Mrs. Center Left asked if Trump could win.  I said probably not. The betting markets show HRC at a 75 percent chance of becoming President.  But 75 percent is not a certainty.  And Trump’s chances of becoming the nominee are also now at about 75 percent.  Some pundits are in fact thinking that Trump’s nomination is inevitable.  I’m not quite at inevitable, but certainly, given his recent over performance relative to his polls and prior trends, he has a much better than 25 percent chance of being the nominee on the first ballot than I estimated just a few weeks ago.  An HRC/Trump battle is now very likely, if a little short of inevitable.  If Trump wins Indiana, then he will be the nominee.  If he loses, then there may be a contested convention.  But even then, I expect, but am not certain, that he would probably win on the first ballot through a combination of his pledged delegates, plus un-pledged, especially those unbound delegates from PA districts that Trump won heavily.

The most likely outcome of a Trump/HRC battle is a Clinton victory  by a historically large margin of about 55 to 45 percent.  Some pundits, and Mr. Center Left Sr., are thinking about a 59-41 blow-out, but I think that’s unlikely.  There are enough Republican loyalists and HRC haters to push Trump’s numbers up toward at least 45.  A huge HRC win along with recapturing the Senate and making gains in the House is the most likely outcome, but Trump could win.  An economic downturn, terrorist attack, or HRC scandal could give Trump a chance to win.  That’s the 25 percent.

Ross Douthat has an excellent column explaining that despite Trump’s moderate positions  on entitlements and some other issues, his extreme rhetoric and style makes any real airing of his positions impossible for most of the electorate. From Douthat:

Are there Hispanic swing voters who would vote for a Republican who promised to protect entitlements and avoid messy foreign wars? Sure. Are there upper-middle-class white women who would vote for a Republican who seemed to be friendly to gay rights and favorably disposed to Planned Parenthood? No doubt. Are there African-American voters who would support a candidate who wants to renegotiate trade deals, limit low-skilled immigration and spend more money on U.S. infrastructure? I’m certain there are.

But will any of these constituencies vote for Donald Trump? For Trump the rank misogynist, Trump the KKK-flirter, Trump the deport-the-Mexican-rapists candidate? If you read seven of Trump’s positions to the median Hispanic voter, they might agree with five or six of them … but Trump’sfavorability/unfavorability ratings with Hispanics are 12/77. If you go back to last August, before the campaign began, Trump had a 20 percent favorable rating with African-Americans; by Republican standards that’s not terrible. Six months of race-baiting later, he’s winning 5 percent of the black vote against Hillary Clinton. And women … well, he’s losing women, let’s put it that way, on a scale that no Republican nominee ever has before.

Hence his essential unelectability, which no centrist positioning is likely to much change.

Bottom line, Trump is a weak candidate likely to be defeated. But he is so toxic, it is scary that there is even the possibility that he might become President.

Back in 2015 before the summer of Trump and the rise of Bernie, my general political sense (hunch) was that Hillary Clinton would be a modest favorite in the November 2016 election.  I perceived that 2016 would be a “stay the course” rather than a “time for a change” election, and that HRC was would be a good vehicle for a such a status quo message despite her flaws as a politician.  I believed that “stay the course” would be a likely (though not certain) winning message over the Republican nominee for several reasons.

1. Unemployment was low and getting lower.
2. Interests rates an inflation were both very low.
3. The stock market was near an all time high.
4. The nation was at peace with no terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
5. There was no civil unrest.
6. The deficit was going down as a percentage of GDP.
7. The Democrats have won the popular vote in very presidential election going back to 1992, except 2004.
8. The Republican nominee was likely to be even more conservative than the last elected Republican, GW Bush.
9. Demographics favored the Democrats. The Democrat coalition of minorities and college educated whites was growing as a share of the electorate while non-college educated whites (the core of the Republican base) was shrinking.
10. A more conservative nominee would have an even harder time overcoming the demographic trends already favoring the Democrats in higher turn-out Presidential elections.

So I concluded then that HRC would be about a 60 favorite.  This was hardly a slam dunk.  Changes in the economy or a terrorist attack or a genuine external threat remained a possibility.  Moreover, I understand that the gains of the recovery have not been widely spread and many feel left behind. But the usual Republican nostrums of foreign policy belligerence (wars of choice) and tax cuts for the rich were not likely to resonate in this environment.

Those 10 from above still look pretty good to me.  The stock market has been volatile but recently has been rising, and is now not far from all time highs.  Ferguson and the black lives matter arguments do call slightly into question the “no civil unrest” point, but all in all the country is at peace with an improving economy as we move into the second quarter of 2016.  If anything, ISIS seems like less of threat today than last summer.

So I was surprised to read the following in a Timothy Egan piece:

If nothing else, the astounding presidential election of 2016 has shown that Americans are ready to junk the present system and try something bold, even reckless. Small ball is out. Incremental change is a nonstarter. Big will beat little.  Almost two-thirds of voters — Democratic and Republican majorities — agreed with the statement that “The old way of doing things no longer works and we need radical change,” when asked in a recent Quinnipiac University poll. This is not a frustrated fringe.

 The Quinnipiac finding that nearly two-thirds favor radical changes is shocking to me.   Even if you accept the finding (which I am struggling with and plan to research more), Egan, like me has trouble seeing how Trump or Sanders could be the solution.  Egan writes cleverly and perceptively that “The largest cluster of voters willing to chuck the status quo, not surprisingly, supports Donald Trump. But he offers nothing for them, no details, no workable solutions, just a buffoon with a gold-plated selfie stick.”  Regarding the Vermont Senator, he writes “Sanders is a sloganeer with authenticity. But a rant, no matter how dead-on, is not a governing blueprint. His answer, on a number of occasions, to complex issues has been “I haven’t thought about it a whole lot.” In many areas, he’s almost substance-free.”

A few months back I wrote about Ezra Klein’s description of Hillary’s view as “The Audacity of Political Realism.”  Her approach and agenda still fits well with a “stay the course” election which I foresee.  But has something deeper happened to the electorate making it a change election?  I remain doubtful, despite the Quinnipiac finding.  My hunch is that certain partisans on both sides crave greater change, but the broader middle of the electorate remains ready to embrace the status quo with just a few tweaks.

According to Nate Silver, the betting markets now have HRC with a 71 percent chance of becoming the next President.  Her all time high.  If she can find the right tweaks to campaign upon, her numbers will go even higher.

 

My last post ended with a question about party unity for the Republicans. Let me turn for a moment to the Democrats.  Everyone (all 7 readers of this blog) knows I strongly favor HRC over Bernie.  I watched some of the last debate between HRC and Sanders.  I found Bernie to be very negative and in fact condescending to Clinton.  It started me wondering, when Clinton finishes the primary season with several million more votes than Bernie, (she currently leads by 2.4 million, with 57 percent of the votes cast), will he bow out gracefully, as Clinton did 8 years ago? I hope so. But Bernie’s demeanor at the debate left me wondering.

Clinton is not a natural politician.  She sometimes acts entitled and makes unforced errors. But she has been in politics for over 3 decades fighting for things she believes in and putting up with more than her share of negative media attention.  But when she lost the nomination in 2008, she was a team player and worked with Obama.  For liberal HRC doubters (and team Bernie), I would point out her support for Obama following her own defeat in the primary represents good character on her part.  May Bernie surprise me a little and be just as gracious when the time comes.

 

It’s been interesting to watch the conventional wisdom move around on this question. A few weeks ago, when Trump was struggling a bit, some observers thought it a certainty that the Republican convention would nominate someone else, possibly even non candidate like Romney or Ryan, if Trump were short of 1237.  Now many observers are taking the opposite view, that norms of democracy over the past 40 years in the nominating process mean that even if Trump is short on delegates, as the candidate with the most votes, failure to nominate him would be unacceptable.  A lot of very smart people that I respect are making this point, noting that a recent poll found that 62 percent of Republicans favor the “one with the most votes” over the “best party standard barer,” in the event that there is no delegate majority.

I am of the view the convention can indeed take it away from Trump but it depends in part on the total votes collected by the candidates.  First, just how many votes does Trump have?  I was surprised to find the following vote totals in millions: Trump 8.2 (39%), Cruz 6.3 (30%), Rubio 3.4 (16%), and Kasich 3.0 (14%).  (I figured Trump would be closer to 45 percent, certainly above 40, and that Kasich would have passed Rubio by now.)  Anyway, as long a Trump remains below 45 percent, I think there is a lot of room for the convention delegates to choose Cruz assuming he is closer to 40 percent than say 33 percent.

It seems to me a solid majority of Republicans could support the following: “With no candidate having won a majority of the delegates or votes during the nominating process, the Republican convention has just nominated Ted Cruz, who had won nearly 40 percent of the popular vote and had an identical position as Trump on the signature issue of immigration. Moreover, Mr. Cruz has been a loyal conservative Republican his entire life while Mr. Trump only recently solidified his commitment to most aspects of the Republican Agenda.”  I could see Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and the WSJ running with the above story.  And when they do, I believe way more than 62 percent of Republicans will will find the Cruz nomination to be reasonable and not some coup completely antithetical to democracy.

All that said, there are limits here.  If Trump moves above 45 percent and Cruz remains below 35 percent, the above scenario becomes more difficult, though still possible. I agree it’s highly unlikely the nomination goes to anyone else who hasn’t even received at least 20 percent of the primary votes or did not even run for President.  That would indeed seem like an undemocratic coup.

Of course all of these outcomes are terrible for the Republicans in terms of the November election.  A trump nomination would most likely end in a 55-45 Democrat landslide.  The Cruz nomination, especially assuming Trump did not endorse Cruz, would be just as bad.  In either case, many Republican voters would stay home, unable to vote for ultimate nominee because their primary choice was not on the ticket.

I’ll close with a question.  What are the chances that the Republican Party will ultimately unify?  Everyone assumes minimal, and I’m inclined to agree.  But could there be a Cruz/Trump, Trump/Cruz or Trump/Rubio ticket?  Will Trump endorse Cruz?  Would Cruz endorse Trump?  How many Republicans would endorse Trump?  I think disarray and acrimony are the most likely outcomes, with a real possibility of the acceptance speech of the nominee being partly booed on national television. But you cannot completely rule out the possibility of uniting to defeat HRC.

 

 

 

 

Conventional Wisdom (CW) has shifted a lot recently.  My thoughts have changed some as well and it’s hard to keep up.  I’ll post some current thinking here.  Just thoughts, certainly not wisdom from me.

CW has moved from Donald Trump is almost the inevitable nominee to DT is likely to lose the first ballot and has almost no chance on subsequent ballots to become the nominee.  This is in part based on CW that believes DT would go onto lose the general election to HRC in a landslide.  On the Dem side CW is perhaps moving to “since DT is such a disaster, maybe Bernie can win after all.” The CW vectors above are correct, but are more like probabilities than certainties with much margin for error.

DT always faced delegate issues at the convention if he failed to win the 1237.  (In a nutshell, delegates are only bound on the first ballot, and in fact DT delegates are mostly  party people who on a second ballot are quite likely to shift away.)  See Nate Silver and Josh Marshall for more on this. Given this obstacle, the CW should never have been so certain two weeks ago that DT would be the nominee.

I think Trump will indeed struggle at the convention if he does not get very close to the 1237.  He could get over the hump by offering “deals” or “attention” to uncommitted delegates.  But this only works if he is close. If he is more than 75 short, a second ballot is very likely and DT is unlikely to prevail.  Like Josh Marshall, I am skeptical that the subsequent ballots would go outside the actual candidates and select Paul Ryan.  While this could technically happen, both Cruz and Trump delegates would be booing his acceptance speech, symbolic of his problems in unifying the party in November.  I would rate HRC as slight favorite over PR.  I think it will be Cruz if not Trump. He has the second most delegates and he has worked the process (unlike Trump) so that his delegates are more loyal.  Kasich, as a standing candidate, has some chance to be a compromise nominee, but this is unlikely.  My guestimates:

Trump wins first ballot: 25%

If no Trump on first ballot, Cruz becomes the nominee on subsequent ballot: 75 percent

Kasish/Ryan/anyone else nomination on subsequent ballot: 25 percent

CW still thinks HRC wins the nomination, but is less dismissive of Bernie.  Some Dem friends of mine are thinking that Bernie’s recent dominance in caucuses and Wisconsin suggest lack of enthusiasm for HRC that will carry over as a drag into November.  I would point out that HRC leads Bernie 9.4 million to 6.9 million in actual votes cast in primaries. Bernie keeps it close in the earned delegate count by excelling in low turnout caucuses.  I think the lack of enthusiasm argument is overblown, but not insignificant.

The sooner that the Democrats unite the better.  When Bill Clinton, President Obama, Elizabeth Warren, Barnie Frank and others including Bernie himself unite on behalf of HRC, enthusiasm for defeating the frightening vision of Trump or Cruz will build.  All of this is not to suggest HRC is the perfect candidate. She is not a natural politician.  She has her baggage.  But she is tested.  And she and her husband are good political operatives who are well positioned to make the case for sustaining the Obama legacy rather than making an enormous change to Cruz/Trump domestic and foreign policy.  I remain skeptical of Bernie’s ability to put together a winning coalition.

 

 

Earlier this week I read an Ezra Klein piece entitled “Sanders, Trump, and Cruz all want dramatic changes to the US government. Clinton doesn’t.”  Klein focuses on their tax proposals, noting that Trump and Cruz would have to make major reductions in government spending in order to avoid increasing the deficit.  Bernie goes the opposite way, using higher taxes to pay for new initiatives such as higher education and single payer health coverage. Read the whole thing here:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/3/29/11323770/sanders-clinton-trump-cruz-tax-plans

What caught my eye was Klein’s use of a tax calculator from the Tax Policy Center for all 4 candidates.  He set the calculator for $100,000 in income and noted unsurprisingly that Cruz and Trump offer tax cuts of about $3,300 and $6,000 respectively, while Clinton barely increases taxes by $70.  Conversely, Bernie raises taxes by $14,000.  Whoa!

I figured Bernie would tax the 1 percent, and even the upper middle class, but a 14K increase for a family of four making $100,000 seemed kind of steep.  So I reduced the income to $50K, and still found a tax increase of $5,500.  Even at $30,000, Bernie raises taxes by over $3,000.  Wow!  (If you follow the above link, you can play with the nifty calculator.)

Now I’m sure Bernie’s tax increase is progressive; the rich would pay even more.  And I realize that under Bernie, some things like higher education would be free, so having less disposable income through higher taxes will in part be offset by government funded benefits to many citizens.

But tax increases on the middle class are very tough sell to the electorate, especially at these levels. Hate to sound like a grump talking down to young whippersnappers excited about Bernie, but I remember a Reagan campaign ad from 1984.  Walter Mondale had said that he would raise taxes to cut the budget deficit.  He added that Reagan would need to do the same, but just wasn’t being honest about it.  The ad showed a 30 to 40 something woman carrying a laundry basket. As she walked toward the camera, the voice over asked “How much more will you have to work to pay for Walter Mondale’s tax increase?”  She sort of frowned in response.  Reagan went on to beat Mondale in a 60-40 landslide

Okay, Reagan would have won anyway.  I don’t know how much Mondale’s tax increase played into the margin of victory.  But having a platform that raises taxes on ordinary families by thousands of dollars is not going to help the Democrats in beating Donald Trump. It is a major liability.  And just as I didn’t know about this level of tax increase, I expect most voters don’t know either.  This is what I mean about Clinton’s negatives being “priced in” to her polls, while Bernie’s negatives (because they haven’t been publicized) are not.  And remember, this would be a “fair” ad based on substantive policy difference between Bernie and Donald.  There will be other worse ads along the lines of “Bernie is  socialist, Stalin is a socialist, Bernie will turn America into a stalinist disaster.”

I’m not saying that center-left politicians should always shy away from tax increases, including increases on the middle class.  But Bernie’s taxes are way out of my comfort zone for an effective political campaign against Donald Trump or Ted Cruz.