Alright, who else here is voting for THE DONALD?

[Poe Dameron]

I don't know why you think Clinton has a "massive lead" in the electoral college? What exactly is that based on?

 

Even if one takes the word of those Quinnipiac polls, Clinton still holds a pretty sizable advantage. Trump would have to win pretty much all the supposed tossups in order to win the race. The only place he seems to be expanding the map is Pennsylvania. And the best I can say about that perennially disappointing state for Republicans is that Trump will probably do surprisingly well among black voters (at least in comparison to other Republicans).

 

 

 

Yes, Clinton will get a bump once Sanders is out. Trump will get another one at the RNC, and Clinton will get one at the DNC. After that point, around Labor Day, we can look at the national polling and swing states and get a clearer picture whether or not Clinton has a "massive lead" in the electoral college.

 

The question is more whether Trump can continue his high wire act for five more months against a unified party and a media who won't play the game of all things being equal now that the people he trolls on Twitter aren't Republicans. If he somehow keeps it up, then he has a chance.

 

Or he'll start falling behind. Once he falls behind, he can be mocked. Once Trump is mocked, he'll melt down in his usual fashion, but this time won't be saved by his followers bullying everyone into place like they were able to do in the insular world of an intra-party primary. Trump won't be able to bully the Democrats, they don't serve the same masters as the Trump mob. Instead of a sizable portion of them straddling the fence or joining Trump, they'll be able to stand together. And if it looks like Trump will lose, the bandwagon effect will particularly hurt him. Especially among the sizable universe of Republican and Republican-leaning voters who do not like him.

 

It all depends on whether Trump can maintain his momentum and keep the narrative on what he wants it to be. If the narrative turns, it can get ugly in a hurry.

 

 

 

What red states do you actually think are in play now?

 

North Carolina, a nominal red state, doesn't look good. Georgia's been polled three times recently and Trump's lead has been within the margin of error in each. Maybe he'll pull away, as Republicans usually do there in the end, or maybe it'll stay competitive. But it's not a good sign.

 

After that, I'd be guessing. If things go really bad, Indiana, Missouri, Arizona, and that district in Nebraska are long shot opportunities for Clinton, but at the moment I'm not predicting it.

[Carrie Mathison]

Well I don't necessarily disagree with large portions of your post, but your language is significantly more measured now, than it was above, when you're talking in near-absolutes, i.e. "massive lead."

 

You still claim a "sizable advantage" for Clinton, and while I certainly agree that right now the race looks like it's leaning to Clinton, I wouldn't go so far as to claim a "sizable advantage," especially when the recent polling indicates that it's a tightening race. So what, precisely (and be specific on this), are you basing this advantage on? I want to see states, counties, demographic analysis, show me you put some thought into this, as opposed to just repeating some news article you read.

 

Sure, Trump has to win "pretty much all the supposed tossups in order to win the race." So does Clinton. Not sure what you're trying to say with this... it's like saying, "you have to score the most points to win the football game." Um... duh?

 

I agree that Trump has to continue his high wire act and if he has a couple of bad months, he could lose momentum, the narrative changes, and the bottom could fall out from beneath him. Sure, all possible. But again, not sure what you're really arguing here other than "if you lose control of the narrative, that's bad." Again, it's like you're saying "if you don't score many points, you'll lose the football game." Um... duh? You're not really providing much in the way of insight other than to say you think it's going to be harder to play his game against the Democrats.

 

And I have literally no idea why you think that. Trump just went through one of the most difficult nominations in recent GOP history- since at least 1976, if not 1964. He had no establishment support, the backing of no major donors, severely outspent by opponents- of which there were 16 others, by the way. A lot is talked about the supposed "free media" he got, with no mention of the fact that most of that media was entirely negative- almost every TV segment and article ranging from calling Trump a clown, to a buffoon, to not serious, to evil racist sexist Hitler. I'm not exactly sure why you think, after all that... oh now Trump is going to finally fall apart, just randomly. Even though he spent close to a year of people spending hundreds of millions $ against him and calling him a fascist authoritarian every day. Yup, now all of a sudden it'll happen. Riiiight.

 

The thing is, and the thing that the left (and apparently, the establishment right) just can't wrap their heads around, is that Trump knows where this election is being fought. It's being fought, the narrative is being formed, in the blogosphere, on Twitter, and so on. And Trump is a master troll when it comes to Twitter. Clinton, on the other hand, ranges from head-scratching "eh?" ineptitude, to being boring and unexciting- just oozing out the impression that 'she doesn't get it.' The recent venn diagram fiasco, being a great example of this, which even Vox was making fun of. Time to face facts here- Trump is the more exciting candidate. He has 2 million more twitter followers. He knows how to create the narrative in the social media era. The more exciting candidate is probably the candidate more likely to win.

 

Now, obviously the venn diagram issue is not that big of a deal, but enough little facepalm moments like that start to paint a picture. And there are other examples of this over the past few weeks- Clinton just not running a tight campaign and controlling the narrative. Which shouldn't be surprising- she wasn't a great campaigner in 2008 and she's not going to suddenly become one now. If the past few weeks give us any indication, her campaign strategy at the moment is basically going to be to play the woman card and call Trump evil Hitler as many times as she can. And getting into an insult war is pretty much the easiest way for Clinton to lose this election; it avoids any talk of Clinton's biggest strengths over Trump and turns this campaign into what Trump excels at. But Clinton doesn't seem to be getting that.

 

Now I'm not saying Trump has this. I've said it many times before, and repeating it now- I think the election is currently advantage Clinton. There are a couple of big moments that Trump is going to have to step up on to have a chance. Choosing the right VP (and not pulling a McCain) is one. The debates are another. But I'm certainly not counting my chickens right now either, which it seems like you are doing, inexplicably.

 

I would agree that NC could go Dem, but I'm not sure upon what you claim it "doesn't look good." RCP average is right now Clinton +3 and it hasn't been polled in a month, so it sorta sounds like you're making up stuff. Also, NC isn't really a "red state," so not sure we can include this. GA could be closer than usual, and changing demographics favor the Democrats there over the next 30 years, but again, Clinton has yet to win a poll there, so I'm not sure why it's "not a good sign."

 

IN, MO, AZ- all states that conceivably flip if this race is Clinton +10, but I'm not sure any polling supports that right now.

[Poe Dameron]

Sure, Trump has to win "pretty much all the supposed tossups in order to win the race." So does Clinton.

 

No she doesn't.

 

At the moment, I'd rate Clinton as having a safe 227 EVs. I'd add New Hampshire and Virginia as a Likely category to bring her up to 244 EVs. That's 26 electoral votes shy of winning and I've still got Pennsylvania (20), Florida (29), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15), Iowa (6), and Nevada (6) all in the Lean Clinton category. With Colorado (9) as the only toss-up since they haven't been polled in forever and it's a bit of a weird state.

 

That puts Trump at a decided disadvantage. Even in a close race where he narrowly wins the popular vote, his chances aren't good. There are a TON of combinations (including simply taking Florida) that lead to a Clinton victory.

 

Trump doesn't have the luxury of winning narrowly. To win in the electoral college, he's got to win the popular vote by a fair margin. I don't believe that's likely. Nor do I think he has much chance of broadening the map. Maybe I'll be completely shocked and we'll be fighting over New Jersey or (somewhat more plausibly) Michigan or something, but I rather doubt it. Pennsylvania remains the only blue state I see Trump with much of a shot at poaching.

 

 

 

And I have literally no idea why you think that. Trump just went through one of the most difficult nominations in recent GOP history

 

I'd argue that the field and environment were almost custom made to help him. Starting with Bush as the "frontrunner" who decided to spend $100 million taking out Rubio instead of Trump. It was a series of men with terrible egos that kept them in just long enough to effectively block for Trump.

 

I watched in bafflement as almost everyone seemed to base their actions on what would be most advantageous for Trump.

 

 

 

The thing is, and the thing that the left (and apparently, the establishment right) just can't wrap their heads around, is that Trump knows where this election is being fought. It's being fought, the narrative is being formed, in the blogosphere, on Twitter, and so on.

 

The major media is still king. The media outlets, though, tended to cover Trump's Twitter account as if it were real news. They've gotten lazy doing that for a number of things. Heck, entire news articles these days are made up of Twitter.

 

That can be turned off if they choose to. Most people aren't connected to this stuff. It feels bigger than it is. In the same way the Ron Paul folks felt like they were bigger in the last few cycles. Yeah, they had the biggest online presence, but it didn't amount to much because they were ignored by the big boys.

 

Trump, thus far, has had his Twitter junk covered by the big boys. But that doesn't mean that his online followers are bigger than they are. Or that the news won't turn hard, less about antics, more about substance, as we approach the actual election.

[The Kurgan]

If the past few weeks give us any indication, her campaign strategy at the moment is basically going to be to play the woman card and call Trump evil Hitler as many times as she can.

I'm not sure this is so flawed a strategy, though. Sure, the 3rd wave feminists do not have the kind of "Catholic church in the middle ages" level of hegemony in social media that they had prior to the post gamergate anti-SJW backlash, say, but they're no small presence online. I'd say that a plurality, if not outright majority of women and no small number of men either, endorse this world view enthusiastically. Clinton will do this because social media is overwhelmingly dominated by the Vox and Salon view of the world. For all of his twitter trolling skills, Trump is really just a foil for this crowd.

 

Now, how influential they are on polling day is a whole other matter.

 

This seems to me as an election about who most voters find less distasteful.

[Carrie Mathison]

LOL, well christ Poe, of course Clinton has a "sizeable advantage" if you've gone ahead and already called VA, PA, FL, OH, NC, IA, and NV for Clinton, 6 months before the election, before even half a dozen polls have been done in any of those states, some months old. But hey, your prediction is noted. I'll remember to bump this in a few months and I hope for your sake, that all of those states fall Clinton's way, otherwise I'm basically going to link to this thread every single time you try to post in the Lyceum and call you a f-cking retard.

 

Your "analysis" is about useful as a Trump supporter saying that he's already gone ahead and claimed VA, PA, FL, OH, NC, IA, and NV for Trump. Oh but hey, maybe Trump will have a tough fight in Michigan! Clinton's got a chance there!

 

Get out of my thread man, you're not adding anything interesting to the conversation.

[Carrie Mathison]

The major media is still king. The media outlets, though, tended to cover Trump's Twitter account as if it were real news. They've gotten lazy doing that for a number of things. Heck, entire news articles these days are made up of Twitter.

 

That can be turned off if they choose to. Most people aren't connected to this stuff. It feels bigger than it is. In the same way the Ron Paul folks felt like they were bigger in the last few cycles. Yeah, they had the biggest online presence, but it didn't amount to much because they were ignored by the big boys.

 

Trump, thus far, has had his Twitter junk covered by the big boys. But that doesn't mean that his online followers are bigger than they are. Or that the news won't turn hard, less about antics, more about substance, as we approach the actual election.

We heard all this sh-t before dude. Bla bla bla, yeah yeah- people will eventually get serious. The news will talk about substance. People aren't tuning in yet, but once they do and it gets serious, and the news gets all hard and serious, then Trump will lose, you'll see. No way he wins NH. Or SC. Or Super Tuesday. Any day now. People are gonna get serious and start actually looking at the issues.

 

Please.

 

You need to get some new material and stop repeating stuff that people said 8 months ago. This election is passing you by man.

[Poe Dameron]

 

 

LOL, well christ Poe, of course Clinton has a "sizeable advantage" if you've gone ahead and already called VA, PA, FL, OH, NC, IA, and NV for Clinton, 6 months before the election,

 

I didn't "call" any of those. I put Virginia in a "Likely Clinton" and the rest in "Leans Clinton" territory.

 

And since Trump needs to basically win almost all of them to defeat Clinton, and he at least appears to start off in a hole in each of them (Clinton's got the RCP lead in all of them that have been polled), that indeed constitutes a sizable advantage for Clinton in the electoral college.

 

You asked me to explain it, and there you go. It's simple math.

 

 

 

You need to get some new material and stop repeating stuff that people said 8 months ago. This election is passing you by man.

 

I didn't say it 8 months ago. I had the feeling that Trump wasn't going to go away as easily as the experts thought. I hoped he would. In some ways he almost did if not for some major pieces of luck on his part that just stopped his opponents from reaching critical mass.

 

But primaries are different than general elections. There have been plenty of examples of longshot candidates who soared in the primaries and then crashed and burned in the general election in the past few years, particularly on the Republican side. I'm sure I don't have to write out the list of tea party nominees that had their lunch handed to them. It's relatively easy for someone to fight the power within their own party and come away with the nomination. Only a handful have managed to turn that into general election success.

 

Even with the social media behind them.

[Carrie Mathison]

Well maybe you didn't call them, but you're oddly confident for such little data, so far out from the election. Take VA for instance. Not sure why you think it's a likely Clinton state when in 2012, the state was almost exactly the same as national popular vote %, and right now the national polling shows it to be a close race. The last poll to be conducted in VA was late March, almost 2 months ago. Clinton led that by 9. But back then Clinton was up 13 in PA (and now is up 1), was up 7 in OH (and now down 4), and was up somewhere between 8 and 13 in FL (and is now up 1). Right now, if I had to guess, I'd say a VA poll would probably show Clinton up by 2-3.

 

Could VA end up a likely Clinton state? Sure. Is it too early to tell at this point? Absolutely.

 

The difference between you and I, is I like to make predictions based on stuff like numbers and data. And there is precious little of that right now in a lot of these states.

 

You, apparently, make predictions based on gut feeling. Most respectable people in political science have kinda moved past that type of primitive analysis, but if you wanna kick it 1980s style, well I ain't gonna stop you.

[Poe Dameron]

 

 

Not sure why you think it's a likely Clinton state when in 2012, the state was almost exactly the same as national popular vote %

 

Indeed they were even with the rest of the country last time. But Virginia's been drifting left for decades now. This is how they've voted in comparison to the rest of the country in the last several elections:

 

'12: Even
'08: R+1
'04: R+6
'00: R+9
'96: R+10

 

That's an average drift of 2.5% every election cycle. Add in that Terry McAuliffe is governor there and he's one of the Clintons' oldest allies who has made it a priority to grease the skids for his bosses (he just recently restored voting rights to hundreds of thousands of felons), and this is going to be a tough one under the best of circumstances. And finally, that it's not Trump's strongest state (he won, but Rubio did surprisingly well). I'm not putting it completely out of the realm of possibilities, but it's a bad place to start.

[Ms. Spam]

North Korea feels Trump will make an excellent president.

[monkeygirl]

and North Korea is best Korea

[Poe Dameron]

We're seeing the change in the media now in regards to Trump. Not everything he does is genius all of the sudden. His racist attacks aren't getting a pass. You do know that he said that judge was biased because he was Mexican months ago, don't you? Before it was ignored. Now, it's sticking. And it's not also being framed from the lens of "but he's so good at this". Now he's running against someone who downright sucks at politics.

 

Also notice that the media isn't covering his Twitter account the way they used to. Twitter's power isn't in instantly connecting with people, it's with lazy journalists who base stories on it. Without that, it's actual outreach to people who aren't already for Trump is significantly reduced.

 

Carrie poo-pooed this before, but we need to remember that Clinton still has not consolidated the Democrats. There are a lot of Sanders supporters who don't think they'll vote for Clinton in November who will soon have a change of heart. This is not just a temporary bounce like at a convention, this is a structural difference in how the electorate looks with a divided Democrat party and a united one. Clinton can add a few points to any poll that's released.

 

Trump's hold on the narrative is slipping. He tried to grab it again by lambasting the media earlier in the week, but it didn't do much good. He had a good couple of weeks after securing the nomination where he essentially got the Republican establishment to fall in line behind him, but he still needs to stay out ahead of the crashing wave of reality. Instead, it's quickly catching up with him.

 

If Sanders can win California, that would really be helpful to Trump. It gives him the breathing space to light something on fire and get the attention back onto him before he starts fading behind.

[Ms. Spam]

Trump will be in San Antonio next week.

 

And i find it hilarious that Trump supporters seem to go on about Hillary the Crook when Trump University is getting the crap sued out of it and Trump has labeled the judge in one of the cases as biased.

[The Kurgan]

He can also shove his border wall "up his ass."

[Good God a Bear]

They are both crooks and have shady dealings.

[Justus]

Trump will be in San Antonio next week.

 

And i find it hilarious that Trump supporters seem to go on about Hillary the Crook when Trump University is getting the crap sued out of it and Trump has labeled the judge in one of the cases as biased.

Yes, because the judge is a "Meh-HEE-Kin," and of course, that means that poor, white billionaire cannot get a fair shake.

 

Where is the Kleenex.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

Now that he's got the nomination clinched, it seems Trump's assh*le mode is on full, and the switch is broken off so he can't turn it off. The guy is a parody, so much so, I would say he is either truly out of touch, or I am going to have to go back to my original theory that he is trolling, and intentionally attempting to help Hillary under the table.

 

Speaking of which, I love Hillary's announcement, yet nothing is official, yet. Sorry, a press release doesn't necessarily make it so. I hope that backfires.

[Ms. Spam]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/gop-operative-lashes-out-at-party-calls-trump-cheeto-jesus-in-epic-tweetstorm_us_57626d13e4b05e4be860ec59

 

Not all of you are my friends on facebook but this totally needed to be seen by some of you. And I got it from a Canadian friend who posted it tonight! OMG! Cheeto Jesus. And the RNC basically being called spineless. Usually that's reserved for the Democrats. There is more in the link that I can't post without the censor but Trump does get called a Crypto-fascist.

[Guest El Chalupacabra]

It ain't easy being cheesy!

 

I'd bet that by next election cycle, the GOP will change their primary rules big time, and will probably have DNC style super delegates, to have a fail safe against another Trump coming along.

[Poe Dameron]

Yeah, probably. Trump more or less hijacked the party and handed the Democrats a probable victory, perhaps even a landslide, in a year they should have struggled.

[Ms. Spam]

And the trainwreck that is Donald Trump's campaign keeps on going. Trump dumped his campaign manager in the face of bad poll numbers. Get ready for a Hillary White House. Best campaign season EVER.

[Poe Dameron]

For what it's worth, Corey Lewandowski's been slowly moving out the door for months. When Paul Manafort was hired in the wake of Lewandowski facing assault charges and the campaign finally waking up to the danger of losing the nomination via Cruz stacking the delegate slate (Manafort is one of the few people in the country with real-world experience with contested presidential conventions dating back to the Ford/Reagan struggle of '76), the two started a power struggle and Manafort won pretty much every contest because it was pretty clear he was the one who actually knew what he was doing.

 

If anything, this signals a more professional, less chaotic Team Trump.

[Ms. Spam]

You hope. I'd like more substance than attacks. I need to know if I vote for Trump he won't spout out stuff that makes less sense than say Sarah Palin. I didn't vote McCain because of Palin. Trump can't keep saying "WE'RE GOING TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT!" He has to start saying how he's going to do this that doesn't have the phrases "no muslims allowed" or "mexico is going to pay for a wall". He's basically pandering to scared people who want these things but don't understand that it solves nothing.

[Poe Dameron]

I don't hope anything. I won't be voting for Trump. I hold him in nothing but contempt.

[Poe Dameron]

 

 

IN, MO, AZ- all states that conceivably flip if this race is Clinton +10, but I'm not sure any polling supports that right now.

 

Well, first poll I've seen out of Arizona in awhile isn't good. Clinton +4.