I don’t want to beat the dead horse of HRC’s relationship with the coal and Rust belt, but Guardian had an interesting article on Trump and Appalachia. They reproduced a map showing the region as it crosses from the South in to upstate NY.
In their words-
—–excerpt—-
Of the 420 counties seen as sharing a culture that transcends state lines, Trump won all but 16 , including a sweep of western Pennsylvania, eastern Ohio and the western uplands of Virginia with potentially profound ramifications for the general election.
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/13/donald-trump-bill-clinton-appalachia-democrats-voters
————
We know Hillary couldn’t win Michigan.
In Ohio, the top two Republicans (Kasich and Trump), beat Hillary and Sanders by 500,000 votes in the Primary.
In the Penn primary, head to head, Hillary beat Trump by just 20,000 votes. And that was with multiple GOP candidates on the ballot.
Yes, the General is different, but these totals do give us hints.
The assumptions, including Booman’s, is that HRC will carry all the Obama states and add a few more. I really wonder if that is correct. So the question, heretical as it seems, can Hillary win the general without Penn and Ohio? Also probably Va and maybe Mich? Do the Electoral numbers add up?
Ridge
○ Why Pennsylvania Could Decide The 2016 Election | 538 |
This growing cultural distance between these two Pennsylvanias — some would say Philadelphia vs. “Pennsyltucky” — points to long-term problems for Democrats:
The Philadelphia area is getting bluer, rest of Pennsylvania redder
You quote:
As I have been saying here for quite a while.
From a comment on my own Mar. 3 post here, PermaFix Backfires!!! Blows Itself Up Real Good!!!
The mass media has been doing its centrist job, pumping up HRC’s numbers in an effort to get people to step away from both Trump and Sanders so that she can be the winner of his current PermaFix effort.
But it’s not working as planned.
How? Why?
An excerpt from CJ Hopkins’s excellent Counterpunch article The Mainstream Media and Its Discontents follows. Read the whole piece on Counterpunch. It is more than worth the effort.
Deep stuff.
Deep State stuff.
Bet on it.
AG
Just checked the results.
At 1:20AM Wed morning, HRC ahead of Sanders in KY by less than 2000 votes with 4 precincts to report. She is claiming victory.
If you look at the map provided by Huff Post, Hillary loses the Eastern part of the state, in the Appalachian Mts. She loses most of the agricultural West. She wins the wealthy Blugrass middle, with the legal and financial centers of the state. And with all the effort put into the state, with Bill doing several appearances, she only beats Bernie by less than 2000 for a net gain of 2 delegates (so far)
Oregon with 2/3 of precincts reporting, Sanders leads by 30,000 votes and projected winner. Geographically, it seems to be statewide.
While a win is a win, by all measures, HRC’s performance tonight is underwhelming. Its been suggested that Sander’s should or should not leave the campaign. Or that his remaining makes HRC a better candidate. If he keeps winning, he should stay in. If he essentially ties states, he should stay in.
R
While reporting on tonight’s results, CNN actually showed a Bernie rally in California tonight. I think they got the message that Bernie is going nowhere. There were a lot of disappointing faces tonight on both CNN and MSNBC. The MSM will be more disturbed when they wake up tomorrow and see all those Oregon counties for Bernie.
Reality in Kentucky HRC 46.8% Bernie 46.3% .5%
MSNBC Kentucky HRC 47% Bernie 46% 1%
What some people will do for .5% Shameful and they know it. MSM thinks they are very clever like the political party establishments in this country; however, their turn is next. I remember when Trump criticized the media during the R debates, he received loud applause. Bernie supporters are furious at the media. The MSM is oblivious to this fury from both groups. More people are pulling the plug on cable TV due to the price increases. As our economic decline for the majority increases, the audience for cable news decreases. Advertisers want more customers and they won’t be there.
Question: If Wolf Blitzer talks and no one hears him, does Wolfie really speak?
That leaves 7% of the votes unaccounted for.
Fewer than 2000 votes is in the easy-to-steal an election category. However, unlike IN and WV, HRC won many counties in KY.
Interesting that HRC hasn’t been able to convert many of her big wins in ’08 to ’16. She won KY with 65.5%. (WV with 66.9%.) There’s a pattern to all of this, but it’s far short of a formula.
Strong voting for Trump and Sanders is a people’s revolt against the old parties, US Congress and what is seen as the Washington establishment. If HRC was a sound presidential candidate and as good as Bill says, she would lead a misfit like Trump bij double digits in the polls …. guess what, she is not!
The DNC and its chairwoman Debbie Wasserman is a farce. In states there is voter suppression similar as seen during the November elections. That’s not democracy, it’s tyranny.
HRC backers are already whining the Sanders voters may not vote at all or support their candidate. Never blame the voter, when all votes ARE counted in a democracy, the voter is always right.
The American people will vote for their candidate according to their beliefs …. influenced by money spend on PR, ads and the debates. Make America Great again reverberates …. and it’s fun as even Budweiser joined the America campaign. Cheers!
Are elections won by the issues? Democrats tend to believe it’s so, reality is different.
Hillary needs 19 states plus DC to get to 270!! Pennsylvania is one of them. She’ll do it.
well that is the question. Head to head in the Penn Primary vs Trump. She came out ahead by 26,000 votes out of 3 mill. cast. That is less than 1/2 of 1 %
If she slips the slightest in the Urban centers of the East, then she loses the state. Same with Ohio. She can’t carry the south or the West. If she stumbles with the urban rust belt, then its gone.
The question becomes, if she loses one or the other, where are the electoral votes made up?
R
“If she loses the Urban Rustbelt…” The epicenter of blue collar discontent.
To answer your question, yes, Clinton could lose PA and OH and still win the election comfortably (with 296 electoral votes, if all other states vote as they did in 2012).
If she also lost MI and VA (doubtful, as VA is trending blue), she’d still win if she were able to flip AZ, GA, or NC.
Thanks for the reply.
I know about Va some. The “turning purple” has been based on the DC suburbs growth and holding steady in the crescent from there, through the liberal enclaves of horse country and Charlottesville, on to Norfolk- with islands of Roanoke and New River Valley. The rest of the state is Red.
In 2008 Hillary had the western highlands and the “Mountain Empire” of the far SW. She doesn’t have that now. She won’t get the Southside or the middle around Lynchburg. Charlottesville area is safe. Roanoke? Iffy. Norfolk? Don’t know. Trump will have appeal in the horse country with the people who work for the wealthy horse farms and the towns in the Shenandoah Valley. DC suburbs, safe. Richmond area? Toss up.
My overall impression, she won’t get Va.
Forget NC, its in the thrall of Radical Republicans.
AR? That would be interesting. GA? Don’t know.
R
As I mentioned in another thread, seems conservative to me to put PA and VA in HRC’s column. If she can add FL, she wins.
If Trump gets FL and OH, then the battleground states will be CO, IA, NH, NV, and WI.
Right now the Real Clear Politics state polling averages have Clinton leading Trump by 3-10 points in MI, OH, PA and VA. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/pa/pennsylvania_trump_vs_clinton-5633.html
3-10 points over a 1st time candidate who is acknowledged as a loon. Pretty thin soup. I wouldn’t be taking any of those polls to the bank.
R
Plus it’s six months before the election…which historically is the beginning of the period in which general election polls start to have some statistical significance.
Sure there’s a long way to go but 1) it’s better to be ahead than behind, 2) Clinton is still in a fight for her party’s nomination while Republicans have begun uniting behind Trump, and 3) at this time four years ago there were polls that had Romney ahead of Obama.
That’s the glass 1/2 full view.
The pessimistic view would be, “here is a politician with 20+ years of national name recognition, positions in the Senate, State Dept and White House. Some one who has visited and campaigned in the far corners of the country…and she can’t get above 10% against Trump. And that is before the head to head campaign.
Actually I’m a little optimistic but I’m not at all happy about HRC as Democratic nominee and recognize the disaster her running could be for the country.
R
I don’t think it’s a “glass 1/2 full view”. I think it’s just a “world as it is” view.
Look, no Democratic presidential candidate has gotten so much as 53% of the popular vote since 1964. The last time a Republican candidate got 53% of the popular vote was 1988.
For the past generation we’ve been living in a nation whose presidential elections are pretty evenly polarized. Could that change this year? Sure.
But at least right now, it doesn’t look like it will. Most people long ago made up their minds about Clinton…and about Trump.
2012 was a reelection year. there is always a bias toward “the devil you know”. It is more realistic to compare with 2008.
I’m not so sure about that. Since like forever, Presidential reelections result in either increased support for the known devil or the known devil is kicked out of office. 2012 broke from that historical pattern, in that his support was reduced but he wasn’t ousted.
2008 was more like 1976 when a hated Republican was turned out of office and a man from a long unrepresented group was elected.
You should of seen the Southerners in our office go wild in 1976. Also, much jubilation from the black Postal Workers in my facility. Of course most of the whites were Dems and were happy too, but not like the exultation of the blacks, which is understandable.
P.S. I used to think that most of the whites were Republican, then I found out that the Republicans were just the noisiest. The solid union men were Democrats but not noisy. They weren’t liberal (some were, some were socialist) for the most part, but they knew the (R)’s stood for union busting and privatization of the USPS.
You should of seen the Southerners in our office go wild in 1976. Also in 2008, much jubilation from the black Postal Workers in my facility.
I realized the earlier wording sounded all like 1976.
BTW 1976 was US Navy headquarters facility in DC. Lots of Navy veterans. North or South, the assumption was carter would favor the Navy budget. And he did.
’76 could also be seen as the GOP running for a third WH term, but was unusual in that the incumbent running had never run on a national ticket. However, Ford wasn’t disliked which is why it ended up being one of the closer election.
A third WH term for one is a tough nut. In the past 66 years, it’s only been done once. That was by an incumbent VP, but the other three losing attempts were also incumbent VPs. The closest historical precedent for a winning third term by a non-incumbent is 1928.
It’s also something that happens so rarely that there’s not much statistical value in looking at the past 66 years.
After the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover trifecta of the 1920s, Roosevelt won four consecutive elections, died just weeks after his final inauguration, and then Truman won a fifth consecutive term in the Oval Office for Democrats.
Four of the next five times a party had a chance to win a third term (1960, 1968, 1976, 2000), the incumbent party lost by a very narrow margin.
This year’s Democratic nominee (presumably Clinton) will likely be running in a time of relative peace and prosperity, and with an increasingly popular incumbent.