Sean Trende, over at Real Clear Politics , tries to sell a weak Trump ‘could win’ post……
One of the interesting things about Donald Trump’s upset win in 2016 was that, in retrospect, all the signs were there: It was obvious in the immediate aftermath that key swing states in the Midwest were under-polled; it was obvious that polls were undercounting whites without college degrees; and it was obvious that Trump was closing in on Hillary Clinton at the end, especially in the key states of Michigan and Pennsylvania. Still, it was difficult to put all that together into a coherent case for a Trump upset, especially since the arguments for Hillary Clinton winning were more prevalent and more straightforward. One thing that was not obvious was the magnitude of the looming split between the popular vote and electoral votes.
A similar situation exists today. It is much more straightforward to make the case for a Joe Biden win. He’s up seven percentage points in the RealClearPolitics Average of national polls, and leads in the key swing states. This lead has been durable and stable over the course of the race. The president has presided over an economic collapse and a pandemic that will have killed more than 200,000 Americans by the end of this month.
But what if Trump does pull out the win again? What will have happened? Or to put it differently, what’s the best case to be made now for how Trump is reelected? Setting aside the possibility for another substantial polling error in key swing states, which I discussed last week, the answer has three parts…..
Of course Trump “could” win.
I haven’t read anyone say he “can’t win.”
Then again, he “could” lose.
Gee that was easy.
U haven’t read too many people front Trump winning…..
And this guy admits Trump is needs some miracles ….
So?
He “could” still win.
Or
He “could “still lose.
The point was anyone can say this.
It’s just so much fluff.
No….
The winning or losing is dead serious…..
I was talking about the “predictions.”
Another comment with no relationship to the post.
Unsurprising too I might add.
When Reince Priebus and the RNC were looking for a way forward, they produced a very forward and outward looking document in 2013 (the Growth & Opportunity Project, or G.O.P.) on how the Republican Party might overcome the social and demographic trends that had led to their defeat in 2008 and 2012 — for instance, more responsiveness to ethnic minorities and a Republican equivalent (continued under Michael Steele) of Howard Dean’s 50-state strategy (itself a contrast to the Clinton campaign’s 17 and 18 state strategies).
Sean Trende came up with an alternate view that there were still a couple of election cycles ahead where socially-conservative Anglo whites could still outvote newer Democratically-inclined constituencies. It seemed a huge, archaic and nearly unreachable stretch at the time, although Trende’s paper certainly merited respect, but basically that’s the approach that Donald Trump (as vs, say Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz) took in 2016, together with his campaign managers Corey Lewandowski, Paul Manafort and Kellyanne Conway. And Trump won.
So I’m not going to dismiss Sean Trende’s appreciation out of hand.
I’m going with Scott’s view….
2020 simply is Not 2016….
Too much water under the bridge and Trump is trying to take the bridge apart while walking on it…
Sure the wing nuts ARE out there and they WILL come out and vote…
But if 2018 is a better more recent picture of things ?
Donald Trump’s forecast from just about ALL the political junkies is on point….
I think a majority of Republicans and some Democrats have exaggerated Trumos6 unlikely 2016 victory into a fair accompli that he will most certainly win again.
He could of course. But yesterday’s game almost never plays the same way today. And Trump had zero room for error from last time. Ironically it is Trump’s bravado and exaggeration of his narrow win the last time that may have blinded his party to that fact. If so they will be hoisted on their own petard.