. It would also have been a beautiful ideal for the USA and the world.

Its possible that the Republican obstruction-madness might have ended in the 2010 midterms, if the Democrats had won that election; or the re-election of Obama in 2012. But when the freshly Republican-majority House came into power in 2011 after the mid-terms, with the Tea Party - that is when Washington broke down and we had the past 6 years of ridiculous gridlock. Including the govenment shut-downs and all the nonsense like now not holding hearings and a vote for a Supreme Court Justice - that both sides admit, the man is qualified. Its just obstruction for the sake of obstruction.

So the concept of a secret meeting, a kind of secret suicide-pact in fact - that does have merit. The GOP did do this, at the start of Obama's first term.

Now the last point, about the math. If currently the Democrats own the black vote (90% of it) and after 2016 they will own nearly as much of the Hispanic vote (80% of that) and about 25% or 26% of the final vote of 2016 will be black or Hispanic - it means about 22% of the nation will be 'locked Democratic' by either loyal black or loyal Hispanic voters rejecting the GOP. In that world of non-black, non-Hispanic American voters, the Republicans will now need in any national election to win... 65% of the remaining voters (which still includes several OTHER minorities that may view Republicans very suspiciously like American Indians, Asians, the gays, etc...) So instead of a tilted battlefield where you have to win 55/45 of any normal election because 90% of the black vote (about 12% of total electorate) votes against you; now after the 2016 nonsense, the Republican party has managed to tilt that game even more against themselves and would have to win the remaining vote by 65/35. That is impossible. That is why in national elections (White House) this strategy this year, and Trump, has destroyed the GOP until it fixes this illness, cures this crisis, kicks out the racists and becomes a party friendly towards minorities (and women) again.

This was not a surprise. But this is supremely stupid. Now WHY is this happening? In gerrymandered districts for CONGRESS, your party always wins. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you draw the voting districts so that your party has a natural majority in that district - it means you become 'more poisoned' by your own side. You don't HAVE to reach out to the 'other side' because there are too few of them. And it becomes a foolish thing to even try (if you happen by some accident, to be a nice human being and thinking of doing what is right for your own voters, all of them, not just those of your own party) because if the district is gerrymandered, it means that your PARTY always wins. And then if you are not 'obedient' to YOUR PARTY - then the party will nominate a MORE EXTREME rival to you, and you will be 'gerrymandered' out of office. And instead of moderate Republicans (or Democrats) we get ever more loonie extremists. This was already typical decades ago, when the famously extreme STATES would send in the extremists. The 'Massachussetts liberals' who would want us to kiss the trees and hug the climate or get free healthcare for everybody, or the equally extreme 'Wyoming gun huggers' who would want everybody to carry guns on their hips and have no speed limits on the roads and no seat belts in cars, etc. The states would breed a kind of sentiment, and the states would also ATTRACT a kind of voter and citizen, and those who didn't like it would move out - people who liked Democratic ideas would move out from the inlands to the edges where the big cities were on the coasts, etc. This all would kind of 'purify' the process and over the decades the red states became 'more red' and the blue states 'more blue'.

BUT gerrymandering brought this to the Congress (and ushered in and enabled the Tea Party). I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will strike down gerrymandering or at least severely limit it, once the 9th Justice is appointed. If not, then I am somewhat less hopeful but still hopeful that once the Democrats get hold of the House (this year, possible, if not now then 2018 possible, 2020 very likely by the latest) they will make gerrymandering illegal. It is an incredibly corrosive political method that purifies the obstruction and hatred.

Now, separate from that, the STATE legislations are likely to work against gerrymandering to some degree and the Democrats as a party, who got blind-sighted by the redistricting after the 2010 census, that gave us the current gerrymandered Congress, will respond by 2020 for the next census, and I do hope/wish we have kind of witnessed 'peak gerrymander'. BUT the peak Tea Party will linger for a good while past both 'peak Citizens United' and 'peak gerrymander' because incumbency has such strong benefits. And the Tea Party may well hold half of the Republican party after this election (they currently hold less than half). So the Republican party may be headed to even worse crisis for the next two years, than it has had in the past 6. And its possible Paul Ryan is voted out of office, he could be then replaced by a Tea Party chairman instead of what is at least a sane politician in a tough place, who has run the Republican House infested by the Tea Party better than his predecessor John Boehner managed.

If you look at how McCain ran against Obama in 2012, and how Romney ran against Obama in 2016, and compare how now Trump ran against Hillary, the TONE is vastly different 'lock her up, she should be shot' etc. This to me, signals a horrible era of vitriol and hatred and just mean-spirited politics that is headed for Hillary's first term.

I do hope that she gets a majority in the House but am afraid she won't. And as the Tea Party will have an even larger SHARE of Republican party's seats, they will obstruct her far worse than Obama got. And they'll hold all sorts of sham investigations and just make a ridiculous spectacle of Congress. That will mean for the most part, they will obstruct anything and everything that Hillary wants to get done inspite of winning a majority in the Senate. If that happens, however, then I would see the 2018 mid-terms as the year when the Democrats kick the Republicans out of the House majority and the USA can get back to some sanity in Congress too. Currently the Democrats are behind by 30 seats. But they should pick up at least 20 of those maybe 25 this time. If its down to less than 10 seats for 2018, that is something they could win, especially if the House is seen as the rotten apple of the government (and once Citizens United money has been eliminated or at least severely curtailed mostly via the Supreme Court in this scenario).

But that meeting, haha, I didn't get the memo! Was there a memo? I didn't attend the meeting where my party decided to commit political suicide!!! Haha... very funny

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Winter]

@Tomi
"So instead of a tilted battlefield where you have to win 55/45 of any normal election because 90% of the black vote (about 12% of total electorate) votes against you;"

Which explains why the Republicans want to abolish democracy altogether. If they cannot convince the voters to vote for them, the voters do not get to vote at all.

Btw, this is akin to the position of Putin et al.: Every government has the right to select the population they want.
See how the Russians are helping Assad in Syria to get rid of an unwanted populace.

[Wayne Borean]

Let's talk Gerrymandering. I'm going to use a generic state, rather than a real one because I am functioning on four hours sleep.

Our hypothetical state has a population of 10 million, of which 5 million are Republican, and 5 million are Democrats, and the state elects 10 Representatives. Under normal circumstances you'd expect to see the Representatives split evenly between the parties, but the Republicans ended up with control of the statehouse, and implemented gerrymandering.

The state government draws up District borders so that 3 million of the Democrats are in 4 districts along with 1 million Republicans, which means 4 safe Democratic districts and 6 safe Republican districts.

Then you have 6 districts that contain 4 million Republicans and 2 million Democrats. The problem is that if something weird happens which causes a shift in the electorate, the safe Democratic districts are unlikely to change party, but the safe Republican districts are more likely to swing.

Apply this to the current U.S. election where Donald Trump is the something weird. We have certain demographics which were 60% Democrat are now 80% Democrat, other demographics which may be driven to vote at far higher levels because they don't want to be grabbed by the pussy (and many already have been, and hated the experience and the misogynistic bastard who assaulted them), etc. Also you have migration so that what was once a heavily white area becomes more diverse, diluting the gerrymandering.

The numbers I gave above are examples, and while one 'safe' district might be very heavily Republican, others would be less so. That's why I think that the House is play. There are a lot of districts where a 5% vote swing would see the safe district change from Red to Blue.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Wayne

Totally agree and the math is actually even more favoring a wave election upset. Usually most gerrymandered districts are done so, to ensure MAXIMUM party advantage. So yeah you pack the opposition into districts where they outnumber your party by 8 to 2 or 9 to 1. Totally utterly solid. But YOUR districts, you arrange them to be only marginally, but consistently better, at 55/45 and at most 60/40. If you do your side like you showed, at 66/33 that gives your side less districts to grab. So where it has been done (by either side) its usually to such narrow but consistent advantages of about 55/45 and no more than 60/40 for your side.

And that means, in NORMAL elections, no problem. The party that did the gerrymandering will easily hold any surprisingly strong rival or a stupidly weak own candidate and still keep that seat. Yes, there is the occasional total freak election result but over most elections, this holds very well (see North Carolina, Michigan for example right now for very lopsided House seats vs actual votes cast). BUT because the threshold of advantage was designed to be low, only a ten or at most 20 point buffer, if you have a collapse of your side's support (or say, a Libertarian suddenly stealing your side's support); or you see a sudden erosion of part of your base of support (National Security oriented Republicans, or women, or Hispanic Republicans suddenly deserting their candidate); or you see a surge in the opposition, then this gerrymandered lock can be broken yes.

I really hope you're right Wayne. Certainly the Democrats are making a play for it. They've targeted 30 seats they think they can flip and have money and surrogates and the ground game assisting to flip those. It would be a very healthy development to get that distortion unlocked (and hopefully also outlawed) and then if the voting districts are not deliberately set into imbalance, more rational sensible moderate centrist compromise-oriented politicians can run and win in those districts again.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[sgtrock]

Let's not forget that gerrymandering is not new. It has been a problem in the U.S. for more than two hundred years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerrymandering

I have little hope that it's going to be declared illegal by the Supreme Court. There's far too much legal precedent for maintaining the practice in the U.S. Worse, whichever party in power in 2020 is going to be sorely tempted to redraw the districts yet again to benefit them. Why not? Political parties have gotten away with up until now.

[Alabama]

The irony is that the gerrymandering was introduced by Democratic-Republican Party!

[Eduardo M]

@Millard, @Twinsdad9901, @winter, @Tomi,

Very interesting discussion.

Tomi,

On the meeting to obstruct Obama after he was elected, yes I remember that, but I had forgotten that it included immigration reform.

On the gang of 8 and the tea party, that's another one I had forgotten.

Let me say some more about the republicans before the radical anti-immigration reform swing. Many republicans wanted to appeal to latinos because they saw they have conservative values like re: family and right-to-life, and so might be won over to the party.

Also many conservative businessmen, large and small, greatly valued latino workers, including illegals. And conservative economists mostly agreed that immigration is good for the economy.

It was very surprising to me that all of these groups almost overnight basically stopped saying what they believe and went along with the switch to a radically anti-immigrant policy. That makes me wonder why they decided to do that. Was it because they decided that party unity is more important than pushing the correct policy on this issue?

[Millard Filmore]

Now here is a good reason Trump is not getting good polling information.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-not-paying-pollster-tony-fabrizio

"FEC filings show that the Trump campaign is disputing a payment of more than $766,700 to pollster Tony Fabrizio's firm, as the Washington Post reported Monday afternoon. The Trump campaign also owes Fabrizio another payment of $55,300, which the campaign is not disputing, according to filings."

This polling company was hired by Manafort back in May. Maybe the company didn't show polling that had Trump winning.

[Millard Filmore]

@Eduardo M: "It was very surprising to me that all of these groups almost overnight basically stopped saying what they believe and went along with the switch to a radically anti-immigrant policy."

The groups you describe are the "responsible Republicans", and I am not sure they have really changed their position on immigration. Trump managed to push the Racist button of an astonishing number of people which brought to light that much of what the party leaders want is quite low on the priority list of their base. The voice of the "responsible Republicans" has been drowned out.

[cornelius]

@Tomi
You are saying now: "Most likely is a 5% Election."
Have you abandoned your landslide prediction? BTW Clinton is up by only 2.8 at RCP four way race. Expect this number to continue to shrink. I think by Nov 8 Clinton will be up by roughly 2 in the same race at RCP.
I predicted about two weeks ago a 7% win by Clinton. I could not foresee that Comey would endorse Trump for president, so now I have to downgrade that to a 5% win for Clinton.

@Eduardo M
I read an article about 10 years ago (sorry I don't have a link). We know that for any country the ability to pay the debt depends a lot by the size of the economy. The economy can't grow if the workforce doesn't grow. They calculated that the US needs an influx of about 150 million immigrants for the next 30 years (that as 10 years ago so 20 years left in that 30 year window) in order to keep the economy growing.