Trump's 'popular vote' margin of victory across Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania was 87,744 votes, or 0.14% of his popular vote total. Had Clinton won those states, she'd be president.
It is worth noting that Obama won with the aid of the media, Hollywood, the entire Democrat machine and a Republican candidate that, well....didn't have a killer instinct. In 2016, it was the reverse: Trump had the support of Deplorables - that was it - got a little help from the video of Hillary's 9/11 collapse and the last-minute Comey episode, and was a fighter.
Clearly, Obama's 0.8% is higher than 0.14%. But if 0.14% is "extremely close," (as some can mmentators have said) what can we say about 0.8% given all the relative headwinds?
So go ahead, let Obama help the Dems. It'll be like Tom Landry in the late 1980s.
It’s a half-full/half-empty thing. Before the election I predicted Trump would win with “between 300 and 320 electoral votes”-—but that it would be close, in that 30 or more of those electoral votes would be very small margins (NH, VA, WI, MI, PA, ME).
Trump lost 7 states by 560,000 votes, or just a little more than Zero won the whole election. These would account for about 40 more electoral votes. The “flip factor” for Trump to win in 2020 is therefore 231,000 in those states.
Well, given the voter registration changes I’ve followed since November, Trump already should pick up NH and probably ME; would be VERY close in NM and NV. I “believe” he’ll win MN, but because they don’t do party voter registration, I don’t have data to back that up.
I guess what I’m saying is that Trump was closer to a massive blowout than Obama was to staying in office.
PA, MI, NC,FL and WI all had a 3% black voter decline. Two ways to look at that. Traditional thinking is “well, they’ll be back next time with a different candidate.” I look at it differently. These are permanent defections. They’re done with the D party. But they didn’t quite yet make the jump to Trump. In 2020, that 3% will-—but another 5-7% will take the first step and not turn out again.
Game over.