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Political Predictions 2016
The hangovers should be wearing off or at least minimized with some comfort food. The 2015 reviews are in and they aren’t good, but that’s okay. God gave us a great big windshield and tiny rearview mirror.
It is time for political predictions and wagering is encouraged.
Every quadrennial election is the most important and/or pivotal in our nation’s history. That trend continues in this new year.
Ricochet is at its best when everyone participates and adds new categories, but we need a starting point. Please offer your predictions of the following and feel free to include a brief (brief: men’s underwear or less than 10,000 words — I am looking at you Ryan M, James Madison, and James of England) narrative supporting your positions.
Republican Primary: Who is the nominee and how do they get there? Bonus points for predicting a running mate.
Democrat Primary: Who is the nominee and how do they get there? Bonus points for predicting a running mate.
General Election: Who wins. Any surprises in the swing states?
Senate: Do Republicans retain a majority? The map is stacked against them this year. If you predict a Republican President does he or she have coattails? Bonus points: if Republicans retain the Senate do they increase their margin or does it dip slightly?
House of Representatives: I’ve not seen any plausible scenarios that this goes back to the Democrats, but feel free to prove that conventional wisdom incorrect. Do Republicans increase their margin?
Published in Politics
Republican Primary: Breath easy. Donald Trump places in the Top 3 in the first 4 states and doesn’t win any of them. Trump’s relentless attacks on the winners embitter his detractors and he noisily exits resurfacing and embarrassing the party in Cleveland. Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and Chris Christie are the early state leaders. Cruz takes a commanding lead after March 1st. Christie and Bush drop out with Right-to-Rise throwing their support and $ behind Rubio. The rest of the primary is a Cruz/Rubio slugfest with Cruz earning the nomination at the last minute and receives Trump’s endorsement.
Democrat Primary: Bernie Sanders gives HRC some early state scary results, perhaps he wins Iowa or NH. Ultimately HRC prevails.
Election: Cruz/Scott beat Clinton/Castro. Margin is similar to Obama over McCain in 2008. Turnout is heavy and evangelicals flex some surprising muscle.
Senate: The heavy turnout and Cruz/Scott victory have coattails, but the Republicans lose a couple of seats including Illinois. All eyes are on Texas and SC to see who replaces Cruz/Scott and how it tilts the ideological balance in the Senate. VP Scott will have to cast some tie breaking votes.
House: Cruz’s right wing firebrands gain seats in the House. Paul Ryan is offered a graceful exit to surrender the gavel and return to the Appropriations Chair.
Republican Primary: Rubio/Fiorina–because they can’t not have a woman on the ticket. Also, she’d not only be the best the party has at the VP’s role as attack dog, she’d be quite good at it and very good at backing/advising Rubio all around. Like a VP should be. Trump won’t go above his current levels as the field consolidates, and folks will begin to see through Cruz.
Democrat Primary: Clinton/Sanders–the DoJ won’t move on the evident criminality of mishandling TS material, and there aren’t any viable other VP candidates, not when O’Malley can’t even find 1,300 petition signers in Ohio, much less the minimum 1,000 legitimate signers, to get onto the primary ballot. Clinton and Sanders aren’t that far apart on economics, anyway, and while they do differ on foreign policy, foreign policy hasn’t actually mattered to Democrats in generations.
General Election: Rubio/Fiorina wins in a Nixon-McGovern-esque landslide. Swing state surprises? All of them that go to Rubio/Fiorina.
Senate: Republican increase to near filibuster-proof majority.
House of Representatives: Republicans increase to near veto-proof majority.
Senate and House because the party that wins the first term of the White House often carries the Congress with it.
You know where to send my case of Bit.
Eric Hines
Eric, I believe Republicans are defending 24 Senate seats this cycle. That is a lot of ground to cover and pick up seats. That is a bold prediction sir. Well done.
I like the enthusiastic optimism.
When they get to 100 seats, they’ll run out of room to gain. Not before.
My optimism is limited to my
beliefhope that the Republicans will finally figure out how to talk about their plans and policies and about Clinton’s dishonesty and outright criminality. If they get that figured out, the rest follows as a direct consequence.Eric Hines
First, thanks Brent for the New Year’s gift. Much better than philosophical dissections of one another.
GOP nod: Trump fails to win any of IA/NH/NV/SC but doesn’t “howard dean” either. Trump’s strength keeps Cruz from an SEC knockout, which only floors Trump. As the race moves into winner take all purplish/bluish states Rubio eclipses Cruz, which Cruz accepts with professionalism. Rubio picks from SC, but Haley or Scott? Chooses Scott, and Clintons reshelve the Haley wedding picture file.
Dems: Clinton, and being Clinton, she chooses Kaine, reliable plausible white guy who maybe delivers a state.
General election: Surprisingly easy win for Rubio/Scott, spending no money to win FL and investing it to win in CO, NV, OH, PA, WI, NC, NM, NH and VA (Kaine can’t deliver). GA and NC are no longer on the map for Dems. Rubio/Scott almost wins NJ. Post-Obama Dem depression ensues looking at next election map.
Senate: Scott may spend most of his time in his old workplace. Duckworth and, arrrgh, Feingold (despite Rubio win in WI) win. CO can’t find anyone other than county commissioners to take on a feckless Bennet. Yet, Ayotte and Toomey win with more ease than feared.
House: GOP loses a handful of seats but still holds more than 240.
Republican Primary:
Trump takes 2nd in Iowa, wins New Hampshire and SC. Cruz picks up Iowa and is second in NH, second in SC. Rubio rallies and takes Florida without a majority. Cruz, with no wins after Iowa, loses TX.
Race comes down to Rubio- Trump. Trump refines his message and style enough to take it from Rubio and walks away from the convention with enough of a truce with the GOPe to campaign against Hillary. Trump chooses Fiorina as a running mate. She hesitates for about a millisecond and accepts.
Dem Primary: No contest, coronation with very bad media display of old white women crowing and youth and blacks bored and low energy.
Other activity: Obama’s 2016 random executive orders on guns, restrictions on electricity, more housing affirmative actions, and Obamacare rising costs infuriate lower middle and working class voters , stock market collapse sends panic about economy, offsetting low gas prices. Trump doubles down on trashing big banks before Hillary can, coupled with trashing crony deals with Democrats. Two ISIS type attacks kill another 50 Americans, illegal aliens kill another 3 three US citizens and each one is publicized extensively.
General Election: GOP gets Ohio despite Kasich changing party, picks up Pennsylvania and Michigan, takes Florida and runs very close in New York. Black vote runs 35% for Trump. Trump wins primarily on new voter turnout from working and lower middle class whites, blacks and Hispanics.
Senate: GOP drops to 50 due to extensive use of campaign consultants who distance candidates from Trump.
House. GOP holds, with loss of seats due to Senate strategy above.
I had to look up Senator Young. He is intriguing.
#6 not the most optimistic prediction. My gut says this year will not be a nail biter and that whoever wins does so in a sizable margin and Herbert agrees.
TKC1101 goes bold and I respect that.
I’ve always read that IA and NH value hands on retail politicians and that doesn’t seem to be Trump’s forte’. Your positions seems to say that his popularity is so durable that he overcomes the need for retail politics. If you are correct I agree – he becomes a juggernaut.
Great words about possible ISIS attacks, stock market declines, etc. and how those events play into the outcome.
Quake Voter – very interesting that Rubio/Scott do so well in many contested states, but the GOP loses ground in the Senate and House. Good write up.
Well, when you are defending 24 of 34 Senate seats and protecting the largest crop of GOP House seats in a century, I take holding 95% as a victory.
Kirk, inspiring recent bio but less inspiring voting record, is no great loss; but Johnson is the best senator elected in years from the upper Midwest. Sad if he loses to Feingold in a rematch.
Ditto. Rubio stays optimistic and doesn’t alienate Cruz but rather adopts as an ally. HRC picks Cory Booker.
I see his rallies as his primary ground game now, and he is packing them in for live performances. If he can hire some out of the box political operators, he can build on this. If he ignores the ground game, he is a weak flare.
Wow. I think yer both (Brent and Eric) delusional, but after the year we’ve had, I like delusional.
Western, what is your prediction?
Republican Primary: Rubio hangs in in early states, emerges on Super Tuesday, and wins tight race v. Cruz. Chooses Cathy McMorris Rogers as running mate.
Democrat Primary: HRC of course. Villaraigosa VP.
General Election: Rubio–carries FL, OH,
Senate: Lose seats but retain majority. Very tight.
House of Representatives: Lose seats but retain majority
Republican Primary: Trump. Starts slow, but momentum becomes Yuge. GOP establishment fails to agree on a single viable candidate, and backs Jeb!’s third-party run, making him 2016’s Ross Perot.
Bonus points: Trump realizes at convention that he can’t pick a daughter as running mate, and chooses Cruz because he drives the press and the GOP establishment nearly as crazy as the Donald himself.
Democrat Primary: Joe “Slow Joe” Biden. Dems realize HRC can’t beat Trump; fear grows that the Donald also has a pen and a phone and no scruples; and DOJ indicts HRC on numerous counts. Prosecutorial overcharge is alleged, when it is discovered that of the 12,000 counts, at least a dozen stem from HRC’s time at the Rose Law Firm.
Bonus points: After Biden’s third attempt to draft Trump fails, he chooses Sanders, because “He is a Democrat, isn’t he?”
General Election: Trump wins. It is later determined that his appeal to “low information voters” is stronger among Independents and Democrats than among Republicans.
Senate: Republicans hold Senate.
Bonus points: Size of majority doesn’t matter, the new President has a phone and a pen, and governing is hard work. Senate decides to reverse calendar and meet only on Easter, in August, and December.
House of Representatives: Democrats retake House due to Trump’s LIV majority among Independents and Democrats.
If there is to be wagering, we really need to discuss odds…
Well, here’s mine for 2016:
GOP Primary: After Trump flames out after NH, it’ll be a Rubio/Cruz fight all the way to the last states (CA, SD, MT). Rubio will end up with just enough delegates, and some will try to goad Cruz into delegate challenges in Cleveland (and will fail doing so).
Dem Primary: It’ll be over by NV, but the Dem convention is going to be…a mess.
General Election: The extended Rubio/Cruz fight will be the best advertising the GOP’s had in at least the last 85-90 years. Rubio, with running mate Nikki Haley, will get upwards of 360 electoral votes.
Senate: A GOP victory in NV (and possibly CO) will not be enough to overcome losses in IL, WI.
House: The GOP may end up gaining upwards of 5-10 seats.
Post-Election: The American people lose again.
Aw, sheesh, Brent. I have a very inchoate sense of the lay of the land. I have a stronger sense of who won’t win than who might. I’d say Trump, Rubio, Cruz, and then a Wild Card are still in it. Somebody has room to peak, but I can’t tell you who that will be.
But, for a WAG at it:
R Primary: Trump is the new Ron Paul — polls well until actual voting occurs (this is probably more wishful thinking than anything). Cruz pulls in Trump voters because he adopts Trump’s love of Americans message and learns to make fun of himself. Cruz by a (pointy) nose. Chooses Rubio as a running mate to lock up Florida and the Latino vote. /snort! oh, I’m having fun now!
D Primary: Felony in a (perp) walk. Chooses a Clinton loyalist to run as VP. Huma? /chortle
General: Felony wins. Republicans find the Democrat national machine, loyalist media, and urban area election fraud insurmountable.
Senate and House: Republicans hold both, but lose seats. This is the safe bet, given Republicans do better in the states, but have a lot of seats to defend.
I like your predictions better, though. Truly, I hope you’re right.
Trump launches an independent campaign. He and Cruz/Fiorina lose to Hillary/Castro. This in spite of the fact that Hillary, for health reasons, can’t make it to one of the debates, and sends Bill instead. The Republicans complain about this, but the media go along. R’s lose two Senate Seats, and a few in the House. They retain their majorities, which don’do them a darn bit of good over the next eight years of HRC rule.
My second most likely scenario is that HRC dies of a stroke and Bernie Sanders beats Cruz/Fiorina.
You heard it here first.
Third most likely scenario is Hillary suffers a mildly debilitating stroke, like she drools and slurs, but can still argue, and she runs as The First Disabled President. (Ignore Wilson.) Cruz manages to screw even this up, because he uses that nasally snarl the whole time and looks like a penguin.
I have some odd political views.
I don’t think anyone has odd political views this year.
Actually, maybe he should run with that. He could get a monocle, black tie and tails, an umbrella, perhaps. All of DC fandom would vote for him figuring that Batman would have to show up soon.
Then again, Trump is a billionaire. He could start wearing a Batman costume, and he could have a campaign of Batman vs. the Penguin.
What criminals would Hillary and Bernie be in this situation?
Just from the first page of comments I am getting a sense there is a lot of wishful thinking.
Republican Primary: Ted Cruz who will pick either Fiorina or an unlikely Conservative from the House. Trump will not be able to translate his poll numbers into primary wins or even good showings and Cruz will begin the sweep, especially in the SEC primary. Rubio does better in the “moderate” states, but it becomes too little too late.
Democrat Primary: Hillary, because the Democrats are a crime family.
General Election: It is very close. Very. But I think Hillary pulls it out. The GOP Leadership will barely lift a finger to help Cruz, but do just enough to avoid any of the conspiracy theories out there.
Senate: Republicans lose the Senate because–as Portman has alluded to in Ohio–many of them will not want to campaign with Cruz, who will be battling the Democrats AND the DC GOP.
House of Representatives: Republicans retain the House, but it is merely symbolic as the Conservative and Leadership wings remain at each others throats after the election.
Bonus Round: The Country is forever lost and catastrophic domestic events take place as we go through these changes. Be prepared to hand over your guns or be willing to shoot some federal agents/law enforcement–that’s all I am saying.
Again, how can Trump run an independent campaign if sore loser laws of some type in 46 states prevent him from doing so?
“Bonus Round: The Country is forever lost and catastrophic domestic events take place as we go through these changes. Be prepared to hand over your guns or be willing to shoot some federal agents/law enforcement–that’s all I am saying.”
I continue to be entertained by things federal defense contractors would say.
I assume you think it impossible for federal contractors to be concerned that the Republic is going in the wrong direction?