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A Few Things to Chew On
First, if the exit polls can be trust, a majority of white women voted for . . . Donald Trump. Second, Trump got a larger slice of the Hispanic vote in 2016 than Mitt Romney did in 2012. Third, Hillary did not lose. Trump won. If you juxtapose the vote Trump received state-by-state in 2016 with the vote Barack Obama received state-by-state in 2012, as Tim Alberta did yesterday on National Review Online, Trump wins the electoral college. You should read the entire article. Trump in 2016 outpolled Obama in 2016 in Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina, Arizona, Georgia, and Utah. He, in fact, did so in every state that Romney carried in 2012.
What we saw on Tuesday was not just the defeat of a truly terrible Democratic candidate. It was a referendum on the last eight years, and Trump — for all of his faults — was a better candidate than Mitt Romney, who is a better man. What Trump brought to the table was a capacity to connect with ordinary Americans. If he handles himself well — above all, if he and the Republicans deliberately develop ties with African-Americans, Cuban-Americans, Mexican-Americans, and Asian-Americans who are patriots — the base of support for the Republicans can be expanded.
We have heard a lot about the divisions within today’s Republican Party. What we have not heard about are the deep, bitter divisions — mainly generational — within the Democratic Party. The latter has become a top-bottom party, bringing together in the same tent the super-rich, the rather rich, the highly educated, and those dependent on Medicaid, Food Stamps, WIC, and the like. As Bernie Sanders showed, the younger adherents of the party are quite radical, and something of the sort can be said for the party’s Congressional delegation. Thanks to Barack Obama, there are no more conservative Democrats, and there are no more moderate Democrats. There are radicals and there are those who are considerably more radical; and, to judge by the attitudes of those in the millennial generation the future belongs to the latter. What has happened to the Labour Party in Britain may happen to the Democrats here.
The more decisive Donald Trump is, the more he does to get rid of Obamacare, to cut back on the administrative state, to increase the number of private-sector jobs, to restore our military strength, the more attractive he and his party will become. Big business abandoned the Republicans this year. They will be back. Many of the neocons jumped ship. They will be back. Hispanics respect manliness. More of them will flock to the Republican standard if the Republicans display strength (not their customary weakness) and reach out to the small businessmen and ordinary working folk in the Hispanic community.
Correction: This was written ca. 10 a.m. this morning. By the time it was posted Tim Alberta had backed off his claims. Apparently, he used the wrong numbers.
One more item: In today’s Wall Street Journal, Karl Rove reports, citing Martha MacCallum of Fox News, that the polling data shows that 14% of the voters thought neither candidate qualified, and they split in the end with 69% of these voting for Trump and 15% for Mrs. Clinton. The same percentage thought neither candidate had the temperament for the job, and 71% of these broke for Trump and 12% for Mrs. Clinton. I was one of these. When the lady claimed that half of the Trump voters were “deplorable” and “irredeemable,” I thought, “Enough of the shilly-shallying. We cannot allow this bigot to become President.”
Published in Politics
Which state? There are six or seven pointing the other direction, willfully ignoring them is not adding credibility to your conclusion.
I reject your premise than Trump was better than Romney because your data is flawed in several respects. Just as important as percentages are raw vote totals. In other words, Trump may have won a higher percentage of blacks and Hispanics but did fewer of those cohorts vote and was that smaller subset more conservative, which I suspect may have been the case.
Also, you really can’t compare two candidates who are running against different opponents since the opponent could greatly effect how voters behave. It appears that Romney will end up with more votes than Trump as well, even though he ran against a far superior candidate.
I live in Alabama and I’ve never waited in a line as long as I did Tuesday Normally, it’s a 20-minute wait. This time I waited in line for more than 90 minutes, and I’m told it was like that all day. I just hope we’re not overreading this as the new presidential election template going forward.
Both Paul Ryan and Reince Priebus believe Trump won and helped a number of Republican Congresscritters to win as well.. At least that is what they both said…Trump had coattails. It was obvious to anyone impartial that Trump out worked Hillary considerably. However, to a nevertrumper, everything is skewed against him. We shall see…
To Paul’s question about white women: Without knowing the breakdown of which white women (married or single/ young or old) my response would be that I give women more credit than to assume they vote gender predominantly. Women are a majority in this country. There’s an old joke I heard– may have been in the locker room from Donald Trump–women have 60% of the wealth in this country, and 100% of the…well anyway…the point is they have no reason to feel or act inferior. When I vote , it’s not by gender. Why would a woman not behave the same?
I’m guessing he didn’t do better than Mitt Romney with Hispanics, Hilary just lost a bunch of Obama’s? We have to be careful not to read too much into this less we stop the very important work to win even more votes from these constituencies in the future.
Paul,
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I will again mention shy voter syndrome. Mrs. Democrat was nauseated at the Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, Madonna endorsements of Hillary. Mrs. Democrat was appalled at the gangsta rappers screaming f%#k Trump. Mrs. Democrat was sickened by Hillary’s theft, corruption, and defense of her abuser husband. Mrs. Democrat was told over and over that she must vote for Hillary.
Mrs. Democrat just told the idiot pollster anything they wanted to hear and then stayed home (or actually voted Trump). She didn’t want the confrontation at work or with neighbors who were aggressive angry leftists. She kept her real opinions to herself and then didn’t go to the voting booth this time.
Regards,
Jim
Yes, although I suspect that this is going to become the conventional wisdom for the GOP establishment going forward.
For one thing almost no one predicted a GOP rout until about 10PM Tuesday. For another the GOP had demonstrated no ability to win states such as Michigan or Pennsylvania this century. For yet another candidates who publicly distanced themselves from Trump like Kelly Ayotte and Darryl Glenn lost, while others who didn’t, won.
I also note that Democrat turnout was way down, which was certainly a factor. I blame Trump, and his willingness to actually attack Hillary instead of saying she was a nice gal in over her head, or some such Romneyesque nonsense. Failing that, I bet millions of people would have gone to the polls completely ignorant of her criminal backstory. Knowing that, millions of Democrats stayed home.
My notion is that Trump achieved this, in spite of the opposition from the nevertrump fraction of the GOP. Without that opposition, I bet the GOP would have been even more successful.
Since we’re talking about hypotheticals, how many more votes would he have won had he spent 1/2 a billion dollars and made a half dozen fewer comments that were offensive? 5 million? 10 million? Obama won more votes but spent far more for each vote. And while Obama played the cards he had very very well, when he made mistakes, the entire press supported him. There’s no comparison here. This was an earthquake. Progressives were lucky Trump was a first-time candidate. Six fewer Tweets, ten fewer Tweets–millions and millions more votes and far bigger majorities.
They cannot have it both ways. Hillary had an unbeatable GOTV operation and her turnout was low. That means Trump suppressed it .
If by overreading you mean “the Party doing the same thing that brought us 16 of the 17 Republican primary candidates” I agree 100%. If President Trump cannot find a way to expand the Republican base, it will be game over if not immediately after Trump, not long after.
Meanwhile, I’m going to hope (somewhat nervously, I admit) that maybe Trump isn’t a really, really lucky boob, maybe he’s a genius. Not a genius intellectual as I suspect @claire is, and her father certainly is, but a genius or at least very well schooled in unconventional political warfare.
Smitty over at The Other McCain just called my attention to this:
Brooke Baldwin just observed that Trump just crushed two political dynasties
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCCHcckJXLI
Smitty goes on to write:
I don’t think he’s a genius. He’s just not one of the usual dunces who make their way in the Republican party.
Which is why, @demaratus, I started with “All I can tell you…” I didn’t pay attention to states other than Indiana. Sorry to get you in a tizzy. Send my regular hourly fee and I’ll run the rest of the numbers and worry about credibility.
All good points. Don’t get me wrong. I voted for him and, after the hysterical reaction from the losers, I’d do it again in a hot minute! I just want out analysis to be spot on, that’s all.
That’s what I think, but I’m biased against Trump. Paul Ryan claimed that some GOP congressmen were saved by the turnout for Trump, but I think it’s also likely that Trump was swept in by a wave that benefited the GOP in general. It would be really odd if Obamacare premiums spike days before the election, and for that to have no effect. The financial crisis made it easy for Democrats in 2008, and I think a similar effect occurred here. The financial crisis was a bigger deal, but it couldn’t be easily blamed on one party the way the Obamacare can be.
Also, JPod (if I remember correctly) said that Hillary has “negative coattails” that sunk down ballot Democrats, and I’d like to think that is true,
The Question: I was starting to back of my notions, but then I read that here in Alabama, 13,000 voters didn’t vote for anyone for president. Here, there were a little more than 2 million votes cast, Trump got 1.3 million, Clinton got about 700,000 and a combined 52,000 voted for either Johnson or Stein. Trump did get a little more than 47,000 votes in Alabama than Romney got in 2012 which is nothing to sneeze at in a smaller state, but, as I said in my original post the turnout was unlike any I had ever seen and local news reports suggested it was like that all day long statewide. Again, I’m glad he won, but something just seems off when you take into account he lost the popular vote but the GOP made such deep gains in state races around the country.