I’m glad that David Atkins had the energy to rebut this embarrassingly stupid piece in The Hill this morning. Putting articles together that explain Electoral College math and scenarios is time-consuming and the reward often does not feel like it matches the effort. I’m much happier to keep my free time before Finn’s soccer match and just crib off David.
When I first saw the headline (“Clinton has inevitability, but Bush has the Electoral College”), I though that Eric Ham had come up with a clever angle. While Clinton can plausibly argue that she’s going to be the inevitable nominee and intimidate would-be opponents and their would-be political and financial backers, Jeb Bush can plausibly argue that he has the best chance of winning some of the crucial states the Republicans need to get an Electoral College victory. In other words, I thought the point was that Jeb had some problems on issues that upset the base of his party, he still has a really strong electability argument. As analysis, this wouldn’t have been novel or exciting, but it had the advantage of being accurate.
But that’s not the column that Mr. Ham wrote. Instead, he tried to claim that Jeb Bush has an strong advantage over Hillary Clinton in the Electoral College. Fortunately, that’s complete hokum and David explains why:
Let’s grant Ham’s premise that [Jeb] Bush’s background in Florida will help any more than Gore’s background in Tennessee aided him. Let’s also grant the dubious notion that the [Gov. John] Kasich effect and the GOP convention will somehow put the GOP over the top in Ohio. Let’s give the GOP Colorado despite its ever-more-blue demographic shifts, and let’s assume that some combination of Bush’s Spanish speaking and [Gov. Brian] Sandoval’s endorsement somehow pulls Latino voters in Nevada to Bush in spite of the GOP’s rabid freakout over immigration and unwillingness to budge on the issue.
It’s a series of dubious longshots, but let’s give Bush Florida, Colorado, Nevada and Ohio. Let’s also give Bush the swing state of North Carolina (because this isn’t a discussion otherwise), and let’s assume that 2016 isn’t the year that demography overwhelms the GOP in Arizona and Georgia. Let’s also assume (as is likely but not at all certain) that every red-leaning swing state like Missouri and West Virginia falls to Bush.
Even all that still doesn’t get the GOP to more than 268 electoral votes. The Democratic nominee would still win the White House, even under that highly improbable scenario. Bush would have to go beyond that feat to somehow pluck off Iowa, Wisconsin or Virginia just to eke out a narrow win—nor is there any particular reason to believe that will happen.
Actually, little old New Hampshire would do the trick in this scenario, too. But the point isn’t that the Electoral College is unwinnable for Republicans because it’s not. The point is that any analysis that says that Jeb Bush or any Republican is starting out with an advantage (let alone a strong advantage) is wrong. The Republicans are behind the eight-ball, which is precisely why they proposed making some changes after the 2012 loss. Being friendlier to immigrants, softer on cultural issues, basically okay with gay rights…these are their recipes for victory and Jeb will try to test the theory out to the degree he is able. It could work.
But Jeb Bush is facing an almost impossible Electoral College map, and his best argument for himself in the primaries is that he, in contrast to Ted Cruz, et. al., isn’t facing a completely impossible map.
Well, I don’t buy this crap even for a minute. This is not 2008 or 2012. The “emerging Democratic majority” has vanished, and please, spare me the garbage about “Democrats don’t vote in non-Presidential elections”.
The “inevitability” bullshit is just ridiculous. It’s an excuse for sloth and excuse-making. You hear it EVERY SINGLE FUCKING TIME – “Oh, Democrats don’t vote in off-year elections”. Well, that is bullshit. They don’t vote because the Democratic party has policies that do not attract a lot of voters.
a) Illegals
b) gays
These are marginal constituancies, but they are the absolute center of Democratic party policy these days. Working class voters? For most Democrats, these are considered racist assholes. Black voters? Oh, they always vote Democratic, and we don’t have to actually listen to them.
2016 is gonna be a very big surprise to a whole lot of Dems. If Hillary is the candidate, she is going to lose.
Lower your voice, you’ll scare the horses.
For all the fun we made of Republicans for being shocked by Romney’s lost, it’s how I felt about Kerry in 2004. It was inconceivable to me that the United States would re-elect that no-talent assclown, Bush. And everything I’d read in the liberal blogosphere reinforced that belief.
My initial response to Kerry was: Another governor from Massachussets? Are you kidding me?
I have similar misgivings about Hillary Clinton now. I think she’s an awful candidate; Republicans are going to have many long field days with her. And unlike Obama, I think her feathers are easily and obviously ruffled, and that’s a problem with Republican campaigns because their entire political strategy is personal destruction.
But there’s the numbers, too, so your kind of analysis is appreciated — certainly more than the favorability ratings before the pre-Republican wurlitzer-on-a-steam-roller kicks in.
The whole email thing is likely to have more shoes than you can buy in a mall.
She is sitting on her “advantage” now, and doing nothing with it.
A diary at DK the other day talked about IA and the R tide there. There have been many prep events in IA, and all the R candidates are there. No D candidates at all. NONE. This is very bad. IA, for its flaws as the lead state, is the lead state. If the D side concedes the rural vote, we are toast.
Yes, Clinton is an “awful candidate.” However, so too was GHWB in 1988. And so far it looks as if Republicans will be nominating their version of Dukakis.
It’s generally very difficult for partisans in either party to assess how awful their chosen nominee is in comparison with his/her opponent. The only surprise for me in 2004 was how well Kerry did. He too was an awful candidate. As was his opponent, but the advantage does go to the incumbent if perceptually it’s a draw on awfulness.
For all my criticisms of Obama, he has been the best Democratic Presidential candidate since perhaps 1964.
In this context, “awful” always means “whom I don’t like”
No. It. Doesn’t.
I’m perfectly capable of differentiating between an “awful candidate” and someone I agree with or like.
Similarly, while I didn’t like GWB, McCain, or Romney or agree with them about anything, as a candidate, it was obvious that GWB was marginally less awful than McCain and Romney. Neither Gore nor Obama were awful as candidates. Although Obama ran a much better campaign are more adeptly deflected attempts by the opposition to tarnish him.
Fiorina is an awful candidate. Against and equally awful Democratic opponent, she could win because for some reason inexplicable to me (possibly MSM coverage), Republicans get spotted one to two percentage points. Against a less awful or not awful Democratic opponent, she will always lose. Head-to-head against Clinton, Fiorina loses.
Charisma is little, demographics are everything.
Going by Dukakis’s post-election numbers, he would’ve won had he had Obama’s electorate. Contrariwise, Obama would’ve lost had he had Dukakis’s electorate.
Imagine that. Dukakis, the punchline for inept, milquetoast campaigner being a winner with Obama’s map and Obama, the touchstone for the smooth, badass campaigner being a loser with Dukakis’s map.
I’m not saying that charisma isn’t exactly nothing, since it allowed Clinton to win an election that he was slightly favored to lose (if you assume that if Perot didn’t run, 65% of Perot voters would’ve voted for Dole, 15% for Clinton, and 20% not voting at all) and it allowed Kerry to lose an election he was slightly favored to win. But I’d like to heavily emphasize the word ‘slightly’.
Barring signficant party-realignment, scandals, or the economy elections, like wars, are largely decided decades in advance. It’s why I think that arguments against Sen. Clinton’s charisma are pretty lame, because it the end it doesn’t really matter so much as the demographics the 2016 incarnation of the Democratic Party are going to compete for.
This is entirely speculative. Dukakis made his own bed. You create your own electorate, and the notion that the “electorate” is a thing outside of the campaign is pretty antithetical to all political experience.
Is it, now? If you look at the Presidential Election statistics from around 1988 to 2012 and the electoral margin of Dukakis -> Clinton -> Gore -> Kerry -> Obama is pretty monotonic and steady sloped.
After the Nixon coalition predicted by the Emerging Republican Majority reared its ugly head and shattered the New Deal Coalition into a million pieces the Democratic electorate has been pretty stable in proportion between Democratic Candidates. What’s different is its raw population from year-to-year. Blaming Dukakis’s poor performance on 1988 solely or even mostly due to the candidate’s personal competence requires you to ignore everything that happened between then and 1976 and then and 2012. Partly because the Democratic Party’s brand came before and lasted after he did and also partly because he didn’t really do anything too different than other post-NDC Dems. Running an inept campaign didn’t help, but even if he ran a brilliant campaign he would’ve lost 1988 pretty commandingly unless the demographic composition of the Democratic Party was significantly different.
Soooo….the white woman has less chance than the Black guy?
Even tho the white woman has essentially the same positions as the black guy (who won by 5% after a NASTY campaign)?
Even tho the white woman has basically positive approval and ALL the R candidates are under water (including BUSH).
I won’t mention current polls matchup polls because those polls won’t mean much in 4 months.
You’ll forgive me, if I don’t buy your koolaid right at this moment. Maybe later, tho.
Before I give a moment’s credence to a poll, taken 16 months before an election and based SOLELY on name recognition, I’d like to see:
I may be wrong about her electability. I know that she has a powerful appeal to a lot of Democrats, some of whom are women, and she would certainly make the woman’s vote stronger. She would at the same time not appeal to a lot of men. Just as you say, however, a black guy won, which I never thought I would see, and so I am likely to be wrong.
My main point is that the INEVITABILITY argument of Booman’s totally, absolutely, and unmistakably wrong. There is NO EC edge at this time. It must be shown to exist. I don’t buy it at all now.
When did those turnovers happen? In 2012, or 2014? In 2008, or 2010?
50 states; 100 electorates.
(Oh, and the Maine race was a 3-cornered affair where the spoiler was arguably to the left of the runner-up.)
I think you need to re-read Booman’s post, because you seem to have read a different post than I did. The only place where the word “inevitable” or its derivatives is used is in describing Hillary winning the nomination, which, sadly, seems like a good bet at this stage. And this article isn’t talking about an “emerging Democratic majority”; it’s talking about the existing Democratic majority at the Presidential level and why the argument that Jeb Bush starts off with an electoral advantage is a stupid argument.
You can’t just brush aside “Democrats don’t vote in off-year elections” – it’s a fact. Turnout among Republicans AND Democrats was quite low in 2014, and Democrats turned out less than Republicans. President Obama won all of those states you list easily in 2012 when electoral participation was higher, and they have been solidly Democratic in Presidential elections for a long time. And Michigan isn’t “top to bottom R”; its Senators are Democrats. Walker won re-election, but Romney didn’t come close to beating Obama in Wisconsin in 2012. Do you really think Minnesota and Maine are in play for 2016?
Democratic weakness in non-Presidential elections is troubling, and it is certainly possible that it could translate into weakness in Presidential elections, but it is a fact that, so far, the electorates between Presidential and non-Presidential elections are very different, and any argument that you should substitute the midterm electorate for the Presidential electorate when reasoning about 2016 needs rigorous explanation.
Democrats holding the White House in 2016 is definitely not “inevitable” (Democrats were structurally better positioned in 2000 and 2004 as well, and we all know how that worked out), but just as silly as talk of Democrats inevitably holding the White House in 2016 is talk of “WE’RE ALL DOOMED”.
Sure you can. Especially if, when you don’t, you haven’t got anything else.
Well, you appear to understand politics at a deep level. Explain WI, then. Get specific. What about Walker? What about next Tuesday’s election? How did Walker win, statewide, in a “D” state on two offyear and one presidential year election.
You are long on contempt, and short on analysis.
Walker’s won in one presidential year election — a recall election — and there was significant resistance to a recall on principle — held in June, not November.
The relevance of this to WI performance in presidential elections, and in presidential election years, eludes me.
“the relevance eludes me” My point exactly.
Enlighten us, then. Why is that outcome relevant when we have significant counter-evidence that WI is solidly blue during U.S. Presidential Election years? Why does your example overwhelm those examples?
The entire state of WI is controlled by R folks at this point. The policies which can be affected by the SoS will be done to improve R results. The R gov, who may be running for POTUS BTW, will influence results. Yes, I am aware that Obama won in 2012 in WI, while Walker was winning his recall election. The State House and Senate are R as well. The HoR contingent is majority R now.
In addition, the phenomena of ticket-splitting is getting less common by many reports.
So, I am not convinced that “historical inevitability” is more important than “current facts on the ground”. And the notion that “demographic factors” favor D voting is only true as long as “demographic factors” are unchanged. Which I don’t believe. I think they are changed.
By focusing on WI instead of the electoral map at large, you’re switching from disputing a general claim to a specific one. I’m not going to dispute the truth value of WI in specific, but my response remains: fine. So what about Iowa, Virginia, Nevada, Colorado, Florida, etc.?
Unless you’re willing to draw up specific cases for every swing state, your argument is still lacking in explanatory power for refuting the overall trend.
Okay, what is the nature of this change and how strong is the change? You’re right in that the demographic factors will change from election to election, but the current projection is that the racial minority share of the vote will rise by about 1.5% and the Millenial share of the vote will rise by about 3%. Do you have some other factor we’re not looking at?
“Yes, I am aware that Obama won in 2012 in WI, while Walker was winning his recall election.”
Boy, this is a transparent attempt to evade the facts. Your “…while…” implies that the election took place on the same day. It did not. The Governor recall election took place in June. Almost exactly five months later, the President carried Wisconsin by a larger vote margin than Walker carried the State in his recall.
Voter turnout for the POTUS election increased by more than 500,000 from the June 2012 recall. Turnout for the 2014 gubernatorial election was about 200,000 lower than for the 2012 recall. So, yeah, you really do need to grapple with these facts about Wisconsin Presidential politics.
“The entire state of WI is controlled by R folks at this point. The policies which can be affected by the SoS will be done to improve R results.” These facts were true in 2012, yet Obama beat Romney handily.
“The R gov, who may be running for POTUS BTW, will influence results.” Governor Walker’s popularity among Wisconsin voters has not increased one bit since his first Governor’s election. He has simply and purely polarized the voters in ways which have allowed him to win elections in non-Presidential elections.
That complete polarization would hurt Walker badly in a Presidental election; an extremely large portion of the half-million voters who didn’t turn out for the Governor’s elections are likely to be his opponents. Finally, Walker has viciously violated many 2014 campaign promises he made to gain support from moderates. Now that he’s thrown himself into the arms of the GOP POTUS primary base, his moderate support is almost certain to dry up.
As someone who grew up there, I think that Wisconsin still swings “D” in presidential elections. I can’t offer any in-depth analysis as to why, other than that the people there seem the same to me as when I was growing up. Walker is unique in some sense in that a lot of people were against the recall on principle, and I think that some of that reflexive vote carried through into his next election. Not only that, but Tommy Thompson was the governor for something like 14 years, and Wisconsin swung “D” in every presidential election during his long tenure, so Walker’s winning of several elections is not particularly persuasive to me.
Re you sometimes known as “Nick Danger”?
Are You…
All these EC analyses leave out one factor: What R-controlled states are contemplating making EC votes proportional, or tied to Congressional district, or however they come up with ways to dilute Dem wins? How many such proposals are likely to move into reality? And how likely is that to flip the overall EC vote from D to R?
Absolutely key point. Because this is certainly an active area in MI, OH, and PA. If that happens, all of the D Party contempt for rural voters will come back to haunt us for many years to come.
I’m doing my bit. I’ve got a cross burning scheduled for later this afternoon. And I’ll be carrying concealed the whole time.
The message ‘Yeah, we’re Demo, but we’re really on your side’ will, I am sure, come through loud and clear.
Thanks for supporting my point. You appear to believe that “rural voters are cross burners”. A poster on DK the other day used the phrase “playing to racial resentment” when poster was discussing rural voters. If you, and what seems to be most on the left, believe that rural voters are all racists, we have indeed lost the entire sphere of rural voters. They are not all racists. There is not even a majority of them who are racists. The image of cross burning really should be eliminated. The term “racist” should be reserved for actual racists, of which there are very few in politics today.
Look, I find moose poop in my back yard weekly. I know from rural voters, I’ve been teaching them for nearly 40 years — them and their children. And canvassing among them. And clerking their polls.
They’re not all racists. A majority of them can’t be racists or Maine wouldn’t have the voting record it has. But these voters are stunningly retrograde in many of their attitudes — check out our history on LBGT referenda, for example — and have demonstrated a propensity to cut their own throats at the ballot box to preserve tribal signifiers — and being aggressively white is a large part of that.
It’s not Philadelphia-Mississippi-racism. But it’s real, and it works at the polls. Because people I know routinely believe and repeat stuff like this, and they vote. I see them when I cross their names off the lists when they collect their ballots.
And my point is that the D party needs to find a way to contact them and deal with them. Categorizing them as either “racist” or “less racist” means that the battle is already lost.
What is needed is a D Party policy which finds a way to reach out to them. And I know of no initiatives at this time.
What are several?
Well, appealing to their economic self-interest isn’t working. Hasn’t worked since the mid-Eisenhower period.
Vote D — the mills close. Environmentalists, of course.
Vote R — the mills close. Off-shoring venture capitalists, of course.
Send George Mitchell to Washington, and Joe Brennan to Augusta — mills close.
Send Olympia and Susan to Washington, and Jock McKernan to Augusta — mills close.
Hell, send Angus King both places, and mills close.
Got a plan B with a track record of success?
Me, I’m training the children to emigrate. It’s more or less like Ireland in the 20’s and 30’s. If they have a little polish on them when they get there, they’ll do better.
The emigration option is certainly one that I am encouraging my children to consider. I am actually studying German myself. I wouldn’t mind working in Germany for 5-6 years after I leave my current gig. I think that the US has instituted numerous policies which actively cut off options for our own citizens.
Do you also call yourself “Nick Danger”?
Well, I’m rather fond of our back-up plan in which we passively allow urbanization and the increase of secondary education to crack open the Solid South and scattered parts of the Northeast.
As optimistic as I am about the current state of the Democratic Party, racial and cultural identity politics will only take us so far. I mean, liberals eventually lost the fealty of Italians and the Irish. Whether being abandoned by Latinos and Blacks will happen in 12 years or 40 is up to debate, but it’s not going to last forever. I dread the day when non-whites/queers abandon our party en masse to sneer and demand domination against some new threatening cultural minority.
If I was the Democratic President and I wanted to make leftism a long-term commitment I’d focus on economic stimulus packages aimed at cities, a hugely expanded education bill, and free secondary schooling. But that’s something that’s only going to bear fruit in like 25 years, minimum. As far as tomorrow is concerned, my only hope is that the Democratic Party finds some way to win the House and Senate in 2016 or 2020 and hope for the best.
I think it’s been long enough that Repubs can successfully pretend that Bush the Lesser was a great president.
I fully expect the “no terrorist attacks while Bush was president” thing to be trotted out again.