If Hillary Clinton starts with those 242 electoral votes, she only needs 28 more to win. As it happens, Florida has 29 electoral votes, so she could win there, lose every other swing state, and still win. Or she could take Virginia (13 EVs) and North Carolina (15 EVs) and lose all the others. Or she could take Ohio (18), New Hampshire (4), and Iowa (6) and lose all the others. Or...well, you get the idea. There are a whole variety of ways Clinton could win, while Trump has to run the table.

    That isn't to say that the national result doesn't matter; it's only been in the rarest of circumstances (like 2000) that the total vote and the electoral vote pointed in opposite directions. But by now few people are saying that Donald Trump has such fantastic appeal to working class white men that he can steal states in the Midwest, or tap some heretofore unnoticed vein of votes. And you can forget about the momentary disgruntlement from supporters of Bernie Sanders playing a major role; in November, Clinton will retain the votes of nearly all Democrats. Barack Obama got the votes of 92 percent of Democrats in 2012, and she'll be in the same neighborhood.



b_b:

I think that Trump could be in for a Mondale sized ass whipping. Clinton leads by this much, and the Clinton-media-machine hasn't even been primed yet, let alone warmed up. I think her best strategy is to not engage with him at all. He's at his best when he's getting personal. She will lose a battle of the insults. As difficult as it will be, she should just ignore all the mud slung her way. Democratic super PACs can handle all the relevant mud slinging back the other direction. I'll bet there are some real gems in that archival, never-made-it-to-air reality stuff that Trump's been a part of since the 80s. I'll bet we're talking racism, sexism, narcissism, the whole nine yards. If you thought "47%" was bad, this is going to explode some heads. I think by the time Clinton's camp has had all the way until November to chew him up and spit him out, he might be looking at like Kansas, Wyoming and Alaska, and not much else. That all depends on the extent to which all the non-white eligible voters register and show in the south. He might even drop out of the race by October.


posted 2906 days ago