He's kinda down ~15% or so now in PA to Hillary. Granted, the predictive power of polls is now is sorta s**t, but even assuming a world he wins MI, OH, PA, WI, IN (a kinda crazy-town world), Hillary would just need to win VA, NC, and FL thanks to larger minority electorates--I mean, Trump is up only 1% in Georgia of all places. There's a lot of ground to cover, but he has a lot to be making up for even in your default assumption of him flipping almost the entire Midwest.
The poll projections from 2015 just called: they want you to keep citing this figure for the next 6 months.
lol what a hypocritical comment. So basically, if it's your candidate, it's called "evolving on a subject", but for anybody else, it's flip-flopping. hypocrtical
the polls that predicted Trump would win? I'm well aware of the pitfalls of polls this early but they do highlight the reality of a changing electorate (changing to be more majority-minority with every year. ) and a changing America. Trump could change the map on a few states and it wouldn't matter. I'd say Hillary is about the 65% favorite at this time, and that's almost based purely on electoral vote dynamics. But here, let me not even think of empirical evidence. let's just paint a picture unmoored in anything. I think Hillary will win every state, every Senate race will go Democrat, McCrory will lose NC, and somehow all the swing races on the governor side will go Dem, the HoR will somehow have ALL of the tossup, lean R and safe R seats go D and state governorships will suddenly find a lot of Republican incumbents defending ground--leading to a Dem super-super majority when Justice Kennedy, and Justice Thomas depart the Supreme Court. D Senate, D HoR, D presidency, 7 liberal justices. why not yo!
So do we believe that Trump really believes his mercantilist talking points? I have no idea what he really thinks, no matter what he's saying. Kinda makes him interesting so long as I don't allow myself to think about how close he actually is to the presidency. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/03/walter-e-williams/trade-deficit-doesnt-matter/
Ok, let me start by saying Trump is an economic idiot and that is a given, but there are several problems with this analysis. -> Yes, the balance of payments is...a balance of payments, that's a mathematical property, but simple-minded causal connections and leaps are the cornerstone of freshwater economics, and nobody seems to question them. ex: "the Fed will cause an inflation through more monetary stimulus while correspondingly raising interest rates" ??? Anyways, what Rockwell says actually underscores the difficulties of maintaining a persistent current account deficit, which the United States has been doing since the 80s: He asks if "China is satisfied"--underscoring the point that the capital inflows that underpin the ability for America to run current account deficits relies on steady capital inflows. The larger the inflows, the larger the shock to an economy if those inflows cease. This is largely what happened during the Asian financial crisis of the late 90s. Central problem with the American capital account--it relies largely on China and Japan stocking their reserves in deference to an American-run financial system. Any simpleton that says things like "we won't pay the debt" can unravel that in a matter of seconds with a massive sale-off from either (something Russia tried to get China to do in 2007). http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26609548 A persistent current account deficit is not only a risk factor that increases the possibility of massive financial crises, it is also a national security risk. It also indicates poor savings rates which can lead to bad intertemporal smoothing of consumption (though it's interesting how that manifests for American households and public savings, but not for American corporations), and it also indicates a lack of competitiveness for exports, which structurally realigns the economy (which we've seen with American manufacturing). All this to say: No, a current account deficit is not bad in of itself, just like a deficit and financial debt are not bad in of themselves. But a sustained current account deficit with certain characteristics (like the one America has been having since the 80s) could be. You can't get away from that analysis with a lazy "free market is good, the 30s showed current account surpluses weren't all that great either". Trump has terrible economic thinking. It doesn't mean anybody should stoop to bad economic analysis to try to unseat him, or the factless void he peddles.
Trump is a liar. I've seen multiple interviews where he's asked a question about a comment he made a couple of weeks before (not several years ago, (?)texxx ) compared to a contradictory comment he made the day before, and he simply doesn't respond to the question. He talks over the interviewer, babbling inane nonsense, usually connected to his wealth, and eventually the interviewer gives up (want a great example? look at Wolf Blitzer's interview recently with Trump). He's a joke. That anyone would even consider voting for this person should be grounds for an examination of his or her mental health. Seriously.
So you're saying that politicians don't answer the question they're asked? You must be new to politics.
I think what many liberals fail to see is why he is popular. It's not that he knows anything - he doesn't. It's that people just like him because they share his disdain for politics. So like bigtexxx his supporters will rationalize anything he does. He could take a crap on an old lady and his supporters would think that she deserved it. He could make a porno and Evangelicals would still vote for him. heck he could say he was transgender and they would still vote for him. It has nothing to do with what he says or what kind of president he would be or how he would represent the country.
There is certainly something to your analysis and it is a testament to how far that Trump has gotten on basically personality. That said I think you're only looking at one part of the electorate while ignoring how different the general electorate is from the GOP primaries. For as many voters that Trump has brought in he's probably alienated just as many. My own analysis I just don't see how Trump can win enough states to carry the general. At the moment Trump's key support appears to be angry white male voters. It's possible that could help him capture some of the Rust Belt states that traditional Republicans have failed to do so but he's alienated Latinos which could cost him states like FL, NM, and AZ. His other comments regarding women will hurt him in swing states like VA and CO. Looking at the electoral map I think he wins most of the traditional GOP states and maybe flips MI or OH. Other than that I don't see him turning any of the states that have been solidly Dem in recent elections and possibly losing a AZ.
I wouldn't be shocked if he selected a sandwich to be his running mate. Or himself. "I'm so great, I'll be running for POTUS and VP!"
I think you have misread Evangelicals, and I don't think they have been voting for Trump to this point. They may switch to Trump now that he is the only option to vote against Hillary but I think they have been voting against Trump to this point. The Christians that I know don't like Trump at all and are very torn with the idea of voting for him.
Like I said, Trump is an economic idiot. I am not going to even pretend to know what he believes since it changes any given day, but given his stated policies it I is clear he has no idea what he is talking about it. I wouldn't qualify him as a mercantilist so much as an idiot with only one theme. However, he has a point about current account deficits even if he doesn't realize it--and lazy analyses do not change that. You can qualify me as a mercantilist for saying the obvious, America's current account deficit and not the pie in the sky "free trade is always good" version is a problem. If you wanted to attack Trump's beliefs, I'd start with his bad solutions (huge tariffs) rather than saying current account surpluses are not so cool.
This is all obviously purely guessing on my part but... I don't think it does. He believes something, I think. He just says different things, contradictory things all the time for political reasons. But what is it that he really believes? I'd be interested to find out.
He believes in himself. The dude uses Chinese labour to build his Make America Great hats, to the extent that he believes in anything I think it is self-interest. Anyways, I do largely agree with you that the fact America has a what I estimate to be a ~35% chance of finding out is no bueno.
No doubt. I wonder who he'll pick for VP. I'm assuming it will be a woman since he does so poorly with women, but I don't think Palin wants it and Fiorina obviously can't do it. A "Mary Fallin" has been suggested. I guess why not. http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/24/politics/mary-fallin-donald-trump-vice-president/
