This presidential election is not a contest between Clinton and Trump (and, to a lessor extent, Johnson and Stein). Rather, it is a referendum on Trump.
And assuming that Trump is going to lose, the voters will be electing whomever is running against him. Turns out, that’s Hillary Clinton (remember her?).
Although Clinton’s election Trump’s defeat will be a monumental smackdown with a mandate against all his horrors, HRC will not have a mandate.
Let’s assume my prediction of a 48.3%–45.2% popular vote spread is correct, which many of my friends think is waaaaay too high for the Donald. This plurality harkens back to her husband’s 43% win back in 24 years ago (count ’em!), but that was with a serious third party contender. Still, I expect about 20% of her supporters aren’t voting FOR HER they’re voting AGAINST HIM. It’s not unusual to have some voters only voting against the “lesser of two evils.” But I can’t imagine it’s ever been this significant.
Add to that her unpopularity; her not being a good campaigner (cf. Coakley, Martha); and all the faux scandals drummed up by Faux News. And it’s clear to me that few voters in America will be supporting her.
So my point (see! I’m getting around to it!) is more of a two-part question:
- How much of a mandate will she have to govern?
- Is she a sitting duck in 2020?
Here’s the counter points to my worries:
- She’s much more popular when she’s actually in government (Senator, SoS) than in campaigns (’92, ’08, ’16). So maybe my worries will be over when the dust settles on November 9th.
- W had no mandate in ’00 and he ran with it like he was king of the world. A mandate is whatever you say it is. Winning is enough, even if it’s a squeaker, and she’s got four years to do a good job.
Obama sort of had a mandate in ’08, but that was due to McCain’s terrible campaign, Bush’s unpopularity, the financial meltdown, and inevitable pendulum swing between parties. But the GOP got to work obfuscating him at every turn for eight fun-filled years.
So I worry that we’ll have a wounded president even before she starts and will be hard to re-elect in four years.
Am I wrong? I welcome your comments.
#ChangeMyView
1) Your prediction:
Though I shared that prediction around Labor Day, I think she’s turned it around and he’s totally imploded. Third party support is finally nosediving.
People who used to hate her seem to be coming around while his ceiling is inching closer to 40% which is Dukakis territory.
2) Mandate?
She’s investing money in formerly deep red territories like Utah, Georgia, Arizona and South Carolina. She’s also investing money down ballot in close races in Nevada, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Florida and Missouri which is surprisingly competitive. My guess is 50+1 with Kaine as the new floor. In cautiously optimistic. The House could open up, probably not a flip, but Ryan will lose seats which combined with his abandonment of Trump will weaken his standing. He will be eager to cut some deals on trade and entitlements, and Garland will get confirmed. Beyond that it’ll require a real effort in 2018.
3) 2020?
I think she’s potentially vulnerable, but the GOP base has become untethered from reality and turning against the electable candidates. Kasich could beat her, Rubio could beat her. Bigger reaches like Sandoval or Baker could beat her. It’s unlikely any of them could win the nomination. It’s unlikely new candidates like Haley or Sasse could win it. Tim Cotton could win, Ted Cruz could win, Mike Pence could win. But they would likely have to win by reassembling the Trump coalition which is too narrow to win the general.
He was a compromise candidate. If the senate flips, there is no reason to re submit him. He has already been effectively rejected anyway. I rather hope that the new senate majority leader has some more stones than Reid did, and torches the filibuster for court nominees, and then approves a candidate on party lines..
1. I think the spread will be a bit bigger.
2. I think the EV spread will be really big.
3. This idea that fewer than 60% of the HRC votes are for Hillary Clinton is nonsense. Look, people are allowed to think about more than one thing at a time. It’s possible to be in favor of something and opposed to something else. It’s also possible to prefer bits of two different candidates and dislike other bits of the same two candidates, but pick one.
4. When HRC wins, she’s not going to talk about Trump at all. Why would she? It will be about her governing, and she’ll get the same 100 day bump Obama got (and he did get one).
5. Right now the most probable outcome is D52. The next most probable is D51, then D53, and thenD50+1. An HRC POTUS plus 51+ D Senators is the most likely outcome right now.
6. The Dems will also gain in the House. Majority? Probably not.
Sorry, I’m not seeing how winning POTUS, picking up 5-7 Senate seats, picking up 10-25 House seats, and gaining ground in state houses and corner offices around the country can be viewed as anything but momentum or even, dare I say, a mandate.
…Purported ‘unpopularity’ and faux scandals are not separate things and are of a piece with similarly jaundiced opinions of her campaign skills. She’s might be unpopular because she’s bad at campaigning, or she may be viewed as bad at campaigning because she’s purportedly unpopular… As argued elsewhere on this blog, Hillary Clintons negatives are largely artificial and have more to do with media and social media groupthink: people are not allowed to like her; Donald Trump is so completely hideous that the naked stupidity of the media hoopleheads is on stark display… these are the people who have to ‘balance’ Trumps comprehensive absurdity with something damning about Clinton to seem objective. This race is between a horse and an actual jackass… and the media ‘judges’ that it’s ok to trip the horse up to make the actual jackass seem competitive. Everybody else, including yourself, treats this as ok and bemoans the horses lack of clear lead as though all other things were equal, when they are clearly not. Objectivity that takes a backseat to context is not, in fact, objectivity at all.
I think there is also something else going on, and it has to do with your bizarre reference to Martha Coakley. Hillary Clinton is (and similar to Martha Coakley’s gubernatorial run) not making an express appeal to messianic hopes… and is, in fact, running against the the guy who explicitly say’s he is “the only one who can fix it.” Howard Dean, Bernie Sanders and, frankly, Barack Obama (and Don Berwick here in the CommonWealth) all rode that train. The electorate may have too reverent a view of the type of person necessary for the job of POTUS, and so far it’s the women candidates who are steadfastly refusing to play that game. With Barack Obama (and his Nobel Prize) receding into the background, Hillary Clinton both has her sleeves rolled up and has a clear-eyed perspective on what the job entails and it doesn’t involve giving you a warm fuzzy feeling. Does that make her a ‘bad campaigner’? I don’t think so. I think it’s a sign she treats the electorate as a collection of grownups. I think the media, by and large, doesn’t want the electorate, or thinks the electorate doesn’t deserve, to be treated as grownups: the media wants a Santa Claus who’ll bring the good electorate a present and the bad electorate some coal in the night. Your opinion might vary…
She will win by a larger margin than you suggest and Democrats will regain control of the Senate.
After that, if she governs as a neoliberal, continues the policies of her husband, if she is able to gain support from Democrats like Chuck Schumer and deliver “a giant wet kiss for the tax dodgers who have already parked $2.1 trillion overseas” to quote Senator Elizabeth Warren, she runs one term and loses in a landslide equal to the one that put her in office.
If, however, she listens to people like Senator Warren, Senator Sanders, and yours truly, she wins re-election with the bonus of the Democrats taking the house and senate.
I think she has to govern as a bold progressive on economics in order to shore up her base for the midterms and 2020. Passing a public option is actually the only way to save Obamacare as a viable policy, so it will force that issue. Immigration reform may find Republican allies this time eager to distance themselves from this years horror show. And filling the Scalia seat with a progressive will make a big difference.
Now I disagree about a sudden landslide for the Republicans. No one is convinced they are enemies of Wall Street, and I don’t see them moving to her left on economics. Even if she governs as a mushy centrist, she will likely get re-elected since their base is incapable of nominating an electable conservative. What she won’t have is a Congress or a wider mandate to do the things she wants to do.
….and one reason progressives may want to hear more from Trump once he’s no longer running for the presidency.
Your standard Paul Ryan/Marco Rubio variety of Republican would be happy if Hillary went along with her husband’s agenda of deregulation and “free” markets and I doubt that sort would be able to run against her if she did so. However, according to the latest polls, the Trump variety of Republican is still very loud and proud to be against Wall Street and if they have Trump to keep them “entertained” for the next few years (which is only possible if Hillary does not go after Wall Street), this will get very interesting.
I think Gary Johnson (even with Alleppo gaff) will get around 15%. Rep Scott Rigell (R-Virginia) came out and endorsed him. Hillary’s wikileaks would have sunk her (she doesn’t deny their veracity, just complains about hacking) if she weren’t running against such a horrible clown.
The sentiment that Washington is so corrupt and incompetent is what fueled the rise of Trump and the surprising strength of the Sanders campaign. This episode of survivor has left us poor choices and the media has shown they’re unable to run an informative debate.
Johnson is getting 6% now, and on a slow decline. If he climbs, he takes directly from Trump… people who were going to support Johnson over Clinton would have already made that choice.
I’d be shocked if Johnson’s total grows from 6.
As for the debates, you’re blaming the media? Really?
The reason she talks about the hacking is that it’s the only relevant factor. There is very little that needs a denial (the alleged debate question leak is the only one I wonder about). Most require context, not denial.
The media similarly mishandled the recent information released by the government. A now-retired FBI agent speculates about a possible State Department quid pro quo — a quid pro quo that does NOT happen — and the media (except Rachel Maddow) are off to the races. The whole thing is trumped-up nonsense.
I’m reminded of the similarly hacked “climategate” non-scandal — a bunch of emails were stolen, and the denier echo-chamber went crazy with utterly stupid distortions and misunderstandings. For anybody who actually understands the situation, there was just no story at all — no “there” there — because there’s nothing wrong with the emails that were stolen and then published.
The fact that the Russian government is so flagrantly interfering in this election is the story here. The Russian government has chosen Mr. Trump as its desired candidate. Mr. Trump welcomes the resulting support.
That is the only Wikileaks story worth pursuing.
She will have a mandate to govern. She looks to be heading toward a strong Electoral College victory, which people remember better than the popular vote spread. Four years later, nobody will care much by how much she won.
Her biggest intrinsic vulnerability in four years will be her age. In 2020, she will be unusually old for a president, and if there are any health issues in the next four years, it will leave her vulnerable to a challenge from Rubio, who will look much younger by comparison.
As for third parties…that deserves its own post. In recent elections in Australia, Portugal, Spain, Germany, France, Ireland, Italy and the UK — off the top of my head — the “old” parties that have been consistently in power or opposition since WWII have lost vote share to up-and-comers on the left, right, and middle (Ciudanos in Spain). No surprise this is happening here. Within the global context, Stein, McMullin, and Johnson are doing worse than their counterparts around the world.