Shadow1980 said:
If Hillary runs, she wins. She already has a lock to win the Democratic nomination, plus she's relatively popular at the national level. Meanwhile, the GOP has had a post-Bush issue of being able to field candidates that are electorally viable at the national level. Winning a state-level or local election is different from winning an election where people in every state are voting. A Tea Party candidate for Congress can handily win in a rural district in a red state (or any district in any state that's been Gerrymandered in the GOP's favor), but that doesn't translate into the kind of national appeal a Presidential candidate needs.
In addition, the electoral map itself has been sliding in the Democrats' favor. States that were once swing states have been leaning increasingly Democratic (New Mexico went from solid red to solid blue), while former red states like Virginia and North Carolina have moved firmly to swing state status, and early polling data suggests even Georgia may be in play. Currently, the states typically classified as unambiguous swing states are Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Iowa, Nevada, North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. Assuming those eight are toss-ups and the others are guaranteed to be either blue or red states, this gives us a map that looks like this:
If we add up the electoral votes for all states that are likely or guaranteed to go to Hillary, it amounts to 247, only 23 short of the 270 needed to win. Meanwhile, the GOP candidate will have 191 guaranteed EC votes (assuming early polling data for Georgia is just a case of early poll weirdness), 79 short of what they need. Hillary would already be in striking distance, while the GOP candidate has to make up a lot of lost ground. The GOP candidate absolutely must win Florida. If Hillary picks up Florida, she can lose every other swing state and still win. If she loses Florida but wins Ohio she'll be five short of what she needs, meaning she only needs to pick up only one of the following: Colorado, Iowa, NC, or Virginia. Even if she loses both Ohio and Florida, she could still win by picking up any combination of the six remaining swing states that would give her 23 EC votes, such as Virginia + NC, or Virginia + Nevada + Iowa.
For the sake of argument let's say that the GOP candidate wins NC and Colorado. That would bring them up to 215 votes, still 55 short of what they need. If they also win Florida in addition to NC and CO, that would give them 244, 26 short of what they need to win. If they pick up Florida, Ohio, Colorado, and NC, that still only gives them 262, which means they would also need to pick up either Virginia or a combination of NH & Nevada, NH & Iowa, or Iowa & Nevada.
Due to their built-in deficit in electoral votes, the GOP candidate has a lot of work to do. They must be palatable to people of all walks of life, not just white Tea Party conservatives. Unless Hillary does something that really hurts her reputation (hammering her on Benghazi won't work; that's beating a dead horse at this point), she's going to be a tough candidate to beat. There's very little they can run on.
Even in 2012 Obama quite soundly defeated Romney despite things being worse than they were today, and Romney was perhaps the most viable GOP candidate that ran that year. If he couldn't beat Obama, then Hillary should have minimal trouble beating whoever the GOP fields in 2016. Granted, a lot can change over the next 20 months, but so far Hillary seems to have an extremely high chance of becoming President.
|
