The irony of all of this is that as Trump moves toward locking up the nomination (he isn't there yet, but it would be foolish jerry t to acknowledge his big advantage), the GOP is overlooking their most "electable" candidate in Rubio.
Kasich is their most electable candidate by a mile. If it's Kasich / Hillary, dem turnout is low, and Kasich wins the majority of independents. He wins Ohio easily and in my view has a strong chance at getting Pennsylvania. Even if GOP turnout is depressed, he still wins.
He'll never be nominated, obviously.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
There are 30 delegates at stake given out on a proportional basis but the big news for me is Trump has gotten into the 40+% territory. I think it may be over.
I'm not sure that this is actually big news. Polling had Nevada as one of Trump's top two states. (Morning Consult, for example, had Trump at 48% in Nevada, and still around 36% nationally). This might look like momentum because it's his highest yet, but it's more likely that Nevada's just really favorable to him and he would have won by a similar margin regardless of when it happened.
To me it still comes down to when we get down to what is effectively a 1-on-1 battle. If that happens before March 15, I think Rubio is in good shape. After March 15, and his margin shrinks rapidly. Thing is, I really don't see any of the other 3 candidates having significant motivation to drop out.
There are a lot of interesting races for March 1. In fact, every race that has had polling, (except for a Trump runaway lead in Massachusetts), looks to be closer than any state thus far, other than Iowa.
I'd be really curious to know where Trump is spending his money, because I think the smart option for him is to not challenge Cruz right now, try to set up Cruz to win a few states on March 1st, and thus stay in the race longer. For Rubio, obviously his own best result is winning as many states as possible, but his second-best outcome is probably Trump beating Cruz everywhere else.
I agree that national head-to-head polls are irrelevant right now, but don't agree that the electoral math is favourable for Trump. He does very poorly among non-white and Latino voters, and if turnout on the right drops he will be in big trouble in some of the key Obama swing states. He can win Ohio, and still lose if he can't pick up Florida, Nevada, Colorado, etc..
I don't see him losing any of the states Romney won in 2012 any except maybe Missouri. Everything else is pretty much 100% safe GOP territory regardless of the nominee. So I just think he doesn't have anywhere near as much work to do as people think. If he invests heavily in simply trying to flip Ohio (should be easy to do), Michigan (doable) and Florida (very doable), he's President. The fact he polls poorly with Hispanics and other non-whites can only really hurt him in Florida. But then maybe he flips Pennsylvania instead and he still wins. It's not as hard for him to win as people think.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague
Kasich is their most electable candidate by a mile. If it's Kasich / Hillary, dem turnout is low, and Kasich wins the majority of independents. He wins Ohio easily and in my view has a strong chance at getting Pennsylvania. Even if GOP turnout is depressed, he still wins.
He'll never be nominated, obviously.
Kasich doesn't appeal to anyone but white, Midwest voters. The fact he's the most sane candidate doesn't mean he's the most electable. Rubio is easily their most electable candidate.
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I don't see him losing any of the states Romney won in 2012 any except maybe Missouri. Everything else is pretty much 100% safe GOP territory regardless of the nominee. So I just think he doesn't have anywhere near as much work to do as people think. If he invests heavily in simply trying to flip Ohio (should be easy to do), Michigan (doable) and Florida (very doable), he's President. The fact he polls poorly with Hispanics and other non-whites can only really hurt him in Florida. But then maybe he flips Pennsylvania instead and he still wins. It's not as hard for him to win as people think.
Kasich doesn't appeal to anyone but white, Midwest voters. The fact he's the most sane candidate doesn't mean he's the most electable. Rubio is easily their most electable candidate.
No, I think you are underestimating the size of the Latino vote in places like Colorado. Even Michigan has a significant Latino population.
Plus, Trump really can't win Florida without the Latino vote. Bush had significant support among Cuban-Americans, and STILL only won Florida by a few hundred votes.
I'm interested in seeing how you think the electoral math works for Trump. I am just not seeing it.
No, I think you are underestimating the size of the Latino vote in places like Colorado. Even Michigan has a significant Latino population.
Plus, Trump really can't win Florida without the Latino vote. Bush had significant support among Cuban-Americans, and STILL only won Florida by a few hundred votes.
I'm interested in seeing how you think the electoral math works for Trump. I am just not seeing it.
He received 45% of the Latino Republican vote in Nevada. That is huge.
No, I think you are underestimating the size of the Latino vote in places like Colorado. Even Michigan has a significant Latino population.
Plus, Trump really can't win Florida without the Latino vote. Bush had significant support among Cuban-Americans, and STILL only won Florida by a few hundred votes.
I'm interested in seeing how you think the electoral math works for Trump. I am just not seeing it.
I'm simply looking at the 2012 map and trying to see what could change. Colorado for instance was a Democratic state in 2012, so the fact Hispanics there won't vote for Trump doesn't matter that much. I look at what Romney won, and cannot see Trump losing any of those states. At best you could maybe argue Missouri and maybe North Carolina could break to the Democrats, but I view both of those as unlikely.
So just holding the Romney states, Trump is at around 210. I think he's found the right demographics to target in Ohio and Michigan (working class/unemployed/underemployed workers), and I think he can win both of those. That puts him around 245-250. So if he can flip Florida too, he's won. I agree getting Florida isn't easy, but I'm not sure what Hillary or Bernie offer to Floridians that will help either of them win Florida. We could be looking at 2000 redux where Florida decides it all. Given Florida's propensity for utter idiocy, I'm not liking that set up.
__________________
"Think I'm gonna be the scapegoat for the whole damn machine? Sheeee......."
Florida depends on how many Latino voters start bleeding from Cruz and Rubio to Trump: whether they stubbornly stick to those candidates, or whether they just stay home remains to be seen.
He received 45% of the Latino Republican vote in Nevada. That is huge.
There's nothing huge about the Latino republican vote in Nevada, it's a handful of voters, most of whom probably work at his hotel, assuming they are legal, which most of his Latino employees ain't.
Trump has thousands of undocumented Latinos working for him, I'm amazed Cruz hasn'tointed this out so far.
Last edited by afc wimbledon; 02-24-2016 at 12:05 PM.
Actually, polling predictions have shown that while Bernie Sanders could take Trump in the election Trump takes Hilary Clinton should that match up occur.
No they don't, Clinton has Trump beaten by 6 points using the agragate of 87 polls.
That spread has reduced to around 2.8 points if I ain't mistaken.
This is Trumps momentum high point and Clintons low mark though, and she's still killing him.
Trump has no 'machine' to get the vote out, he isn't the choice of his party, he has the largest negative approval rating of any candidate in modern history an Slovenian wife with a heavy accent who's just out of high school.
I don't see him losing any of the states Romney won in 2012 any except maybe Missouri. Everything else is pretty much 100% safe GOP territory regardless of the nominee. So I just think he doesn't have anywhere near as much work to do as people think. If he invests heavily in simply trying to flip Ohio (should be easy to do), Michigan (doable) and Florida (very doable), he's President. The fact he polls poorly with Hispanics and other non-whites can only really hurt him in Florida. But then maybe he flips Pennsylvania instead and he still wins. It's not as hard for him to win as people think.
I'm curious to see why you see Michigan as a swing state. It's one that the Democrats won by 10% last time, it's got a large african american population with some serious social justice activism (even more of an issue if there's a vacant SCOTUS seat), they've generally supported Democratic nominees for the last 20 years, and their Republican governor has seen his own reputation go down the drain as a result of the Flint water crisis.
I'm open to arguments why it should be considered a swing state, but I just haven't seen it listed as such.
