Posted on 11/10/2016 12:43:58 PM PST by Peter ODonnell
REPORT on the McMULLIN CAMPAIGN __________________________________
According to state by state vote totals as reported on Wikipedia today, Evan McMullin received a total of 449,190 votes in 14 states. Of those, about 40% were cast in Utah (163,573) where he finished considerably behind Clinton in third place with 20.4% of the vote. Clinton had 28% and Trump 46%.
The only state where McMullin received more than 2% of the vote (other than Utah) was nearby Idaho where he had almost 47 thousand votes and 6.7% of the votes cast. Trump however had over 59% so this was a non-factor.
In Virginia, McMullin's 1.4% would not have moved Trump past Clinton (he eventually lost 49.5 to 44.7 per cent).
However, in Minnesota, McMullin's 1.8%, had they all gone to Trump (perhaps a dubious proposition) would have lifted him past Clinton -- he lost MN by 1.5% but McMullin had 1.8%, about 30k votes more than Trump needed to catch Clinton.
Colorado would also have been closer by half, had the McMullin 1% gone to Trump who lost by about 2%.
My conclusion is that Trump dodged a bullet by the relatively tepid McMullin campaign and its endorsements, had McMullin polled 5% across the country the results could very easily have been different. He was not on the ballot in either MI, FL, OH or PA.
Now, moving on to Gary (where is Aleppo? who took my stash?) Johnson, who polled 3.2% nationally and between 1.9% (NJ, LA) and 9.3% (NM) in the fifty states (only 1.6% in DC) ... his other high finishes (no pun intended) were ND (6.2%), AK (5.9%), OK (5.7%), MT and SD (both 5.6%), ME and WY (both 5.1%), CO and IN (both 4.9%).
Both parties are going to be looking at the regional breakdown of this Libertarian vote and asking themselves, what part of that vote could we attract with key policy changes that we can justify to both our base of support and to ourselves? Clearly the legalization of marijuana is probably one such issue. In WA state where this has already been accomplished, the libertarian vote was 4.2% so this might suggest that legalization of pot is perhaps not the only issue that motivates Johnson's support base (although that's hard to say, it might for one thing explain it, or it might be a case of yeah man let's spread this around, or it may be brand loyalty).
There might be an avenue for the Republicans to claim some of this wasted vote if the primary reason for casting the ballot is a concern for privacy or small government. This of course does not blend with the current philosophy of Donald Trump necessarily, but it might look better in 2020 or 2024. The Democrats might find a national legalization of pot a better fit, as for example Canada's ruling Liberal Party says it might be doing soon (you may be surprised to know that marijuana is not legal apart from medicinal uses even in pot-crazy British Columbia).
Where would the libertarian vote go if less effective candidates (I know, hard to imagine but Johnson must have done something right, the Libertarians have seldom been anywhere near this vote total) represent them in the future? My guess is, equally split three ways (including Green) and otherwise just not motivated to leave the cabin.
For the sake of argument, what states did Clinton lose that she would have won with three quarters of the Libertarian vote, assuming one quarter to Trump ... this reduces to the question, where is half of the Libertarian vote the margin between Clinton and Trump?
Michigan would go to Clinton (on current totals) with just a 54-46 edge in reassigned Lib votes, Wisconsin with a 63-37 edge, and
There were several close calls. The most evident would be PA (where she only needed a 76-24 split of Libs there to overtake Trump) and similar for FL (a 79-21 split was required). Then we have AZ (she needed 112% of the 3.8% Lib segment) and similarly NC (she needed about 139% of the 2.7% Lib portion).
The overall effect of the Libertarian vote is probably negligible but had Clinton won both MI and WI the election would be much closer in the electoral college. On the other hand, Donald Trump would have won NH with just a 54-46 split of the 4.2% Libertarian vote there.
Finally, on to the Green Party and Jill Stein. She always polled at about 1 per cent and turned out that sort of result. Her lowest state percentage was below 0.1 in both Indiana and North Carolina. I didn't follow her campaign much and so I have to wonder if there were ballot access issues for the Green Party in those states. Generally speaking, lower results were about 0.5% and the three highest states were (in order) 2.9% in Hawaii, 2.4% in Oregon and 2.3% in Vermont. Kansas, Alaska, California, Maine and Montana rounded up to 2%.
The Stein vote would no doubt split about 90-10 for Clinton over Trump. On that assumption, the only state where that split would have pushed Clinton over the top was MI where a 63-37 transfer of Green votes would have been sufficient. Wisconsin needed almost a full transfer of the 30.9k Green votes as Clinton fell short by 27.5k. In PA, Greens may have thought about the consequences, their turnout was relatively small (0.8%) and if that were added to Clinton's total, it would have left her about 0.4% short. The Green vote in nearby NJ and NY was considerably higher, presumably these Greens felt more comfortable expressing their preference. But Ohio had a similar 0.8% Green segment, the same concern may have affected that vote (although not in a consequential way).
Comments or thoughts?
Well, at least the NeverTrump jerks can console themselves that they gave the DNC the “Hillary won the popular vote” talking point.
In the interests of complete reporting, Stein votes are reported as zero for NV, OK and SD, probably not on the ballot there.
Trump could have overtaken Clinton in NV and NM with most of the Libertarian vote. He needed about an 85-15 split of the Lib vote in NV, and almost all the Lib votes in NM.
Still amazing that Trump came that close to winning MN. The last time a Republican won MN was in 1972.
No one I know in MN even knew who McMuffin was.
All the protest votes I know about went to Johnson in both MN and NH
He did come closer, but, he won MI, PA and WI, so, I’m happy about that. He didn’t need MN. He’s their president now as well.
The election proved that there is basically a 50-50 split right vs left in America. Without the charisma of Obama as a factor, this makes the right electable given the right breakdown of votes in key states.
9 per cent of Democrats and 7 per cent of Republicans crossed over in this election (according to the report).
The wikipedia report states that married women split the same way the nation did, 49-48 for Clinton over Trump. Married women evidently did not particularly value the concept of a female president any more than unmarried men who split 46-46. Married men favored Trump 58-37, cancelling out the Clinton fervor of unmarried women (62-33). Gender thus did not really decide this election.
People who say they are evangelicals or born again went more than 80% for Trump.
Mormons went 60% for Trump, so on the whole there was no huge Mormon factor despite Romney and McMullin’s interventions. They tried to deny Trump victory and failed, many of their co-religionists ignored their appeal.
Despite being non-offensive on their issues, gays and bisexuals went mostly with Clinton rather than Trump. I suppose the deciding factor there was the vice presidential stance. But if that were the case, I think Pence’s many evident positives (for me, the cold-to-gay stance is one also) more than helped Trump, I would say Pence turned the ship around and gave a few wavering voters confidence that if either Trump or Clinton faced health problems down the road, the VP choice was easier to make.
Minnesota, the home of my youth, has always been deeply Democrat. The Democrat Farm Labor (DFL) party are lib on steroids. More liberal than even California. It is truly amazing that Res. Elect Trump did as well has he did. (I still have family there but I left MN as soon as I was old enough to join the Navy. Both events we’re the best things I ever did.)
McMuffin was only known in Romney’s wet dreams.
Oops, that’s “President Elect Trump.” I’ve been using “Resident” as the prefix for Obama for so long it’s buried in my autocorrect! Lol
I would have no idea how many Mormons there are in Minnesota, that data may be available online but I know there are some.
Now Trump is ahead in popular vote.
After adding AZ and MI.
Really? Great if it holds!
Link to it if you don’t mind so I can follow it as it develops.
Link? Preferably from “lib-approved” MSM source? I have a few FB friends I’d like to rub that into the faces of.
MN now has 100,000+ Somali immigrants. Nobody knows the exact number, and those who do know aren’t talking. It is said to be the largest group of Somalis in the world outside of Somalia itself.
The DFL has been going around Cedar/Riverside (they call it Little Mogadishu) to get them registered while handing out absentee ballots like candy. The MN Secy of State is a hard core lib and has looked the other way. This is in addition to their usual tactics of going to nursing homes and homeless shelters, etc.
My source for all these statistics is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_2016
and it indicates a slight lead for Clinton (of about 0.2%) in the popular vote. This is mostly due to her huge lead in California where Trump never bothered to campaign, assuming it was a blue lock. Anyway, the game was to win the electoral college and he did that quite comfortably. Even if Clinton wins by ten million in NY and CA, it means nothing more than if she wins by two votes. At least in constitutional and historical terms, in the ability to govern effectively it has consequences but these are not as large as the snowflakes in the streets seem to think.
They need to get in a time machine and lobby the founding fathers. I suspect if the founding fathers had that pleasure and saw the nature of their progeny, they might add other wording to the constitution. Perhaps a voting age limit of 30 would come to mind.
In 1984, Reagan lost Minnesota by less than 4,000 votes (0.2%). He actually came that close to a fifty state landslide.
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