Presidential Race 2016 Predictions

[Mountain_Girl406]

While the debate isn't over yet, the jist so far seems to be that both candidates are coming off poorly due to mud slinging.

Clinton probably has more soft support to lose in this capacity.
I wonder if this will produce a slight bump for Trump...

I don't think so, I think he needed to come off as at least a bit contrite to win back the support he lost on his own side, and instead he's going for an aggressive, attacking approach. I don't think that deflecting back to Bill Clinton is a winning strategy, and I think he missed opportunities by not having anything to offer in place of Obamacare when asked. He also is going to look rough when factcheckers have a go. He'll stay popular with his personal base of support, but I don't think he could lose them no matter what. I don't think he'll bring the moderate Republicans back into his camp with his debate performance either or the undecideds.

 

[Genersis]

I agree, it doesn't seem like Trump will broaden his support or in turn recover support of the Republican party.

I hear this was his last chance for some senior Republican figures. He will be under a lot of pressure to step down.

 

[Genersis]

Welp. That seems to be that.
Things got better for Trump after the first half an hour, though nothing to suggest he laid any major blows.

It's up to the political spin machines now, and the voters, or course, to interpret it.

As for me, it is approaching 4AM and I need some sleep.

If I were to make a prediction...I think things are going to remain static, or a small drop in support for Clinton, or a small drop for both candidates.
Either way, I think Clinton will very likely still be in the lead in a week; the question is, by how much.

 

[Genersis]

This is what my current projection looks like.
It assumes a slight drift towards Trump/away from Clinton. It obviously doesn't take into account future surprises.

Trump needs to regain his lead in FL, NV and NC, in addition to putting at risk CO and/or NH to be in with a shot. While by no means impossible, it would be unprecedented.

It should perhaps be noted that both the lightest blue and lightest red states are still close enough to the point where I wouldn't be surprised if they did go against my prediction. If I were forced to guess which way NC would vote, I would say Clinton, but I wouldn't put any weight on that.

 

[Vicomte13]

I was about to post my one month to go prediction, but it seems a bit pointless after that rather nauseating audio of Trump has surfaced. Personally, I think it is likely not a coincidence, but I wonder if perhaps deployed a tad early.

If the impact is as damaging as I feel it could be, Trump might not even be the GOP candidate on election day.
Does Pence become their nominee?
Regardless, the race may become competitive again(or even Republican leaning) if Pence/whomever does well in future debates.

Trump will be the candidate, and he will probably win. Of course it was a hit. Of course it was organized by the Clinton people. The problem is that Hillary Clinton was the enabler of a rapist. People will end up hating both candidates the more they have their noses rubbed in sexual issues. They hit Trump first, but the univocal chorus of utterly hypocritical media howling is already producing a Brexit-like backlash.

The people are coming to resent the people who think they are that easy to manipulate.

 

[Vicomte13]

I think it should be noted that even if Clinton wins this election, the Republicans will be even more likely to win the next one(in historical terms, they should be winning this one). I worry if they may be able to win no matter how bad their candidate is.

No way. History will cease to matter, because that history has all been against the backdrop of a monolithic 50 years of continuous control of the Supreme Court by the Republicans. Democrats have always been limited by the fact that the Supreme Court can strike down anything they do.

If Hillary wins, the game changes permanently, just as it did when FDR got control of the Supreme Court. She takes the oath, appoints a Ruth Bader Ginsburg type, and she has a 5-vote liberal bloc on the Supreme Court. The federal judiciary changes hands for the first time in 50 years.

Democrats on the Supreme Court have voted as a bloc for thirty years. Hillary will be able to rely upon them to rubber-stamp her Executive Orders. Obama has had to be cautious, because the Supreme Court could always reverse him. Hillary will not need to be cautious, and will use EO's swiftly to change two key things:

First - Voter ID will be called voter suppression, and struck down nationally. The Supreme Court will uphold that EO, on constitutional grounds. This will permanently shift the margin of fraud in favor of the Democrats by at least 1-2 percentage points in every state with a major urban population or a major immigrant population.

Second - Hillary will grant amnesty to the illegals, with a path towards citizenship, through regulation. By the time she leaves office in 8 years, millions of new Hispanic citizens, 75% of whom vote Democrat, will be on the rolls across the country.

The Republicans will never win another election if Hillary wins this one, because of command of the Supreme Court. That is the alpha institution in America, and that is the REASON that the Democrats have only been able to do little tinkers under Carter, Clinton and Obama. With control of the court, they can disregard Congress and rule by regulation as long as they have 34 votes in the Senate to prevent removal after an impeachment.

If Trump wins, he'll be in endless civil war within the GOP and he will be blocked by his own party. If Hillary wins, you will see reform faster than any time since FDR got control of the court. And the first thing Hillary will target are the levers of political control, ensuring permanent Democrat majorities and permanent Democrat power.

After that, America will drift the same way that all one-party states do. The corruption will be staggering, and no effective opposition will be able to be organized against it.

Watch it all happen if she wins.

 

[Fish and Bread]

No way. History will cease to matter, because that history has all been against the backdrop of a monolithic 50 years of continuous control of the Supreme Court by the Republicans. Democrats have always been limited by the fact that the Supreme Court can strike down anything they do.

If Hillary wins, the game changes permanently, just as it did when FDR got control of the Supreme Court. She takes the oath, appoints a Ruth Bader Ginsburg type, and she has a 5-vote liberal bloc on the Supreme Court. The federal judiciary changes hands for the first time in 50 years.

Democrats on the Supreme Court have voted as a bloc for thirty years. Hillary will be able to rely upon them to rubber-stamp her Executive Orders. Obama has had to be cautious, because the Supreme Court could always reverse him. Hillary will not need to be cautious, and will use EO's swiftly to change two key things:

First - Voter ID will be called voter suppression, and struck down nationally. The Supreme Court will uphold that EO, on constitutional grounds. This will permanently shift the margin of fraud in favor of the Democrats by at least 1-2 percentage points in every state with a major urban population or a major immigrant population.

Second - Hillary will grant amnesty to the illegals, with a path towards citizenship, through regulation. By the time she leaves office in 8 years, millions of new Hispanic citizens, 75% of whom vote Democrat, will be on the rolls across the country.

The Republicans will never win another election if Hillary wins this one, because of command of the Supreme Court. That is the alpha institution in America, and that is the REASON that the Democrats have only been able to do little tinkers under Carter, Clinton and Obama. With control of the court, they can disregard Congress and rule by regulation as long as they have 34 votes in the Senate to prevent removal after an impeachment.

If Trump wins, he'll be in endless civil war within the GOP and he will be blocked by his own party. If Hillary wins, you will see reform faster than any time since FDR got control of the court. And the first thing Hillary will target are the levers of political control, ensuring permanent Democrat majorities and permanent Democrat power.

Hillary Clinton winning sounds good to me!

Fact is, Merrick Garland has been waiting an unprecedented over 200 days for a hearing on his nomination. The Republican Senate refused to even talk to the guy in a formal hearing and take a vote. And that's a moderate who Orrin Hatch (Republican Senator) actually mentioned by name as the type of guy he'd have to consider but that Obama would never nominate- Obama gave him the guy he wanted and Hatch came up with another excuse not to consider him. They said they wanted to wait for the next President, but, surprise, surprise now that its likely Clinton, they are talking about blocking nominees for the next 4 years (That broke today- John McCain said it).

Our only chance at a functional government is electing a Democratic Senate to pair with a Democratic President in this election. Then we have to just hope the House sees reason and doesn't shut down the government or default on our debts, because there is no realistic chance of Republicans losing the House until the district lines are redrawn for 2022.

Anyway, the only thing you mentioned in your first post that would bother me if it happenes is extended one party rule generating corruption. But, guess what? Everytime we've democratically drifted towards a one party system, either the party that's being routed has reinvented itself or gets replaced by a new second party. Republicans will have to either shift to become more moderate or they will fall apart and some new party will rise from the ashes, which, by the way, is the way the Republican Party came to be in the first place, they replaced the Federalist Party, which has fallen out of favor with the voters.

But that type of long term stuff is hard to predict. For all I know, the Democrats take the Senate in 2016 here and lose in 2018 because Republican voters have better turnout relative to Democrats in non-Presidential elections and the party opposite the incumbant President also tends to lose seats in offyear elections unless and President is extremely popular.

Anyway, what is in front of us is s choice to vote for an unqualified facist racist misogynistic sexual assault committing demogoue or a qualified moderate who just has the type flaws politicians usually have. That shouldn't be a tough decision. Clinton should be our woman, she'll win big and she should, given our alternative.

Let's give her the Senate, too, so we can have a functional government in at least some respects.

Nothing we can do about the House but pray that the Republicans stop acting insane and start being willing to conpromise, because they will almost certainly retain that chamber.

 

[Fish and Bread]

FYI: The type of one party rule that scares me more is the kind where Trump gets elected and starts following his idol Putin's model- ie not holding free and fair elections in the years that follow and cracking down on dissenters and the media.

If we have one party rule because everybody gets to vote and the Republicans can't present a viable alternative to Democrats, its on the Republicans or some third party to present a better slate of candidates to the American people. If the best the Republicans can do is people like Donald Trump and Mike Pence or even Paul Ryan and Ted Cruz, they deserve to lose for as long as thats the type of leader they have on offer.

 

[Genersis]

We're entering the final straight of the race.
There's no point making a new prediction, I'm still pretty comfortable with my last. Currently, it seems Clinton may do better than my prediction, but this could easily switch.

Keep an eye out for campaign super weapons. If either side has one, it will surface in the next week or two(so it has time to sink in before election day) in an attempt at a last minute swing.

EDIT: In fact, with early voting, most of the campaigns best dirt is probably already out in the open, so forget about the whole super weapon guff.

 

[tadoflamb]

A side note, Arizona might just turn blue this year. Hillary has had a small lead for some time now.

Hard to believe. I wonder if I'm living in a parallel universe.

 

[Mountain_Girl406]

With so much early voting, I think it's pretty much over at the Presidential level.
I'm not happy about where the polls show Montana might be headed, though. I think we'll hopefully keep our good governor, but we'll also be stuck with an awful representative in the House, and we only get one. We might miss a chance to send a Native American woman, who was our great Secretary of Education to represent us instead.

 

[Genersis]

A side note, Arizona might just turn blue this year. Hillary has had a small lead for some time now.

Hard to believe. I wonder if I'm living in a parallel universe.

Indeed.
I currently have it sliding back to a Trump safe state, but I'm starting to get second thoughts about a notable drift back towards Trump(I've been waiting for it since the second debate).

I find it hard to believe Clinton will be leading by 5+ points on election day. But who knows. maybe this isn't a bounce and the new level of support for Clinton(or perhaps rather, against Trump), is going to become the new normal till the day itself.

The more I think about early voting and Clinton's ground game, the more I wonder if I'm under-estimating her...
I'd rather play it safe though.

 

[Fantine]

Ecuador has cut off Julian Assange's internet access, and, trapped in the London embassy there, he will have difficulty transmitting his criminally obtained materials.

This doesn't bother me in the least. Ecuador has every right to prevent their unwelcome guest from committing crimes during his stay.

While I would love the October surprise to be Trump's tax returns, I feel reasonably sure that as early voting progresses, more October surprises will be less and less likely.

Clinton will win--but Trump won't go quietly.

 

[Genersis]

Right, so I looked into postal and early voting, and I've adjusted my prediction to try and compensate somewhat:

It should be noted, that Clinton could be benefiting significantly more from early voting in Arizona than in Iowa if the polling is accurate.
Clinton's polling increased significantly around the 12th of October, when early voting started in AZ.

It's impact could make it more likely than Iowa to turn blue...pretty odd. I almost marked it the lightest shade of red.

Nebraska's second district could also become quite competitive.
Ohio could go either way.
North Carolina is also more likely to turn blue taking into account early voting.

With early voting starting tomorrow in Nevada, the 24th in Colorado and the 29th in Florida all three could end up more likely to turn blue due to Clinton's current polling high. 30-ish% of the vote is likely to be early.

EDIT: Using a number of forecasts and the Waybackmachine Internet Archive, it seems pretty clear that the time period between 4th to the 9th of October were incredibly damaging to Trump. He's yet to recover.
That poll boost in AZ on the 12th that I mentioned is actually a widespread phenomenon, as the polls have around a week delay.

 

[tadoflamb]

After 3 days of early voting, 20% have already been cast in AZ.

 

[Genersis]

After 3 days of early voting, 20% have already been cast in AZ.

That's useful to know.
Seems I may be overestimating Arizona's redness.
Think you could let me know if you hear any updates on this?

 

[Genersis]

I've been looking into articles which all seem to refer to the same data put forward by a group of political think tanks which give estimations on how the early voting is going.
Regardless of the methodology's soundness and the think tanks political biases, estimations were also made using the same methodology for the 2012 election, so there is solid data to compare to.

It suggests the Democrats are doing better in early voting in Florida, Colorado, Nevada and possibly Arizona(Many more Democrats are voting, but Republican voters still requested more early ballots)
This is compared to estimations made at this point in the election in 2012, which I probably needn't point out the Democrats won. They're also apparently "have momentum"(whatever that means) in Nebraska and Maine's second districts.

Meanwhile, in Iowa and Ohio, Democrats haven't made significant gains. Which lines up with how stubbornly red they've been compared to other swing states.
Not that it matters much, Clinton doesn't need to win these states.

Unless Democrats are disproportionately voting early and/or Republicans are disproportionately voting late compared to 2012, this will have a significant impact on the election.

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

it amazes me that someone like Genersis from the UK, can take such an analytical interest in American elections

 

[Genersis]

it amazes me that someone like Genersis from the UK, can take such an analytical interest in American elections

You're too kind.
My predictions are based on quite a bit of gut instinct that I convince myself is reasonable.

Next up will be the UK General Election that will be called for next year.
Not that there's much need to. Unless the opposition parties do something drastic, the Conservatives can't lose.

 

[Godlovesmetwo]

You're too kind.
My predictions are based on quite a bit of gut instinct that I convince myself is reasonable.

Next up will be the UK General Election that will be called for next year.
Not that there's much need to. Unless the opposition parties do something drastic, the Conservatives can't lose.

I'm interested to hear your take on Aussie politics.