I haven’t posted since just after the 2016 election.  I always figured I owed readers an apology and explanation of the errors in my thinking leading up to the election.  Among many wrong impressions, I learned that this country has bigger problem with sexism than I imagined.  (There’s much more in head on this topic, but that’s not why I’m writing today.

From the beginning of this presidency, I have wondered about preserving rule of law and the rising threats to democracy.  I also have wondered if we will reach a critical moment when past Presidents, such Obama and GW Bush, might speak out together (perhaps joining with other leaders past and present) to denounce the actions of the Trump Administration as antithetical to democracy, freedom, the rule of law, and the constitution.  I worried that rather than a key moment happening, there would be many tiny moments, no unified response to these moments, and it would be too late.  (The frog in the slow warming water parable.)

So is the moment at hand?  According to the NYT, Trump’s lawyers have released a memo  asserting the following:

Indeed, the President not only has unfettered statutory and Constitutional authority to terminate the FBI Director, he also has Constitutional authority to direct the Justice Department to open or close an investigation, and, of course, the power to pardon any person before, during, or after an investigation and/or conviction. Put simply, the Constitution leaves no question that the President has exclusive authority over the ultimate conduct and disposition of all criminal investigations and over those executive branch officials responsible for conducting those investigations.

Open and close any investigation?  If the courts uphold this view, rule of law would be over.  Mathew Yglasias at Vox elaborates on just how bad this could become.

https://www.vox.com/2018/6/3/17421300/trumps-interview-subpoena

From Jonathon Chait:

Trump cannot obstruct justice, according to his official legal stance, because justice is whatever Trump says it is. Before this is over, either Trump’s sweeping claim will survive, or the rule of law will, but not both.

I wonder if we are at the moment when past leaders speak out in a bi-partisan manner regarding this threat.  Or will it just be another 1 degree increase in the water temperature surrounding the frog otherwise known as the Constitution of the United States?

 

 

So much for all of my analysis and hunches. Trump won, and I am still in the process of figuring out why. Given the closeness of the election,with the split in the popular and electoral college, I am resistant to simple explanations of what went right for Trump while going wrong for Clinton.  I plan to take some time to think about it and wait a few weeks until all the votes are counted.

I apologize to readers if my confidence increased your shock and suffering on election night.  I wrote what I thought based on my understanding of past elections.  Clearly there was something going on that I didn’t understand, or didn’t want to understand. While I am well studied in polling techniques and the political science of elections and the economy, that analysis was not the primary source of my confidence which ended at about 85 percent likelihood of Clinton victory on election eve. The primary source was my confidence in the electorate to make rational decisions, not necessarily the decision I would want in every election, but rational ones nonetheless.  That’s why this is so hard for me to understand.  For now my confidence in the essential goodness of our system and our people is quite shaken.

A lot of weird stuff happened in this election that strains simple explanations.  How come there was so little ticket splitting with Senate results matching Presidential results in every single state for the first time in maybe a 100 years or more?  As the author of campaign finance reform, why didn’t Russ Feingold win in Wisconsin if this election was about populism?  If this election was all about race, then why was Obama holding 55 percent approval ratings and would have easily beaten Trump had he been on the ballot?  The article closest to my own current thinking is by Ezra Klein, entitled

Clinton’s loss can be explained—Trump’s win rewrites what we know about American politics.

I suggest reading the entire article at:

http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/11/13578618/why-did-trump-win

A few words from his excellent piece:

I don’t have a model of the American people that accounts for electing someone like Trump. He’s done too many things, said too many things, tweeted too many things that would typically be disqualifying in American politics. Remember when Mitt Romney was mocked for his car elevator? Trump has a house covered in gold. Remember when John Kerry was assailed for supposedly insulting the military by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth? Trump slandered war heroes and Gold Star parents despite getting repeated deferments from Vietnam. Remember when John McCain was dismissed for seeming ill-informed and out of touch amid the financial crisis? Trump doesn’t know how NATO works or what the nuclear triad is.

Trump’s victory is unnerving in a way nothing else in politics ever has been to me — it suggests there’s no bar, no floor, no you-must-be-this-decent to serve. I thought more of my country.

Polls show that in narrow ways, the voters saw what I saw — people did believe Trump unqualified, unkind, dishonest, indecent. It just didn’t matter.

To explain Trump’s competitiveness, if not his win, you have to search for truly primal appeals that overwhelmed all that — the power of partisan identity, the fear of Others, a dominant racial majority that rose in fury against the idea that it was becoming a political minority.

I hope Trump is a better man as president than he showed himself to be on the campaign trail. But I can’t confidently explain his win. In some ways, I don’t want to — I am scared of the conclusions it forces.

For now I’ll close with my own words from an email I sent to my brother the day after the election:

I don’t really have any sage words. I take a tiny bit of comfort that Clinton is winning, and is likely to extend her lead, in the popular vote. At least we know that a bare majority of our fellow citizens favored her over Trump. I still believe in our republic and that the voters will hold Trump and his party accountable in coming elections.

 

6:49 PM PST

Much closer than I expected.  No decisive calls in critical states that Clinton must win.  I’m most worried about Michigan.  Florida may go to Trump, but that’s a must win for him, not for Clinton.  I expect a long night.

6:58

Clinton now leading in VA.  NC exits look better to me than FL or MI.  But these exit numbers are super close.

7:32

I agree that Michigan is likely to be the key. Unless Clinton can win in NC or FL, which seems unlikely.  Michigan looks very close to me.

7:37

NC exits no longer looking good for Clinton. Exits just don’t mean that much tonight.

8:06

Senate will remain Republican.  A lot of Detroit votes to be counted in MI. The exits don’t look good in AZ or Iowa.  NC just called for Trump.  It makes MI absolutely critical unless she some how wins FL, which I don’t see.

8:18

Exits look pretty good for Clinton in WI and NV.  At MSNBC Cornacki (sp) just layer out a path where Trump needs to win one of those three.  That’s correct, but I think MI is the realistic place for him to break through.

8:23

Latest Wisconsin exits make it look more like lean Trump. Ruh Roh.

8:44

Wisconsin and Michigan could both go for Trump.  Clinton is an underdog now.  Perhaps not the huge underdog the NYT model says, but still an underdog.

9:18

Clinton is now behind in PA, along with WI and MI.  I just can’t see her winning all three. It would be a miracle. NYT gives her a 5 percent chance.  That sounds about right.

She is likely to win the popular vote as Trump leads by about 1.2 million votes, but Clinton is likely to run up a 2 to 3 million vote margin in California.

10:39

Feels weird waiting for the final calls of states which are all but certain to mean that Trump will be the next President.  I was wrong about the election and am very disappointed. Clinton may win the popular vote, but that is meaningless in terms of control of the U.S. Government. For some reason though, it matters to me.  I want to believe a majority of my fellow citizens preferred Clinton to Trump.

The speech I am most interested in hearing is from President Obama.  I hope he has some calming words for us in the coming days.

 

 

Polls today generally moved in Clinton’s favor.  Her average lead is closer to 4 than 3.  I think she is more likely to over-perform rather than underperform her polls. I think my electoral college predictions from yesterday evening are about right.  The next state she might get would be Ohio, if she indeed over-performs.

If FL or PA and NH are called before midnight eastern, we will likely have an official winner around 9:00 in the west. If it’s closer we may need to wait for CO and NM to be called.

Slate will have some real time estimates based on turnout at different precincts in swing states.  Unless all of the data from this new source is unambiguous, it’s not likely to be of much value in making an early call in a close election. I’ll check it out tomorrow.

Remember to vote if you haven’t already.

So today the FBI announced that the new emails do not impact their earlier conclusion not to recommend prosecution of Clinton.  I always believed this would be the case, I just didn’t know how long it would take the FBI to reach that conclusion.  However, the political damage was most likely already done by last Monday or Tuesday.  I don’t think this reversal will lead to a surge in Clinton’s favor.  It was a wasted 9 days with the focus away from Trump.  And that time away from Trump hurt Clinton’s margin, which might have been more robust but for Comeygate.

Depending which method for averaging polls that you elect to follow, Clinton leads national polling by 2.6 percent (Princeton Election Consortium [PEC] meta-margin of state polls), 2.7 percent (Fivethirtyeight), 2.3 percent (NYT Upshot), 5.2  percent (Huffpost Pollster), 3.9 percent (TPM Polltracker), or 2.2 percent (RealClearPolitics).  Most observers believe Clinton leads by 2 to 3 percent, with exception of Huffpost.  However, there is disagreement regarding the value of a lead in that range.  Nate Silver looks at historical polling errors which average 2 percent and posits that the final result could vary from a virtual tie to a substantial Clinton win.  Accordingly, he thinks Clinton’s chances of victory are about 66 percent.  Others like Sam Wang at PEC see a 2.5 percent lead as more robust, predicting a 99 percent chance of victory.  The NYT Upshot model is in-between at about 84 percent.  My personal hunch is similar to the NYT.

In more recent presidential elections since 2000, the error, if significant, has been in the Democrats favor.  However, in recent non-presidential years, it has been in the Republicans favor.  My hunch is the stronger Clinton ground game,  the fact that younger voters may be harder for pollsters to reach by cell, and that much of Trump’s strength is with less educated white voters (who may not be that serious about voting), suggest Clinton may outperform her final polls by just a bit. Of course I have no way of knowing for sure; that’s just what I think.  And my thinking is largely grounded in my earlier points that the fundamentals of this election favor continuation, rather than change.

For now I will stick with long held prediction that Clinton will win by between 4 and 7.6 percent.  My best guess is in the range of 4 to 5 percent.  I expect Clinton to win the 23 states listed in the Upshot Model totaling 268 electoral votes. In addition, I expect her to win the following swing states: FL, NC, and Nevada.  Probably New Hampshire as well, for a total 322 electoral votes.

I would note that if my hunch is wrong, and the Clinton margin is just 1 or even 2 percentage points, there is a risk that Trump may win the electoral college while losing the popular vote.  One good sign for Clinton is her strength in early voting in Nevada.  This could offset a loss in New Hampshire.  For Trump to win, he must take FL, PA, and Ohio.  Doing so enables his victory but does not guarantee it.  He needs one or two more blue states.

I’ll post again tomorrow night if I have any more insights. I want this election to be over.

No, not really.

Per my post on Friday, I tend to look at elections from a more fundamental point of view. Is the economy healthy, is the nation at peace?  If the fundamentals are strong, the electorate will tend to stay the course and return the incumbent party to office as in 1972, 1984, 1988, 1996, 2012.  If there are problems, such as in 1980, 1992, or 2008, they vote for change.  Campaign tactics and candidate likability matter in close elections, but tend not to overcome fundamentals.  The fundamentals favor Clinton.

Comeygate is not really a new story.  It’s just more about emails.  The media are much more worked up about emails than the average voter.  There is no reason to think that these emails contain a smoking gun indicating that Hilary compromised national security.  In fact, they may not even be new emails. Secretary Clinton was presumably the sender or receiver of these emails from a computer used by her aide Huma Abedin, and the FBI would already have them from their earlier investigation of the Clinton’s server.

That said, the timing is terrible for HRC.  It takes attention off of Trump and puts it back on Clinton.  Before Comeygate, there was a real possibility of a Trump collapse and a Clinton win in the 8 to 10 percentage point margin.  When it becomes obvious that one candidate is going to lose, their supporters lend to lose enthusiasm and may not turn out.  Comeygate re-engergizes Trump’s base and makes it more likely they will turn out.  I’ve always expected the election result to be between the two Obama margins.  Now I think we are much more likely to be at the low end of that range, a 4 percent win.

I don’t obsess over tracking polls. They tend to measure enthusiasm at the margin.  When a candidate is having a bad news day, less of their voters answer the pollster’s call.  I don’t really believe in wild polling swings after the convention bounces have settled out.  Although I am a fan of Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight, I also appreciate the work of Professor Sam Wang at Princeton Election Consortium.  Wang uses a model based only on state polls, which he then averages into a “meta margin.”  Since May, that margin has been averaged around 3.5 percent in Clinton’s favor. Sometimes it move higher when news is good for Clinton (post convention) or  lower when she is having bad news. Right now the meta margin is at about 3.2 percent, suggesting an electoral college win of 317 to 221 according to Professor Wang.

Bottom line, I expect Clinton to win by about 4 percent, unless Comey is discredited and/or there is more negative news on Trump.  Both of these are real possibilities. The media understands that Trump is a much greater danger to the security of the union.  The public understands the strengths and weaknesses of both candidates and will make a rational decision.

Kevin Drum has a nice piece on Sam Wang’s work and a related discussion by the folks at the YouGov poll, which tries to deal with response rate changes by using weights based on the 2012 election.  Here’s a link:

http://m.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/here-are-my-nominees-phrase-year

Kevin’s final paragraph mirrors my own thinking:

Clinton could easily lose another point before Election Day, or she could revert back to 3.5 and stay there. I’d bet on reversion to the mean. This election features two candidates who have been around a long time and are both very well known. Almost everybody made up their minds pretty early, and nothing much has changed for the past 12 months. Hillary Clinton will most likely win by 3-4 percentage points, plus maybe a little extra because she has a way better ground game.

 

So today to the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the Gross Domestic Product increased by a healthy 2.9 percent in the 3rd quarter.  Real disposable income grew by 2.2 percent (think of this as inflation adjusted spendable income after taxes).  These are good numbers and reflect the general upward trend in the economy.  President Obama’s approval rating is at 55 percent.  I could add that unemployment and inflation are close to 21st century lows and the S&P 500 is within 2.5 percent of its all-time high.  These numbers all point toward a stay the course, don’t shake things up election.   Not knowing anything about the challenger’s qualifications, numbers like these would indicate a strong likelihood that the incumbent party’s nominee would win the general election.  In many ways the situation is similar to 1988 when GHW Bush, then vice President, succeeded Ronald Reagan.

Depending which polling aggregator you look at, Clinton leads by 4 to 8 percent.  I’ve always expected this election to be somewhere in the range of Obama’s two victories, in the range of 4 to 7.6 percent.  I think a 6 to 8 percent victory margin is my expectation. The third party candidates add some uncertainty, making 4 to 10 reasonable possibilities.  Bottom line, the GDP number was the final confirmation for me.

 

I think Trump knows he is going to lose. He had a quip in the last debate regarding refugees that ended with something like “good luck with that.”  It sort of implied that Clinton will win and future problems belong to her.

All this talk of the “rigged” election is just making excuses for why losing was not Trump’s fault.

Trump can’t stop himself from attacking those who attack him, even when it’s not to his advantage.

So given all that, might he consider the ultimate attack on the Republican establishment?  Might he not take some pleasure in watching Paul Ryan lose his speakership?  (Of course the thought of Speaker Pelosi may counter that.)  But let’s say he does want the ultimate revenge on tthe elected Republicans who have distanced themselves, or in fact withdrawn their endorsement.  Here are two ways he could do that.

Method 1.  He tells his voters not to participate in this rigged election.  “Stay home and don’t reward the turncoat Republicans with your vote.  Force turncoats to take your vote seriously the next time.”  This gives Trump further cover on his loss margin.  He can say on November 9 that he lost because his voters stayed home as he advised.  Not every voter would follow this advice.  But some would, and it would almost certainly lead to  Dem controlled House.  Nice parting gift for his enemy Paul Ryan.

Two days ago I thought the chance he does something like this was approaching 50 percent.  Now I am at more like 25 percent. What might stop him?  Damage to his brand and finances?  Hating the congressional Democrats?  Not wanting to give Hillary a favorable congress?  Does he care more about revenge or the future of the country?  Dunno.

If that wasn’t crazy enough for you, there is always method 2: A Televised Show Trial of Specific Republican Turncoats.  As a prelude to the new Trump network, he hosts a 2 hour televised show trial with him as judge and his supporters as the jury.  He has a surrogate lay out the specific  cases and then the turncoats are invited to call in or appear and beg for their political life. Of course no one would call.  So he probably he wouldn’t do this. But his “jury” could have some fun ripping the turncoats.

A wise friend thinks there is no chance for either. College-aged younger Mr. CL thinks Method 1 is about 50/50 and method 2 has a 1 in 8 possibility.  We’ll probably never know, but if it happens, you read it here first.

 

 

Readers don’t need me to know that Clinton won the third debate, making her 3-0 in debates. Trump’s performance improved from complete joke (in previous debates) to passable control of his face and mouth for the first half hour, to typical ranting, run on, and dumb insults for the last hour. Clinton really hit him on Putin. “No you’re the puppet” says Trump showing that he has mastered the debate skills of a six-year old. Clinton also hit him on not accepting the election results which also dominated the post debate coverage, casting a further unfavorable light on Trump.

Clinton really is a good debater. She gives answers that show her policy knowledge but also controls her emotions while maintaining her focus under pressure.  It’s not easy to just keep talking while someone interrupts and also know when to yield and make your opponent look overly aggressive.  She’s better at debates then Gore or Dukakis.   It is not fair to say she is only winning this election because of Trump. (Trump is a weak opponent, but Clinton would have been competitive with several other Republican nominees.) The “nasty woman” quip some how makes Trump look even worse than before with respect to women.

My personal hunch is that Clinton will win by Obama’s 2008 margin of  about 7.5 percent. It could easily be more. I don’t see any way she could lose short of incapacitating illness.  (Even then voters would essentually be picking Kaine over Trump and would probably choose the Dem ticket.)

If Clinton wins by 7-8 percent, I expect the Dems to retake the Senate and could easily take 5 or 6 of the closest races giving them up to 53 seats. They would make gains in the house but probably fall short of taking control.  For control, Clinton probably has to win by double digits which is possible.

In my next post I will speculate on whether Trump might deliberately sabotage the down ballot Republicans.

A few thoughts about a very strange debate.

1. For the first 20 minutes Trump almost melted down with a combination of attacks on Bill Clinton and then saying he would call for a special prosecutor and ultimately jail Hillary Clinton.  I think deliberately, Hillary let him have the stage here keeping the focus on him.  (As noted below, she may have played it a little too carefully here.)
2. If the debate had stayed there, Trump might have indeed melted down. Instead it moved onto other topics like Obamacare and energy policy.
3. During this next hour, Trump was about as effective as a Fox news personality.  By this I mean he did fine with his base of Republican partisans, but did nothing to broaden his coalition or try to recover among married suburban women who lean Republican.
4. According to Kevin Drum, the “jail” thing did not play well on CNN.  Banana Republic and all that.  (Mrs. Center Left and I needed to get away from the debate so we watched the rerun SNL from Saturday and John Oliver.)
5. In the first debate Hillary had the perfect balance of let Trump be Trump, but then calling him on his obvious mistakes.  She really deserves a lot of credit for that earlier performance.
6. In this debate, she missed some opportunities to hit Trump, like when he said Captain Khan would be alive if Trump had been President.
7. The CNN poll had Clinton winning the debate, which is not surprising given the state of the race and the slightly more liberal tilt of debate watchers.
8. I think the post debate spin and coverage will be largely anti-Trump. He’s now claiming that the “pussy grabbing” was theoretical rather than something he had done. This won’t play well. Also, there are lots good sound bites of him denying his past statements which make for great before after Youtube videos.
9. The majority of Americans are disgusted with Trump, and that will be the tenor of most coverage the rest of the way.  His style of interrupting and literally lurking behind Hillary add to that sense of disgust and rudeness.
10. Ultimately, we will find out just how big the “deplorables plus Republican partisans” portion of the electorate actually is.  I think its maximum is about 42 or 43 percent.  Mr. Center Left Sr. has been saying all along it has to be less than 40.  We’ll see.
11. I still think the Obama 2008 victory margin of 7.6 percent is a good estimate for the this November, plus or minus about 2 percent.