Election Analysis
Bernie Comes Through
I have been very critical of Bernie Sanders throughout this election season, but I’ll give it to him. He did everything I could have hoped for tonight. His full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton and his point-by-point recitation of how she will come through on issues dear to progressives were pitch perfect. Anybody on Team Sanders who doesn’t come around after this speech is simply unreachable.
Sanders was smart to acknowledge briefly his differences with Clinton; his supporters wouldn’t have bought it if he didn’t, and clearly, some didn’t buy it anyway, judging by some of the reactions from his supporters. But he spent far more time detailing the similarities. He did a very good job tonight. Now it will be up to him to follow through and keep making the case to the supporters he did so much to alienate from the party in the first place.
Fundamentals Still Favor Clinton, But Sanders Needs To Do His Part
After decades as a both a participant in, and observer of, the political process, I understand all too well the propensity of perpetually nervous Democrats to panic at every turn. Because I recognize this unfortunate tendency, I am going to try to offer a level-headed analysis.
Despite the recent flood of polling showing Donald Trump moving slightly ahead of Hillary Clinton (after a Republican convention that most of the smart-money people in the Beltway and its outer boroughs deemed a disaster), I still think the fundamentals of this election favor Clinton. Conventions tend to move polling numbers, and we should not put too much weight on what happened in the top of the inning without seeing what happens in the bottom of the inning.
I will note, however, that in my tweets following Trump’s speech I said he had nailed it and that he perfectly channeled, in his remarks, the audience he wanted to get: blue-collar whites. What we have seen in the polling numbers since Thursday demonstrates that my analysis was correct.
In reporting its latest polling numbers showing Trump ahead by 3% in a two-way matchup and 5% when including the Libertarian and Green candidates, CNN noted that Trump had lost ground with college-educated whites, but had boosted his margin among whites without degrees from 20% to 39%. The CNN poll gave him a 62%-23% edge among this demographic.
It is important to note that Mitt Romney received 62% of the white, blue-collar vote in 2012 but still lost the election, and this despite handily winning the votes of college-educated whites by a significant margin as well.
In short, at this point, Trump is winning the voters one would expect him to win. The key question is whether he has hit his ceiling. If he has, then he still doesn’t have the support he needs to win, and with his numbers among non-white voters likely to be abysmal, where he stands right now is not enough to get him over the top in November.
On the flip side, Clinton still has to close the sale with the voters who she has a realistic chance to persuade. She will have an opportunity to start making progress in that direction this week.
Tonight, Bernie Sanders will address the nation, and the onus will be on him to get his more level-headed supporters fully on board, while perhaps converting some of the die-hards. Among the holdouts still unreconciled to Clinton, Sanders needs to press the case that yes, he has certain disagreements with Clinton, but he and his supporters will get much more of what they want from her than from Trump.
For Sanders to paper over the differences or give a full-throated endorsement will not fly with these supporters, who would see such a speech as dishonest or a “sellout.” He needs to acknowledge the differences briefly, then focus like a laser beam on the similarities, and also on the victories that he and his supporters have won in the party platform. This will give his supporters a reason to feel that they made a difference and that it wasn’t all in vain.
One key thing to keep in mind going forward is that Clinton cannot win this election by simply making it about Trump’s many deficiencies. The people who support him do so even though many of them find him obnoxious and unpresidential. She is going to have to find a way to boost her own electability. Her biggest problem right now is that, as CNN’s article noted today, more than two-thirds of those surveyed find her dishonest and untrustworthy. To close the deal and nail down an election that the demographic fundamentals suggest she should win, she’s going to have to change that narrative.
It’s actually a very unfair narrative, and one that has taken root over a quarter century of bad blood between her and the nation’s political media. The long, bitter primary campaign, in which Sanders and his surrogates irresponsibly and divisively stoked intense anger on the far left against Clinton (and the Democratic Party in general), exacerbated that problem and made this election much more difficult than it needed to be. Sanders needs to start making up for that tonight, and he has an opportunity to do so. Let’s see what he does with it.
Don’t Take Ryan’s Pledge At Face Value
Much has been made of House Speaker Paul Ryan’s pledge that he will not accept the Republican presidential nomination if an open convention chooses him this July. We are expected to believe that this mere statement has definitively settled the issue and that there are no circumstances under which the Wisconsin Republican will be the party’s nominee.
Hogwash. Ryan’s statement settled nothing. In fact, his recent behavior — making a highly publicized speech and cutting a web video in which he went out of his way to be statesmanlike — indicates the opposite. These moves give every appearance of Ryan making himself available as an alternative. Even his protestations of disinterest are part of the silly dance expected of candidates.
History shows us that declarative statements are not binding. In 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt released an open letter in which he said that if he were a delegate to that year’s Democratic convention, he would vote to renominate his vice president, the ultra-liberal Henry Wallace. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Roosevelt was actively working with Wallace’s detractors to ensure the nod would go to Senator Harry Truman, who succeeded Roosevelt as president when FDR died months later.
Politicians lie about their intentions all the time, so why should we automatically believe Ryan?
Oh, but we are told that this pledge is so ironclad that if he broke it, he’d be finished in politics.
Nonsense. There are all kinds of ways to wiggle out of a pledge. Imagine we’re going on the third or fourth ballot at a chaotic GOP convention, and Ryan says this:
“As I have repeatedly said, I did not want the nomination. But many leaders in our party who I respect greatly have told me that I am the only person who can unite our party and lead us to victory in the fall. I cannot in good conscience refuse this call, and so it is with great personal reluctance that I have decided to accept my party’s nomination for president of the United States.”
There. It almost sounds noble, doesn’t it?
Never take any politician at face value if he or she disclaims any interest whatsoever in being president. If the nomination is gift-wrapped and handed to Ryan on a platter, he’ll take it, just the same way he took the speakership he said he had absolutely no interest whatsoever in taking. Don’t be naive. Ryan’s past pledge meant nothing, so why is this one guaranteed to be for real?
The Democrats’ Diversity Divide Is Saving Clinton, Sinking Sanders
If anything became crystal clear tonight, it’s the stark diversity divide between Bernie Sanders‘ supporters and Hillary Clinton‘s supporters. Her big wins in the South tonight demonstrated that her shellacking of Sanders among black voters in South Carolina on Saturday was no fluke.
The one constant throughout the Democratic primaries and caucuses so far has been that the fewer black voters a state or portion of a state has, the more Clinton struggles. She barely won Iowa, got clobbered in New Hampshire, and got clobbered tonight in Minnesota, Colorado, Oklahoma and Vermont, but absolutely destroyed Sanders in Texas, Georgia, Virginia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee and Arkansas. And while Massachusetts is pretty white, it’s more diverse than Iowa or New Hampshire; the small percentage of Massachusetts voters who are black very well could have been the difference for her in that state tonight. Clinton won the cities; Sanders won the lily-white rural areas.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Any candidate who cannot win a significant number of votes in diverse communities cannot win the Democratic nomination. There is no way to put together a coalition in the Democratic Party that doesn’t include voters of color. If Sanders can’t start making serious inroads into communities of color very soon, he has no chance of reversing his fortunes.
Super Tuesday: No Changes In Either Race; GOP Establishment Takes It On The Chin
Forecasting Nevada GOP Caucuses, South Carolina Democratic Primary
There seems to be no doubt that Donald Trump will win Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada. Jon Ralston, the foremost political analyst in Nevada, knows the political pulse of the state inside and out. When he says Trump is sure to win in the Silver State, I know I can take it to the bank. So I’m predicting Trump wins.
There has been a lot of talk that Marco Rubio has worked hard to build an organization in Nevada. What little polling there is shows he’s in a tight battle with Ted Cruz for second place. I’m going to take Rubio to place and Cruz to show, with John Kasich beating out Ben Carson for a distant fourth.
The key question here is whether anybody but Trump will get any delegates. Despite placing second in South Carolina on Saturday, Rubio (and the rest of the field besides Trump) claimed no delegates; all 50 went to Trump. According to TheGreenPapers.com, Nevada awards 30 Republican delegates: 10 to the statewide winner, four to the winner of each Congressional district, five “bonus” delegates and three party delegates. If Trump wins by a large margin, he may well sweep Nevada’s delegates as well, a fact which will render the remaining order of finish essentially irrelevant.
Barring one of the most stunning collapses in the history of U.S. politics, Hillary Clinton is a shoo-in to win the Democratic primary in South Carolina on Saturday. Her polling leads in the Palmetto State have consistently been massive, and Bernie Sanders has not come within 20 points in a week’s time. For Sanders, anything less than a 20-point loss would be a positive result.
Nevada: Some Good News For Both Hillary and Bernie
Analysis: South Carolina GOP Primary, Nevada Democratic Caucus
Polling of tomorrow’s South Carolina GOP primary gives Donald Trump a clear lead, so it looks very likely that he will win the Palmetto State. The key question is margin: does he win big, or does he underperform (or even overperform)?
The more interesting race on the Republican side is for second place. The last couple of polls show Marco Rubio overtaking Ted Cruz for second place. This is probably going to be close, but with the recent endorsement of Rubio by Gov. Nikki Haley, I think he does slip past Cruz to take second. Rubio likely will be assisted by the continuing fade of Jeb Bush and the fact that John Kasich appears unable to build on his second-place finish in New Hampshire.
If the South Carolina Republican primary plays out as expected, then it will put Rubio back in front of the establishment pack and probably mark the moment when the Bush and Kasich campaigns begin seriously reassessing the point of staying in the race. Both are polling in the low-double digits to high-single digits, and their prospects continued viability will not look hopeful if, as expected, they end up in a battle for fourth place, far behind the top three finishers. Whoever finishes the lowest between these two may hang around long enough to roll the dice at next Tuesday’s Republican caucuses in Nevada, but the loser (especially if it’s Kasich, who doesn’t have Bush’s financial wherewithal) is probably out shortly thereafter. Whoever performs better in this two-man race likely hangs in, just in case Rubio falters again, but the fifth-place finisher is all but certainly going to be out of the race in a matter of days.
Ben Carson, of course, has no chance to be the nominee; at this point and going forward, he can only hurt other candidates. If he places ahead of Bush and/or Kasich tomorrow, it might well do enough damage to whomever he defeats as to end either or both campaigns right away. More importantly, he now remains the only impediment to Cruz in the evangelical lane. Carson has raised a shocking amount of money, so he may stay in regardless of his performance tomorrow, but if he does, it benefits Trump and Rubio.
My predictions, based on the recent polls and trends:
- Trump
- Rubio
- Cruz
- Bush
- Kasich
- Carson
In the Nevada Democratic caucuses, there has been very little reliable polling, and polling tends to be off for the Nevada caucuses at any rate. I expect Hillary Clinton to win a narrow victory over Bernie Sanders, but honestly, this is an educated guess. There just isn’t much data there. If Sanders has gained significant ground among Latinos, he could certainly prevail. There’s just no reliable way to tell yet.
President Obama Should Nominate Elizabeth Warren
We know, of course, that the Republican majority in the United States Senate is not going to approve any candidate President Obama nominates to the Supreme Court. With the death of Antonin Scalia, the conservatives have lost their 5-4 majority on the court and whoever is chosen to replace him will tip the balance. The Republicans would far rather take their chances on the coming election and wait it out in the hopes that they’ll be able to appoint another conservative in January 2017.
Of course, Twitter is abuzz today with all of the potential “blue state” Republicans and halfway reasonable GOP Senators who might be persuaded to join Democrats in approving a nominee, but this is a fantasy. These theories all leave out the facts that there will never be enough aisle-crossers to break a filibuster (which would require any nominee to get 14 Republican votes, not four), or that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) does not even have to call a vote.
So clearly this isn’t going to happen. The next president and the next Senate will select Scalia’s replacement, period.
With this understanding, President Obama and the Democrats should be thinking about how to gain the maximum political benefit from Republican intransigence. And the way to do that is to nominate Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) to fill the vacancy.
There is no question of Warren’s qualifications. The former Harvard Law professor has impeccable credentials, so Republicans could not claim she is unqualified. It would therefore become clear, if it wasn’t already, that they were blocking her for strictly political reasons, and this would diminish their standing with the few true swing voters.
But there are greater political benefits to be had. First, a Warren nomination would provide a jolt of energy to progressives who adore her, which could be crucial in terms of base turnout in the upcoming election. Secondly, nominating a fourth woman to the court would reiterate that Democrats are the party of equality.
Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders could take this ball and run with it, hammering the Republicans for blocking an eminently qualified (progressive, female) nominee. Meanwhile, the president can also exploit this situation to hammer the Republicans every day.
There is no need to worry about who would replace Warren in the Senate because, as noted above, there is no chance in hell the Republicans will approve her (or anybody) between now and the next presidential inauguration. So if the Republicans want to play hardball, the Democrats have a great way to win the war by losing the battle.
Supreme Court Becomes Top Issue In Election
The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has added a major new dimension to the 2016 elections, as what was previously theoretical is now an undisputed fact: the next president of the United States, and the Senate sworn in the first week of January 2017, will determine whether the Supreme Court will have a liberal or conservative majority. Scalia’s death leaves the court with four liberals and four conservatives, so the next justice will become the swing vote.
Of course, it must be immediately understood that the current Republican-controlled Senate will not approve any appointee that President Barack Obama nominates. With Republicans holding a 54-46 majority, the president would have to get four Republican Senators to support his nominee, with Vice President Joe Biden breaking the tie. While there may be a slight possibility of getting four Republicans, there is no chance whatsoever that the president would get the 14 Republican Senators he would need to break a filibuster. It probably won’t even come to that. It is doubtful that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) would even allow a nomination to come to the floor.
It is not difficult to predict how this issue will play out over the course of the election. Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Florida) will angle for votes by promising to filibuster any candidate the president nominates for the remainder of his term. They will also use this opening to undermine Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump by telling conservatives that they can’t trust Trump to appoint a “true conservative” to fill Scalia’s vacated seat. All the other Republican candidates will also promise to appoint a “strict, constitutional conservative,” but Cruz and Rubio, the only Senators in the field, will have the advantage here, and they’ll milk it for all it’s worth.
The Democratic presidential contenders will both stress to their bases the opportunity inherent in this situation to change the composition of the court away from its longtime conservative majority. Hillary Clinton will hammer home to the Democratic base the idea that she is more electable than Bernie Sanders and that it is crucial to nominate the candidate with the best chance to win the election, in order to ensure a liberal majority on the court. Sanders will cast this as an opportunity to bring about revolutionary change and may well float the idea of appointing Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) to the court.
President Obama will likely hammer the Republican Senate at every opportunity between now and the election for refusing to act on his nominee or nominees and leaving a Supreme Court seat vacant for a year or more for political reasons. All candidates of both parties will stress the need for their party to control the Senate in 2017. With Senate control up for grabs this year, this will be a key point of emphasis.
This election just got ratcheted up to Defcon 1.