Jim Geraghty is a regular read for me, and he notes: “Let’s begin with the obvious: I did not see that coming.” I need to start going with my gut more often, but I’m reluctant to make public predictions when the data is all over the place. I liked Glenn Reynolds “It’s 2016, anything can happen” schtick. But my prediction to Bitter a few weeks ago was “He’s going to tear through the rust belt, because he’s speaking their language. His supporters that think he has a shot at New York are nuts. Upstate will go Trump handily, but they can’t outvote New York City. If the T region of our state turns out, Trump has a shot at Pennsylvania. He could win it. The working class guys love him. They won’t listen to their unions.” I thought there was a decent chance Trump might lose a few unexpected western states that might possibly cost him the election, despite tearing through the rust belt states. Trump’s style seems more offensive to westerners. Trump lost Nevada, but the rest of the west held except for the states Republicans can’t ever win in.
I thought that Mitt Romney would have been the type of Republican Pennsylvanians would vote for, because when I was a kid growing up, he was. But most of those old time “good government” Republicans, the Rockefeller Republicans, are now Democratic voters. They are gone from the GOP. Trump won on the backs of rust belters who feel their best days are behind them. Those people used to vote Democratic, but now feel justifiably abandoned by the party. They were never very warm to Republicans either, which is why turnout was a problem until Trump. I believe Trump’s coalition shows a way forward for Republicans, if they can understand Trump’s liabilities while understanding his victory as well. What kind of candidate would it take to keep those voters turning out?
I wasn’t going to share my opinions publicly because I didn’t want to jinx it.
This time last year I thought he was going to win because my every instinct said he could not, but he progressing well despite what I KNEW was conventional wisdom saying he should not.
I knew he would win in a backward George Costanza way. Except I thought he would win bigger.
My rational mind, and my gut told me there was no way. But this little voice in the back of my head was going “your logic and instinct is the binary opposite with how Trump is performing so far in 2015” And that continued through the primaries…
This is as good a thread as any to say thank you two for all the work you’ve done.
It’s been one hell of a decade, huh?
What kind of candidate for 2020? Not the lame establishment far right religious morons we keep trotting out, because besides everything else, religious zealots scare the shit out of everyone except the far right. But Mormons scare the shit out of everyone outside of Utah. My vote is Trey Gowdy, he’s the no nonsense kind of guy we truly need.
My guess is Donald Trump will run in 2020…
He completely took Upstate. He got NYC, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo and Ithica. The entire rest of the state voted for him. Including 10 counties that had voted for Obama last time around! Local news media seemed a bit baffled by it, but it was pretty obvious to me that it was going to happen.
I knew Trump could do well in the rust belt, and I thought it would be closer than poles predicted, but I figured it would still be a shillary win. I was wrong! I think Bernie voters lost their mojo, and many minorities didn’t like Hillary either, so they didn’t vote like they did in ’08. I saw somewhere trump got 12% of the black vote, essentially shaving enough votes off the block for the win. Wisconsin surprised me too: Wisconsin and Minnesota are essentially socialist, so for Wisconsin to go red was surprising. Since he pulled in all the rust belt states he may have a very good chance in ’20 is he accomplishes 1/2 his goals.