Posted on 03/27/2016 2:10:03 PM PDT by dennisw
A professor of political science at Stony Brook University has forecasted that Donald Trump has a minimum 97 percent chance of winning the general election as the Republican nominee.
Professor Helmut Norpoth’s forecast presentation took place Monday evening in the SUNY Global Center in Manhattan, which was organized by the Stony Brook Alumni Association.
Norpoth created a statistical model of presidential elections that uses a candidate’s performance in their party’s primary and patterns in the electoral cycle as predictors of the presidential vote in the general election.
Donald Trump has a 97 percent chance of defeating Hillary Clinton and a 99 percent chance of defeating Bernie Sanders in the general election, according to Norpoth’s formula.
“The bottom line is that the primary model, using also the cyclical movement, makes it almost certain that Donald Trump will be the next president,” Norpoth said, “if he’s a nominee of the [Republican] party.”
Norpoth’s primary model works for every presidential election since 1912, with the notable exception of the 1960 election. These results give the model an accuracy of 96.1 percent.
Norpoth began the presentation with an introduction of the potential matchups in the general election, including a hypothetical Sanders vs. Trump general election.
“When I started out with this kind of display a few months ago, I thought it was sort of a joke.” Norpoth said referring to Trump and Sanders, as many alumni in the audience laughed. “Well, I’ll tell you right now, it ain’t a joke anymore.”
As the presentation continued, laughter turned to silence as Norpoth forecasted a 61 percent chance of a Republican win in the general election.
This forecast was made using the electoral cycle model, which studies a pattern of voting in the presidential election that makes it less likely for an incumbent party to hold the presidency after two terms in office. The model does not assume who would be the party nominees or the conditions of the country at the time.
“You think ‘This is crazy. How can anything come up with something like that?’ ” Norpoth said “But that’s exactly the kind of equation I used to predict Bill Clinton winning in ‘96, that I used to predict that George Bush would win in 2004, and, as you remember four years ago, that Obama would win in 2012.”
Norpoth then added data from the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries to narrow down the forecast to specific candidates. As he brought up the first slide with matchup results, the silence was broken by muttering from the audience.
“Trump beats Hillary 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent [of the popular vote]. This is almost too much to believe.” Norpoth said, with a few members of the audience laughing nervously. “The probability of that [outcome] is almost complete certainty, 97 percent. It’s almost ‘Take it to the bank.’ ”
The primary model predicts a Trump victory with such certainty due to Trump’s relatively high success in the Republican primaries, Norpoth said. Clinton, in comparison, is in an essential tie with Sanders in the Democratic primaries. As a result, Sanders would also lose to Trump in a similar landslide if Sanders were to be the Democratic nominee, Norpoth said.
In contrast, Norpoth forecasted that a hypothetical presidential race with Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio on the Republican ticket would be a much closer race. The results showed Clinton with a 55 percent chance of winning the race against Cruz or Rubio with a 0.3 percent lead in the popular vote.
Norpoth’s model showed Sanders losing against Rubio or Cruz with a 0.6 percent gap in the popular vote, giving a Rubio or Cruz ticket a 60 percent chance of winning against the Vermont senator.
Norpoth added that while the non-Trump Republican ticket would be much more unlikely to win the general election due to differences in the popular vote and the electoral college vote, there is almost no chance that Trump would lose the electoral college vote with his forecasted lead in the popular vote.
“If you win by 54 percent [of the popular vote], you have a big majority in the electoral college,” Norpoth said. “Nobody who has ever gotten 54 percent has lost.”
Well there is a Canadian Ham running, I wonder who will be the Cheese? ROFL
Limburger.
What's the secret?
Part of the job?
Or hours of strange work?
Or...?
Without the bother of any thought whatsoever!
I love it.
Why?
I couldn't care less.
Wither and blow away already...
I smell a suicide by zot coming. :-)
The latter. I have a system, but the sheer volume of material is a challenge, because I read or scan most of it to provide a measure of quality and edit out the junque titles from the list.
In the interest of fair disclosure I feel its my civic duty to let all fellow freepers know that you are a self avowed long time registered Democrat from wait for it, San Francisco. Say hi to San Fran Nan for us at the Dem convention. And thanx for playing. LOL!
Roll Trump ! Get in, then we dump the gope in the toilet.
35% of the populace, who are loyal Democrats, will vote for her no matter what she does. She could be sitting in a wheelchair suffering from a massive stroke and drooling on herself and they will still vote for her.
With Trump and Cruz in a full blown civil war over the Republican candidacy like we've never seen before, you will have many conservatives on one side or the other sitting out the election in disgust. This has all been pre-planned by some evil genius who thought of causing it all to happen in the first place which is the ONLY way she could win. If there had been a peaceful selection of a Republican candidate, Hillary would have never had a chance.
The Republican elites (oligarchy) would rather see Hillary win than Trump because Trump can not be controlled by any rich entity behind the scenes because he can not be bought. Hillary will only need to get about 40-45% of the vote to win the Presidency. No way now exists for her to lose except for Trump or Cruz to drop out and let the other one take the candidacy to take her on. With the spat over the wives, you can now forget that. It has been said, "You never mess with a man's truck, wife or dog...and not necessarily in that order."
Now, with the race turning into a political soap opera, the conservative side has smeared dishonor one on another, playing right into the Democrats hands. The Democrat leadership, many of whom have no honor for which they are well known and an electorate that also has no honor (look at the moral state of the nation) will vote for them. Conservatives, many of whom have honor, are disgusted by what is happening on their side. You will see non-participation because of it. Hillary wins with less than 50%, no mandate and all hell will break loose later.
So, what about your thoughts? No thought whatsoever...really?
He’s likely voting for Hillary as he’s a registered Democrat in San Francisco. I think for him Free Republic does not mean what he thinks it means. :-)
Who’s voting for Hillary, the gentleman who believes I have no capacity for thought?
Hey FBI guys, how did you like my analysis? I know you’re reading here, by the way, but can’t tell you how I know. lol. And, you thought everything you did was top secret.
Yeh check out his profile. I think he got lost on his way to Huffpo. :-)
for later
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