The American Presidential Election: Conventions till now, Labor Day gear up and the first to 270
America has a choice to make in November and it is a critical one. Follow me as we take a look from “This Angle”. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are 2 of four nominees who have a real shot at winning. Donald Trump is a Business Man (good one or poor one is a matter of opinion.) A successful business man in the real estate industry, a master at branding and in my opinion a very intelligent man. Mrs. Clinton on the other hand is so different from Trump, she has been a public servant (A good one or not is a matter of opinion.), and has had numerous successes and failure over the decades. She has been First Lady, Senator, and Secretary of State.
These two individuals had their conventions and laid out their visions for the country they want to lead. Trump and the Republicans believe America is in decline and needs to be “Great Again.” They talked about pursuing policies that puts “America First”. They are going to build a wall across the southern border and Mexico will pay for it; they will deport every one in America without proper papers to stay here and bring jobs back to America by slapping heavy tariffs on companies that leave or have left this country to other countries in order to lower their cost of production. Renegotiate NAFTA, pull out of TPP, bring trade relief cases to WTO, label China a currency manipulator, and apply tariffs and duties to countries that cheat. They will remove regulations on American businesses (i.e. Wall Street) in order to give businesses the flexibilities they need to create jobs and opportunities.
On domestic issues, they will repeal and replace Affordable Care Act (OBAMACARE), make sure the 2nd amendment is in place and give tax breaks to all Americans. They did all of this while painting a dark picture of the United States and how everything is broken and only Donald Trump can fix it.
A week later the Democrats went into their convention with a few controversies looming. Small faction of the Bernie or Burst camp were there to protest, there was a DNC hack that revealed emails of DNC staffers showing Hillary Clinton favoritism and the DNC chairwoman was forced to step down on the first day of their convention. Despite the debacle, they shared their view of the country and the also laid out their vision. Very clear contrast. They want to rebuild America’s infrastructures; end citizen’s united and put tougher gun laws in place. On immigration, they want to secure the borders using science and technology and not a physical wall. For those who are already here undocumented they want to create a pathway to legalization for them.
On the economy, they will propose a fair tax system where the rich pay their fair share, they want to increase the national minimum wage, give workers paid family and medical leave and reform Wall Street so that Wall Street does not bankrupt Main Street again.
They shared their vision while letting Americans know that this is the greatest country on the face of the earth.
The Convention Bounces
After the conventions both candidates saw bumps in the polls. Clinton led by 6 to 7 percentage points throughout most of June, but her lead dissolved to around 3 percentage points by mid to late July, just before the conventions. Then, after the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Trump pulled into an approximate tie with Clinton. It’s those polls that make for the best comparison when describing Clinton’s bounce.
What is Happening Now
American elections are like being on the track. Primaries are your qualifiers. Get through that, then you start to train for the real race till you get to the conventions. After the conventions it is:
- On your mark (Convention till labor day)
- Set (Labor day till the day before the election)
- Go (Election Day)
After the conventions the 2 candidates have had some serious challenges. Trump’s challenges are self-inflicted while Clinton’s challenges are all about her judgment, her state department and her family foundation and her record in Libya, the Benghazi debacle and ISIS.
Without going into how Donald Trump got himself to where he is now and how a private server, emails, and Clinton Foundation made Hillary Clinton’s unfavorable numbers so high, lets talk about the numbers.
270 to Win: The Presidential election in America is won by winning electoral colleges. Electoral College consists of 538 electors. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Each state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives plus two for your Senators. All the states except for Maine and Nebraska have a “winner-take-all” system that awards all electors to the winning presidential candidate.
The 2 major political parties also have what we know as their blocks. These are solid red or blue states. These are states that have a large demography of Americans who share a particular party’s ideology. These states are almost guaranteed. Which makes our presidential election so concentrated on Battle ground states.
Traditionally the states marked red are safe states for republican candidates in most election. Likewise, the blue states are safe for democrats. So in a presidential election you have 2 jobs when you look at the Electoral College. Defend your base and make up what is left to reach 270.
How have they done? Well, Trump has more work to do than Hillary in this regard because of his hardline policy on immigration. He needs Florida, a state George Bush won twice and Obama won twice. It is a classic toss-up state with more elected republicans. So it makes his path easier if he can win all 29 electoral votes and that is just a start. He needs Ohio. Ohio is the most important state to republicans in this election and Donald Trump and the Very popular Republican Governor if the state don’t see eye to eye. He needs Kasich’s infrastructure, volunteers and data to campaign effectively. He does not have that.
Clinton on the other hand just needs to add Virginia and Pennsylvania to her safe states to be at 269 Electoral College votes. She understands the republicans have called Pennsylvania a toss-up state for years but they have not won it in 3 decades. The republican message does resonate there but it has just never been enough to give them the prize. So what has she done? She is using VP Joe Biden to convey that middle class message. That Obama infrastructure along side the democratic database and manpower is being used the way Trump would have liked in Ohio. For Virginia, it was a case of picking a very popular senator from the state that has been a public servant at every level for the state. Tim Kaine is well-loved in the commonwealth and his selection was a very tactical one. In an election year that has 2 main candidates with very low favorability, the VP choice becomes very critical. This will be more evident when they face off in the only VP debate coming up.
So how have they polled? In my opinion Hillary Clinton is very lucky to be facing Donald Trump who is not doing himself any favors at all. He has had ample opportunities to put himself in the lead in this race but he has missed them all. The man has not covered himself in glory since the conventions hence, making it an easy campaign for the Democrats. His campaign are wondering why she has not spoken to the press in almost a year. She does not need to. Why? Trump is helping by making himself the subject of the breaking news in almost every news cycle. Picking on a judge with Hispanic heritage, to insulting a gold star family. Asking Russia to hack the U.S or telling saying 2nd amendment people could do something about Hillary Clinton are all irresponsible and so why will she not take a back seat, talk to voters and raise money while he continues to self implode?
His hard-line policies, tone on race and gender and his rhetoric has become so costly that some of those safe red states above have not become toss-ups in 2016.
Georgia, Nevada and Arizona have become toss-up states according to recent polls and Virginia is now polling as a solid blue state. Washington State in this map is now a battleground but polling shows it is leaning blue along with Pennsylvania. If Hillary splits the Nebraska and Maine votes with Trump and she picks up her safe blue states, Virginia and Pennsylvania she will become the next President of the United States. So it is safe to say this race is hers to lose.
The Trump Card: What can Trump do? Is it too late? Can he like Bernie just hang on hoping there is a bombshell that she will not be able to recover from before November 8th? Is his appeal to Hispanics and African-Americans too late?
Can his new team change him enough to get people to change their minds?
I don’t know the answers to this question but for Trump to be the next President of the United States he needs to not only depend on a Hillary bombshell. He should continue to appeal to Hispanics and African-Americans (the right way). Rely on the experience of his new campaign manager, shut up sometimes and appeal to more than just white male Americans, he needs to crush her in the 3 upcoming Presidential debates. He needs to attack her record, not the individual. His approach in the Republican primary debates will not work in these debates. There is more time to discuss substance and you cannot easily insult your way through the night. At the end of each debate he needs to have changed millions of hearts while Clinton just needs to talk about girl power, policy and charm away those who already like her.
If Trump wins all the toss-up states except for Virginia and Pennsylvania and splits the Maine and Nebraska votes. She still wins the race to 270.
According to the poll of polls there are 131 Electoral College votes to fight for and she only needs 8 of them to put her over the top.
The Race is now set in motion as of Labor Day. Early voting will begin in some areas of the country and I know the Trump campaign are aware of the current state of the election and it will be interesting to see how they plan to start closing the gap and eventually overtake her in the race to 270. The Clinton campaign is better organized because they have more money and can see this thing out easily as long as the email drama goes away. Stay tuned; it is going to be an exciting fall in American Presidential Election.