Friday, August 19, 2016

Donald Trump’s Loss Would Be Self-Inflicted

If Trump loses, he’ll likely be one of the few candidates in history who have only themselves to blame.
If Donald Trump suffers a big loss in November, it will go down as a true rarity in the history of modern American presidential politics: a self-inflicted landslide defeat. If the current polling is accurate, Hillary Clinton is likely to win all the states Obama won twice, plus North Carolina. That would give her 347 electoral votes. She has a shot in Arizona, Georgia, one of Nebraska’s congressional districts, and perhaps Missouri or Utah; sweeping all of those would give her 391 electoral votes.
The past two generations of American voters saw some epic landslides in presidential races: Democrat Lyndon Johnson beating Barry Goldwater in 1964, Republican Richard Nixon beating George McGovern in 1972, Republican Ronald Reagan beating Walter Mondale in 1984. But a Trump loss would likely be remembered quite differently than those one-sided contests.
Only once since 1952 has a party kept control of the White House for three straight terms: the Republicans, from 1980 to 1992. That third term is nearly impossible to lock up, even under circumstances more prosperous and peaceful than today’s — ask Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, or Al Gore. Trump is taking on the second-most-unpopular nominee in recent polling history at a time of terrorist attacks on American soil, a growing menace overseas, and a still-middling economy.
Read the rest of Jim Geraghty's op-ed HERE.

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