I published my first general election forecast on July 10th. I thought I would be publishing a new forecast every two weeks or so. But it's been over 2 months and I haven't updated it before now. Simply put, I didn't think the election had changed much. Of course the polls went up and down a few points, but I stuck with my fundamental premise that this election is likely to be similar to 2012. Trump has polled better than expected over the past few weeks and the race is definitely closer than I expected it to be. It's time to update the projection accordingly.
Today seemed the perfect day for an updated forecast. The first debate is tonight and we will know a lot more about this election 10 hours from now. Donald Trump has not done a one-on-one debate yet and I'm not sure how the format will suit his temperament. But he is first and foremost a TV star and I don't expect any really dramatic outbursts or stunts. He will be his usual annoying, stupid, childish self. But he won't call her a vulgar name or set the podium on fire.
Hillary will be extremely well-prepared and she will hit him on a variety of predictable fronts: his horrible record of offensive comments about women, his racist immigration policies and his penchant for ignoring the constitutional limits of federal authority. I think that Trump's main counter-attacks will focus on Hillary being implicitly corrupt because she is an insider and that she represents a continuation of Obama's foreign policies, which he will call weak. (We will hear that word out of Trump a lot. Hillary/Obama = weak, Trump = strong and smart.)
Presidential debates are more about impressions than fine points of policy. In 2000 Gore dusted W. on substance, but his bracing exasperation with the stupidity of his opponent came off as arrogant. Al Gore over-corrected in the next two debates and came across as inauthentic. Enough people put faith in the idea that a governor of Texas and son of a likable president couldn't really be that dumb while it was easy to believe that a politician could be phony. Sixteen years later, we are still paying for that price.
There will be some temptation for Hillary to bait Trump into a fight. It might happen organically, and that will be good for her. But I don't think she should focus on provoking that responses. She needs to make the case for herself and to point out the shallow stupidity of his ideas. Trump will want to lash out at her in personal terms, but he has to be careful with that. He can drop a "Crooked Hillary" or two, but he could really hurt himself by bringing up Monica Lewinsky or other skeletons of the right wing nutosphere. I think he will avoid any of the nightmare scenarios that have probably kept Kelly Anne Conway up at night.
Why I'm confident.
Trump's relatively strong polling has endured for several weeks now. He definitely walks on to that stage tonight believing that he will win on November 8th. There's plenty of empirical data to support the idea that he might. But the choice between two viable candidates will be very clear tonight. And I still believe that she will win this race.
I think the polling has been distorted, for lack of a better word, by Gary Johnson. After tonight people who don't want to vote Hillary will begin to admit that Trump is simply unacceptable and their own personal grievances against what Clinton represents do not justify taking a chance on four years of Trump. Nate Silver's model says that if the election were held today, Gary Johnson would get 8.1% of the vote. His forecasts of November 8th have that number receding to 6 or 7%. I think it will recede more than that. I'm putting his number at 4%.
Jill Stein will benefit from a bunch of people too young to remember 2000 and too stupid to accept the idea that one candidate thinks global warming is a hoax and that if that candidate wins he will appoint the next head of the EPA. I hope that number falls below one percent but I think it will be closer to 2 percent.
Specific Changes.
I am making three Electoral College changes from my first forecast. I do not think Hillary will pick off Nebraska's second congressional district. And I think she will lose Iowa. I also think Trump will pick of Maine's second congressional district, which is overwhelmingly white and rural. That is a gain of eight electoral votes from my first forecast.
But I want to acknowledge that this race could become very, very close. If the election were held today, Trump would do better than Romney. He would win Ohio and Nevada and if he also won Florida, it would put the electoral college at Hillary 279, Trump 259. That's really damn close.
But the election is not today and I still think we will move back towards our 2008 and 2012 political maps. Trump deserves credit for keeping overwhelming percentages of his party in the fold. (Republicans in turn deserve a lot of shame for that very same fact.) A return toward the prevailing political coalitions favors Hillary, on balance. I think she will do better on November 8th than she is doing on September 26th.
If Things Get Worse.
North Carolina is a a pure toss-up, just as it was 4 years ago. I think the bathroom bill has made the state a national joke and that will motivate enough progressives to show up in big numbers but the result will be very close. Trump also could win Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and Florida. The only good news is that he probably has to win all of them to take the White House.
Trump's best route to 270 looks like this:
1. Defend North Carolina to retain all 206 of Romney's electoral votes.
2. Pick up Maine's 2nd congressional district. (207)
3. Add six for Iowa (213)
4. Add 18 from Ohio (231)
5. Add 4 from New Hampshire (235)
6. Add six from Nevada (241)
7. Add 29 from Florida (270)
The path is there. Hillary's job tonight is to prove to everyone why the destination is so dangerous. With any luck, Donald will do that for her.
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