Third Democratic Debate Grades

The nine most serious candidates for the Democratic nomination were finally on the stage tonight. So was Andrew Yang.  Here are my thoughts on how they all did. I give each candidate separate tactical and strategic grades.  I think it's construct to evaluate how well they performed tonight in the immediate sense but more importantly whether or not that performance will actually improve their chance to be the nominee. 

1.  Elizabeth Warren  Tactical: A+ Strategic: A.

Warren is probably the smartest person in this field. And tonight she was definitely the best prepared. She knew that she would get plenty of screen time, so she didn't fight for more. She seemed to know that most of the flak would be directed at Joe Biden. She also knows that most Democratic primary voters do not like when a candidate goes hard at another Democrat. So Warren answered her questions and she answered them well. But she didn't go for cheap applause lines and she didn't offend anyone. This is exactly how a front-runner should perform.

2. Pete Buttigieg  Tactical: A, Strategic:  A

He is both young and intelligent. He obviously has the temperament for this job and a pretty good feeling for where both the Democratic base and the general election persuadable voters are, politically.  He is still a long shot to be the nominee because his resume is too short and I don't think the left wing will embrace him. But he did great tonight.

3.  Cory Booker:  Tactical A, Strategic: A-

I do not like Senator Booker. I think he is a phony. But he was great tonight. He was charming and witty without seeming too rehearsed. I do no think he will shoot up in the polls, but he helped himself as much as possible tonight. 

4.  Joe Biden  Tactical:  A-, Strategic: A-

Biden was better prepared tonight and he excelled in the first half of the debate. His team obviously told him to avoid using names and to not get bogged down in details. But his presence was pretty good and he conveyed his message well. Of course in the last 45 minutes or so he had a few of his usual slips. (He even talked about 'record players' during a question about education reform.)  But I don't think he said anything that will gain traction in the media so he probably still stays at the front of this field for now.

5.  Amy Klobuchar  Tactical:  A-, Strategic:  B+

Her substance was very good.  Like Buttigieg, she has views that are sensible and popular generally. But she's not charismatic on television and I would be surprised if she gets much of a bump out of tonight's performance. That's too bad because she would make an excellent president and is the perfect antidote to Trumpism.

6.  Kamala Harris  Tactical B+, Strategic: B+

She was comfortable and relaxed. I am inclined to like her, so that played well with me. Her plan was obviously to make the night about bashing Trump and she got a couple good lines off, but I don't think that made her stand out particularly.  She does deserve credit for improving on the subject of criminal justice reform. 

7. Beto O'Rourke  Tactical:  B+, Strategic: B

Beto is handsome and he can articulate a talking point well.  Perhaps the most telling moments tonight was that he was complimented so frequently by other candidates on the stage.  They know he is popular in Texas. They also know he's not much of a threat to become the nominee.  But he did not cost himself any votes tonight.

8.  Bernie Sanders  Tactical:  C+, Strategic: C

I have a friend who saw Flock of Seagulls in Concert about 20 years ago.  They played "I Run"...twice. Because what the hell else do you want to hear Flock of Seagulls play?  Bernie too only has one hit and he plays it as often as the crowd will let him. But his team failed him by not giving him cough drops before the debate. He is mailing it in now.

9.  Julian Castro     Tactical: C, Strategic: D

He sucked. And he took a shot at Biden's age. That probably cost him an ambassadorship. 

10. Andrew Yang  Tactical:  D, Strategic:  Not Applicable.

This clown is not running to be president. He is running to be a celebrity. And he actually started the night by offering a bribe to voters.  That gimmick will probably get him some email addresses and exactly 10 votes.  But he really showed his hand tonight. He is not running to be president. He is not running to win a cabinet spot or to be the ambassador to Aruba. He is running to be some combination of Joe Rogan and Tony Robbins.  Fuck him.

The Field Begins To Whittle (The 2020 Democratic Field, Take Seven)

Labor Day is traditionally when voters supposedly start paying attention to a presidential election.  So we are only one year away from normal people starting to really thinkg about this process.  In the meantime, we political nerds soldier on.

I last updated the field four weeks ago. Since then we have had a few drop outs.  Three dropped out before officially missing the cut and Senator Gillibrand dropped out as soon as she officially missed the cut. (Good for her. Being a senator from New York is a pretty sweet gig. There's not need to waste the next 4 months in Iowa and New Hampshire.)

I. The Power Rankings, Take Seven.

These are just my preferences, without regard to the chances they will win the nomination.  There is not a lot of movement this time, except for the spaces created by former candidates, most notably Jay Inslee who had shot up from 13th to 4th in my last ranking. The removal of the three other former candidates, Hickenlooper (13), Gillibrand (14) and Moulton (16) caused less disruption. 

1. Amy Klobuchar  
2. Kamala Harris 
3. Elizabeth Warren    
4 Beto O'Rourke (Up from 6)  He seems more relevant after his response to the El Paso shooting and just yesterday there was another horrific shooting in West Texas.  I'm not counting him out yet.

5. Julian Castro (Down from 4)  He seems to be getting slithgly desperate. This week he put forth a proposal to make it illegal for animal shelters to euthanize unadopted pets. There may ben argument for tha ton the merits, but it is NOT an issue for the federal government to decide. It struck me as an attempt to hit a very specific fundraising niche.  (Cat ladys.)

6. Michael Bennett (Up from 7)
7. Steve Bullock (8)
8. Pete Buttigieg (9)
9. Joe Biden (10)
10. John Delaney (11)

11. Corey Booker  (12)
12. Tim Ryan
13. Joe Sestak (Up from 17)
14. Bernie Sanders (18)
15. Wayne Messam  (20)

16. Andrew Yang (19)  I have to explain something here. Yang moved "up" 3 spots because 4 candidates dropped out.  But I'm moving him behind Wayne Messam for a very specific reason. I know nothing about Wayne Messam. He is the mayor of a some mid-size Florida city that I can't even remember the name of. He's youngish and African-American. I don't know if he's a good mayor or a bad mayor. I don't know his religion or his priorities or his favorite band. I think it's slightly absurd that he's running for President of the United States but I also have to assume that he is more qualified and competent for the job than a name chosen at random from the phone book. 

To be ranked below Messam, I have to think you would be worse than a random name chosen from a phone book. Last month I gave Yang the benefit of the doubt that he was. I have now sseen enough of him to conclude that he is not. His ideas are stupid and I believe he is running to become a fringe public intellectual akin to Ron Paul. He is going to wind up building a small political movement that disrupts things for no substantive purpose. Just like Ron Paul.

17. Tom Steyer (Unranked)  I think I forgot about him last time. I'm glad he didn't qualify for the debate because he's a rich asshole who should have better ways to waste his money than to juice the ad revenues of Iowa TV chanels and radio stations. Build a hospital for Christ's sake.
18. Bill de Blasio (21)  

19. Tulsi Gabbard (22)
20. Marianne Williamson (23) 

II. The Horse Race, Take Seven.

A.  The Top Tier (Front Runners).
1. Joe Biden
2. Elizabeth Warren
3. Bernie Sanders (Up from 3)
4. Kamala Harris (Down from 3)

Harris' slip in the polls has been pretty consistent over the past month.  Her performance in the 2nd debate was poorly received and pretty much erased the bounce that she got from a strong performance in the first.  I still think Bernie is unlikely to be the nominee but he should do well in the first 2 states and I think it will be tough for Harris to withstand finishing out of the money in both Iowa and New Hampshire, especially if Buttigieg or O'Rourke finishes ahead of her in either place. She is still my preference among the top 4 candidates, but she can't be please with the trajectory of her candidacy.

B.  Tier Two (Those Guys).

5.  Pete Buttigieg
6.  Beto O'Rourke (Up from 6)
7. Cory Booker  (Down form 7)
8.  Julian Castro

I slid Mayor Pete down to the second tier because his support has been on a plateau for months. He is an appealing guy and has the right temperament to be President some day. But I don't think people are going to flock to his candidacy in a big way. He's kind of stuck in 5th place, unless Kamala or Bernie tank. 

He also fits a little better with the other three candidates in this tier. They are all moderate. They each have some strengths and some obvious weaknesses. Three of them have been mayors. If a Democrat wins, all of them will be considered for important jobs.  And there is a least a chance that any one of them might find a cause or have a moment that shoots them up into contention. It hasn't happened yet, but there is hope.

C. Tier Three (The Grown Ups).

9. Amy Klobuchar
10. Michael Bennet (12)
11. Steve Bullock (14)
12. John Delaney (13)

These candidates are more experienced than the "Those Guys" Bunch but a lot less charismatic and therefore less likely to be the nominee.  If God gave me a magic wand and said I could pick which tier the next president would come from, I would choose this bunch.  But I am more moderate than the typical primary voter and less interested in how dynamic someone seems on television. I wish this group well, and I think 2 or 3 of them might be able to 

D. Tier Four (Long Shots)

13. Andrew Yang (21)  He's had an undeniable bump in the polls-all the way to 2 or 3 percent.
14. Tulsi Gabbard (19)
15. Tim Ryan   I think he's running to raise his profile in order to one day run for Governor or maybe for speaker of the House.
16. Joe Sestak (18)
17. Tom Steyer
18. Bill de Blasio  (17)   The complete rejection of this guy by the national party has warmed my heart. 


E.  Fifth Tier (Trainwrecks)
19. Wayne Mesam (22)  I hope he sticks around if only because he now serves a specific purpose in my power rankings.   I wonder if his wife teases him by calling him "President-Elect" when he forgets to take out the trash.
20. Marianne Williamson (23)  Fuck her.

Quick Thoughts on the Democratic Debate Lottery

Tomorrow night CNN will hold a live draw for the next Democratic debate. The first debate draw was done privately and was completely random. That resulted in an imbalanced division of the major candidates, with Warren hogging the first night and the other four debating each other on the second night.  For this second set of debates, the candidates will be divided into three tiers.  Each debate will get:

1. Two each among Biden, Harris, Sanders and Warren.

2. Three each among Buttigieg, Booker, Castro, Kloubuchar, O'Rourke and Yang.  

3. Five each among: Bennet, Bullock, de Blasio, Delaney, Gabbard, Gillibrand, Hickenloper, Inslee, Ryan and Williamson.

Let's ignore the middling candidates and the kiddy table folks. One or two of them will have a good night, but very few people will be tuning in to see them.  The main question is how will the top four candidtes be divide?  There are only three possible permutations of leading candidates.  Here are my thoughts on each, with a brief word about which order would be more ineresting.:

1. Biden and Harris  // Sanders and Warren.

Biden versus Harris would be built up as a rematch of the most memorable exhange from the first debate. Hopefully this time Biden will come prepared. Harris might prefer to be matched with one of the other choices, since she already got her licks in on Biden. Or she might look at it as her chance to  firm up her sanding among the moderate wing, while Elizaberth Warren and Bernie get framed as the left-wing prospects on the other night.

Both of these pairings will bring in a good audience. If I'm Warren, I want to go on the second night because last time Harris carried the news cycle for several days after Warren's strong performance against the tomato cans she drew on opening night. 

2. Biden and Sanders // Harris and Warren. 

A good old-fashioned guys versus dolls scenario.  Bernie probably wants to pummel Biden using his 2016 Hillary playbook. But that will feel very tired and I think Harris and Warren would wind up collectively elevating the discourse in their debate. If this is the draw, then Harris and Warren will want to be second. Let the old white guys get the stage warm for them, and then try to bring the discussion into the 21st century.

If this is the draw, I really hope it's Biden/Sanders on the first night, followed by Warren and Harris on the second. I think Biden and Sanders will make each other look old, especially if Buttigieg and or Beto are on the stage with them. 

3. Biden and Warren // Harris and Sanders.

This is probably the comination that CNN would most want to avoid.  But this is the one I am rootinng for. Biden and Warren have some very substantive beef that goes back to when Biden was reffered to as the senator from MBNA and Warren was a bankruptcy scholar at Harvard Law. Biden was a driving force behind the 2005 amendments to the Bankruptcy Code and Warren made her reputation as a public academic by decrying that very law.  I doubt the CNN panelists know much about this so it might be a wasted story line, but I'm pretty sure Senator Warren will force some part of the conversation on to this terrain. She is chomping at the bit to tell the world that Joe Biden was on the side of credit card companies. She knows better than anyone the high human cost of those "reforms." 

Warren will clean Biden's clock with facts and figures. He might come prepared for Harris this time, but he cannot match Warren's economic sophistication. Biden will probably be hoping that foreign affairs are a prominent part of the debate in this permutation. But my money would be on Warren forching him to talk about middle class economics. And that is her strength.

If Biden draws Warren, he will want it to be on the first night. He can't take another extended news cycle about him getting his ass kicked by a woman. CNN would rather have this on the second night, because the substance of their exchanges will be a lot more compelling than Bernie vs. Kamala.

2020 Democratic Field, Take Two

The 2020 race is officially underway. Most of the major candidates have announced and have begun to hire staff. So it's time to update my power rankings.

I. THE SPIDERSTUMBLED BLOG POWER RANKINGS.

This section is just about me. These are my ranked preferences among the likely candidates.  If thier standing has changed since the first rankings, I put their number from the previous iteration of this list in parenthesis.  Bold indicates that the candidate has already announced that they are running.

But first, a quick word about two candidates that have already left this race: Los Angelas Mayor Eric Garcetti was number 15 on my first list and Starbucks billioniare of means Howard Schultz was number 21.  Gargetti merely declined to enter a crowded field. But Schultz decided to act on some terrible advice and test the waters of an independent self-financed campaign that is probably going to be remembered as the most awful abortive campaign for president of all time. Or at least for all of 2020.

Six That I Would be Enthused About:
1. Amy Klobuchar. 
I think her announcement in the Minnesota snow was great. And the stories aboout her being a demanding boss only make think she's qualified to do the job.
2. Kamala Harris (3). 
A very strong start with solid telivised appearances.
3. Beto O'Rourke (2)
He's starting to look a little not-quite ready for this race. That dental chair gimmick was dumb.
4. Elizabeth Warren 
So far, she's the most willing to throw mud back at the incumbent. I don't think that hurts her for now.
5. Chris Murphy
Seems less likely to run.
6. Kristin Gillibrand
She's running a polite and cautious race so far.   

Ten That I Would Be Happy With:
7. Sherrod Brown (10)
He's impressed me so far. Much more pragmatic than I expected him to be. I'm starting to think his appeal is broad enough to win.
8. Steve Bullock (7)
9. Joe Biden (8)
I'm slightly surprised that he hasn't announced yet but with his name recognition, he can afford to wait longer than most others.
10. Mitch Landrieu
11. Michael Blomberg
12. Tim Ryan
13. John Hickenlooper
14. Jay Inslee
15. Julian Castro (Unranked)
He was my biggest oversight in the first post. He has a decent resume and is the only Latino candidate in the field, which might give him a certain base in the primary electorate. But I think most Democrats know that they don't want to be running around Florida with "CASTRO 2020" signs next fall.
16. Eric Holder

Four That Mean Something Went Wrong But Okay, Sure:
17.  Andrew Cuomo (18)
18. Terry McAuliffe (17)
A bad fortnight for the Virginia Democratic party.
19.  Corey Booker (20)
Done well so far but I still think he's a bit of a phoney.
20. Pete Buttigieg (19)
His is a vanity campaign.

Four That Well, I Won't Vote For Trump, So Fingers Crossed.
21.  Bernie Sanders (21)
22.  Tom Steyer
He has said that he will not run, but I can see him changing his mind because she seems to think this whole enterprise is a lark.
23. The Field of Dumb Celebrities
We have an official entrant in this category! Marianne Wiliamson. She's an author and self-help guru, which is convinient, because she's goin to need plenty of self-help to get over this humiliating process.

One WHAT THE FUCK?
24. Tulsi Gabbard.  (Unranked)
I think this candidacy is absolutely nuts. She genuinely feels like an agent of chaos. And I still have not seen so much as a single Tweet supporting her run. I'm suspicious even of her good intentions. But I won't elaborate on that for now, because I'm hoping she just goes away.

II.  The 2020 Hourse Race.

This is where I handicap the race. If a candidate's place has moved, I put their previous ranking in parenthesis.  The two percentages next to each candidate stand for their chances of being the nominee and of beating Trump if they are the nominee.

There's very little movement here because nothing has happened to shift the fundamentals of the race-the Democrats are favored to win but the field for their nomination is wide open.

The Top Tier Candidates.

1. Bernie Sanders  16%/60%

2. Joe Biden   14%/70%

3. Kamala Harris 14%/65%

4. Elizabeth Warren 11%/60%

5. Corey Booker 6%/50%

Second Tier: The Anti-Trumps

6. Amy Klobuchar 9%/70% To win, you have to run. That's why she leap frogged Beto.

7. Beto O'Rourke  9%/70%

8. Sherrod Brown  9%/70%.

Third Tier: Plausible But Flawd.

9. Michael Bloomberg 3%/58%

10. Kristin Gillibrand 3%/57%

11. Eric Holder 1%/60%

12. Andrew Cuomo 1%/60%

13. Terry McCauliffe 1%/60%

14. Chris Murphy 1%/65%.

Fourth Tier: Long Shots.

If Mitch Landrieu, Steve Bullock, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, Tim Ryan, John Delaney  or Eric Swaell somehow get through this crowded field, then they possess political skills of formidable depth and would be the favorite to win against Trump.  

If Buttigieg, Gabbard or Some Dumb Celebrity is the nominee, Trump will probably win.

Republicans Have Two Options

Donald Trump under performed slightly yesterday.  He was expected to win three races but only won two.  He lost Kansas by a two to one margin and Maine by a lot more than I thought possible. My prediction was that Trump would be at 77% in the Prediction markets today and he is only at 64%. Cruz, Kasich and Rubio are all slightly higher, although at least I got the order right.

I think we learned three things  yesterday:

1. Marco Rubio will not be the Republican nominee.  He finished last in Maine and a distant third everywhere else.  He is almost certain to win Puerto Rico's primary today, but that is the last contest he will win this year.  He is done.
2. Ted Cruz will stick around until June but he can't get to 1,237 delegates.  He has done well so far but there are very few states that he can win that have not yet voted. A bigger problem for him is that almost none of the states he's likely to win have Winnter Take All rules.  He could get all 32 of Idaho's delegates if he manages to get over 50% of the vote, and he might win all 27 of Montan's delegates  but he has no chance of winning Ohio, Florida,  or Arizona or New Jersey.
3. Donald Trump will get at least a plurality of the delegates and has a good chance of winning a majority. The media narrative of elections is almost always about "momentum" and who beat expectations. Yesterday Cruz took back the momentum and exceeded expectations. But he didn't win enough delegates to match what would be his target to get a majority. Trump is ahead of that pace and he has his best states to look forward to later in the calendar.

This leaves the Republicans Two Options: they can nominate Trump or they can screw him out of the nomination. I'm not sure which option is worse for them, but neither is good.


Votes and Dlegates Math

Popular Vote	Percentage	Raw Vote
Trump	34.6%	3,603,656
Cruz	28.8%	3,002,218
Rubio	21.3%	2,221,276
Kasih	6.9%	714,355

Trump is winning the vote by six percent and over 600,000 votes. Through 19 states, Trump has won 12, Cruz has won six contests and Rubio only one. One interesting metric is how often a candidate finished first or second.  Trump has done so 18 times, Cruz 12, Rubio 5 and Kasich only three times.

The Delegate Math also favors Trump.  He currently has 391 delegates, to 248 for Cruz, 176 for Rubio and just 37 for Kasich.  As of this writing 18 delegates from Louisiana have not been allocated and Rubio is likely to win all or most of the 23 delegates from Puerto Rico. 

There are about 35 contests left. I played with the delegate allocations for each and came up with the following final projections:

Trump; 1,250 (51%)

Cruz:      732 (30%)

Kasich   286 (12%)

Rubio    178    (7%)

The biggest variables are the Winner Take All states.  I have Trump winning Florida, Arizona and New Jersey but Kasich winning Ohio. My numbers are predicated on Rubio dropping out after losing Florida and Kasich staying in after winning Ohio.

Cruz had a good day but I don't see the delegate math working out for him getting to 1,237. I think his ceiling is about 900.  He also seems to be determined to knock Rubio out by campaigning hard in Florida. That probably guarantees 99 delegates to Trump.  If Trump manages to win Ohio (he led by five in the most recent poll), then his path to 1,237 seems very likely. 

The outcome of the nomination will probably be determined by California on June 7th. The state wide winner gets 10 delegates for winning the state and then each of California's 53 congressional districts have 3 delegates that are awarded to whoever wins that district and three are reserved for party officials.  If Trump wins the state, he'll probably need wins in 17 or 18 California congressional districts to cross the line to 1,237.  Maybe by then the party will have rallied around Cruz or Kasich or decided to make Trump fight a bunch of two-front wars against one or the other throughout the Golden State.  

My math has Trump winning California and 23 of its congressional races. Cruz wins 22 and Kasich wins 8. My methods are far from exact. But that might not even matter. If Trump wins Ohio and Florida on March 15th, he might not need any of California's delegates. And unless Cruz can carry his "momentum" to the big states of the Northeast, he won't be able to prevent Trump from being nominated on the first ballot.

What to Watch For

So tonight is probably the night that Trump goes from front-runner to all but certain nominee. I do not think it will be possible for another candidate to get a delegate majority but after today, even if Trump romps, it will still be possible to deny him an outright majority of delegates.

He is heavily favored to win 10 of the 12 GOP contests being held today and he also leads in Minnesota by a closer margin. Ted Cruz is likely to win Texas but probably won't do well in other places.

Here are the most important things to watch for tonight.

1. Can Rubio salvage a win?  There are at least two states where he has a more than theoretical chance of winning-Minnesota and Virginia. If he wins both we can expect an avalanche of endorsements running towards him the rest of this week. If he gets a split, he at least avoids the talking point that he can't win anywhere.  If he loses everywhere than he is probably doomed.

2. Can Rubio get 20% in Texas?  Texas' delegates are awarded proportionally unless the winner exceeds 50% of the vote. I don't think Cruz will get to that number. In order get a share of the delegates a candidate must receive at least 20% of the vote. If Rubio doesn't hit that number, than Trump and Cruz will split all 155 of those delegates. That's 31 delegates that Rubio could lose by a very close margin. He can not let that happen.

3. Can Rubio keep it close in Georgia?  Trump broke out the heavy guns in Georgia yesterday: Bill France the head of NASCAR.  Most recent polls have Trump with a big lead but with Rubio pulling head of Cruz in second place.  If he has a prayer of being the nominee, this is a state where he will close well.

4. Can Bernie win anywhere other than Vermont?  Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma and Massachusetts should all be competitive for the Democrats tonight. Hillary will roll to big victories everywhere else.

5. Will Kasich show any signs of live?  He should compete in Vermont and Massachusetts. I don't think he will win either but his path to the nomination involves denying Trump a majority, winning some big northern states and then hoping to be the consensus grown up choice at the convention.

6. Can Trump get to 50.1% in Alabama? If so he wins all 50 delegates there. That's when the math really starts to look bad for the Field.

Official Predictions for Super Tuesday.

GOP: Trump wins everywhere except TX (Cruz) and MN (Rubio)

Texas: Cruz 41% Trump 29% Rubio 21%  Carson 5% Kasich 4%
Minnesota: Rubio 41%, Trump 39%, Cruz 14%, Kasich 6%
Georgia: Trump 49%, Rubio 27%, Cruz 18%, Carson 6%
Alabama: Trump 52%, Cruz 23%, Rubio 19%, Carson 5%



DEM: Clinton wins everywhere except VT, OK & CO
Vermont: Sanders 84%, Clinton 15%
Oklahoma: Sanders 52%, Clinton 48%
Colorado:  Sanders 51%, Clinton 48%
Minnesota: Clinton 53%, Sanders 47%
Massachusetts: Clinton 54%, Sanders 46%

South Carolina & Nevada

The Republican primary is underway in South Carolina and Democrats are caucusing in Nevada. The markets today have seen a continued drop in Senator Cruz' numbers and a surge in support for Rubio. The Democratic race seems largely unchanged.

A few days ago Nate Silver's website published a post about Republican delegate math that made the argument that Ted Cruz had a very tough road to the nomination.  The thrust of the thesis was that most of the states he is likely to win do not award all of their delegates to the statewide winner. His home state of Texas only awards all of its delegates to the statewide winner if that candidate gets more than 50% of the vote. In a fractured field, that seems unlikely.

The other bad piece of news is that Marco Rubio is once again the darling of the media.  Several reporters embarrassed themselves this week by writing incredibly upbeat articles about Senator Rubio of a "comeback kid" nature.  Now that his tormentor Chris Christie has left the field he seems to be doing much better on the campaign trail. And Jeb Bush continues to set new standards for how not to run for president in 2016. I don't know if Marco is ready for prime time, but there are large segments of the party ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We'll know in a few hours whether Rubio's comeback is for real or just another figment of the mainstream media's natural instinct to over rate conventional, telegenic candidates.  I'm somewhat skeptical but the implosion of Jeb's campaign can't hurt him, especially if Jeb takes the hint and exits the race.

My official predictions for South Carolina GOP are:  Trump 31, Cruz 24, Rubio 21, Bush 10, Kasich 9, Carson 5.  The most interesting numbers and story lines to look for are these:

1. The race for 2nd place.  If Rubio passes Cruz then there will be more pressure on Bush and Kasich to clear the field for Rubio.  But if he finishes behind Rubio for the 3rd straight time I think those guys can justify staying in a little while longer.  The Republican caucuses are on Tuesday and that's supposed to be a good state for Bush. I think he has too much money and too big of an organization to not give it one more try.

2. Trump's ceiling.  A few days ago it looked like Trump was going to beat his New Hampshire mark of 35 percent. But his trend has been downward for a few days and I think a more realistic goal is 30 percent.

3. Trump's margin of victory.  If Trump wins by 10 points or more, he is likely to get all 50 SC delegates. I suspect Cruz will win at least one congressional district which would net him 3 delegates and maybe Rubio will come on strong to win 3 also.  The over/'under for Trump to have a truly successful night is 44 delegates.

4. How far does Jeb fall?  For almost 20 years the word on him was that it's such a shame he lost his first run for governor. If he had won in 1992, he would have had seniority over his brother and been the nominee/president in 2000. The past few weeks have exposed that myth. He lost in 1992 because he's a lousy politician. If he had won, then John McCain probably would have beat him in the 2000 primaries.

He can not do better than a distant 4th place tonight. The honorable thing would be to bow out immediately. But much like his older brother, he's not big on exit plans and I expect him to soldier on through Super Tuesday at least. If he doesn't, it's because the party bigwigs have figured out that his candidacy can only help Trump and hurt them.

5. How many dead-enders vote for Carson?  I think he has a rump of supporters who just feel good about voting for him.  This demographic can probably keep him in the mid single digits for the foreseeable future and the institutional party is probably okay with that because Cruz is the main person hurt by that.

6. Who wins Nevada for the Democrats?  Polling has been all but impossible in this race so my prediction is that Hillary's organizational ties out muscle any youthful enthusiasm on Bernie's side. If Hillary exceeds 52% of the vote, she can call it a good night. If not, Bernie will declare a tie to be a victory.  Official Predictions:  Hillary 52.2%, Bernie 47.8%

Two Sudden Developments, Very Little Movement

Two significant news stories have transpired since I wrote yesterday's post about the state of the race. The first is the sudden death of Justice Antonin Scali and the other is the descent of the Republican debate in South Carolina into WWE levels of chaos at times.

I.  The Death of Scalia: Which Poison with the GOP Pick?.

The sudden passing of Justice Scalia will change the composition of the court. The most likely outcome is that President Obama will name a replacement, that replacement will get confirmed and he or she will take the bench sometime this summer.  But of course the Republican party is taking another approach. They claim that the vacancy should be filled not by the current president but by the next one.  I may be overestimating them, but I think this is a bluff.  Let's consider both scenarios.

A. Obama Names the Next Justice.
Barack Obama will nominate a judge in the next few weeks.  He will do so knowing that the senate is controlled by the Republicans and that the Republicans are trying to run out the clock on the last year of his presidency. So he will have to pick someone that is mainstream. He will be tempted to choose someone who Republicans will look silly for attempting to block.

The first name to become a focus of speculation is Judge Sri Srinivasan.  He would be an interesting tactical choice for President Obama.  First, he clerked for Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a Reagan appointee. Secondly he was confirmed to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals by the Senate in 2012 by a vote of 97-0. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz were both among the senators who voted for him. Lastly, he would be the first Indian justice on the Supreme Court. Another similarly situated contender is Judge Jane Kelley. She was a classmate of the President at Harvard Law School and was unanimously voted to the 8th circuit judge, 96-0 to 2013. Jane Kelly is also an Iowan which could make the decision to not hearings thorny for the Judiciary chair, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for obvious reasons.

So Barack Obama will soon have the ability to put forth a centrist judge with impeccable credentials who very recently sailed through the Senate on unanimous confirmation votes.  This candidate might be a minority or female.   There will be enormous pressure on the Republicans to at least hold hearings. (If only because the media loves these hearings and so do senators. There's no better way to get face time on the nightly news.)  If the hearings fail to produce any bomb shells from the nominee's past, then it will be hard for the senate to vote them down without looking like partisan hacks.  But that might be a price they are willing to pay.

B. The GOP Obstructs the Nominee.

The GOP will see things quite differently. Their presidential candidates all agreed that no vote should take place on the very principled reason that the President is in his last year and they do not like him. The moderator of last night's debate had to correct Ted Cruz' false claim that it had been 80 years since a Supreme Court Justice was confirmed in an election year. (Anthony Kennedy was confirmed in February, 1988.)  Mitch McConnell the senate majority leader quickly said that no vote should be held this year.

Liberals on social media erupted in derision. This morning's Sunday news shows were filled with Democrats mocking the idea and warning about a 15 or 16 month vacancy on the court. But the Republicans are probably just bluffing. Unlike a lot of Democrats they know that the best way to start a negotiation is by being completely unreasonable and obstinate. That way when they eventually do what they pretty much had to do anyway, they look like they are being magnanimous.

If the Republicans are serious about obstructing this nomination than they will put the issue right at the heart of the campaign. The Democratic nominee will have a brown and or female face to point to and say "See, the Republicans just want to obstruct. They can not be reasoned with. And oh yeah, their real goal is to overturn Roe vs. Wade.  Do you want that?"

This is a political loser for them. It will all but guarantee a democratic win and might just cost them the senate. Then 11 months from now President Clinton, Sanders or Warren can appoint almost anyone and get it through the Senate.

So my prediction is this: Obama nominates a candidate the first week of March. The GOP huffs and puffs about holding hearings, but they will give in on that when the politics of this become clearer. They will still try to slow walk it and maybe get to the August recess without a vote but when the Supreme Court begins its new term in October, there will be nine judges on it and William Kennedy's reign as the 2nd most important person on Earth will officially be over.

II.  WWE Winter Slam.

Last night's Republican debate in Greenville, SC was a  half dozen men mostly screaming at each other with one nearly silent black guy off to the side and one obnoxious accent from Queens dominating the proceedings.  This was a much more fitting to tribute to Antonin Scalia than the moment of silence they held to open the night's events.

The most significant line of attack was, of course from Donald Trump. He openly accused George W. Bush of lying about WMD in Iraq and of failing to keep America safe on 9/11. These are not controversial thoughts in most places, but the room was packed with Rubio and Bush supporters who loudly booed him.  This of course gave him the best chance to do his Bobby the Brain Hennan act and insult the crowd for being a bunch of dullards in the pocket of his rivals.

I think his real motivation was to boost up Jeb Bush as the expense of Ted Cruz.  Trump knows he's going to win SC and he wants to run up the score on the most likely 2nd place finisher. As for Cruz he got baited into speaking Spanish by Marco Rubio in the one moment that suggested maybe Rubio learned something from his disaster in New Hampshire. (For the rest of the night Rubio kept repeating his stupid scripted talking points.  I am not optimistic about his future this year.)

John Kasich might be the biggest beneficiary of it all.  He stayed above the fray and coolly pointed out how silly the others were.  Jeb couldn't help but take some offense at things said about his family. That will earn him some sympathy but not much in the way of actual votes.

The predictions markets didn't move that much.  Trump and Rubio each gained 2 points, which came at the expense of Cruz who lost 4.  Kasich went from 2 to 3 percent, which was offset by Bush sliding from 12 to 11 percent.

Updated Two-Step Predict Wise Market.
(Election Column reflects the party's chance of winning the election. The "President" column multiplies their shot at the nomination by their party's chance of winning the general election.)

The lower half of the chart lists the probabilities of the general election match-ups. (From Clinton vs. Trump, which is 41% chance to Sanders vs. Kasich, which is 200 to 1 shot at the moment.)

Candidate	Nomination	Election	President
Clinton	83.0%	61.0%	50.6%
Trump	49.0%	39.0%	19.1%
Sanders	17.0%	61.0%	10.4%
Rubio	24.0%	39.0%	9.4%
Cruz	12.0%	39.0%	4.7%
Bush	11.0%	39.0%	4.3%
Kasich	3.0%	39.0%	1.2%
Match-up	Probabilities
Clinton	Trump	40.7%
Clinton	Rubio	19.9%
Sanders	Trump	8.3%
Sanders	Rubio	4.1%
Clinton	Cruz	10.0%
Sanders	Cruz	2.0%
Clinton	Bush	9.1%
Sanders	Bush	1.9%
Clinton	Kasich	2.5%
Sanders	Kasich	0.5%

New Hampshire Forecast

After a three month break from blogging about the Republican race I updated my forecast last night just as the GOP debate was getting underway.  Nothing in the debate has caused me to adjust that latest prediction.  Rubio had a bad night but I don't think it will do any long term damage to him. He remains the favorite to be nominated.

The New Hampshire dynamic is sort of odd. Everyone knows the winner will be Donald Trump. The most intriguing questions are what percentage of the vote he will get, who the other top candidates from Iowa will do and who will emerge as the establishment alternative to all three of them. The most likely outcome is that Trump will win, and the 2nd through 7th spot will be a jumbled mix of establishment types, Rubio and Cruz.  Probably four or five of those six candidates will be bunched within a few points of each other.  So I'm going to focus on a range of possibilities.

What we know:
1. Trump will finish first.  If he doesn't, then his campaign is in free fall and he will quit by Wednesday.
2. Gilmore will finish 9th.
3. Fiorina will finish 8th.  If she somehow sneaks up to 7th, then Ben Carson really crashed hard.
4. Carson will finish 7th.  It's more and more obvious that he's not serious about winning and he's not qualified and he's not always lucid.  He will stick around for SC, if only to spite Ted Cruz for his dirty Iowa tricks.

What I'm Pretty Sure of:
1. Rubio and Cruz will be in the middle of the pack. If either of them comes 2nd, they will rightly declare victory. Short of that, the goal is to beat the other one> I give Rubio the inside track there. I think he's good for 3rd place at least and Cruz will probably not do better than 4th.
2.  Kasich might finish 2nd, and that would change the race. If Kasich finishes second, there are definitely four viable candidates heading to South Carolina. If he narrowly beats out Rubio for 2nd, then the conventional wisdom will be that the debate put him over the top.
3. Jeb will be in the middle of the pack but won't drop out. He could finish as bad as sixth place so he can craft anything higher than that as a semi-victory.  I think he presses on to SC now matter what and take the triple bank shot of hoping that his family name, quasi-southern background and the support of Lindsey Graham are enough to make him a contender there.

What We'll Learn on Tuesday Night.
1. Christie is probably toast.  If he finishes 5th or 6th, he will probably drop out. He finished 8th in Iowa and doesn't seem likely to do well in SC. But if he's top four in NH, he will try to soldier on as the establishment alternative.
2. Will Carson benefit from a Cruz backlash?  If he finishes higher than 7th it probably means that Cruz cratered and a lot of that will be blamed on the stunt that Cruz pulled in Iowa.
3. How big will Trump's win be?  Anything over 30% is big news. It means there is a very really swath of the party that buys his message and that he can compete anywhere that's not too heavily evangelical.

So my official predictions are this: Trump wins with 31%. Kasich and Rubio in a virtual tie (but with slightly more votes for Kasich than Rubio) for second at 16% ahead of Cruz in 4th and Bush in 5th.  Christie gets about 7% for sixth place and he bows out by Thursday. Carson gets around 5% of dead enders, Fiorina 3% and Gilmore (rounding up) gets 1%.

Oh yeah, the Democrats.
Bernie will win.  I'll put my official prediction at 56-44.  If it's much bigger than that, there will be panic in Clintonville.

Scoreboard.
In some ways, vote share is a bigger deal tomorrow night than the order in which the candidates finish. Both winners are all but certain. Here are the numbers to watch for:

1. Can Trump get over 30%
2. Can Rubio get close to 20%
3. Can Bernie approach 60%

Whoever hits the number above with the most to spare will be the biggest story of the night.  Other important numbers:

1. Whoever finishes last among Kasich, Christie and Bush is toast. If that person is Christie, he'll drop out. Bush will stick around for SC and Kasich probably will try to hang on for Super Tuesday though.
2. Any candidate who fails to break double digits tomorrow night is in trouble.
3. Cruz can treat 4th as a victory if he gets there.
4. Hillary will need to spin her defeat someway.  I remember Carville's line from 1992 was that Clinton won the Primary if you didn't count the counties that share a border with Paul Tsongas' home state of Massachusetts. Someone is juking the expected stats to come up with a new version of that silver lining.

Bernie Would Rather Be Heard Than Nominated. (Updated Democratic Forecast)

                                         The highlight of the Chafee 2016 campaign.



I am late in writing about the first Democratic debate because I missed the first 40 minutes of it and it took me a day or two to find the stomach for watching the whole thing.  Because a few days have passed I am writing with the benefit of at least one post debate poll. That said, here's how I felt about the candidates' performance and how it will affect their chances of being nominated.  For each candidate I give a letter graded followed by how I think the night affects their chances of being nominated.

1. Hillary Clinton: A-  (Greatly improved).
Hillary had a bad summer.  The only things keeping her in the news were the scandal related to her use of a private e-mail account and the continued stubborn surge in support for Bernie Sanders.  The debate gave her a chance to finally be herself.  She's not a great debater, but she's perfectly competent and she's always well prepared.  This debate was no exception and the first post-debate poll in NH shows her taking the lead back from Bernie.  But the best news of the night actually came when her primary opponent was speaking.

2.  Bernie Sanders: A- (Significantly diminished.)

Bernie has a pretty straight-forward shtick. There's only two issues that he cares about: enhancing the social safety net and reducing income inequality. They are closely related and Bernie knows exactly which points play best, especially to a left-leaning crowd.  He was predictably put on the defensive on the subject of gun control but his explanations were plausible enough, at least superficially.  He did nothing to undermine his support among his most avid supporters.

But the moment of the night came when Bernie chimed in to respond to a question about Secretary Clinton's use of a private e-mail server.  He could have kept his mouth shut. He could have offered a halfhearted comment about there being more important issues in the campaign. Instead, he sounded like a complete partisan: "Enough with the damn e-mails."  The line brought the house down and got him some dap from the front runner. It also probably doomed his chances of being the nominee.

Bernie was always a long shot. He is doing far above expectations but he still needs to pull an inside straight if he wants to be the nominee.  This answer seemed to indicate that he doesn't expect that to happen.  Hillary Clinton is competent and well-liked by most Democratic partisans. Her positions are aligned with the party majority in almost every subject. Where they are not, she has bent to the political pull from her left, such as her opposition to the PTP trade deal.  If she is to be beaten, it will be because of a scandal serious enough to make people believe she is unelectable. At this point, the e-mail survey does not rise to that level. But it has clearly hurt her polling numbers, especially with independents.  She is vulnerable there, especially if more unfavorable details emerge in the next month or two.  Bernie decided to take it off the table as an issue.  He can't retract that.

The truth is Bernie doesn't expect to be the nominee. He wants to affect the race, and he already has. Clinton would not have come out for a repeal of the tax on Cadillac insurance plans or against the Pacific trade deal unless she was worried bout her left flank.  What Bernie wants is to talk about the two very important issues that motivate him. He thinks Hillary's e-mails are just a distraction from time spent talking about those issues.  So he gave up one very plausible rationale for nominating someone other than Hillary. Maybe he knows that he has his own issues related to perceptions of electability.  Maybe he just genuinely does not care about Hillary's e-mail. Either way, his already slim chance of being nominated are now much slimmer than they were a few days ago.

This doesn't mean he won't get a lot of votes. He might win New Hampshire. If he does that he can probably win one or two states on Super Tuesday and of course he'll probably win Vermont. He might win 5 or 6 states, control a few hundred delegates and get a plum speaking spot at the convention. If Hillary really stumbles, he could do better than that and drag the race out into June. But it's very unlikely that he will be the nominee.

3. Martin O'Malley. A (Very slight improvement.)

O'Malley was prepared and he seemed confident and even presidential. If this was a competitive race, he would have stood out for sure. But it's not a competitive race for him and nothing that came out of his mouth was going to change that.  Despite his strong performance, that NH poll showed him going down from 2 percent to 1 percent.  The only scenario in which he is the nominee requires Hillary to drop out of the race and him to run as the mainstream alternative to Bernie.  That's extremely unlikely.

4. Jim Webb  B- (He won't be the nominee, but he will get more votes than I thought.)

I wish Jim Webb was running for the Republican nomination. He would be a breath of relative sanity on that stage. But on the Democratic stage, he looked awkward and uncomfortable and not just when talking about killing a Chi-comm during the Vietnam war. There is a small sliver of the Democratic party that Webb appeals to: working class white men who realize that Republican economics is harmful to them but who disagree with the Democrats or don't sufficiently care about issues like gun control, affirmative action and environmental protections. The first post debate poll shows him going from 1 percent to 3 percent. I think he can do better than that if he works a little harder over the coming months. (His campaign presence in the early states is almost non-existent.)  He can get to high single digits in New Hampshire and he might do better than that in South Carolina. But the nomination? Impossible.

5. Lincoln Chafee: D- (Dead as a door nail.)

He was awkward and awful. He didn't say much of substance that was bad but his tone and body language were all wrong.  He's a dead end.  I'm still probably going to vote for him next year but that will almost certainly be a protest vote. I think it's very likely that he will drop out before Iowa.


The Wild Cards: Incomplete (But a bad night still.)

The most significant story line was Bernie's capitulation on the e-mail issue. But I thought a close second might be that Hillary did well enough to freeze out the candidates waiting on the sidelines, specifically Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren.  Right now there is no need to come to the rescue of the party. Hillary looked good and she will look even better next year when she's debating someone who believes crazy nonsense about economics, science and reproductive choice.  She is very likely to be our next president.

But the rumor mill says Joe Biden is going to get into this race.  I don't know exactly what the rationale of his candidacy will be. But politicians are not like regular folks. Joe has to know this is his last chance to be elected president. I don't know if he can live with saying no.

It's Not All Roses for the Frontrunner.

Secretary Clinton gave a strong performance but there was one point that she needs to work on. Twice during the debate, she replied to questions about her candidacy by saying that she is the best candidate because she is a woman.  In 2008, Barack Obama let the significance of his race speak for itself. He would allude to it, but never make it an explicit reason to vote for him. Hillary does use gender as an explicit justification for her candidacy. That only helps here with people who are going to vote for her anyway. This tactic might hurt her in the general election.

Barack Obama's political brilliance was to make his race about the country, rather than about him. His comments about race had the cadence of a Yakoff Smirnoff joke: "Can you believe a skinny kid with a funny name is about to be elected president? What a country!" He left it for the audience to realize that the reason his name sounded funny was its African origins. He made people good about themselves for wanting to vote for someone who "just happened" to be black. He never would have been President, or even nominated if he framed his campaign as "It's about time we put a black guy in charge!"  Even though it was. And now it is time to put a woman in charge.  We all know that. We don't have to be told that. But Hillary seems incapable of that nuance. She needs to work on it.

Hillary's last hurdle might come next week. She is set to testify before the Benghazi committee on October 23rd.  The Republican majority will grill her about her e-mails.  She better be prepared. Her job is to make the casual voter believe this is pure politics. The GOP's job is to pretend that it's not and to state good reasons why her handling of these e-mails makes her unfit to be president of the United States. At least one e-mail apparently revealed the name of an intelligence source in Libya. That e-mail came from Sidney Blumenthal but Hillary forwarded it to others and apparently did not tell Mr. Blumenthal to not send such information to her by a private e-mail server.

This is fertile ground. If Gowdy is worth a warm bucket of spit, he will make some fodder for the general election. But Hillary just might have answers for most of the allegations and she has the benefit of facing some truly mediocre opponents. If that's the case, she will emerge unscathed. Not unlike the other night in Las Vegas.

UPDATED Nomination Forecast:

Candidate	Nov-14	Jun-15	15-Sep	15-Oct
Hillary Clinton	70	95+	83	91
Bernie Sanders	N/A	-1	5	3
Martin O'Malley	1	-1	1	1
Jim Webb	10	-1	1	-1
Lincoln Chafee	N/A	-1	1	0
Undeclared
Elizabeth Warren	12	n/a	5	1
Joe Biden	5	n/a	3	2
The Field	-1	-1	2	1

For a sanity check I looked up a European betting website. They have Hillary at 78% and Biden and Sanders each at 10%. I think Hillary is a buy at that number.

The Fun Stuff: General Election Matchup Speculation

Things Change.

Note: a draft of this post was accidentally posted on October 5th. The final version was written on October 18, 2015.

The above map looks very different than our current political alignment. But it wasn't so long ago. That election was held 2 days before my 3rd birthday.  In 2012, only 20 states voted the same way they did that night. And only 8 states (plus DC) have given all of their electoral votes to the same party in every election of my lifetime.  (Minnesota and DC for the Dems, Alaska, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma for the GOP. Nebraska has been won by the Republican candidate in all those elections, but Obama did win one electoral vote from there in 2008.)

In my last post I made the case for why I believe the Democratic nominee is likely to win the next presidential election. My premise is that Democrats have a small but significant and growing advantage with the current presidential electorate.  To demonstrate this advantage, I categorize all of the states based on how they have voted in the past four presidential cycles.

True Blue (18 states that voted Dem in all four Bush/Obama Elections):  241
Baby Blues (3 states that voted Dem 3 out of 4 times)                                 15
Purple States (5 states that voted for the winner 4 times:                              75
Pink States (2* states that voted for the GOP 3 out of 4 times)                     27
Deep Red (23 states that voted GOP in all 4 Bush/Obama elections:         179
Note: Nebraska's second district is counted with the pink states.

So there are 256 votes likely to vote for the Democrat and 206 likely to vote for the Republican in a close election.  These 206 votes are the exact votes that Romney won in 2012.

But it's not all good news for Team Blue. In 2012 the Democrat won every close state except North Carolina. That is actually good news for the next Republican nominee. He or she will only have to really defend one state in a close election. Everywhere else they will be on offense.  So the biggest question is what is the quickest path for them to get to 270.  The simplest way to compute this is to flip the states they came closet to winning last time.

Here is every Baby Blue, Purple and Pink State, Red font indicates jurisdictions won by Mitt Romney in 2012.

Competitive States
Votes	State	Margin 2012
29	Florida	0.88%
15	N. Carolina	2.04%
18	Ohio	2.97%
13	Virgnia	3.87%
9	Colorado	5.36%
4	New Hamp.	5.58%
6	Iowa	5.81%
6	Nevada	6.68%
1	Nebraska-2nd	7.17%
5	New Mexico	10.15%
11	Indiana	10.20%

So the Republican nominee can get to 235 by just adding Florida, 253 by also adding Ohio and 266 by flipping Florida, Ohio and Virginia. Beyond that they only need to pick up one more state. Colorado, New Hampshire and Iowa were all decided by less than six points and would be competitive if the Republicans run a better candidate and campaign than they did last time.

Establishing a Baseline.

Incumbent candidates tend to be re-elected but incumbent parties running a new candidate lost more often than they win. Since 1952, Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, Clinton and Bush 43 were all re-elected. Jimmy Carter and Bush 41 were the only incumbents to lose. That's 5 out of 7. In that same span, Adlai Stevenson, Dick Nixon, Hubert Humphrey, Gerald Ford, Al Gore and John McCain all lost when running as candidates of the incumbent party who were not running for a second term. Only Bush 41 succeeded in that role. That's 6 out of 7.

But that is a small sample size and I think the historical trends discussed in an earlier post make the Democrats favorites to win next year.  Another factor that has to be considered is the effect of race. Some credible analysis of the election returns suggest that Barack Obama' race cost him about 4 points in the 2008 election.  (Source)  But that effect was strongest in states that were not particularly competitive, with Missouri being the only state that might have gone blue but-for the Democrats nominating a black candidate. Missouri was not competitive in 2012 and as we've already seen, Barack Obama carried most of the close states in 2012. The only additional state that probably would have been carried by Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden was North Carolina.  I also think Hillary will outperform Obama in that state next year. But for sake of simplicity, we'll stick with 332-206 as our baseline.

Match-ups with Hillary Clinton

1. Marco Rubio. I think Rubio is by far the strongest candidate that the Republicans might nominate. If he is the nominee, he has a very high likelihood of carrying Florida, which would get the Republicans to 235 electoral votes.  He would do well to consider John Kasich for a running mate and that will help in Ohio.  That would get them up to 253. Then they would have to win Virginia and one more Obama state. That is the best scenario for them and why I think Clinton is likely to choose Tim Kaine or Mark Warner as her running-mate. In any close election scenario, Virginia becomes extremely important.

Official Prediction:  Clinton 303, Rubio 253.  

2.  Jeb! Bush.  Jeb! is also more likely than not to win Florida but it will be very competitive there and I think the Bush name will hurt him in the rust belt. He also should pick Kasich to make Ohio competitive but Jeb! has already shown himself to be a lackluster (read: low-energy) candidate and I don't think he will make the race as close as handsome, charming Rubio.  I suspect he's pick up Florida but lose North Carolina.

Official Prediction: Clinton 318, Bush 220. 

3.  Donald Trump.  Let's put Trump mania in some perspective. In 2008 Dean Cain was the polling front runner for about three weeks.  Donald Trump has now led the Real Clear Politics Polling Average (RCPA) for more than 11 weeks. After the 2nd debate his poll number slipped a little. And then they rebounded.  He has a clear and often commanding lead in every national poll and almost every state-specific poll.  All very impressive.  But he averages about 25% in recent national polls. Consider that around 20 million people voted in the Republican primaries in 2008 and 2012. So 25% of the likely Republican primary voters is around 5 million people. In 2012 Mitt Romney got just over 10 million primary votes and 60 million votes in the general election.

So Trump holds sway over a plurality of Republican voters but those translate into a small sliver of the general election electorate.  If he is nominate he will get most Republican votes and some smattering of quirky independents. But his shtick would run very thin. Clinton will wipe the map with him.  She will win North Carolina, she will win Nebraska's 2nd congressional district and she will have the luxury of campaigning in places like Georgia, Missouri and Indiana in hopes of running up the score on election night. She might make Mississippi competitive if she can match the black turnout from 2012.

Official Prediction: Clinton 374, Trump 164.  (That's Clinton winning NC, NE-2, MO and GA but not Indiana. I think her husband will be an asset in MO, having carried the state twice and having been a long term governor of a neighboring state.)

4. Ted Cruz.  Senator Cruz is taking an interesting tact in this election.  He plans to run to the far-right in the primaries and hope to be the last man standing. Then he will try to increase voter turnout among working class whites in states like Pennsylvania to win the general election.  He seriously overstates his charms.  He may succeed in making some places like PA and WI competitive, but he will not flip any of them, although Ohio would probably be a true toss-up.

 (This prediction is rooted in my belief that those working class whites he thinks he speaks for are actually unlikely to be motivated to vote for a Canadian of Cuban ancestry who drips with Ivy league snobbery.)

Official Prediction: Clinton: 348, Cruz 190 (NC and NE-2 go back to blue.)

5. Carly Fiorina.  She'll fight hard and she'll sell herself well. But Hillary will savage her with commercials about outsourcing and layoffs. This will be a blow out.

Official Prediction: Clinton 363, Fiorina 175 (NC, NE-2 and GA go blue.)

6. John Kasich.

I think he'll win his home state of Ohio and be competitive in all the right places but I don't see him flipping Florida or any other battle ground. Clinton should also be able to carry NC against him.

Official Predicition: Clinton 329, Kasich 209.

And the Rest.

It's very difficult for me to imagine any of the other candidates being nominated, but I'll humor them with an official prediction.

Same Result as Trump:

7. Ben Carson: Clinton 374, Carson 164 

8. Chris Christie: Clinton 374, Christie 164 (Same result as Trump)

Same Result as Romney in 2012:

9.  Mike Huckabee: Clinton 332, Huckabee 206

Same Result as Cruz

10. Rick Santorum Clinton 348, Romney 190.  (With a lot of  wasted resources in Pennsylvania.)

11. Rand Paul Clinton 348, Romney 190

Why are the Bothering?

12.  Pataki: Clinton 385, Pataki 153 (That's the Trump result minus Indiana)

13. Jindal:  Clinton 396, Pataki 142 (Trump minus Indiana and Arizona)

14.  Lindsay Graham; Clinton 385, Pataki 153

15. Jim Gilmore: Clinton 372, Gilmore 165. (I'm giving him his home state of Virginia. This blog post is the high-watermark of Gilmore 2016.)

Match-ups With Bernie Sanders.

I think Sanders' identification as a democratic socialist is at least as big a handicap in a general election as Barack Obama's race was in the past two cycles.  If Clinton would have outperformed Obama in 2012 by carrying NC, then I think it's equally true that Sanders would have under performed by not winning Florida. So his baseline is 303 to 235.  

But I would still favor him against most likely Republican nominees. I think he cold beat Jeb! like a drum by using his family name against him and he probably salivates at the idea of running against an actual plutocrat in the form of Donald Trump.  But Rubio will play the commie card deftly. And he is a handsome young latino that listens to Jay-Z, not an aging Hippy who probably does not own an Ipod.  I think he would carry the truly close states: FL, OH, NC and VA. That gets him to 266 and he just needs to win Colorado or Iowa or Nevada.  My official hunch: he wins one of those states and sneaks into the White House.

Here are the Sanders matchups:

Rubio 272, Sanders 266

Sanders 285, Jeb! 253 (picking up FL and OH)

Sanders 332, Trump 206 (repeat of 2012 Results)

Sanders 303, Cruz 235 (Cruz wins Florida)

Sanders 285, Fiorina 253 (same result as Jeb!)

Sanders 272, Kasich 266 (Kasich wins the three big battle grounds of OH, FL and VA but fails to pick off PA or any of the western battle grounds or Iowa.)

Cason, Christie and Huckabee would probably put up a Romney and lose 302-236. Santorum and Paul might do the same although I think Bernie wold be able to pick off NC against those mediocrities. The sad-sacks would also get crushed but probably win one or two more states than they would against Hillary Clinton.

Musing on Long Shot Scenrios.

• Joe Biden's numbers would be virtually identical to Secretary Clinton's. Elizabeth Warren would start with a stronger baseline and would be most likely to win back NC and to make places like Indiana and Missour competitive. But all of them would be in a dog fight with Rubio, and a semi-comfortable place against all other potential nominees.

• If Scott Walker is the GOP running mate there will be endless talk about Wisconsin becoming competitive but I think his early exit means he won't be on anyone's short list.  (Kasich and Susan Marinez will always be a better option for any candidate on this list.)

• Trying to think of real long shot scenarios, one might be tempted to think that Hillary Clinton could win Arkansas.  She was first lady of that state for more than a decade. But that was a long time ago. In 1992 Bill Clinton won 53% of that stat's votes in a 3 way race. Four years later his share of the national vote went up by more than six points but only by one point in his home state.  Since that high water mark of 5.38% in 1996, the Democratic nominees have gotten 46, 45, 39 and 38 percent.  Obama's share of the vote dropped that much compared to Gore and Kerry. This is the most obvious case of Obama's race affecting his poll results in a non-competitive state. I think Hillary will return the Democratic number to something closer to 45 percent but 50% seems like a very long shot. Arkansas has become a pretty conventional Red State in presidential elections. I don't think the Big Dog can change that for his wife.

• Missouri is more fertile ground for an Ozark upset. In 2008 Barack Obama came within 4,000 votes of winning that state and chose not to pursue a recount because it would not have affected the election result. In 2012, he lost by 9 points. This pattern is similar to Indiana, where he won a squaker in 2008 and lost by 10 points in 2012. Nationally Obama's vote share dropped by less than 2 points, but by more than 10 points in these states. The difference of course is that Obama actively campaigned for those states in 2008. The closer polling numbers during his re-election made it necessary to spend resources elsewhere.  If Hillary is in blowout mode, she might be able to pick off Missouri, especially if she thinks she can help some marginal Democratic house candidates or the race for Roy Blount's senate seat becomes competitive. (If for instance he loses a primary to a Tea Party fringe candidate.)
• Arizona should be ripe for a competitive race. Obama lost by 7.3 points to John McCain in 2008 and by 9.0 points to Mitt Romney in 2012. That fall off, 1.7 points was slightly less than the national trend, which makes sense since he was not running against a candidate from Arizona. But Arizona politics are warped by immigration policy more than any other state. Texas is a hopelessly red state but Arizona should be competitive. Fear of illegal immigrants has led to some ghastly laws being passed and the repeated election of a clown like Joe Arapaio as sheriff responsible for a major American city. In the long run, demographics will make this a purple state and eventually a blue one, assuming the GOP doesn't change course on some of it policies. But for the immediate future, I think immigration leaves the state off of the competive list.
• New Mexico might be the decisive state in 2016. Obama carried it by double digits twice. But Bush carried the state in 2004 and lost it in 2000 by just 370 votes. If a Republican wants to win, his or her best option is this:  Romney States (206) + Ohio, Florida and Virginia (60 to get to 266. Then one more state among Colorado, Nevada, Iowa or New Mexico. New Mexico could be influenced by having a native daughter on the ticket. The GOP may need Kasich to carry Ohio but that might be all for naught if they do not win one of these small states. Susana Martinez remains a very strong candidate for the Vice-Presidency. And under at least one plausible scenario, she could win the White House for the Republicans.