This election will be won on three or four points.
- Demographics
- Cultural variance
- Obama's popularity
- Donald Trump
On demographics, it's clear that the share of white voters in the general elections - presidential - has been declining by an average of three or four percent in every election cycle since the eighties. Put differently, there are not enough angry blue collar white guys to tip the scale for Trump. Meanwhile, minority voters, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians share of the voting population has been rising -- a boon for the Democrats.
As someone who's been voting at the generals since 1992, who vividly recalls the culture wars of the eighties and the nineties on feminism, affirmative action, abortion, and later on gay rights, etc, all I can tell Trump and the Republicans is that this country's culture is changing....fast. Today, when I talk to the twenty and thirty something year old young folks, the so-called millennials, it strikes me that many of those wedge issues are not as important to them.
Frankly and objectively speaking, Barack Obama will go down as one of the ten most significant presidents of this country. One might call me biased, but observing what I have whenever I travel overseas, whenever asked I always remind folks of Obama's momentous achievements: the Iran Nuclear Deal; rapprochement with Cuba; ending the ill conceived war in Iraq; resuscitating the U.S economy in 2009 from imminent depression; solid employment growth over the past six years; fending off China in the South China Sea and in East Asia; standing up for our allies Japan and South Korea vis-a-vis North Korea.
So, Obama's high popularity is a plus for Hillary going forward in the campaign cycle, especially with white women, minority voters, and even with independents and some moderate Republicans.
Trump. The madman with money. Here's a guy who will get his comeuppance and a proper lesson on what really dirty politics and op research in politics mean when he faces off with the unrelenting Clinton machine. Forget Jeb Bush, Rubio, Cruz, and the like.
Trump is sleazy but the Clintons can be sleazier.
I see a 1988 George H. W Bush type shellacking of Dukakis. President Clinton II.