TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY

11/4/16

Loyal readers will notice that I’ve written nothing for this blog for a long time.  Not only has time been tight, but one begins to wonder what the point of all my blogging was.   So I have pursued other more fruitful pursuits.  However, with the election coming, I feel compelled to break my silence and predict that Donald Trump will win Tuesday…and it won’t even be close, at least in the electoral college.

Loyal readers will remember that I have been all over the Trump situation since the beginning.   In the interest of brevity and efficiency, I will cite only two posts.   One

NOBODY SAW THIS TRUMP THING COMING, RIGHT?   WELL…SOMEBODY DID… (5/4/16)

 Summarizes the others and refers the reader to them.   The other

TRUMP, THE “REVERSE BRADLEY EFFECT,” AND THE MAN’S UPCOMINGLOSS IN IOWA (12/23/15)

is key to my prediction of a Trump victory.   Notice the date on that piece; yours truly may have been the originator of the “reverse Bradley effect,” which is now common wisdom.  But I digress.

Admittedly, I think I must be doing something wrong here because the insightful experts who populate cable television and the networks are either predicting a Hillary victory, though not so much in the last week or so, or saying that the race will be incredibly tight.

So how do I get to a Trump victory?   First, I use the RealClear Politics polling data.   Second, and here is where those who think I have lost it will argue with me, I give Mr. Trump every state in which he is within five percentage points of Mrs. Clinton.   This is not an outlandish assumption because of the aforementioned, and often wrongly dismissed, reverse Bradley effect.   Simply put, a lot of people who are voting for Mr. Trump are not admitting it.   I heard an “expert” a few weeks ago on the local CBS radio affiliate saying that people who are telling their friends that they will vote for Mr. Trump will not tell a pollster they are voting for him.   She was right but did not go far enough; there are plenty of people who are voting for Mr. Trump who will not even tell their friends they are voting that way.   How do I know this?  I, of course, don’t know this, which is what distinguishes me from your typical talking head on television who knows everything.   However, I strongly suspect I am right in this regard for at least two reasons.   First, I am reluctant to admit to people that I am voting for Mr. Trump and I’m not reluctant to admit much of anything.  Second, I know plenty of people in the same situation and my experience and circle of friends is far less limited than those of most election observers.

If you combine the margin of error in most polling being 2-3% and the reverse Bradley effect outlined above, it is perfectly reasonable to give Mr. Trump every state in which he is either ahead or less than five points behind.   Thus, Mr. Trump carries, besides the more obvious GOP states, the following:

Florida

Georgia

Michigan

New Hampshire

North Carolina

Ohio

Pennsylvania

Of the other close states, Mrs. Clinton carries Virginia and Wisconsin.   My gut, by the way, tells me Mr. Trump carries Wisconsin, but I’ll stick with the methodology above and give it to Mrs. Clinton.  I also think there is a possibility of at least one big state that has been Democratic forever going Mr. Trump’s way, or at least coming far closer than anybody thinks, but, like a pre-redemption Rick Blaine, I won’t stick my neck out on that one.

I certainly could be wrong here.    I heard another “expert” on Bloomberg radio the other morning saying essentially the opposite of what I am saying; she argued that Mr. Trump must be ahead in a given state by more than 5% in order to really be ahead because Mrs. Clinton’s “ground game” is so much better.  As one who grew up in Chicago and knows the former, but long waning, importance of the “ground game,” I think that contention is ludicrous.   But, again, I’m no expert; I’m just a guy who pays attention and has a good sense of people, two of the advantages of getting older.

Further, yours truly made a couple of predictions during this campaign that have turned out to look silly.  Remember my prediction that Carly Fiorina would definitely be on the GOP ticket?   I can’t even find the post in which I made that prediction, but I know I made it because I bet a beef sandwich on it and had to buy.  I also predicted that Mrs. Clinton would pick Elizabeth Warren as her running mate:

HILLARY WON’T PUT BERNIE SANDERS ON THE TICKET; INSTEAD,SHE’LL SELECT… (5/21/16)

So I’ve been far, far from infallible in my predictions during this immensely entertaining campaign.   And I could be wrong in my prediction of a big Trump electoral victory.   But I don’t think so.