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Predicting the next president
World Magazine ^ | December 21, 2015 | Professor D.C. Innes

Posted on 12/21/2015 1:25:53 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

Donald Trump will be the next president of the United States. Of course, predictions are easy to make. If you end up right, you can boast. If you’re wrong, no one remembers, so it doesn’t matter. But, arguably, the numbers point to a Trump victory in 2016.

National polling of Republican voters gives Trump twice the support of his closest rival. For example, a Fox News poll has Trump at 39 percent with second-place Ted Cruz at 18 percent. We all thought Trump was a summer sensation, then a sideshow with a low ceiling, but now he’s pressing steadily upward.

The mood of the country puts Democrats at a disadvantage. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows 70 percent of respondents think the country is headed in the wrong direction. There is more to the general direction of things than government policy, but the figure indicates heavy dissatisfaction with the status quo. The RealClearPolitics average of polls shows President Obama with only a 43 percent approval rating and a 52 percent disapproval rating. Seventy-three percent of Americans, according to the NBC/WSJ poll, want an approach to governing other than Obama’s. This is bad news for Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee and the party’s quintessential establishment candidate with close ties to the Obama administration.

The Fox News poll also shows terrorism as the No. 1 concern of registered voters, jumping from 11 percent in August to 27 percent in December, displacing the economy and jobs from the top spot. The NBC/WSJ poll has everything fading in significance compared to national security and terrorism, up from 21 percent to 40 percent as a focus of voter concern following the Paris and San Bernardino terror attacks. This turns attention to where the Obama administration is seen as weak and where Clinton, Obama’s former secretary of state, is deeply vulnerable. She has no accomplishment of note and her reset button with Russia and the Benghazi debacle associate her with weakness and incompetence. So it is no surprise she has been distancing herself from Obama’s foreign policy.

People are scared, and radical Islamic terrorist activity here at home is unlikely to diminish as a public concern. While Trump’s proposed temporary ban on Muslim immigration is unpopular, Clinton’s reality-denying statements like, “Muslims … have nothing whatsoever to do with terrorism” will drive people to support Trump. Almost 50 percent of Republicans in the Fox News poll think Trump would be most effective against ISIS.

A USA Today/Suffolk University poll shows Clinton four points ahead of Trump in a hypothetical matchup, a statistical tie. But Trump has demonstrated an ability to move numbers in surprising ways. He has a knack for reading the public. He will appear authentic in contrast to Clinton’s political posing. But expect him to tone down his rhetoric as he moves toward the convention to capture the middle in November.

I don’t trust Donald Trump for reasons I have stated, but at times he moves me, and I can see people in the semi-aware political middle forgiving his past excesses if he changes his presentation in the summer of ’16. Otherwise, given present concerns, people will choose the brute over the scold.

But politics are full of surprises. The currently surging Ted Cruz would match The Donald in a two-man GOP race, and the FBI may yet put Clinton in handcuffs for mishandling top-secret information. Political prognosticating cannot be an exact science.


TOPICS: Campaign News; Issues; Polls
KEYWORDS: cruz; deportthemall; elections; hillary; immigration; infiltrators; moratorium; muslim; sendthemback; tedcruz; trump; trumpwasright
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To: nopardons

If dems are voting for Trump, what does that tell you? we have enough republicans catering to the dems for votes. Go CRUZ!


21 posted on 12/21/2015 5:50:02 PM PST by katiedidit1
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To: katiedidit1

Just keep telling yourself that, if it keeps you warm and happy; snowflake. LOL


22 posted on 12/21/2015 6:06:11 PM PST by nopardons
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To: kygolfman
Then you haven't seen all of the polls/are lying.

No matter.....when the majority of FR is celebrating PRESIDENT TRUMP, you can sit in a corner and cry in your beer.

23 posted on 12/21/2015 6:12:13 PM PST by nopardons
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To: wny
He also has donated BIG BUCKS to Reagan, McCain, Romney and many other GOPers, over the years.

There are MANY blacks whol voted for Obama, who are nolw Trump supporters. But then, you hate him, so you don't pay any attention to what's going on, what he says, what others say about him, which is NOT "all negative".

The media HATE, LOATHE, and ABOMINATE Trump! You're either living in some delusional bubble, or are just unaware of reality.

Do you really live in N.Y., or does your nic mean something else?

24 posted on 12/21/2015 6:18:12 PM PST by nopardons
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To: kygolfman
I don't do links, in all of my years here, I have NEVER done any links.

Go do your own scut work.

25 posted on 12/21/2015 6:19:11 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons
You're missing one of my points....the media only "liked" McCaian so long as they could use it to bash Bush, then they turned on him and hammered him. Same with Trump..sure they hate him, but so long as he serves their purpose, they won't go after him. Once he's up against their witch, the long knives come out. A day after he's nominated if he calls Mexicans rapists or says Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S., the race card gets whipped out and it'll be a feeding frenzy. They will stop at nothing to elect Hillary.

I am from ny. Grew up there, lived in NYC 27 years. Travelled a lot too....the boorish, loud-mouth, conceited, know it all New Yorker doesn't play well in a lot of places.

Maybe you guys are right, maybe I'm right. We'll see. I think Cruz wins Iowa.

26 posted on 12/21/2015 6:48:04 PM PST by wny
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To: nopardons

Then don’t give me a link.
Just give me a poll name.


27 posted on 12/21/2015 6:52:27 PM PST by kygolfman
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To: nopardons

Go to RealClearPolitics and pick any poll that shows Trump vs Hillary and find me a poll that supports your “opinions”...


28 posted on 12/21/2015 6:54:37 PM PST by kygolfman
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To: wny
How many times, in how many different ways, do I need to say it?

THE MSM HATES, LOATHES, and ABOMINATES DONALD J. TRUMP! They don't treat him the way they have treated McQueeg, until he was the nominee! They treat Trump even WORSE than the way they treated McLame prior to when he was the nominee.

Which borough are you from ?

Look, winning Iowa usually means very little. It's nice to win, but often doesn't mean that that person will be the nominee.

Yes, it's all going to play out very soon, so we'll see what's what when it all shakes out.

29 posted on 12/21/2015 7:01:46 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons

How many times in how many ways do I need to say the same thing? Yes, they hate him. Which is why they will do whatever they need to do to destroy him. Queens.


30 posted on 12/21/2015 7:04:43 PM PST by wny
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To: wny

I was born & bred in Manhattan.


31 posted on 12/21/2015 7:07:41 PM PST by nopardons
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