The focus is now turning to the electoral “college” vote – to win in November, a candidate needs 270 of the 538 electoral votes.
Refining my estimates, I’ve applied the latest nationwide polls where there is not a state one vs one poll, and narrowed the safe goalpost to 55%. Since Hillary currently has a +2 polling lead, that means states where Barack Obama won by more than 53% are safe for Hillary. Conversely, a state had to vote by 57% for Romney to still be safe Republican.
If you accept those sketchy assumptions, the safe electoral votes are
Hillary 248 Trump 173
However, the most recent Sanders vs Trump polls have Sanders +13 (admittedly before Trump clinched the nomination – nobody cares any more)
If you apply the same math – that any state that voted more than 42% for Obama (55-13) is safe for Sanders and only states that voted 68% for Romney (55+13) are still safe for Trump – you get
Sanders 416 Trump 38
The opposing argument is it doesn’t matter what the margin of victory is – 270 and you win.
Only slightly related, the vile John Fund over at National Review online telegraphed the #nevertrump strategy for the Convention. The “thinking” is that since 40% of the delegates are pledged to Trump, but oppose Trump – they will just refuse to vote on the first ballot. Paul Ryan is being coy for a reason – he will be the person to rule on the legality of pledged delegates refusing to vote.
It is the Republican Party, not the Trump Party. They can nominate anyone they want. They will have officially committed suicide if Trump wins the nomination. Nobody should be forced into suicide.
Just observe the Democrats. Bernie wins a state and loses the delegate count? No one is bitching about that! (well maybe they are …but the media won’t report it.)
Sunday, the Atlanta (Georgia) Urinal-Constipation released its November poll for Georgia showing that Trump would defeat Hillary, but Bernie Sanders would beat Trump.
Georgia was considered a safe Republican state by the experts until recently. Obama only got 45% in 2012
The latest poll shows Trump ahead of Hillary in New Jersey. If that is right, the electoral race is close to a tie.
It will be a blowout in the fall with Trump in a landslide. The big news is not the NJ poll, but the WBUR radio poll (WBUR is a Boston, MA station) for New Hampshire that shows that Bernie supporters will go to Trump rather than Hillary once Bernie is eliminated from the running.
This short 3 minute clip is worth your time (it will not play if you have an ad blocker):
http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/videos/2016-05-18/granite-state-poll-clinton-and-trump-neck-and-neck
I love ads!
Looked at the poll. An important thing (that we can’t notice) is New Hamphsire is very white. Hillary did very poorly in states unless there is a large black population. The poll is consistent in the cross tabs that her support is concentrated in 50+ Year old white women with advanced university degrees – the NPR demographic. Black people tag along to be the house pets, hoping for scraps dropped under the master’s table.
The really shocking number is that young people would switch to trump @ 80% if you make Bernie not a choice. Maybe they are motivated by being the age of Monica Lewinsky at the time Bill was playing hide the cigar
That shocks a lot of people but not me. Trump staked out the anti-Bush, ant-Clinton, anti- Iraq war position for a reason. Same with blasting Cruz for his Goldman Sachs connection and favoring an increase in taxes on hedge funds.
More recently, Trump has been saying he ran against a rigged system, but he never had it as bad as Bernie – Bernie never had a fair chance, Trump says to the idealistic Bernie supporters.
Quinnipiac poll shows Hillary well ahead in NJ. I must have misread which poll was which.