The Cook Political Report has a new electoral vote scorecard out[1]. According to the scorecard, Maine-02 (1), Michigan (16), and Minnesota (10) are now likely D, Colorado (9); Florida (29), Nevada (6), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), and Wisconsin (10) are lean D; Iowa (6), Nebraska-02 (1), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), and Ohio (18) are tossups; Arizona (11) and Georgia (16) are lean R; and Indiana (11) and Missouri (10) are likely R. The other states are either solid R or solid L, and you won't have any trouble guessing which are which.
That looks like a pretty bleak picture for the Rs since the Ds would get 304 electoral votes (and, therefore, the presidency) without winning a single tossup state, provided they got all of the solid Ds, likely Ds, and lean Ds. The expected (i.e., mean) number of electoral votes for the D is 316.7. In fact, that's pretty close to the 326 they received in 2012. The conventional wisdom[2][3][4] is that Rs can't win without both Ohio and Florida, and, according to the CPR, their odds of doing so are a mere 0.075 (=1-[0.5*0.15])). Well, that's conventional wisdom for you.
Anyway, I ran a Monte Carlo simulation the last time the scorecard came out, so - what the hell? - I thought I'd do it again. But to keep matters a little more manageable, I'm excluding the solid D and solid R states. 1,000 rounds produced 26 R victories. Do I really think that the Rs have a 0.026 probability of winning the presidency? No, I do not. But I don't think that they have a 0.34 probability of winning either, though I did before I did this little bit of number crunching. If you put more stock in the CPR and in the value of Monte Carlo sims, then you should probably make a bet as soon as you can. Predict Wise currently has the Ds up 72/28, and Betfair (which seems to think MySpace a la 2003 was the proper template for its own website) thinks that the D's a 3-to-1 favorite[6].
Great input. OTOH I'm fairly certain all the polls and pundits last June (?) dismissed DT as not a serious candidate. Not far from your forecast, but I expect to be wrong and will adjust based on the entrails.
Thanks, dowser. Great point, though there's only 6 months between now and the general election. Many had stopped dismissing Mr. Trump as a serious candidate 6 months before the primary, even if they didn't think he was a shoo-in.
More importantly perhaps, Mr. Trump has led the national polls among Republican candidates since July 6 of last year[1]. So discounting his chances ran contrary to the data. In contrast, HRC has consistently polled ahead of Mr. Trump for even longer than that[2]. (Bernie has too, at least since August[3].) And HRC has been running ahead of Mr. Trump in crucial states such as Florida[4] and Ohio[5] since early September, with a her leading growing at precisely the same time that Mr. Trump's nomination was becoming increasingly likely. So, yeah, don't underestimate the Rs' chances. I'm with you 100% on that. But I think much of the skepticism about Mr. Trump's chances in the general election are based on at least mildly predictive polling numbers, rather than *against* those numbers as in the primary.
The Cook Political Report has a new electoral vote scorecard out[1]. According to the scorecard, Maine-02 (1), Michigan (16), and Minnesota (10) are now likely D, Colorado (9); Florida (29), Nevada (6), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), and Wisconsin (10) are lean D; Iowa (6), Nebraska-02 (1), New Hampshire (4), North Carolina (15), and Ohio (18) are tossups; Arizona (11) and Georgia (16) are lean R; and Indiana (11) and Missouri (10) are likely R. The other states are either solid R or solid L, and you won't have any trouble guessing which are which.
That looks like a pretty bleak picture for the Rs since the Ds would get 304 electoral votes (and, therefore, the presidency) without winning a single tossup state, provided they got all of the solid Ds, likely Ds, and lean Ds. The expected (i.e., mean) number of electoral votes for the D is 316.7. In fact, that's pretty close to the 326 they received in 2012. The conventional wisdom[2][3][4] is that Rs can't win without both Ohio and Florida, and, according to the CPR, their odds of doing so are a mere 0.075 (=1-[0.5*0.15])). Well, that's conventional wisdom for you.
Anyway, I ran a Monte Carlo simulation the last time the scorecard came out, so - what the hell? - I thought I'd do it again. But to keep matters a little more manageable, I'm excluding the solid D and solid R states. 1,000 rounds produced 26 R victories. Do I really think that the Rs have a 0.026 probability of winning the presidency? No, I do not. But I don't think that they have a 0.34 probability of winning either, though I did before I did this little bit of number crunching. If you put more stock in the CPR and in the value of Monte Carlo sims, then you should probably make a bet as soon as you can. Predict Wise currently has the Ds up 72/28, and Betfair (which seems to think MySpace a la 2003 was the proper template for its own website) thinks that the D's a 3-to-1 favorite[6].
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[1] http://cookpolitical.com/presidential/charts/scorecard
[2] https://newrepublic.com/article/133322/dont-overthink-it-donald-trump-will-probably-lose
[3] http://wvxu.org/post/gop-needs-ohio-2016-does-it-need-kasich
[4] http://www.politico.com/story/2016/04/hillary-clinton-donald-trump-november-insiders-222598
[5] http://predictwise.com/politics/2016-president-winner
[6] https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/#/politics/market/1.107373419
Great input. OTOH I'm fairly certain all the polls and pundits last June (?) dismissed DT as not a serious candidate. Not far from your forecast, but I expect to be wrong and will adjust based on the entrails.
Thanks, dowser. Great point, though there's only 6 months between now and the general election. Many had stopped dismissing Mr. Trump as a serious candidate 6 months before the primary, even if they didn't think he was a shoo-in.
More importantly perhaps, Mr. Trump has led the national polls among Republican candidates since July 6 of last year[1]. So discounting his chances ran contrary to the data. In contrast, HRC has consistently polled ahead of Mr. Trump for even longer than that[2]. (Bernie has too, at least since August[3].) And HRC has been running ahead of Mr. Trump in crucial states such as Florida[4] and Ohio[5] since early September, with a her leading growing at precisely the same time that Mr. Trump's nomination was becoming increasingly likely. So, yeah, don't underestimate the Rs' chances. I'm with you 100% on that. But I think much of the skepticism about Mr. Trump's chances in the general election are based on at least mildly predictive polling numbers, rather than *against* those numbers as in the primary.
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[1] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-national-gop-primary
[2] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-clinton
[3] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-general-election-trump-vs-sanders
[4] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-florida-presidential-general-election-trump-vs-clinton
[5] http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/2016-ohio-president-trump-vs-clinton