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.
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October 30, 2016
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October 20, 2016
Donald Trump LOVES my joke book with 1001 jokes about him; calls it best book ever, better than Art of the Deal; better than the Bible
This is such a great honor for me and the CDB Blog. Donald Trump has read the book already and loves it. He is even showing it at his rallies. He calls it the best book ever. He is such a great guy to be able to take 1001 jokes mocking him, and proudly show it at his rallies and declare, TRUMP vs The Seventh Steve is better than the Bible! He thinks its even better than his own book, The Art of the Deal. Well, I can't argue with that.
And we know its true, because Trump added 'believe me'. And because you saw the picture on the internet, with your own eyes. This cannot possibly be photoshopped. This has to be true. As true as Trump University.
And if you'd like to see sample pages with loads of Trump jokes, I will post one new free page out of the ebook every day until Election day. Yes, I will post 10% of the 235 page book for free, so we all get to laugh. Don't you think thats fair, and nice? If you want to see the free jokes or buy your own copy, it only costs $4.99, and see whats the new favorite book on Trump's bedside, replacing the book of Speeches by Hitler, yes Trump now laughs at 1001 jokes. See it here.
October 18, 2016
My (Probably) Final Forecast, 3 Weeks Out: 16 Point Landslide for Hillary, which appears as 12% Polling lead in last weekend
I called Trump’s Primary Race as near-perfect as one can, missing one state in the count of how many states he would win. I made my forecast in January before any state had voted and when one third of the primary states had no polling; and managed to call the exact dates even when the top rivals would quit. I got Trump’s day of clinching and even had his total vote percent nearly spot-on. Don’t say I don’t have some insight into the US election system. I also called the 2012 election so well, I missed the states that Obama won, by one. That 5 point election ended up a blowout, that looked to most pundits to be tied, or by some, even that Romney was ahead up to election day. I’ve been able to understand well the fundamentals of what decide Presidential elections. Its partly because in my day job, I am a professional forecaster of another very volatile unpredictable business, mobile telecoms, In fact, I'm the most accurate forecaster of that industry.
So this November Trump loses by a landslide. Many are NOW starting to say that's possible. When did I tell you? I told you in MARCH that Trump will lose to Hillary so badly, he will not get more than 40% of the vote! Yes. Trump at 40% or under, was what I wrote on this blog, in a VERY long, detailed essay about all the fundamentals from fund-raising to battleground states to debate skills to campaign surrogates. And the Electoral College and the demographics. I said in March that Trump will lose and will not get over 40%. Bearing in mind that Trump has even LED Hillary in some polls and as recently as last week (even if we ignore that goofy LA Times nonsense ‘poll’) thats quite a bold forecast from March.
Then we did not anticipate a strong third party run, which turned in June into Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, taking currently about 10% of the total votes, and at their peak, their combined polling was about 15%. When the third party candidates appeared, I altered my forecast and said, Hillary will win by less than 20% because of the third party votes, but Trump is still doomed to less than 40% and every one of my forecasts said its a double-digit Hillary victory. A landslide. Since July when I revised my forecast for a 4-way race instead of 2-way race, I have issued two forecast updates, first lowering Hillary’s victory from 20% in the 2-way race to 18%, and then after we saw the summer of campaigning and the first debate, down to 13% which was up to today, my standing forecast.
We did see the ‘October Surprise’ in Trump’s videotape of his p’ussygrabbing. This came after my last revision to the forecast. Its a true seismic event that we knew immediately that it will alter the race, but there was no way to know exactly by how much. We now have enough polling data after p*ssygate, that I can revise my forecast. It is Tuesday 18, October, 2016. I am writing this exactly 3 weeks before Election Day, November 8. I am calling the election to be a 16 point landslide for Hillary. I make the forecast with only one caveat: pending any further October Surprise(s). I am making the forecast before the third debate, so certain that debate will again be easily won by Hillary but that it won’t materially alter the race (from how I forecast it to end).
TOMIAHONEN CONSULTING FORECAST 2016 ELECTION As of 18 October 2016
Hillary Clinton . . . . . . . . . . 53%
Donald Trump . . . . . . . . . . 37%
Gary Johnson . . . . . . . . . . . 6%
Jill Stein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3%
Ewan McMullin & others . . . 1%
Forecast by TomiAhonen Consulting, 18 October 2016
This forecast may be freely shared
Hillary wins about 40 states including District of Columbia
Trump wins about 10 states
McMullin wins Utah
Electoral College 471 EV votes for Hillary, 61 for Trump, 6 for McMullin.
Hillary wins every battleground state Obama won in 2012, including Ohio and Iowa currently looking good or competitive for Trump. Hillary adds North Carolina.
Beyond 2012 battlegrounds, Hillary wins Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, Montana, Alaska and yes Texas. These will not be close. They will be called by the news channels well before 90% of the votes in those states are counted.
The battleground this time will be in truly red states. Trump will win 7 states easily: Wyoming, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, Idaho, North Dakota and Tennessee.
The actual long-counted ‘nailbiter’ elections which could go either way will be yes: Mississippi, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Indiana, Louisiana, South Dakota and Kentucky. I think Trump wins 3 and Hillary 5 of these 8 states that end up the close in the race.
Utah will also be close but because its a three-way race. McMullin will win his home state.
For EV nerds: Trump will not win the one EV vote out of Maine and Hillary will win the one EV vote out of Nebraska.
NOTE POLLING WILL NOT SAY THIS
I want to be very clear about this point. Currently RCP (Real Clear Politics) average of current polling has Hillary up by about 7 points in the 4-way polls. I am NOT saying that the current POLLING accurately describes what will happen. The current polling support definitely a big win for Hillary, but not a 16 point epic landslide. I have serious deep detailed analysis done over the past six months, reported on this blog many times, why I think the FINAL election result will be better for Hillary than the last polls will show.
To underline this point, I also predict that the polls released in the last 4 days before Election Day, so the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday before Nov 8, the average of those polls (when undecided voters are allocated proportionately) suggest a 12% election landslide, not a 16% final result. If you want to know why I think this, I have all my analysis explained here below in this article. But I want to be clear. The current POLLING does not show HOW BIG the actual victory will be. The current polling is not able to accurately measure all the aspects that will be in play. I believe my forecast more accurately takes those into account and I am willing to stake my reputation on it.
Thats my ‘final’ forecast, three weeks before votes were counted. I will not alter it just because some poll comes out good or bad, or the debate goes a bit better or worse, or another wikileaks story breaks or another woman tells stories about Trump. The only reason this forecast would change, is if there is another true ‘October Surprise’ again, of the scale of the sex tape (on something other than Trump sexual assaults). A terrorist attack, a health episode, a war, or a really massive scandal relating to Trump, like that someone publishes proof that Putin is funding Trump. It would have to be the kind of story that dominates the news for a week to now qualify for a ‘Second October Surprise’.
Now, the big election is for President. I will also make my forecast that the Senate will be taken by the Democrats but the House will be a very tight race that I am expecting the Republicans will prevail and hold a slim majority of only a handful seats. Of course with the White House and Senate, it also means the Supreme Court will flip its balance once Hillary nominates and the Senate approves her first Justice. If you want to know WHY I make that forecast, read on. This is for political nerds...
WHY 16 POINT LANDSLIDE
This election will be known as the one that Trump threw away. The least prepared candidate who also was the most disliked candidate, running a bad campaign, badly. The broad consensus will be that Trump lost this election. And in that shadow, Hillary’s campaign will not be given its proper due, that it is one that would have crushed any rival that the Republicans had sent up against her. While Hillary is also highly disliked as a candidate, she balances that by being the most prepared candidate ever. And that merges with a perfect campaign which was run perfectly. Hillary’s campaign is even better than Obama of 2012, and run better than Obama of 2008. This year Jeb Bush or Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz or John Kasich or Scott Walker or Chris Christie would have been steamrollered by the Hillary machine, only they would have used different methods to destroy other candidates than what they did to Trump.
So before we dig more into Trump, we have to start where the real credit is due. Hillary’s campaign is a masterpiece. I wrote all about this in my first preview of this election. Remember when I wrote that? I wrote it in October 2014 - yes exactly two YEARS ago, when I said Hillary will win by double-digit landslide. It wasn’t even official that she would RUN, and we had no idea who would end up going against her. But two years ago I wrote that she knows how to run a highly disciplined data-based professional campaign. That she is a dogged campaigner who is a brilliant debater. I warned that she was wooden and uninspiring as a public speaker - but that she would have the biggest fund-raising machine ever assembled, and she would have an unprecedented surrogate army.
I predicted back in 2014 that yes, President Obama would endorse her, she would invite him to campaign for her, he would do it; and that Obama’s POPULARITY would be above water! All bold predictions. John McCain didn’t want W Bush to campaign with him; Al Gore didn’t want Bill Clinton to campaign for him; etc. And Obama’s popularity was under water then. Yes. And Michelle? I said FLOTUS would campaign for Hillary. That was not by any means obvious. And there has never been a former first lady as powerful and popular as a surrogate as Michelle Obama is now, the most popular politician in the country.
The skill of the Hillary Campaign machine, run by Robby Mook, is best seen in the video ads they produce. Mere minutes after the end of the debates, the campaign has released first video ads featuring Trump in his latest moronic statements. Interlaced with previous nonsense he’s said. And those ads go on Twitter and Facebook and are spread via emails and are tested for their YouTube views to find which versions work the best. And those, in turn, are then produced into TV ads. Trump was supposed to be the superstar of social media, yet after the Conventions, the Hillary Campaign has achieved a clear lead in the social media space. Part of it, is capitalizing on Trump’s regular mistakes and mocking him for those.
Talking about mocking. I personally have created over 3,500 original jokes about Trump and the Republicans of this season, and took the best of them into my first book of collected jokes. I call it TRUMP vs THE SEVENTH STEVE. It cost $4.99 and you can see sample pages of that, my 13th book overall, at this page:
Tomi Ahonen book
TRUMP vs THE SEVENTH STEVE
So we need to acknowledge that Trump ran into a chainsaw, the candidate and campaign most capable of ripping him to shreds. Bear in mind, Trump arrived to this point having faced ‘the dream team’ of the supposedly ‘very deep bench’ of Republican party talent. Maybe it wasn’t that deep after all, considering Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Rick Santorum, Dr Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and the imagined monsters tormenting the inside of Carly Fiorina’s troubled mind.
GROWTH THROUGH SUBTRACTION
Hillary would have won anyway. She held all the cards. No candidate has ever had all the advantages before, but it was clear back in 2014, that Hillary would be the unstoppable force this November. Against that juggernaut came Donald Trump, political genius. He has campaigned on a suicidal, self-destructive campaign absurdly built on the principle of ‘growth through subtraction’. What any successful politician and campaign staffer knows, is that you grow political support, not shrink it. Trump has waged a war against voters from the first day he joined the race last year.
He started by repelling Hispanic voters. Mitt Romney had the worst Hispanic support of any Republican candidate ever measured in polling. Romney got to 27%. Trump is now polling at 14%. Then Trump started his war on women, with the attacks on Rosie O’Donnell and Megyn Kelly. He’s repeatedly angered ever more women. He now faces the worst gender gap ever measured in US Presidential elections at 20%. Trump did this knowing that his likely rival would be the first woman ever nominated for President from either party. And to answer that issue, Trump didn’t even bother to select a woman as his Vice President.
Then there are the blacks. Trump has his long history of racist behavior from not renting to blacks, to the Birtherism about Obama, but he added to this by palling around with the most racist Americans like Sheriff Arpaio and Governor LePage. He promised blacks he’d solve inner city crime by instituting ‘stop-and-frisk’ racist profiling. So Mitt Romney, a white man who ran against a black President, achieved 8% of the black vote in 2012. Trump running against a white woman, is currently polling at 4% of the black vote.
Trump has consistently and time after time, only offended ever more groups of voters. He’s insulted former war prisoners, the disabled, Muslims, Catholics, American Indians, Jews and surviving parents of fallen war heroes. And to only make matters worse, where a divided party will lose and a united party has a chance of winning, Trump has waged a prolonged war against his own party from the start. After repeated attempts to finally achieve peace or at least a ceasefire between the party and Trump, he has broken with that, and lunged into another petty feud with his own side. This may be interesting and entertaining. It is most definitely unorthodox campaigning. But it is 100% certain you do not win that way. It is like running the marathon. You can be a show-off and start the race instead of running but rather walking on your hands, but then you won’t win that race. Trump’s alleged campaign has achieved him a lot of attention but it is certain, you cannot win a national political race by subtraction. By eliminating ever more voter groups.
Note this is different from ‘strategic’ choice. You could, for example a racist could, design a campaign to appeal to ‘whites’ that SINGLES out some group to hate, say the blacks. You could get good contrast that way. A nice old-fashioned white racist campaign of hate, like say Pat Buchanan or Joe McCarthy. Or say old racist Apartheid South Africa. If there are enough whites and not enough blacks, that could work. But then don’t proceed to add Hispanics and American Indians and Jews and Catholics and Muslims and on and on and on (and women, the single largest voter group - there are more women alive, more women of voting age, more women registered and more women voting, than men. Have been for decades. This was BEFORE we consider how many women will vote this year because Hillary is on the ticket).
Trump has built a campaign of steel. His is a fortress. You can’t get in, you can’t get out. And nobody will ever join who is not already inside, and nobody will leave. The problem for the US election is, that his fortress was built to only fit 40%. He can never win. But he’ll always get near 40% of the vote. So just a little bit more on Trump and his Deplorables, his supporters. They are typically men, mostly white, mostly without university degrees. They are mostly rural or small town residents who have never moved outside their hometown. They tend to be older. They can be quite affluent (farm owning whites for example). Look at a Trump campaign event. I don’t mean the people who are positioned to sit behind him when he speaks. Wait until you see the audience shot, the camera panning a random audience sector. Freeze-frame the shot. Who do you see? I’ve done this a hundred times already, all through the season. Its the same story. 8 out of 10 are men. 19 out of 20 are whites. Trump is speaking essentially to a KKK rally audience that just left their hoods home. And if you doubt me for one moment, listen to any random TV interviews of his audiences. Gosh they are Nazis! Some of Trump’s supporters are true racists. They love it that Trump ‘says it like it is’ about the Jews or Muslims or Mexicans or blacks. Almost all other Trump supporters do not MIND the racists amongst themselves.
Another part of Trump’s supporters are sexists. Often older men who still think a woman’s place is in the kitchen and bedroom, and to be quiet when ‘the man’ speaks. And many of the women who support Trump are either racists or they agree with this type of treatment of women (or both). There are also very gullible, simpler-minded (often older) voters, the kinds who are perfect marks to fall for any internet scams. And there are the paranoid conspiracy nutters who think Obama is about to invade Texas to steal everybody’s guns just before his term expires. Plus a bunch of anti-government Tea Partiers who want to abolish everything. Most of these people had nobody really talking to them and the way Trump speaks, he seems to connect with them. They honestly believe he is ‘telling the truth’ when Trump is the most deceitful politician ever measured. Facts do not matter to these people. They are cultists.
A special faction is the Evangelicals, a particularly easily-led group of fanatical voters who seem to me, a fellow Christian, led by a junior Anti-Christ. Gosh, Trump is literally everything the Bible teaches us not to be. But the Evangelicals have at least partially signed a practical political pact ‘with the devil’ for their own political purposes. If Trump is the only Presidential candidate who can prevent Hillary appointing a Supreme Court Justice that protects the freedom of Choice (ie maintains lawful abortions) and doesn’t hate gays, they will be with Trump. I think at least some within their flock must feel distressed, in how ‘Christian’ Hillary Clinton is with all she says and does (not to mention Tim Kaine) but how ANTI-Christian that vile selfish man, Trump is....
The Trump voter coalition is a cult. They will not be dissuaded by facts. They are worth pretty close to exactly 40% of the electorate. When Trump said he could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and not lose their support, I am sure Trump was joking when he said it; bu the events in the year that followed, prove that to be very close to perfectly true. Ever more contemptable rhetoric from Trump and his support remains loyally with him. In simplified terms, 40% of the electorate will vote for Trump, come what may. Its possible for that number to shrink modestly if the voter enthusiasm becomes depressed on their side. Most will show up to vote for Trump even under the worst conditions. They are a brainwashed cult.
But the rest of America sees that Trump is a clown. They have 3 plausible choices and will vote sensibly, ignoring the clown. Trump has now solidified his standing with the electorate. There are no votes outside his core 40%, that could vote for Trump in November. The only choice for the other 60% is, which of the other 3 (or in case of McMullin, other four) will they vote for. Hillary has nearly half of the nation simply because there are more Democrats than Republicans. So even if somehow the 3 junior party rivals manage a combined 15% (the peak of their combined support from early July) it means Hillary runs away with an easy victory of 45% to 40% against Trump.
The election COULD have been a nailbiter if Johnson had caught fire, like Ross Perot did in 1992, and Johnson had qualified into the TV debates. He could have made this a competitive race. Now he’s toast. He has peaked long ago, and with his Aleppo moments, he seems to signal to his own voters, don’t vote for me. So on the election forecast. We start with this bizarre ‘winning by subtraction’ strategy of Donald Trump: Political Genius. He peaked at 41.5% in the 4-way polling. He has come down and is now at 39.1% by the RCP average today. In the last weeks of any campaign, when undecided voters start to make up their minds, they go to BOTH candidates (or all candidates if more than 2). Trump is, thanks to his lunatic ‘strategy’ even failing that. While Hillary keeps picking up more support, Trump support is DECLINING while undecided voters are making up their minds. He has an ironclad ceiling he cannot penetrate. But he can leak support with his continous stupidity. That gets us to the approximate and the real. Trump has lived in that 35% to 41% band of support for the full duration of the 4-way polling. He has peaked. He is going down. He is not even CAMPAIGNING in a way to try to attract voters, rather to eject them.
Trump currently sits at 39.1%. There are 5.7% undecided voters. In any normal year you’d have to allocate some fraction of the 5.7% undecideds to BOTH (or all) of the major candidates. This year is the exception. But I don’t see analysts saying this is so. They have never seen this happen so they cannot imagine that is what will occur. Let me show you by simple math what this means. Lets say the race is now 46, 39, 6, 3, with 6 undecided. So its Hillary, Trump, Johnson, Stein. Then lets assign the undecided 6 only between Trump and Hillary, proportionately, and to simplify the math, we round off to even numbers. So both get 3 points. The race would end up as 49 Hillary, 42 Trump, 6 Johnson, 3 Stein. A 7 point race now, would end up a 7 point also in the end. This is roughly the way most elections end, as the undecided are distributed.
Now consider the steel ceiling. What if NOBODY goes to Trump? And there are 6 points of undecided voters. Lets say 5 to Hillary and 1 to Johnson, to keep it simple math again. Now the SAME polling from today, becomes 51 Hillary to 39 Trump to 7 Johnson to 3 Stein. The poll that showed a 7 point race, turned into a 12 point rout on election day! You understand this situation? This is why 2016 is a unique year and it will not repeat. This is total absolute madness. We have ALL the math and facts and polls to see, Trump will not gain. He will bleed support in these last 3 weeks, not gain. And that means whatever you measure today, there will be some undecideds - and they will only help Hillary (plus a few will go to Johnson and Stein).
That means, that if you SEE this, you KNOW there is a Tsunami-wave already approaching. You KNOW the devastation it will create. But the pollsters who only look at the water level in the harbor, see no tsunami-wave on the horizon, fast approaching. There is also a fear of talking about Trump’s polling ceilings, because he has pierced past those in his PRIMARY race. I was guilty of that, writing several times that I thought Trump had a ceiling he could not pierce, until he shot past it. That was mostly because Trump ran such a stupid campaign all through the Primaries (to win his nomination) which would then ultimately but totally doom his chances into the general election. And to make matters worse for the Republicans, Trump’s run also tarnished their brand for decades to come. They may need to start a new party beyond this one, to recover from the stench of Trump.
If there are more women than men, then in a two-party system, you cannot win by alienating the women. Thats just as dumb as trying to defy gravity or to try to breathe under water. And if 30% of the nation is not white, its a dangerous strategy to try to campaign as being against those in that big a minority. If just a third of the whites are against racism, the math dooms this racist path (and obviously, luckily, far less than two thirds of whites in America are racists or willing to tolerate racism). As we are now witnessing in this campaign. Trump cannot win.
But because the pundit class was made a fool several times in a row, talking about Trump polling ceilings, they now are wary of mentioning this fact. So we have a particular ‘building block’ to the election forecast that is solid and essentially certain. The polling now after the ‘p*ssygate’ videotape shows that still now, Trump maintains a 39% support level. It may decline in the last 3 weeks, but very very likely not even by one full percentage point. And it won’t climb. A single poll may have Trump above 40% but the average of polls will now report his support in the 39% range till Election day.
Where is the rest? Johnson has peaked. He is around 7% now. He’s come down from his peak polling of 12%. Aleppo killed his chances but he was already dead when he failed to qualify for the debates. There are undecideds who will end up with Johnson rather than Hillary. Stein is at 2.5% and I think she’ll land at 3%. McMullin’s stealth campaign will matter only in Utah but he will end up with something near 1% nationally, at least when the other candidate numbers are added. So how do I think Johnson ends? I think his last polling will show him at 6%. So if Johnson 6 + Stein 3 + McMullin 1 = 10%, and Trump has 39%, it means on the even of Election day Hillary will be at 51%. Note, there are likely to be 2% to 3% or so undecideds in those polls, those undecideds have to be accounted for (by the above rules, so not going to Trump).
By those rules, if Trump is unable to gain support from now till election day, and stays at 39%, then the race is essentially for about 1% of Johnson supporters switching to McMullin instead. Hillary has in fact a 12 point lead now, hidden in a 7 point polling outcome with 6% undecided. And to be perfectly clear, NEVER before have polls been interpreted this way, because never before was a candidate attempting the suicidal strategy of growth through subtraction.
A WAVE AND A SURGE
As you see, I keep talking about what will be shown in polls before election night. The reason to stress that point, is that this election will see a phenomenon almost impossble to measure, plus a phenomenon only once measured before. In 2012, the Obama vs Romney election was by almost every pollster measured to be a nail-biter close election of less than one percent advantage to Obama, by RCP average and by a few polls, yes Romney held the lead going into Election Day. It ended up being a crushing 5 point victory for Obama. What happened? The Big Data machine is what happened. Narwhal, is what happened. Get-out-the-vote (GOTV) is what happened.
Both sides had a GOTV project, the best either side had ever built. Romney’s team superceded what John McCain’s campaign had managed in 2008, and Romney saw an INCREASE in Republican turnout powered by their data-driven GOTV machine. This is why Karl Rove had his epic meltdown on Fox on election night, trying to insist that the election count had to be wrong. The Republican turnout, driven by Romney’s data machine and army of 34,000 volunteers, had indeed INCREASED the Republican turnout, quite significantly in several battleground states.
The only problem was, that they could not measure how much better the brand new, supercharged Obama GOTV machine was, the first ever built for an election using the high tech ‘Big Data’ systems. Both machines boosted turnout. Only Obama’s machine was 4.5 TIMES STRONGER than Romney’s! Not 45% stronger. 4.5 TIMES stronger! 350% stronger!!! Not twice as powerful, four and a half times as powerful !! Lets have a race. You ride a bicycle. You can do what, say 20 km per hour if you have a good fast bike and are in good shape and its a flat clear road. I race against you. I drive a CAR. I do 90 km per hour, in perfect leisure, inside the air-conditioned car and I drive 4.5 times faster than you. You had no chance!
The Republican autopsy, authored by Reince Priebus, of Romney’s loss identified four areas to focus on. Women, Minorities, Youth voters, and Big Data. I have the most authoritative analysis of that data machines race of 2012, Romney vs Obama, on this blog. I wrote a series of articles about it. It is referenced in a dozen published books already. And the key lesson is summarized by the Campaign Manager for Ted Cruz’s campaign, this summer. A Campaign that builds it data systems the modern way like Obama did, will outperform a Campaign that doesn’t use such a system in the final vote count, by from 2% to 5% final result. I measured it at 4% on this blog from 2012. Hillary Clinton’s Campaign took Obama’s machine that cost 100 million dollars to build, that was built by 120 data scientists in 2012, over 18 months, and devoted 60 more data scientists to it, and added 60 million dollars more of development work into it. That is the modern version of the Obama 2012 machine that powers Hillary’s GOTV effort on November 8.
Donald Trump said he doesn’t believe in data.
Trump doesn’t have a data operation. He has outsourced his email targeting etc to a web services company. He barely does any internal polling even for the very most rudimentary inputs into such a system. Yes, in 2012, Obama achieved a 5% victory when he was supposed by ALL polls, to be in a tight race of 1%. That was powered by his GOTV machine, and a revoutionary data-mining technology called Big Data. His was the first national political campaign to use this method, in 2012. Even the 2008 Obama Campaign did not yet use this radical new revolutionary datamining methodology. So when I say, the final election-day result will be BETTER for Hillary than the polls show, this is why. We saw this once, in 2012.
It was this SAME machine, that Hillary now has. And idiot Trump, while the Republican Autopsy insisted that they have to build a rival system - and Jeb Bush, Scott Walker and Ted Cruz all tried - Trump never bothered to invest in this. Its like the age of the steamship, and you try to maintain a shipping fleet powered by sailships. Sorry, grandpa, sailships are nice for leisure yachting but for commercial shipping, you gotsta buy one of those Wartsila Diesel engines into your ‘boat’ or it ain’t gonna be competitive in this day and age... So thats one thing. I say thats the wave hitting those election results. It means Hillary will outperform on November 8 compared to the last polling.
But wait, there is also a surge. So we all know obviously Hillary has a big gender GAP. She’s the woman against a man, more women will vote for her. Her issues are designed to appeal more for women and the Democrats are the party more of and for women, while Trump appeals to men, and the Republicans are the party of men and for men. Yes, women will vote more for Hillary than for Trump. And the gender gap will be the biggest ever measured. But apart from the SPLIT in women, going more for Hillary than Trump, there will be a rare occurance. One voter group will SURGE some year, for whatever reason. In 2008, there was a surge of black voters, because of.. duh, Obama the first black candidate by a major party.
This is another aspect that is difficult to measure. If you dig into the polling data, almost all pollsters tend to treat male/female voter BALANCE in the polling SAMPLE as roughly even, usually a few points more of women than men voting. That would be consistent with any recent election. And its certainly possible that is how this year turns out too. Except I am CERTAIN it won’t. This year there will be a SURGE of only women, who normally would not bother to vote, who will be of any race and age and region and educational background and religion. There will be no surge to vote ‘against’ Hillary. There ‘against Hillary’ vote is standard Republican loyal voters who will vote anyway. There MAY be a surge of anti-Trump voters, yes.
But there will CERTAINLY be a surge of ‘lets go vote for the first woman President’. That will happen. Will that be 3% of the total vote of 5% or 10%, who knows. This year will see a LOPSIDED voter turnout, where the ‘normal’ amount of men will vote, but a SURGE in women will vote. That means the difference in female voters will be unusually large. And those bonus voters will all vote for female candidates. Most for Hillary, some for Stein. None for Trump. This surge in female voters will be worth at least 2% for Hillary. But it is partly covered in the GOTV effort, that effort will SPECIFICALLY function to activate these types of voters. With those elements, I am certain, that whatever is the final polling measured just before election day, ie I expect that to be 12% for Hillary, will then be boosted in the GOTV effort and the female voter surge, to result in a far stronger final result, a 16% election rout for Hillary against Trump. That is Walter Mondale type of disaster (he lost by 18%).
So as I said, I expect the actual final election result to be: 53% Hillary Clinton 37% Donald Trump 6% Gary Johnson 3% Jill Stein 1% Ewan McMullin & others A 16% election landslide exhilirating victory for Hillary, and crushing devastating loss for Trump. This forecast includes the effects of the sex tapes, and this is my ‘final’ election forecast barring another ‘October Surprise’.
With it I say Hillary wins 40 states including DC, and McMullin wins Utah, and Trump only wins 10 states. Texas yes, goes blue. In the Senate races, the above dynamic helps strongly the Democrats who will have at least a 3 seat majority. This also means the Supreme Court will flip from Conservative balance to Liberal balance, a rare change, the last time that happened was four decades ago. Its rare for a President to be able to flip that balance (in his or her favor, obviously).
In the House races, however, it won’t be the same. The third party phenomenon means that Hillary’s 16% victory in the Presidential race will not mean the same in the House races. And the House races are often ‘Gerrymandered’ to protect the party in power, mostly the Republicans but there are also Democrat party gerrymandered seats. The Democrats are behind by 30 seats and will definitely pick up more than 20 but I think they will fall short. The reason is, that those Republicans who cannot vote for Trump, will often be voting for Johnson (or McMullin) and will then vote for Republicans down-ticket. Hillary’s 16 point advantage turns only into a 9 point advantage when Johnson & McMullin votes are added to Trump votes for House seats.
Now the GOTV machine ends up damaging the House race overall. The Democrats GOTV machine is an OPTIMIZATION system. It helps OPTIMIZE campaign efforts for maximum election outcome. It helps direct resources to those races that matter. So it focuses efforst so as to win one race clearly rather than lose three races each by a thin margin. Which is why Hillary has recently put BIG effort into Arizona, rather than small efforts in each of Arizona, Georgia, Missouri and Indiana. The GOTV machine is excellent at identifying where the effort is worth it - and how much effort is then needed to get that given victory. I drew a picture of it for my last blog about this forecast:
So in those states where the GOTV machine is deployed, the vote is increased, by 4% but in other states, where it is NOT deployed, the corresponding vote is slightly down, by 2%. This is very much my educated guess, the reality won’t be known until long after the election. But the rough principle holds. And the battleground states only account for a third of the total vote. This means that the machine that was built to help Obama/Hillary win their Presidential Election, will only help down-ticket candidates in those states where it is deployed, the battleground states - while damaging (slightly) the chances in the ‘non competitive’ states. It doesn’t matter if Hillary loses a few votes in California. She’ll win it easily. So whether California is 18% or 16% doesn’t matter. She will win it ANYWAY. And in a normal year, there is no chance to pick up a red state like say Texas, so who cares if Hillary loses Texas by 7% or 9%, it was lost anyway.
This year it matters because suddenly the contest is deep in red states. And now, for those down-ticket races, a NON-OPTIMIZED campaign would have been better. Florida, Virginia, Colorado, typical battleground states will not be anywhere near close. Thus the ‘extra effort’ put into those states, is time and money that was denied the competitive red states (and also taken from a given competitive House race in a blue state like New York). There is a measurement that the current gerrymandering causes a 7% imbalance in the national vote, that favors the Republicans. So in the House races, they have a tilted playing field, that is 7% to their favor. If Hillary’s actual national effect was 9%, she could just overcome that. Except that the GOTV machine means, that in a few states, yes, instead of 9% she’ll do 13% but in most of the other states, instead of 9% she’ll only do 7% and those seats will not flip. It will be a CLOSE CLOSE race, it could go either way, and the margin is likely to be less than 2% either way. I think they’ll fall less than 5 seats short. I hope they don’t, because it would mean 2 more years of gridlock in Congress, but I am afraid, that while Hillary has a monster election night, winning by 16%, and taking back the Senate, and taking back far more than 20 seats in the House, she won’t recapture the House. Not in 2016. That they have to try again in 2018.
Thats my election forecast. My final forecast. Unless there is another October Surprise so big, it will dominate a week of discussion, I won’t be changing this forecast. And I will wait to see, if the last weeks turn out to be like this. Now, if you would rather laugh at Trump than do the math of his polling, I have my brand new joke book TRUMP vs THE SEVENTH STEVE. 1001 jokes for you. I am going to show 10% of the pages for free, one day every day until election day. Its a 219 page ebook so yes, I’ll show 22 pages. The first page is already up. Enjoy.
October 17, 2016
I Have A New Book Out. Its... The Joke Book about Trump! Yes 1001 Jokes About Trump. Its TRUMP vs the SEVENTH STEVE
Ah, a new book is always a great moment. My 13th book. The unlucky number. Its about Trump! An ebook, my first joke book, 219 pages of jokes about Donald Trump and his alleged Presidential campaign. Hey, and please don't complain about the cover. I'm not a graphical artist, obviously. Its the jokes you want, not a pretty cover. Its an ebook in any case. But yeah. 5 dollars only. 1001 original jokes as seen on this blog and in my Twitter feed, all in one handy pdf document you can save on your phone or PC.
The 219 page ebook covers all the aspects of Donald Trump's sad attempt to win the US Presidential election, from the primaries to the Conventions to the debates and all the fun we've had in the past 16 months. I will be excerpting one page every day from now until election day, on the page that sells the ebook, if you want to first sample the ebook before buying. So by November 8, you will have seen one tenth of the pages. But for now, here is the link to the ordering page.
If you want to just go to 7thSteve to see the ebook and other things I sell there (like now there are 4 T-Shirts) go see them all here
And if you already know me and my ebooks and just want to go to Paypal to buy to get yours immediately, the direct link to Paypal to pay is here. It costs $4.99.
Available for Consulting and Speakerships
- Available for Consulting & SpeakingTomi Ahonen is a bestselling author whose twelve books on mobile have already been referenced in over 100 books by his peers. Rated the most influential expert in mobile by Forbes in December 2011, Tomi speaks regularly at conferences doing about 20 public speakerships annually. With over 250 public speaking engagements, Tomi been seen by a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people on all six inhabited continents. The former Nokia executive has run a consulting practise on digital convergence, interactive media, engagement marketing, high tech and next generation mobile. Tomi is currently based out of Helsinki but supports Fortune 500 sized companies across the globe. His reference client list includes Axiata, Bank of America, BBC, BNP Paribas, China Mobile, Emap, Ericsson, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC, IBM, Intel, LG, MTS, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, Ogilvy, Orange, RIM, Sanomamedia, Telenor, TeliaSonera, Three, Tigo, Vodafone, etc. To see his full bio and his books, visit www.tomiahonen.com Tomi Ahonen lectures at Oxford University's short courses on next generation mobile and digital convergence. Follow him on Twitter as @tomiahonen. Tomi also has a Facebook and Linked In page under his own name. He is available for consulting, speaking engagements and as expert witness, please write to tomi (at) tomiahonen (dot) com
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Tomi T Ahonen: Mobile as 7th of the Mass Media: Cellphone, cameraphone, iPhone, smartphone
Tomi T Ahonen & Jim O'Reilly: Digital Korea: Convergence of Broadband Internet, 3G Cell Phones etc
Tomi T. Ahonen, Timo Kasper & Sara Melkko: 3G Marketing: Communities and Strategic Partnerships
also as kindle editionTomi T Ahonen & Joe Barrett (editors): Services for UMTS: Creating Killer Applications in 3G
Alan's Third Book: No Straight Lines
Blogroll
- Tomi T Ahonen
- FutureText
- Distraction
- Forum Oxford - use enrollment key "Forumoxford"
- Blyk blog
- Smart Mobs
- Jonathan MacDonald
- Ajit Jaokar - Open Gardens
- Russell Buckley - MobHappy
- Emily Turrettini - Textually
- TheFuturesAgency
- Alan Moore
- Dan Appelquist
- Chetan Sharma
- Lars Cosh-Ishii - Wireless Watch Japan
- Kim Dushinski
- Ewan McLeod - Mobile Industry Review
- Heike Scholz - Mobile Zeitgeist
- Gibson Tang
- C Enrique Ortiz
- Peggy Anne Salz
- Jim Cook - MobiAd News
- Tony Fish
- Martin Wilson
- Horace Dediu
- Antti Ohrling
- Zahid Ghadialy
Tomi's Fave Twitterati
- This is Tomi's Fave Twitter Mobilista List
Follow Tomi's fave experts in mobile, his Twitter list 'The Usual Gang' of the world's top Mobilistas
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