When I was growing up in the 1950’s and even early 60’s, there was a detective show on called, “Dragnet” featuring an actor named Jack Webb as the detective named Joe Friday. The hallmark, iconic line that he would always state when trying to get information from a witness on a crime was, “Just the facts, M’am, Just the facts!” I was struck by that line in looking at the general election that is shaping up in front of us between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Clinton of course is the Democratic candidate, and Trump is the Republican nominee. I was then reading two articles from “The Hill” and “The Washington Post” over the weekend which laid out “Just the Facts” regarding who and how either of those two candidates can get to the number of 270 electoral votes which would give them the presidency. Those facts are startling. For example, did you know that:
Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election between 1992 and 2012. Add them up, and you get 242 electoral votes.
13 states have voted for the Republican presidential nominee in each of the past six elections. Total them up and you get 102 electoral votes.
The generic Democratic nominee starts with an electoral vote lead of 140, and the Democratic nominee needs to find only 28 votes beyond that reliable base to win the presidency.
Barack Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012. The Republican presidential nominee hasn’t crested 300 electoral votes since the 1988 election, when George H.W. Bush won 426. (George W. Bush won the White House with 271 electoral votes in 2000 and claimed a second term with 286.)
No Republican has won Michigan since 1988, and 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney lost the state and Oakland County, a GOP-friendly area where he grew up.
In Pennsylvania, Trump’s challenge will be a deep registration gap of about 1 million voters between Democrats and Republicans.
Making up that difference by winning independents will be tough for Trump, since only 13 percent of Pennsylvania’s registered voters, or about 1.1 million, are independents.
The Clintons have never lost in Pennsylvania.
Barack Obama won 365 electoral votes in 2008 and 332 in 2012. The Republican presidential nominee hasn’t crested 300 electoral votes since the 1988 election, when George H.W. Bush won 426. (George W. Bush won the White House with 271 electoral votes in 2000 and claimed a second term with 286.)
As the country, and the voting public, has become less white and as Republicans have proved incapable of winning over nonwhite voters, a number of states have moved toward Democrats over the past decade. (From article by Chris Cilizza in Washington Post.
So there you have it going in. None of these numbers have anything to do with Donald Trump, and everything to do with history of voting, the two parties and where they are in this country as far as their appeal, and obviously their connection to a changing demographic. These are “Just the Facts.”
So , then, if those are the facts, why even have an election we are told that Trump and the Republicans can’t possibly win? All one can do right now is ask the questions to which facts will be supplied later. They are:
- Can Donald Trump overcome the highest negatives of the two candidates with American women, American-Hispanics, and American-Africans? He says, he’ll do great with them, but how?
- How many disenchanted Democrats who find Hillary an unattractive, untrustworthy, status quo, candidate wjo represents the ruling class in Washington, will cross over and vote for Trump?
- How popular are President Obama’s policies, and the welfare state with the aforementioned groups as well as all other Americans. Are they satisfied that this is the best they can expect, or do they see the possibility of more with Trump? Will they stick with the normal , stereotypical look at the Republican Party candidate so effectively laid out by Democrats and Republicans themselves?
- Can Trump win more than just the White American Male vote in this country?
- Can Trump win the Midwestern Rust belt and get disaffected Union workers to vote for him?
- How will Trump be regarded when he debates Hillary? Will he be a bully? Will he be able to be more authentic? Can he be more specific in a way that touches real people? Can he be more than the “carnival barker” that the Democrats are using as the term to portray him?
- Can Trump get out of his own way when it comes to dealing with petty items like the JFK assassination and Rosie O’Donnell?
- Can Trump win in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida? He is going to focus a great deal of his campaign on PA, and Michigan.
- Will Bernie Sanders voters roll out for Hillary, and will offended Republicans beyond the Bushes, Mitt Romney, Lindsay Graham, and other establishment types flock to Trump?
- The final question is the most important one. Is America so dissatisfied with the system that they want to take a chance on an unknown quantity of Trump vs. the known quantity of Hillary Clinton
Those are the facts, and those are the questions? In a wild year of unpredictability, we will know the answers come November…Gary Sutton.
