Here's How Donald Trump Can Win in November

by Ben Geier

http://fortune.com/2016/05/06/heres-how-donald-trump-can-win-in-november/

It will likely come down to the Rust Belt and the Midwest.

Donald Trump is up against what seems like tremendous odds to capture the presidency this fall. After romping through the primaries and discarding his rivals one by one, he is now poised to go mano a mano with Hillary Clinton, and most polls point towards a Clinton rout.

But Democrats shouldn’t be too confident, and Donald Trump fans should not feel like there’s no hope. By tweaking the electoral strategy used by Republican candidates for the past four election cycles, Trump has a legitimate chance at transforming the electoral map and catapulting himself into the White House. Put simply, Trump will need to zero in on the Rust Belt and parts of the Midwest. To pull that off, he’ll need to turn several historically blue presidential election states red.

Since 2000, five states have been critical to Republican presidential strategy: Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Colorado, and New Mexico. The first four have voted twice for Republicans and twice for Democrats. New Mexico went for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 2000 except 2004.

But when the GOP did well in those five states, they won the presidential race. It put George W. Bush in the White House for two terms. Those states are important to Democratic candidates, too. President Obama won all five of those states, twice. And if Mitt Romney had won those five states, he would have unseated Obama.

To win these crucial states, Republicans have historically tried to appeal to the Hispanic community and young voters. It’s been an uphill battle for most Republicans, and it certainly wouldn’t be an easy feat for Trump. He is mostly loathed by Hispanic voters, and he will face a challenge getting through to young voters outside of his key demographic of lower-income, less educated white people.

To win, Trump will need to put the previous GOP strategy aside. Instead, he may look to keep Ohio in the mix and then set his gaze on the remainder of the Rust Belt and the Midwest: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

In the Midwest, “you have this grouping of blue collar, middle income households,” says John Brabender, a Republican strategist who has been viewed as the architect of Pennsylvanian Republican Rick Santorum’s career. Brabender notes that in Ohio specifically, a large number of conservative voters didn’t show up to the polls for Mitt Romney in 2012.

Turning those states—almost all of which have voted for Democrats in every presidential election since 1992 (except for Iowa, which went for Bush in 2004, and classic bellwether Missouri)—into Republican wins won’t be easy. But primary election exit polls from those states this election cycle suggest that it’s not out of the question.

Michigan (16 Electoral Votes)

With its strong base of working class and union workers, Michigan has been a Democratic presidential election stronghold since the 1990s. But the exit polls from both parties’ primary races this year suggest that Trump has a shot at turning the state red. In the exit poll after the Democratic Primary, which was won by Bernie Sanders, 57% said that trade deals take away jobs from Americans. In the Republican Primary, 55% of those polled felt the same way.

Hillary Clinton is painted as a pro-NAFTA free-trader, largely because of the policies of her husband’s administration. Trump, meanwhile, has based most of his Midwest campaign on being against trade agreements like NAFTA.

Then there is the fact that, among Democratic voters in Michigan, 69% of those polled said they were either “dissatisfied” or “angry” with the federal government. And 34% said they would not be satisfied if Clinton won the nomination. Brabender says Trump may be able to pick up Bernie Sanders voters — not the young progressive part of his coalition, but the populist part that allowed him to win the Michigan primary.

Ohio (18 Electoral Votes)

Trump’s strong stance against free trade could help him make his case to Ohio voters. Democratic primary exit polls found 53% of people believed that free trade deals killed American jobs. Polls found 54% of Republican primary voters believed the same thing.

Pennsylvania (20 Electoral Votes)

Pennsylvania could be Trump’s most difficult target. Though it has a large rural population in the middle of the state, the urban Democratic strongholds in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia have kept the state blue during presidential elections over the past two decades.

In exit polls, only 42% of polled Democratic primary voters said that free trade costs American jobs, compared with 44% who believe it creates job. In exit polls on the Republican side, 53% believe trade takes away jobs.

Wisconsin (10 Electoral Votes)

Wisconsin has fewer electoral votes than the others we have discussed, but it could still prove critical to the 2016 election. Again, the Democratic numbers aren’t encouraging, with just 42% of those polled believing trade takes away jobs. Exit polling data wasn’t available for the Republican primary in the Badger State.

Another problem for Trump in Wisconsin: he lost the primary to Ted Cruz. During the primary, Republican Governor Scott Walker actively supported Cruz’s candidacy. Trump does not need to worry about Walker breaking for Clinton.

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Missouri, with 10 electoral votes, and Iowa with 6, are both more traditional swing states. Trump will have to appeal to the religious voters in both, something he didn’t have much of a struggle with in the primaries.

So, here is how the map could look for Trump if he turns the Midwest and the Rust Belt for the GOP:

This leaves three swing states: Virginia, North Carolina, and New Hampshire. And Brabender says that Trump might have a shot in Florida — it is a heterogeneous state and it does have a lot of former New Yorkers who could be drawn to Trump. If Trump manages to win in the Rust Belt and the Midwest, he’ll only need to win one of the in-play Southern states mentioned above to take the White House.

Just A Reminder, Donald Trump Actually Could Win The Election

It’s early, but polls show most Republicans are willing to vote for Trump.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-could-win-election_us_574356fee4b00e09e89fbed3

Donald Trump is rising in the polls again. We’ve been here before: As the business mogul surged in the Republican primary polls last July, analysts and pundits worked hard to explain his rise while downplaying his long-term chances.

Now Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee, and we’re looking at a similar pattern: Trump’s numbers are creeping upward, and analysts and pundits are explaining why not to trust those numbers. Those criticisms are valid — it is very early, and the Democratic nomination is still not completely settled. A lot can and will happen between now and November.

But there are also indications that the 2016 general election won’t be all that different from the early polls. Republicans will vote for the Republican candidate, Democrats will vote for the Democratic candidate and the election will come down to a handful of battleground states. In short, Trump might fail — his polling bump could be short-lived. He could lose in a close race. But he could also win this election.

Despite the overarching narrative of a fractured Republican Party elite, most national and state-level general election polls are showing that most Republican voters support Trump. The numbers are pretty similar to the proportion of Democrats who indicate they will support Hillary Clinton.

The most recent national polls show nearly identical degrees of support for Clinton and Trump from respondents in their respective parties:

 The Huffington Post

Trump is an unusual candidate in many ways — particularly in his lack of political experience and use of inflammatory rhetoric — but in a choice between Trump and Clinton, Republican voters unsurprisingly favor the Republican candidate.

Another common media narrative that doesn’t play out well in the polls is the idea that a strong third-party candidate would hurt Trump’s electoral chances. Many voters say they would consider a third-party candidate — and respondents say that every cycle — but in tests of that scenario, a strong third-party candidate pulls as many voters from Clinton as from Trump. That could be because the former secretary of state is viewed almost as unfavorably as the former reality TV star.

All of that said, there are indeed substantial reasons to be skeptical of Trump’s chances in the general election. The polls aren’t reflecting divisions in the party right now, but those divisions do exist among donors and high-level party leaders. If House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) refuses to back Trump and donors remain resistant, voters might begin to pay more attention to the #NeverTrump wing of the party.

But it’s unclear whether the #NeverTrump faction will hold — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who once called Trump a “race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot,” is rumored to be privately encouraging Trump support. Most of Trump’s other former primary opponents have also caved, although no one in the Bush family is willing to support him.

Trump’s lack of political experience could matter as well. The last time we elected a president without any previous electoral experience was in 1952 with Dwight Eisenhower, who was a very well-known World War II general. Is a celebrity business mogul the new Army general? Time will tell, but the general election campaign could shed more light on Trump’s lack of experience than the primaries did.

Ultimately, whether the general election looks like it usually does — with states splitting along their usual party lines and a handful of battleground states determining the outcome — depends on how strong Republican identity is. So far, it seems the Republican label is serving Trump pretty well, and the voters, at least, are lining up behind him.

If that continues, Trump has a solid chance of winning in enough battleground states to win the presidency. Betting markets, aggregated on PredictWise, give him about a 33 percent chance to win the election, and Clinton a 67 percent chance. That’s probably about right.

No, Brexit Doesn’t Mean Donald Trump Will Win the Election

By Matthew Cooper On 6/24/16 at 12:13 PM

http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-donald-trump-us-election-wont-help-474288

In the weird, bizarre Anglo-American political turmoil that the world woke up to on Friday, it makes perfect sense that Donald Trump was in the United Kingdom, spouting off about the Brexit, the island nation’s earthshaking vote to quit the European Union.

“I think I see a big parallel, people really see a really big parallel,” the presumptive GOP presidential nominee said in Scotland from one of his branded golf courses, donning his now iconic “Make America Great Again” hat. The mogul was referring to the likeness between his anti-establishment campaign and the triumphant “Leave” campaign in the U.K. “People want to take their country back,” he said.

Does the Brexit mean Trump can win? Is the political class in the United States underestimating the grievance-fueled, anti-globalization politics symbolized by Trump, just as their counterparts in Great Britain have done?

It’s certainly irresistible to compare the two movements. Both emerged in recent years and were dismissed by the political establishments. Both the Leave campaign and the Trump juggernaut have been fueled by a combustible mix of resentments over immigration, trade and feelings that national sovereignty is best. Each has lamented what it sees as a collapse of borders that is allowing what is perceived as unimpeded immigration. On both sides of the Atlantic, the establishment clang to the hope that Trump’s campaign and the push for a Brexit would eventually fade.

When it comes to demographics, the Trump and Leave campaigns bear an uncanny resemblance. Each were dominated by white working-class voters and older voters (who themselves skew white because the country was much whiter when they were born). Urban, upscale voters voted for Remain in Britain, just as they are anti-Trump in the U.S. Thursday’s victory saw cosmopolitan London skewing about 60-40 for Remain, but it was outgunned by the rest of England and Wales, which went about 60-40 for Leave.

Scotland and Northern Ireland were solidly for staying in the U.K., but since their populations are so much lower, their votes weren’t enough to keep the country in the EU. Recall that Scotland came close to leaving the U.K. in its own referendum in 2014; it may well now bolt, as its populace is so pro-EU. And in both British-controlled Belfast in Northern Ireland and Dublin in the independent state of Ireland, there’s talk about possible unification of the Irish isle—or, at the very least, worry about whether to fortify the now open border between north and south.

Despite what Trump calls the parallels between his unlikely rise and the triumph of the Leave campaign in the U.K., there are some pretty big differences. Trump would have a much tougher time prevailing in the U.S.

First, while Britain voted for an action, a concept—let’s leave Europe—America is electing a president, a commander in chief. That means Trump will be judged for all of his individual strengths and flaws—his comments about women and minorities, his questionable business dealings, his wild, cranky insults.

Second, Britain held a straight majority vote. In the U.S., there’s the Electoral College, which is a tougher hurdle for Trump. He may rack up big majorities in Republican-red states like Alabama or Wyoming, but the all-important swing states are very close. The Electoral College tends to amplify majorities. In the 2012 presidential election, Barack Obama garnered 51.1 percent of the popular vote, compared with 47.2 percent for Mitt Romney—a margin similar to Leave’s win in the U.K. (The remaining U.S. votes were minor parties.)

But the Electoral College spread was 332-206. Since 1992, 18 states, plus the District of Columbia, have voted for Democrats, and their electoral count is 242, very close to the 270 needed to win. That doesn’t mean Trump can’t win, but he’d have to not only crack that wall but smash it. He would need to win major swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Virginia and keep all the Romney states to capture the White House. It’s possible, but it’s a tough climb—tougher than what Leave had to scale in Britain.

Third, America is more diverse than the U.K. The black population is 13.7 percent of the total, and the Hispanic population is about 17 percent, while those of Asian ancestry are about 5.6 percent. In the U.K., those of Asian ancestry—the largest minority group—constitute only about 7 percent of the population, while blacks constitute about 3 percent. Other minorities are about 1 percent.

In other words, the Trump pool of white voters in the U.S. is much, much smaller than the Leave pool of white voters in the U.K. Because the U.S. population has shifted so dramatically, Romney’s 59 percent of the white vote matched George H.W. Bush’s in 1988, but because the white vote as a share of the total had declined so precipitously, Romney lost an election that Bush easily won. Romney got a larger percentage of the white vote than Ronald Reagan did in 1980 and still lost. Again, America has become nonwhite faster than Britain.

Finally, the other problem for Trump is that Britain went first, and the results don’t look great. Markets plummeted on Friday following the Leave vote. Even if they stabilize, Britain looks ready for a very rocky six months as the Leave campaign basks in its “independence” while, ironically, the U.K. begs the EU for good trade terms. The Leave campaign may seem sobering to Americans—and other Europeans—in the months ahead. Trump could still win despite that. But that’ll prove very difficult.