Right now things are looking quite good when it comes to us winning the White House, and the scope of the electoral vote projection (remember, this is as of right now, could change up or down) suggests that there will also be a noticeable effect in down ticket races.
Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky reports:
Forecast: Hillary Clinton Is About To Clean Donald Trump’s Clock
People in my line of work try to be careful about predictions, because, you know, the future comes eventually, and you might be wrong. When I do make predictions, I’m always careful to add the conditions—if this, assuming that.
So let’s not call this a prediction, but an observation: I hereby observe that it is entirely possible that this election could—could—be a blowout. A humiliation. A decapitation. A world-historical debacle for one party. And I bet you can guess which one.
This observation is occasioned by the appearance this week of the first full-blown general-election Electoral College forecast, from frontloadingHQ.com. The folks at FHQ looked at polls and recent electoral history and voting trends to take a stab at what the Electoral College might look like on the night of Nov. 8 if things don’t change much from today. And if you’re a fan of the candidate who’s a person of color—orange—it isn’t pretty.
FHQ’s currrent projection is that of a 358 to 180 electoral vote blowout for Hillary against Trump. And Tomasky posits that if anything, that EV projection is somewhat conservative.
FHQ gives Clinton all of Obama’s 2012 states plus North Carolina (which he won in 2008) and… drum roll… Arizona. Now, Arizona last went Democratic in 1996, and that was the first time it had done so since 1948. But don’t laugh. Clinton leads, by a point, in RCP average. That’s just two polls, so who knows. But Latino turnout will presumably be through the roof.
Tomasky goes on to point out that Hillary leads Trump in Kansas in recent polling (of all places) and is tied or slightly ahead in Utah, and close in most recent Georgia polling. Tied in Missouri. He states that while Hillary is likely not going to take Utah or Kansas, the fact that those two states are close at all at this point is very bad news for Trump.
This is from Frontloading HQ:
The Electoral College Map (6/13/16) And so it begins.
Early though it may be, there is enough polling data out there both nationally and at the state level to get a sense of where a Clinton-Trump race is even in its infancy. The answer is -- and again there are plenty of caveats -- that the 2016 race for the White House at this point in mid-June looks similar to 2008. Add together the 2012 Obama states plus North Carolina and replace Indiana (2008) with Arizona and that is basically where things stand.
The problem is that there just is not a whole lot of polling data at the moment (at the state level).1 There is enough to get a picture of the state of the race, but not a sufficient enough amount to inspire a high level of confidence, statistical or otherwise. However, the silver lining is that the bulk of the polling that has been conducted in 2016 has been clustered in the states that have in recent cycles been more competitive. Where data is missing is in the least historically competitive states; particularly those that have been reliably red over time.
...
One of the biggest questions as this 2016 cycle heads into the general election is whether it fits the mold of a typical open seat election (more volatile in the polls) or if an increasingly polarized environment serves as a set of moorings to which most states are anchored (regardless of whether an election involves an incumbent). If it is the former, then the expectation is that the above map will change and perhaps drastically so. However, if it is the former, then there may be very little change except at the margins. There are now only two states that are close to crossing the partisan line over into the opposite candidate's camp (seeWatch List below).
Though there is a link above to a description of the methodology behind the FHQ graduated weighted average, and in addition, a tutorial on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum immediately above (see footnote #1 in the Spectrum table), there is one other operational caveat that warrants explanation. The basic premise of the Spectrum is as a simple, graphical depiction of the rank ordering of states from most Democratic on one end to most Republican on the other.
In years past, FHQ has substituted an average of past election results for states in which there was no polling. [As was mentioned above, these tend to be the most competitive states.] That was not an issue in 2008. There was a great deal of polling that cycle, and it hit virtually every state. 2012 was different and 2016 is shaping up in a similar fashion. Both had or have a lack of across the board polling coverage.
Rather than using past results to fill in those blanks, FHQ will take a uniform swing approach. That is, the ordering of states will remain mostly constant and the electorate will shift in a mostly uniform pattern across most states from one election cycle to the next. If one makes that assumption, that does augur against using past results. Such a method may misplace states on the Spectrum; in the rank ordering.
NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2016 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.
Michael John Tomasky (born October 13, 1960[1]) is an American columnist, journalist and author. He is the editor in chief of Democracy, a special correspondent for Newsweek / The Daily Beast, a contributing editor for The American Prospect, and a contributor to The New York Review of Books.