There is a broad, underwater swell of support for the Donald, but people are just not admitting their sentiments even to close friends and associates. The so-called “unfavorables” associated with The Donald may in fact be significant factors in the unspoken calculus of many people, and not universally regarded as “unfavorable” at all.
Despite the constant drumbeat from the playbook the Democrats have used successfully for years against Republicans, The Donald is not “stupid”, not a racist, not a homophobe, not a “sexist”, and not “out of touch” with the common people, whatever that means. And experience? Herself has had perhaps one year’s experience, repeated some thirty times or so, and learning nothing in all that accumulated time. Oh, and Herself racked up a lot of miles during tenure as Secretary of State, but did Herself ever DO anything on all those long trips, except go on drinking binges?
Let’s run some numbers. Republicans had more than 30 million primary voters-—I don’t know the total number, but I think it was between 31m and 33m.
Ds had 27m. So that’s a primary edge of 3 million.
Assume that Trump gets 85% of the 31m=26.3m voters right there. (It should be a lot higher because these are GOP primary voters, but let’s allow for “Never Trumpers”.)
Assume that each of those brings just ONE other voter to the polls (spouse, child, friend): 52.6m
Assume Cankles gets 90% of the Dem primary vote: 24.3m and that they each bring one (48.6m).
That gives us a total of 101.2m voters. Based on 2012 turnout of 126m voters (bad assumption, since I think turnout will be much higher, somewhere between 2012 and 2008 of 131m) that leaves roughly 24.8m “independents” who didn’t vote in either primary or who aren’t affiliated with those who did.
Assume of those 24.8m, Trump only gets 55%, or 13.6m, RIGHT THERE he beats Minion at 62.2m. Give Cankles 11.6m “independents” (45% x 24.8) for a total of 59.6m. She still doesn’t even reach Minion’s 2012 level.
If Trump so much as increases EITHER his turnout among GOP above 85% or his indie share to above 55%, you can see how the numbers increase exponentially to that 66m I’ve been predicting for a while, or even, yes, the 73m that Sundance has been predicting.
HOWEVER, if turnout is closer to 2010 or 2014 percentages and closer in total numbers to 2008, my guess is Trump is easily over 70m.