What to Expect When You're Not Expecting Much: Preview of the Vice-Presidential Debate

The only conventional thing about the 2016 race is that both major party nominees picked safe, solid, dull running mates.  Trump chose Pence to shore up his bona fides with the Christian conservative base.  Hillary chose Kaine to put Virginia out of reach and to strengthen her ability to reach Spanish speakers.  By November 9th, Tim Kaine will know the name of every morning DJ on every Spanish language radio station in the country. That same day, Mike Pence can begin to daydream about being a top tier contender for the 2020 Republican nomination.  But first they have  a job to do tonight.

Pence's first job is to stop the bleeding.  At the start of the first presidential debate, Predictwise.com had the race at 68% Hillary, 32% Trump. Eight days later it's up to 81% Hillary, 19% Trump. Almost every poll since the debate has moved in a Democratic direction, and the news this week has been about Trump (probably) not paying income taxes for 18 years and his ill-considered comments implying that getting PTSD has something to do with a lack of strength.  (For the record I think that off-the -cuff comment was less egregious than some of his other gaffes this year, but it will hurt him with some demographics that he can't afford to lose.)

Pence has to convince people that voting for Trump is not insane.  He must be the voice and face of reason. I expect that he will use words like "conservative" and "responsible" a lot.  He will also hit the high notes when trying to scare people about refugees from Syria and the "dangers" of the world we live in. He can lean pretty far to the right, because that's where his credibility is deepest and even far-right is better than the unstable mess of a half-personality at the top of his ticket.

Kaine is playing with the lead and he's on his home turf of Virginia.  He's also a pretty cagey debater and I expect him to be very well prepared.   A couple days ago the Republican party released a video implying that Kaine was some how to blame for the crimes committed by his clients when he was a public defender.  I'm very curious to see if Pence brings that up because I remember watching one of the debates when Kaine ran for governor of Virginia.  His idiot opponent, George Allen, brought up this line of attack and walked right into a trap.  Tim Kaine's response was that anyone who loves to lecture people about the Constitution ought to know that it includes the right to counsel and that any lawyer given that role has a duty to zealously represent their client, no matter how serious the crimes they are charged with.  If this comes up tonight, I expect Kaine to throw the name John Adams back in Pence's face.

I hope that Kaine at least goes after Pence on two important points: one is the disastrous decision to defund Planned Parenthood in Indiana.  There were real consequences to that decision including a spike in HIV transmissions and (of course) unwanted pregnancies.  Kaine should also raise the issue of Climate Change to show that even a potty-trained Republican can't be trusted to tell the truth aobu the most important issue facing our long term future.


But I don't think either candidate will be especially aggressive. Pence knows that Kaine is loaded for bear on the issue of being a public defender. His target is Hillary.  The GOP web site prematurely updated to show that Pence won tonight's debate about 2 hours before it began.  Those talking points list that Pence won on the economy and by highlighting Hillary's scandals. So that's the game plan.  Trump was actually coherent on trade during the first 15 minutes of the presidential debate.  We'll probably get more of that, especially since Kaine was a TPP supporter up until being chosen by Hillary. So we'll get that and probably a lot about emails and at least one Benghazi for old time's sake. Kaine will defend her, and I expect he will leave a very good impression on the viewing public.

This won't matter much.  In 2016 all of the celebrity rests on the top half of each ticket. Tonight will be a fleeting glimpse of a world run by boring but generally competent people.  The insults will be few and the inspiration rarer still.  That probably means a small audience and almost no movement in the polls.  But fear not, we're just five days away from the 2nd Hillary-Trump debate.

First Debate, Immediate Reaction

The first presidential debate ended one hour ago.  The consensus on cable news is that Hillary Clinton won big.  I agree.

Donald Trump got off to a reasonably strong start.  The first question was about jobs, and Donald Trump has a pretty good rap about trade deals that he can spit out on demand.  The substance of this argument is pretty weak but there are definitely a lot of voters out there who think that NAFTA and other free trade deals are the reaons that manufacturing jobs have left the rust belt.  So 15 minutes in, it was more or less a drawer.

But slowly, Trump rode into a ditch.  He was sniffling constantly and interrupting Hillary with great frequency  Hillary for her part was very sure of the facts and very well-rehearsed in her delivery. Tonight at least, Hillary's dilligence paid off.

I think the most important reprecussion of tonight will be that Trump cam across as so damn rude to his opponent. I think women in particular recognized him as the loud mouthed jerk who dominates a conversation even when he no facts on his side.

But Trump was bad in a lot of small ways too.  He completely lied his way through the birther question and he somehow managed to brag about having been mean to Rosie O'Donnell.  For me the worst momen was when he cited imaginary phone conversations with Sean Hannity as proof that he opposed the Iraq war in 2002.  Hannity's show is a nightly hour of Sean performing fellatio on Donald Trump.  But Donald can not understand why no one takes Sean at his word about the contenst of these secret conversation that were unspoken about for 14 years.

Hillary won on style and on substance. She won on temperment and on veracity.  The prediction markets tilted her way by about 5 points over the course of 2 hours.  She should get a bounce out of this. But it's still six weeks from the election and Donald will adjust before the other debates.

Report Cards:

Hillary Clinton:  A.  You can always find flaws in 90 minutes of live speaking, but I don't think Hillary missed any of the points she wanted to make and I don't think she gave Trump any terrible sound bites to use in commercials.

Donald Trump:  C-.  This is the gentleman's C-. He didn't call Hillary any misogynist slurs, so that's something.  The most damning criticism of his perofrmance may be that right now all his spinners are on the airwaves complaining that Hillary prepared too mcuh for the debate.

Lest Holt:  A-.   I read a lot of criticism of Holt for not interfering more, especially when Donald Trump kept interrupting Hillary.  It's a reasonable point but I don't think that's the role of a presidential debate moderator.  The debates should be about the candidates and if one candidate is being a jerk, the jerk candidate is the only one who suffers for that.

I was worried about Holt when the topic were announced.  These topics, remember were: "Achieving Prosperity", "Securing America" and "America's Direction."  This sounds like the parameters for an award four outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. But Lester Holt asked good questions tonight and raised all the subjects that have dominated the conversation so far, including Donald Trump's horrific record on birtherism.  I think he did well.

Second General Election Forecast: Hillary 49, Trump 45, Johnson 4, Stein 2 (Electoral College 340-198)

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.

First General Election Forecast: Hillary 50, Trump 44, Johnson 4, Stein 2. (Electoral College 348-190)

The Original Splash Brother, Manute Bol

I have been meaning to write a post about the general election race for weeks. It's not a very exciting topic this far out but I wanted to put my "morning line on the record and now that Nate Silver's forecasts are up, it's time to write.  Nate's forecast is Hillary 49, Trump 45, Johnson 5. That leaves a little more than 1 percent for Jill Stein, the Green Party candi anddate.  (When writing abot 538.com's models, I will, unless otherwise indicated, refer to their Polls-Plus Forecast, because I believe it's most accurate.)

My morning line is HIllary 50, Trump 44, Johnson 4, Stein 2, with the Electoral College at 348-190.

My central thesis for this election is that Hillary Clinton is the favorite for two broad reasons: the fundamentals of the election favor the incumbent party and the Republican nominee is unlikely to persuade many voters to vote for him over Clinton who didn't already vote Republican four years ago. As for fundamentals, I mean the fact that Barack Obama is liked by more voters than he is disliked. The economy is generally solid and the opposition party has nominated a dumpster-fire. That dumpster-fire said things to get the nomination that probably preclude mutliple paths to the White House.

This shold make Hillary Clinton the clear favorite, and she is that.  But she comes with her own baggage and has some highy unfavorables.  As a betting matter she has been right about a 3-1 favorite ever since both parties settled on their respective nominees.  I think that accurately reflect the state of the race, and is consistent with the 538 model.

1. Specific States.

In 2012 Barack Obama won 332 Electoral Votes. Mitt Romney won 206. President Obama won 10 out of 11 close states that year. That's actually good news for the GOP.  The only state they really have to defend is North Carolina, which Romney won by just two points. The next closest margins of victory was Georgia by eight, Arizon and and Missouri by nine. Clinton needs to worry about Florida (less than one point in 2012), Ohio (three), Virginia (4), Colorado and Pennsyvlania (5) and New Hampshire (six).

So Donald trump needs a net gain of 64 Electoral Votes.  The quickest distance to that, using 2012 margins of difference is to win Florida (29 EV), Ohio (18), Virginia (13) and Colorado (9). I think that Trump's racist comments about undocumented immigrants will translate into atrocious numbers among Latino voters. That probably puts Florida and Colorado out of reach. If so, he will need to win some blue states in the Upper Midwest.

Think of Trump as having three paths to 270 Electoral votes. Each is based on the assumption that he doesn't lose any Romney states. The crucial states are Florida and Colorado, because they have high numbers of Latino voters and I think they will be hard for Trump to win.   :

A. Direct Line: Florida, Ohio, Virginia and Colorado.

B.  Without Colorado:  If he wins FL, OH & VA but loses Colorado, he will have 262 Electoral Votes. He could get the remaining eight by carrying one of the below configurations;
        i. Pennsylvania
        ii.Iowa and New Hampshire
        iii Minnesota or Wisconsin. (Or Michigan, which is extremely unlikely.)

C. Without Florida.  If he wins OH & VA but not CO or FL, Trump is in a huge electoral hole. He would have 237 electoral votes and need to win. To dig out of that hole, he probably needs to win either Michigan or Pennsylvania. Winning both PA & MI would be enough to win, but that's unlikley to happen.  If he wins Pennsylvania, he gets within 13 votes and needs two more upsets among New Hampshire, Michigan and Wisconsin. If he wins Michigan but loses Pennsyvlania, then he needs to win both Wisconsin and Minnesota.

If Trump loses both FL and CO,  He would probably need to win Pennsylvania and Michigan. That's very unlikely.

The forecasts on 538.com show some traditionally red states as being competitive. At the moment, Nate gives Hillary a 25% chance of winning Arizona, Missouri and Georgia. But as the election gets closer, I think those states will tend to move in Trump's diretion.  My official prediction is depressingly familiar. I think Clinton will win back North Carolina and I think she will win Nebraska' 2nd congressional district. That will get her 348 Electoral Votes.


2.  Vice Presidential Choices.

Way back in November of last year I wrote that Tim Kaine would be the Democratic nominee for Vice-President.  I'm sticking with that. He's the safe, sensible choice with experience in the senat and the exective. He also helps win one of the most competitive states, Virginia  Hillary has the lead and she's a small-c conservative by nature. This is the safe pick.

The Republican running mate sweepstakes have come down to a handful of choices. Chris Christie would be absurd. Newt Gingrich would be terrible, but I think he's good at telling people like Donald Trump what they want to hear.  That can't hurt when wooing a narcissist. I think General Flynn disqualified himself when he said today that he was tepidly pro-choice.  I think Trump wold face a delegate revolt if he chose Flynn.

That leaves Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.  The biggest question about this pick is whether Pence wants to give up being governor of Indiana.  He's up for re-election and can't be on the ballot there twice.  I don't know if he wants to give up being Governor for a 25% chance of being Vice-President. But he has to know that this will elevate his name recognition and it will allow him to play the grown up for the next 18 weeks.  When 2020 comes around, he will have credibility with the people who loved Trump and perhaps with the establishment if he is thought to have made the race more competitive than it should have. He also has to consider the possiblity that should they win this thing, Trump might resign after a few months to cash in on his new fame. (This is a real prospect.)

So I think Pence is the smart choies of the remaining candidates. And really, how exciting can it be to govern Indiana?  So we are looking at Clinton-Kaine and Trump-Pence.  Neither of these choices affect any of my electoral college predictions, but they probably make Virginia and Indiana slightly more likely to stay with the party that they chose in 2012.


3. Worst Case Scenarios.

So I'm writing that there is a 25% chance that Donald Trump will be the next President-elect of the United States. Let's try to break down that that means.

First let me say that I'm always open to the idea that the Trump campaign is a giant scam and that the candidate will back out at some point rather than face ignoble defeat.  But I don't think he will do this before the convention. He can't pass up that much free air time. But if things look bad in September, he might invent an excuse for him to dropout and say that his electors should just vote for Pence instead of him. I know this is crazy. The stuff of a bad novel by a political beat reporter. But what part of 2016 has not been just that?  So let me clarify that I think the odds of the election winner are something like this: Clinton 75%, Trump 23%, somebody else, 2%.

But that leaves Mr. Trump with a 23% chance of winning. To put that in sports terms that's roughly equivalent to Manute Bol's three point field goal percentage. Sounds crazy but some of those shots went in. A more common sports analogy would be an NFL team with a 7 point defecit halfway through the third quarter. So Trump can win this. It's just not very likely.

My operating assumption for the past several months was that Trump's best chance of winning involved something horrible happening on American soil, most likely a terrorist attack that makes people willing to try out his ridiculous idea of banning Muslims and building a wall along the southern border. The mass shooting at the Orlando night club did nothing to move the prediction markets. So far the the mass shooting of Dallas police officer has also had no effect. But I'm leaving the room open for an October surprise. If we have multiple ISIS-linked or insipred attacks on the homeland in October, Trump's odds will improve.

He also has some issues to make hey with. He is running, contra the mainstream of the Republican party against free trade. He's going to promise people a return to the economy of the 1950 and 60s. He's also going to imply a trunt ot the culture of the 1950s. That does has some appeal. He is currently leading white men by more than 20 points. (Makes you proud, doesn't it?)

I think a Trump victory means four things happened:
1. Major terrorist attack on American soil or extended instances of violence against police officers.
2. A "scandal" of some sort that tarnishes Hillary more than Benghazi or the Email server have.
3. Tepid economic numbers in the fall.
4. Trump rebranding his message for the general electorate in a way that accentuates the economic insecurity of working class people while simultaneously convincing Wall Street that he won't actually impose any of his whackadoo economic poliices.

That last one is quite the typerope to walk. I don't think he has political chops or interpersnal skills to do it.  That's why I'm an optimist.

4. Best Case Scenarios

This election cycle is already a wasted opportunity. When Hillary's only meaningful challenge came from a 74 year old socialist, it meant that the party was not about to change. And when the Republicans nominated Donald Trump they doomed themselves to four years of bleating the No True Scotsman Fallacy.  When Trump loses,people like Ted Cruz will say "It's because we didn't nominate a real conservative."  And in four years, they probably will do just that.

Hillary's vote margin over Trump will probably be bigger than the 3.95% that Obama's beat Romney by. But I don't think he will win by a bigger margin than the 7.3% that Obama beat McCain by in 2008. Even if she does, I think the only red states that become competitive are Georgia, Arizona and Missouri.  A sweep of all the battlegrounds plus those three would get her up to 384 Electoral Votes. That's close to a route, but not quite the stuff of history. A truly historic meltdown by Trump might make Kansas, South Carolina and Montana competitive. But even adding them to the Blue pile would leave Trump far short of Goldwater-McGovern-Mondale territory.

A Clinton blowout probably involves for things happening;
1. A relative lack of serious terrorist activity.
2. Trump being unwilling or incapable of toning down his campaign rhetoric.
3. A massive fund raising dsparity because rich people determine that they are better off with Hillary for four years than the dumpster-fire.
4. Television ads that rehabilitate Clinton's image and cement Trump's imge among indpendents.

The hardest part is rehabilitating Clinton's image.  I think there's 40% of the population that will vote for her opponent no matter how dangerous that opponsent is.  That's why I'm not too excited about Kansas or Mississippi turning blue or even purple.  Hillary won't play aggressively enough to make them copetitive.

5.  Third &; Fourth Party Effects.

Gary Johnson is approaching double-digits in polls that include him. A lot of this is the result of Trump and Clinton both being so unpopular. But as people begin to take their vote seriously, they will not turn to Libertarians in huge numbers. I think his ceiling is eight percent and will have to fight like hell to get five percent.  His best chance of making a dent is that Trump becomes so odious that many Republicans just can not vote for him and look their neighors in the eye.  But I don't see the groundswell happening this year.  Mid single digits it is.

Jill Stein of the Green Party recently offered to ste aside so that Berne Sanders coud instead run as the Green Party candidate. Okay, that was difficult to type with a straight face. What she actually did was she pretended that she would step aside for a candidate who she knew full well intends to endorse Clinton because she things it will curry her favor with disaffected lefties.  It might, but they are small in number. Bernie supporters are already telling pollsters they will vote for Mrs. Clinton in higher numbers than Clinton supporters were saying the same of Barack Obama in 2008.  But to be fair, these Sanders voters are from the left-wing of the party whereas the Clinton supporters of 2008 were from the rightwing of the party. Voting Green was never an option for them. But it will be for about 5% of the population, especially if the polls indicate that Clinton is certain to win the election and prevent a Trump presidency.  Her ceiling is three percent. People still remember the Nader effect. It will kee her number down.  (As will her pseudoscientific opinions about GMO and vaccines, among other things.)

6.  What to Look Forward To:
A quick run down of the major events of the next 17 and a half weeks.

i. Trump's VP announcment: Probably No Later than July 15th. (That's when Pence has to decide between running for Governor or running for Veep.  I think he's say Veep.)

ii.  GOP convetion in Cleveland (and the ensuing riots). This is really Trump's best chance to put a new spin on his shtick. His one big asset as a candidate is that he knows how to use the medium of television to his advantage.  I think the convention will be more variety show than politcal theater.  People will talk about it. And there will be lots of confrontation in the streets. Here's a big prediction: on July 22nd pundits will be calling this a toss-up election. (Bettors will not.)

iii. Hillary's VP announcement. Probably Kaine but maybe some other boring white guy.

iv. DEM convention in Philadelphia (and the ensuing floor debates). I think Bernie's delegation will vote for HIllary. I also thin it will include enough young Occupy types to make the convetion less boring and sanitized than the Democratic conventions have been ever since Bill and Hillary took the reigns of the party 25 years ago.  But Hillary and Kaine will both give great speeches that no one will be offended by or remember 2 months later and she will get her bounce and the pundits will say she's the favorie again.

v.  First Presidential Debate, September 26th in Dayton, OH.

Circle your calendars for this one.  The Quantum unknown in this election will be how Hillary reacts to debating a sociopath. If Bobby the Brain Heenan were not in ill health, I would want the Dems to hire him for debate preparation.  She has to be ready for the worst of it. But Trump's big advantage is that he can also probably benefit from being (relatively) sane at this forum.  He will be on stage, one one one with someobe that's been in the national political scene since before I could vote. He can probably do 50% crazy and 50% relatively calm and come away scoring points. Or he might call her something horrific and storm off the stage  30 minutes in.  Like I said, circle your calendars.

vi. Vice Presidential Debate October 4th in Farmville, VA
I lived in Virginia for like 4 years. No idea where Farmville is.  And I can't be bothered to Google it. Becuase that's how important the Vice Presidential debate is.

vii. 2nd Presidential Debate in St. Louis, MO.
Probably less compelling TV than the first, but Trump might act from the other end of the crazy scale just to keep her guessing this time.

viii. 3rd Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, NV
Perfect location but I shudder at the lame analogies about who needs to win the big jackpot and roll box cars on top of split aces in order to parlay a oh,, fuck it. We'll all be so sick of these two people by then.  Trump might sneak in one last attempt to look normal in order to hold onto a state or two, The big questioin will be which stattes are in play by then.

ix.  Election Day, November 8th.
Don't forget to vote. And then the polls will close and we'll find out that we have elected our first president.  The only concession will probably come in the form of a deranged Tweet storm of obscenities  And won't hat be worth watching?