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Senate/Governor 2016: Several Ratings Move Toward Democrats
Will 2016’s presidential coattails be long or short?
April 7th, 2016
When you look at the big picture of presidential elections, and you try to discern the connection between the White House contest and the 34 Senate elections on the same ballot, it becomes obvious there are two types of years.
The first type we might call “disjointed.” Voters seem to be separating their judgments about these very distinct offices in most competitive races. The presidential candidate who wins adds only a handful — or fewer — additional Senate seats to his party’s total. The presidential coattails are short.
The second type could be termed “intertwined.” The candidates for the White House are very polarizing and distinct, and one or both major-party contenders color the voters’ perceptions of all officeholders on the same partisan label. The party whose letter (D or R) becomes toxic loses a substantial number of Senate seats; thus, the presidential coattails are long.
The second type is somewhat rarer, to judge by the elections for president since World War II, as shown in Table 1. However, the six-year cycles of the three different Senate classes and the current party makeup of each class obviously matter. For instance, the Democrats only gained two net Senate seats in 1964, a seemingly small increase considering Lyndon Johnson’s landslide victory. But six years earlier the Democrats netted 15 Senate seats in the 1958 midterm election, meaning they already controlled a large majority of seats in Class 1, the group of states up in 1964. Conversely, the Republicans won 12 net seats in 1980 when the Democrats entered the cycle controlling 24 of the 34 seats up in Class 3 (which is the same class up in 2016).
Table 1: Gains or losses by winning presidential party in Senate, House, and gubernatorial elections during presidential cycles, 1948-2012
Notes: Because of independent or third-party members, vacancies, and other factors, gains or losses for the winning presidential party do not imply the exact opposite result for the other major party. The results are the gains or losses based on the makeup of Congress and the governorships just before Election Day and after, not the change from the previous election’s result.
No one can say for sure to which category 2016 will belong, but our early expectation is “intertwined.” Considering the rise of Donald Trump, the polarization in U.S. politics, and a higher rate of straight-ticket voting, this could be bad news for the GOP. We have already sketched out a “Trumpmare” doomsday presidential scenario for the Republicans, who control the Senate now by a margin of 54 to 46. Assuming the GOP nominee for the White House is either Trump or Ted Cruz, we think the Democrats will fare reasonably well down-ballot (more so with Trump than Cruz, though Cruz will also have a difficult time carrying many swing states). As shown in Chart 1, in recent presidential cycles, about 80% of states with Senate elections have backed the same party for the presidency and the Senate. In light of the fact that Republicans control 24 of the 34 seats up in 2016, including many in states that President Obama won in 2008 and/or 2012, straight-ticket voting could bode poorly for the GOP.
Chart 1: Percentage of straight-ticket vs. split-ticket states for president and Senate in presidential cycles, 1916-2012
Note: Excludes Senate contests where an independent or third-party candidate won and/or where an independent or third-party presidential candidate won the state in the Electoral College.
As we explain below, the Crystal Ball is changing six Senate race ratings, all in a Democratic direction. This does not mean Democrats will actually win all six, though one was already leaning toward the Democrats. As for the other five, two races are now designated pure Toss-ups, and the three other states where we are making a change still favor Republicans, though less so than earlier. There is a clear if premature trend here.
The coattails question also matters for the 12 gubernatorial contests that will take place in November. A weak Republican presidential nominee could endanger GOP incumbents running for reelection in Indiana and North Carolina, prompting us to also shift the ratings for those contests in the Democrats’ direction.
Before jumping into our Senate and gubernatorial ratings changes, it should be mentioned that elections for the House will also be influenced by coattails. But we’ll delve into the lower chamber’s state of affairs next week.
Table 2: Crystal Ball Senate rating changes
Map 1: Crystal Ball 2016 Senate ratings
Colorado: Coming into the 2016 cycle, it was pretty clear that the Republicans would largely be on the defensive. Only two Democratic-held seats stood out as ones the Republicans could hope to win, one of which was Colorado (with the other being Nevada, now an open seat on account of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid’s retirement). Sen. Michael Bennet (D) has proven to be more resilient than some might have thought. After being appointed in 2009 to replace Sen. Ken Salazar (D), who had just entered President Obama’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Interior, Bennet seemed extremely vulnerable in the buildup to 2010 due the environment and his lack of electoral experience. Moreover, Bennet had to survive a strong primary challenge from former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D). But Bennet was fortunate when now-Rep. Ken Buck (R), a social conservative, won the GOP nomination, and the appointed incumbent went on to eke out a two-point win in November. At the outset of this cycle, Bennet appeared a slight favorite to start, but now it looks as if he may hold a stronger edge. Bigger-name GOP politicians — including Rep. Mike Coffman (R), Colorado Attorney General Cynthia Coffman (R), and Rep. Scott Tipton (R) — declined to challenge Bennet in a presidential cycle. Instead, the Republican field is a logjam of double-digit proportions, though only five candidates officially filed petitions to get on the primary ballot. Other candidates will try to get on the primary ballot by getting at least 30% of the vote at this weekend’s state Republican convention. Whoever wins the GOP nomination on June 28 will have a serious financial deficit to overcome as Bennet had $6.7 million in the bank at the end of 2015. More importantly, just as the circumstances at the presidential level have weakened the ratings for a number of GOP Senate incumbents, they have improved Bennet’s odds as the only potentially vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent. The Centennial State race shifts from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic.
Iowa: Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) is a political institution in the Hawkeye State. Famous for the “Full Grassley,” whereby he visits all 99 Iowa counties every single year, Grassley has a proven record of popularity: Remarkably, he has won more than 60% of the vote in each of his five reelection campaigns. The six-term senator now seeks a seventh, and initially few could imagine him having any trouble. However, national politics has intervened. Following the GOP takeover of the Senate after the 2014 election, Grassley became chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia has left a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court, placing the court debate and its attendants — including the Senate Judiciary Committee — under the political microscope. While Grassley agreed to meet with Merrick Garland, President Obama’s nominee for the opening, the senator has maintained that he will not hold a full hearing to consider Garland’s nomination. Perhaps sensing that Grassley might have some unexpected vulnerability to exploit, former Lt. Gov. Patty Judge (D) has jumped into the race to take on Grassley. Although she must first defeat state Sen. Rob Hogg (D) and two other candidates in the party primary, Judge’s entry into the contest turned heads: Since winning the seat in the Republican wave of 1980, Grassley has not had to face anyone who previously held a statewide office. At least so far, however, Grassley remains popular despite the ongoing Supreme Court debate. A recent Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll pegged his approval/disapproval at 57%/28%, a strong showing in this day of political frustration, particularly in a closely-divided swing state. The Hawkeye contest moves from Safe Republican to Likely Republican, mostly out of an abundance of caution. It’s also worth noting that while the DC Democratic establishment is with Judge, many local Democrats back Hogg, so Judge has some work to do even within her own party.
Missouri: Sen. Roy Blunt (R) is still a favorite to win reelection. But it’s possible that his Democratic opponent, Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander, could spring an upset if Trump (or perhaps Cruz) is leading the GOP ticket in November. While Missouri is more likely than not to go Republican at the presidential level — Barack Obama won by seven points nationally in 2008 but still lost the Show Me State by 0.1 percentage points — the closer the presidential contest, the fewer split ticket voters Kander has to find. And Missourians have shown some tendency to turn in mixed ballots: In 2012 Mitt Romney won by nine points, but Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) defeated controversial Rep. Todd Akin (R) by nearly 16 points. In that same election cycle, incumbent Gov. Jay Nixon (D) won reelection by 12 points, and Kander won an open-seat contest for his current office by 1.5 points. So it’s certainly not inconceivable that Kander, considered a great recruit for Democrats, could surprise Blunt. Still, the incumbent Republican is a prodigious fundraiser who had $5 million in his war chest at the end of 2015 compared to Kander’s $2 million. So while Kander’s climb may not be as steep if the Republican presidential standard bearer struggles, beating Blunt will be no easy feat. We are shifting this contest from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
North Carolina: Having easily dismissed a trio of primary challengers on March 15, Sen. Richard Burr (R) can now focus on the general election, where he will face ex-state Rep. Deborah Ross (D), who won her party’s nomination to take on the incumbent. To a greater extent than Missouri, the new rating in North Carolina comes down to basic coattail math: If the GOP presidential nominee falters, the Tar Heel State will likely be the first red-state domino to fall because Romney only carried it by just two percentage points in 2012. With Trump or Cruz as the nominee, it’s possible that Democrats could carry North Carolina in November, boosting Ross’ chances. A similar thing happened in 2008 when then-state Sen. Kay Hagan (D) rode to victory with the help of Obama’s statewide win as well as the poor campaign of incumbent Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R) in that cycle’s North Carolina Senate tilt. An often underestimated candidate who outperforms on Election Day, Burr is in the news a good deal because of the Intelligence Committee he chairs; he certainly remains the clear favorite at this point, with buckets of money to spend against Ross and a history of electoral success. But Burr should join GOP senators in 2008 and/or 2012 Obama states running for reelection in keeping a watchful (read: concerned) eye on the Republican presidential nomination contest. The Tar Heel State race moves from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
Ohio: While Sen. Rob Portman (R) is a skilled, well-funded incumbent who is widely respected on Capitol Hill and by his party’s leadership, he does not have the built-in statewide name ID and persona that his two predecessors in this seat possessed, former Sens. George Voinovich (R, 1999-2011) and John Glenn (D, 1974-1999). So we would not expect Portman to run considerably ahead of the GOP presidential nominee in a state that should reflect the national presidential voting. That gives former Gov. Ted Strickland (D) an opening, and he has to be delighted with the presidential outlook so far: Strickland’s friend and ally Hillary Clinton is well on her way to securing the Democratic nomination, while the Republicans, as noted previously, appear likely to nominate someone out of the mainstream. Last year we took an in-depth look at Strickland’s potential path to victory, which could include doing a little bit better in Strickland’s native Appalachia than President Obama did in his two Ohio victories. The GOP presidential nominee will likely do quite well in Appalachian Ohio — that may be especially true for Donald Trump, who has dominated the primary vote in that region — but it’s not impossible to imagine a small crossover vote for Strickland, who used to represent many of these counties in the U.S. House. Portman should still be able to use the power of incumbency and his immense funding edge — Portman has $13.5 million in the bank, while incomplete numbers show Strickland at only a little over $2 million — to run a few points ahead of the presidential ticket, but that might not be enough. This race moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up.
Pennsylvania: For the second cycle in a row, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has not only endorsed in the Keystone State’s Senate primary but is also spending money to influence the primary, which is highly unusual for a party committee. The DSCC must really dislike former Rep. Joe Sestak (D), who it is trying to defeat in the primary for the second time in six years. Sestak foiled the DSCC in 2010 by defeating party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary, but Sestak lost the general election to Sen. Pat Toomey (R) by only two points. This time, the DSCC is backing Katie McGinty in the primary — as are President Obama and Vice President Biden — over Sestak and Braddock Mayor John Fetterman. McGinty, who most recently served as chief of staff to Gov. Tom Wolf (D), ran in the 2014 gubernatorial primary and only won 7.7%, but she’s become the establishment favorite against Sestak, who is not a strong fundraiser and who marches to the beat of his own drummer. The primary dissension would seem to benefit Toomey, who like Portman is going to be very well-funded, but Toomey faces the same challenges Portman does (and maybe more so) in having to run significantly ahead of his top-of-the-ticket Republican “running mate” in November. Toomey’s reelection bid is now also a Toss-up, instead of Leans Republican, and it has very little to do with the particulars of the Senate race in Pennsylvania. Rather, it’s because of the potential for the GOP nominee to drag down Toomey even against a relatively mediocre opponent.
Updating the gubernatorial picture
Table 3: Crystal Ball gubernatorial rating changes
Map 2: Crystal Ball 2016 gubernatorial ratings
Indiana: One of the surprising margins on Election Night 2012 was now-Gov. Mike Pence’s (R) closer-than-expected win over former state House Speaker John Gregg (D). Pence won by just three percentage points and ran about 4.5 points behind Mitt Romney, who easily carried the state in the presidential race after Barack Obama very narrowly won it in 2008. Gregg is running again. Since winning, Pence has had some shaky moments, most notably a controversy over a 2015 bill that some believed would legitimize discrimination against gays and lesbians. More recently, Pence signed a bill that made Indiana just the second state (along with North Dakota) to outlaw abortions that parents seek because the fetus has been diagnosed with a disability. Gregg, who opposes abortion rights, argues that the bill goes too far. While Indiana is the most conservative state in the Midwest, it’s fair to wonder whether social issues could hurt Pence in his reelection bid. But the bigger problem for Pence is one he shares in common with the other incumbents discussed here: The GOP’s problems at the top of the ticket could potentially trim the Republican presidential nominee’s margins in Indiana, or even allow the Democratic nominee to carry the state, as Obama did once. Obama’s 2008 victory didn’t prevent Pence’s predecessor, Mitch Daniels (R), from easily winning reelection with 58% of the vote, but Pence isn’t Daniels, and he has not yet displayed the kind of crossover appeal that his predecessor enjoyed. Pence remains a favorite in his rematch with Gregg, but we’re moving the race from Likely Republican to Leans Republican.
North Carolina: The Tar Heel State’s statehouse race has always been the marquee gubernatorial contest this cycle. Not only is North Carolina the most populous state holding a gubernatorial race this year, but it’s also one of only two gubernatorial states (the much-smaller New Hampshire is the other) that are likely to be presidential swing states in the event of a close national race. Gov. Pat McCrory (R) has generally had fairly weak approval numbers throughout his time in office, and he is now dealing with a challenge similar to the one Pence faced last year: McCrory just signed a bill that bans cities from creating local policies dealing with gender-identity discrimination and forces transgender students in public schools to use the bathroom that corresponds with their birth gender. There’s been a backlash over the law, and it has so far led PayPal to cancel plans to create 400 jobs in the state. Republicans have long recognized the threat that Attorney General Roy Cooper (D) presents to McCrory, and both sides are gearing up for an expensive, nasty race. Because of incumbency, we were giving McCrory the benefit of the doubt. But no longer: A Donald Trump or Ted Cruz nomination could very well allow the Democratic nominee to win North Carolina, and even if the GOP nominee does carry North Carolina in the fall there’s no guarantee that McCrory will run ahead of the presidential ticket. McCrory’s reelection bid moves from Leans Republican to Toss-up.
P.S. Bye-bye, Omaha Stakes?
The technically nonpartisan and unicameral but Republican-controlled Nebraska legislature appears close to ending the state’s unusual method of awarding electoral votes by congressional district. On Monday, the legislature beat back a filibuster of the measure, which would award the statewide winner all five of the state’s electoral votes. Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) supports the bill, and it appears likely to eventually pass and reach his desk, according to the Lincoln Journal Star. Currently, only Nebraska and Maine award electoral votes to the winners of congressional districts, and under our current Electoral College ratings of a potential Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump matchup we listed Nebraska’s Second District as only Leans Republican, while Nebraska itself was Safe Republican. The Second District, based in Omaha, gave its electoral vote to Obama in 2008 but then voted for Romney in 2012. We’ll adjust our ratings accordingly and make all of Nebraska’s electoral votes Safe Republican if in fact Nebraska’s leaders change the law.
On (From) Wisconsin
Badger State voters opt to prolong both parties’ nominating contests
, April 6th, 2016
Wisconsin’s state motto is “Forward.” On Tuesday night, the Badger State’s voters uttered it as a command to both parties’ nominating contests. Instead of voting to bring the nominating season closer to a conclusion by backing Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, the two current leaders, Wisconsin strongly supported Bernie Sanders and Ted Cruz, voting to elongate both contests. Neither competition seems close to a formal conclusion. So “forward” it is.
While it is true that Wisconsin has a long history of voting for the eventual nomination winner — it has supported the eventual nominee in every contest on both sides since the start of the modern nominating era in 1972* — Wisconsin also has generally voted late in the process, which naturally gives a state a better record because many nominees wrap up the primary season early. It’s not at all clear that Wisconsin will have backed the winner this time. Sanders remains a huge underdog against Clinton, and while Cruz is rising, he still lags considerably behind Trump in the delegate count and almost certainly needs a contested convention in order to beat the real estate mogul.
There was little that was surprising about the results: Cruz and Sanders led most polling in advance of the primary. On paper, Wisconsin was a good state for Sanders, with its smaller-than-average nonwhite population, its flocks of college towns and students, as well as its strong liberal tradition. Cruz benefited from becoming the leading alternative to Trump in Wisconsin: We’re not sure that the vote was for him so much as it was against Trump, who rarely polled much above the 35% of the vote he received. Trump’s results validated a model we constructed last week to predict his share of the vote: The model also showed Trump getting 35%.
It will be tempting for many to declare Wisconsin the beginning of the end for Trump, particularly after his string of bad headlines last week. But as we just noted, Trump did about as well in Wisconsin as one might have deduced from the previous results, and while he has dipped a little bit in some recent national polls, he’s still the leader by far in both those surveys and in the delegate count.
Trump’s loss in Wisconsin clearly raises the odds that no candidate will be able to reach a majority of the national convention delegates by the time the GOP primaries end on June 7. Based on our previous rough estimations, Trump was borderline in his ability to achieve the 1,237 delegate mark. But that estimate originally included the assumption that Trump would win statewide in Wisconsin. Now he has more delegates to make up to have any chance at getting to a majority. There are ways he can accomplish this feat. If he can win more than 50% statewide in New York and a majority in most of the Empire State’s districts, he can win most of its 95 delegates. He may need to win most or all of the delegates in states that are difficult to project at this point, such as Indiana on May 3 and Montana on June 7. And he will probably need to win close to two-thirds of the congressional districts in California, if not more. But now he has to win about 57% of the remaining pledged and unpledged delegates to get to 1,237. It will be far from easy to do this.
One other thing about the Republicans: There’s been a lot of chatter this week about a white knight riding in to the convention to save the party elites from a Trump or Cruz nomination. That person could be House Speaker Paul Ryan, 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, or John Kasich, a current competitor who has performed poorly in most caucuses and primaries. However, there are two big reasons why we’re very skeptical of this scenario.
The first is that it assumes that a party whose leadership is loathed and distrusted by a substantial portion of its rank-and-file voters could successfully pass over both the top vote-getter (almost assuredly Trump) and the second-place finisher (almost certainly Cruz) to install someone who finished a distant third (Kasich, who actually still lags behind the departed Marco Rubio in votes and delegates won) or someone who didn’t even participate in the primaries, like Ryan. Yes, there’s plenty of historical precedent for something like this happening, but not in the modern era of nominations. The voters have far more say than they used to — by design, thanks to reforms in the 1970s — and there’s no recent precedent for the will of the primary voters to be overturned in such a manner. Additionally, a defining feature of this nominating season on the Republican side has been the utter failure of the party establishment in almost all of its endeavors. Yet it will somehow deliver at the most crucial moment? We’re skeptical.
The second is that this scenario requires that a majority of the delegates at the convention will be establishment insiders, which is not a safe assumption. While there will be a lot of party insiders as delegates, there will be many others who will be Tea Party-style activists who will recoil at the idea of backing someone with the establishment’s blessing. News reporting is making clear that Cruz is building a significant advantage behind the scenes in terms of delegate selections. These delegates might not like Trump, but they might not end up liking Ryan or some other Trump alternative who isn’t Cruz. If Trump can’t win on the first ballot, it may be that Cruz is likelier to win on a subsequent ballot. Another defining feature of this nominating season has been the power of insurgent candidates like Trump and Cruz over more establishment-oriented candidates. Just because the convention would be a collection of the party faithful does not mean it will do the bidding of the DC establishment.
Speaking of the conventions, there does seem to be an increasing although still-small chance that the Democratic convention could be a little bit less than a kumbaya moment for the party. Sanders won’t be the nominee — Clinton’s delegate lead is all but insurmountable, as we explained last week in some detail — but he’s doing well enough that Democrats must also now worry about party unity. Will the Sanders voters accept Clinton as the nominee, and if so, how quickly? At the convention, will the Sanders delegates have a nonnegotiable list of demands for platform planks that Clinton may find unacceptable? Will Sanders’ backers insist he be added to the ticket, which Clinton will certainly not want to do? Guaranteed dissension, unpleasant compromises, and possibly an image of weakness are the real price Clinton may have to pay for her inability to put away a 74-year old socialist during the nominating season. The positive thing for Democrats is that, generally speaking, both Clinton and Sanders are liked by the Democratic electorate, and the voters view the party leadership in a much more positive light than Republican rank-and-file voters view their leadership.
There’s now a two-week break until the next major contest, New York on April 19. While Clinton and Trump get something of a pass for not doing well in Wisconsin, they will have no excuse if they falter in their home state. Trump’s narrowing path to 1,237 is very reliant on winning the vast majority of delegates in New York. Clinton needs no such sweep to stay on track for the nomination, but a solid win could help her better make the argument that it’s time for Democrats to turn the page on this year’s nominating season — an argument that certainly was not bolstered by her weak (if unsurprising) showing in Wisconsin. So it’s onward, and forward, to the Empire State.
*Technically, Wisconsin voted for Gary Hart over eventual Democratic nominee Walter Mondale in 1984, but the primary vote was a beauty contest. Mondale won a caucus that selected the delegates, which is why we say that Wisconsin has voted for the winner in every nominating contest since 1972.
The Electoral College: The Only Thing That Matters
It’s a long way to November, but for the moment the GOP is an underdog
March 31st, 2016
We live in a post-factual era. Thanks to the Internet and social media, which mix informed and uninformed views in equal measure, the old rule — that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own set of facts — no longer applies. Somewhere in cyberspace, you can now find blogs and treatises with “facts” that support your opinions, no matter how bizarre.
Here at the Crystal Ball, though, we are going to cling to one central fact about presidential elections: The only thing that matters is accumulating a majority of 270 votes in the Electoral College.
Creating Electoral College projections is a marvelous parlor game, and we’ve been doing so here since we obtained our magical sphere of crystal from China many years ago. (All other details shall remain confidential.)
We’re now at the point in the nominating process where it is, er, crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will end up being the Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, while not at all the certain winner, is the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee. So it’s time to adjust our 2016 electoral map for the first time since we rolled out our initial ratings last May. That map, shown below as Map 1, reflected a generic Democrat versus Republican matchup, and it depicted a close, competitive general election.
Map 1: First version of Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College ratings, May 2015
The new map, as you will see, does not show a close and competitive general election. The Republicans now find themselves in a deep hole.
Yes, more than seven long months remain until the election, and all kinds of unexpected twists and turns can occur. Sure, we don’t know the shape of the economy or terrorism, or the precise job approval rating of President Obama in the autumn, or the gaffes and scandals that may yet unfold on our way to the ballot box. But goshdarnit, there’s finally a pause in the non-stop primary calendar, and we’re going to take advantage of that!
Our new map is one that will evolve, maybe substantially, after the conventions. Remember that independent and/or third-party candidates could change the calculus. Nonetheless, here is our extra-early, ridiculously premature projection of the Electoral College map in a possible Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump matchup. Yielding completely to boldness, or recklessness, we eliminated Toss-ups, and leaned all states to one or the other nominee. Each state’s electoral history, developing demographics, and current polling data guided our choices.
Map 2: Revised Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College ratings for a Clinton vs. Trump matchup
Table 1: Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College rating changes
Election analysts prefer close elections, but there was nothing we could do to make this one close. Clinton’s total is 347 electoral votes, which includes 190 safe, 57 likely, and 100 that lean in her direction. Trump has a total of 191 (142 safe, 48 likely, and 1 leans).
Over the years we’ve put much emphasis on the seven super-swing states: Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Virginia. While some will fall to the Democrats less readily than others, it is difficult to see any that Trump is likely to grab. In fact, four normally Republican states (Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri) would be somewhat less secure for the GOP than usual. North Carolina, which normally leans slightly to the GOP, would also be well within Clinton’s grasp in this election after being Mitt Romney’s closest win in 2012.
The probability is that the Clinton campaign will target at least one or two of the four Likely Republican states, which would have the effect of helping Democratic Senate nominees where they exist (all of those states have Senate races in November). Because Clinton’s objectives will surely include recapture of the Senate, no doubt her campaign will keep in mind the competitive contests that could yield the net four seats for a tied Senate or five seats for outright Democratic control.
Our belief is that, given the high level of party polarization existing in 2016, the election wouldn’t necessarily resemble the massive landslides of 1964 (Lyndon Johnson-Barry Goldwater) or 1972 (Richard Nixon-George McGovern). Instead of the winner topping 60% as in 1964 and 1972, it is more likely Clinton would garner less than 55% of the two-party vote.
Another assumption is that current polls in some states, such as Utah, that (stunningly) show a tight Clinton-Trump contest are not representative of the conditions we’ll find in the fall. While the GOP defection rate would likely be higher than the usual 10% or so, it wouldn’t be as mountainous as some current surveys suggest. In Utah, the GOP candidate for the White House sometimes receives over 70% of the vote; that’s a lot of votes to be frittered away before a Democrat could win, and LBJ was the last to do so in 1964. Party identification will assert itself for millions of Republicans across the nation, and all or virtually all states with a vast GOP advantage will end up going Republican by some margin. Perhaps a different Democratic nominee would have more crossover appeal, but we have to remember how much Republicans dislike Hillary Clinton.
Polls may be ephemeral and sometimes wildly inaccurate, yet surveys (and demographics) are the only hard data we have this far out from the election. The polling averages for a Clinton-Trump face-off show roughly a 10 percentage point lead for the Democrat. RealClearPolitics has Clinton up about 11 points and HuffPost Pollster gives Clinton a lead of about nine points. This kind of Democratic advantage, if properly distributed, would produce an Electoral College result similar to, or greater than, Barack Obama’s 2008 total of 365 electoral votes to John McCain’s 173 (Obama won the national popular vote by 7.3 points). Again, this suggests that one or more states currently rated Likely Republican (Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri) might slip into the Democratic column.
Trump supporters and some independent analysts assert that his appeal to many blue-collar whites in Rust Belt states (such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) could pull these states’ electoral votes into the Republican column. The problem is, there is little evidence that the non-college voters supporting Trump in the primaries are defectors from the Democrats; most have been backing GOP candidates fairly consistently, so the net addition for Trump could be small. Nor do we buy the theory that increased Republican primary turnout this year means Trump is going to bring out millions more white and primarily male voters that weren’t excited by John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. Maybe there will be higher white male voter participation, but there will probably be augmented, heavily Democratic minority turnout to balance it. Additionally, some white voters, particularly those with higher incomes and levels of education who may have voted for Romney, might have a hard time pulling the lever for Trump.
Now, let’s suppose the Republican nominee is Ted Cruz and not Donald Trump. How much difference would it make in November? Probably, a Clinton-Cruz contest would be closer. RealClearPolitics’ polling average has Clinton defeating Cruz by about three points, while HuffPost’s average has Clinton winning by about four points. Unquestionably, Cruz would have a better chance of overcoming a gap of three or four points than Trump would of bridging a 10 or 11-point difference. At the least, Cruz could firm up the GOP’s chances in Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, and Missouri, and he could turn some of our Leans Democratic states back into Toss-ups.
At the same time, Cruz is well to the right of recent Republican presidential nominees and disliked greatly by many elected GOP officials. Moreover, goaded by Trump, Cruz has made some extreme statements on immigration and other topics that are sure to stimulate minority participation in November. In some ways, Democrats might have an easier time attacking him: Cruz is a much more vocal social conservative, for instance, which plays right into the standard Democratic playbook of going after Republicans on issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. However, after Trump suggested Wednesday that women who have abortions should face legal consequences — and then backtracked — it may be that Democrats would have an easy time attacking him on these social issues, too.
Most important of all, the national Republican Party appears certain to remain deeply divided, whether Trump or Cruz is the nominee. If the prize is taken from Trump via convention maneuvering when he has by far the most delegates and is reasonably close to a majority (1,237 delegates), a sizable percentage of Trump voters could defect to a third-party ticket or sit out the election. If Trump wins the Republican crown, we would also expect a considerable chunk of GOP voters to go elsewhere on the ballot, or go fishing entirely on Election Day.
Thus, it could be the nightmare scenario for the party of Lincoln: Heads you lose, tails you lose.
The irony is that Hillary Clinton is a beatable candidate. She has unique vulnerabilities, many a product of being shopworn after a quarter-century of public controversies. Other Republican candidates, had they been the party standard-bearer (such as John Kasich or Marco Rubio), might well have started as the frontrunner. But Rubio is long gone, and Kasich is far behind Trump and Cruz — with no credible pathway to the nomination that we’ve heard. If either is selected as the vice presidential nominee, it will not fundamentally change the election picture. VP candidates almost never do.
Every now and then, one of the major parties goes off the track and forfeits an election, as in 1964 and 1972. This time, it is possible that the Republicans are the new Whigs, headed for a crackup, an oft-made comparison that historian Michael Holt recently examined in the Crystal Ball.
However, it’s just as possible, maybe probable, that the party would repair itself by 2020. Four years after the Goldwater debacle, the Republicans elected a president. Four years after the McGovern disaster, the Democrats elected a president. Odds are, there will be no need for a bugler playing taps for the GOP this time either. Somehow, though, Republicans will have to find ways to heal the deep rifts in their party, while becoming more mainstream and accommodating to this century’s American electorate. It will take far more than another “autopsy report” like the one in 2013 to accomplish this.
If you’re unhappy with this projection of November’s results, dear reader, just wait a while. No analyst that we know correctly predicted the GOP nominating battle. Why should the general election be any different? The roller coaster of 2016 will lead to revisions — perhaps massive — in this, our Electoral College map. Expect new calculations at regular intervals in this exceptionally unpredictable campaign.
However, our first update in 2016 does reflect that the GOP primary battle has made the Republicans general election underdogs. They are not unquestionably doomed to this fate: If we were totally confident about the November outcome, we’d call Florida, Ohio, and the other swing states “safe” for Democrats instead of just leaning them. So there is a long way to go, and after the rise of Trump we’re not even close to 100% confident of much of anything. But a general election race that at the start of the cycle looked like a Toss-up just isn’t right now, which is why we have made such dramatic changes to our ratings.
