Tag Archives: Electoral College

The Ultimate Upset

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 9, 2016 — Donald Trump once again defied the odds and scored possibly the biggest upset in presidential history. The final count is likely to bring him near 300 electoral votes, almost the opposite position that most predicted.

Trump won 29 states and the 2nd District of Maine. Hillary Clinton took 21 states and the District of Columbia. It is possible that Clinton will still place first in the national popular vote, which will be the second time that has happened in this century. As you might remember, George W. Bush also won the Electoral College in 2000, but not the popular vote.

It will take awhile for the numbers to finalize and clear analysis to begin. Below is a quick re-cap of the Senate and House data.

Senate Results

Republicans held their Senate majority, which could go as high as a total of 53 seats. That would mean they would lose only one seat as long as they win the Louisiana run-off on Dec. 10 (they will be favored to do so) and as long as Sen. Kelly Ayotte hangs on to her small lead in New Hampshire (which now looks unlikely).
• Illinois
Sen. Mark Kirk (R) fell to Rep. Tammy Duckworth (D-Hoffman Estates), 40-54%.
• New Hampshire
Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) leads Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R) by a scant 700 votes with counting now at the 100% mark. Nothing yet has been officially declared, however, as of our publishing time. We will have further information later today.

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Today’s the Day

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 8, 2016 — At long last, the 2016 election cycle draws to a close this evening, as we have finally reached Election Day.

The final polls show ending momentum for Hillary Clinton. Ten surveys reported results, all with sampling periods ending Nov. 6. Nine of the 10 find Clinton leading the presidential race by an average of 3.6 percentage points. Her margin stretches from two to six points.

The Electoral College projections appear to put Clinton in the low 300 electoral vote range, well beyond the 270 needed to clinch the presidency. Donald Trump appears to be on the upswing in North Carolina, Iowa, and Ohio, but he would also need victories in Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and the 2nd Congressional District of Maine to secure a minimum electoral vote victory. Though both parties have invested major time commitments during the last few days in Pennsylvania, the state seems destined to support Ms. Clinton by a discernible margin.

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Reuters: Trump Up In
Electoral College

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 20, 2016 — The Reuters/Ipsos “States of the Nation” project finds Donald Trump taking a surprising 243-242 electoral vote lead over Hillary Clinton, but are the individual state projections reliable? Many news sources covered the weekend story, yet it appears that the R/I numbers leave much to be desired. In fact, they show several states going for a candidate either for the first time in this election cycle, or in a manner that other data fails to substantiate.

Reuters/Ipsos is using a huge pool of almost 16,000 respondents, which allows them to segment results for most states. They are also casting several turnout models, and then calculating various Electoral College scenarios based upon the percentage of individual voter groups expected to participate in the November election.

The model forecasting the one-vote Trump advantage features an overall 60 percent turnout ratio among eligible voters, 43 percent for all minority groups, 59 percent African-American participation, and 69 percent from Anglo males. Even with his Electoral College edge, the Reuters/Ipsos results still find Trump trailing Clinton in the national popular vote by a 40-45 percent margin, however.

Questionable conclusions occur in several states. First, addressing the entities where Reuters/Ipsos did not have a large enough respondent sample to determine a trend, several have a clear and decided voting history. Adding Democratic Rhode Island and the District of Columbia’s electoral votes to Clinton’s total would increase her share to 249. For Trump, all other polling data supported by a long vote history would yield both Alaska and Wyoming to him. This would add another six votes to the Republican’s national total, thus leading the adjusted national split to a 249-249 tie.

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The States Tighten

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 12, 2016 — As the national popular vote pulls into a virtual dead heat, polls released yesterday in the critical swing states suggest that a similar pattern is occurring in the individual voting entities, too.

To re-cap the Electoral College map, in order to win the national campaign Donald Trump must keep the 24 states Mitt Romney claimed in 2012, including key swing North Carolina, and then win Florida and Ohio. President Obama won both of these latter states in each of his national campaigns. For her victory configuration, Hillary Clinton need only preserve 80 percent of the states that Obama won twice.

Once Trump secures the Romney coalition plus Florida and Ohio, he then must take at least one more state totaling more than 16 Electoral Votes, to reach the minimum victory threshold of 270 Electoral Votes. Adding Pennsylvania, for example, would award Trump the presidency.

Quinnipiac University publicized four state polls yesterday, covering each key swing entity. In Florida and Ohio, the Q-Poll finds Trump returning to parity with Hillary Clinton. He trails in North Carolina, however. Though still behind in Pennsylvania, the research projects him pulling back to within five points of her and halving the deficit he faced in the August Pennsylvania Quinnipiac survey.

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The September Reset

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 6, 2016 — Labor Day is always viewed as the traditional general election initiation benchmark for presidential campaigns, so it is important to see where the candidates stand now that we have reached this point in time.

During the Aug. 24-30 period, five national polling entities surveyed the national electorate. The five: USA Today/Suffolk University, Rasmussen Reports, Fox News, Reuters/Ipsos, and The Economist/YouGov find a margin range of Hillary Clinton topping Donald Trump by seven percentage points (USA/Suffolk: Aug. 24-29, 1,000 US likely voters, 42-35-7-4 percent, including Libertarian nominee Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein) to the Republican going up by a single point (Rasmussen Reports; Aug. 29-30: 1,000 US likely voters, 40-39-7-3 percent).

Together, the five polls produce a net average Clinton edge of 3.0 percentage points with neither candidate exceeding 42 percent support nor dropping below 35 percent.

Turning to a historical comparison, where have other presidential campaigns stood on Sept. 1, and how can previous patterns help us project what may happen in this current election?

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The Historical Perspective

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 31, 2016 — Everyday we see new polls that measure Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s national standing and their status in some states, but how does the 2016 race compare to the others from the past 40 years during this same time point in the election cycle?

The Gallup organization is the only consistent national pollster from the mid-20th Century through the 2012 election. After missing the final result four years ago in which they predicted a Mitt Romney popular vote victory, Gallup now confines their research work to issues and not head-to-head ballot test questions. Therefore, they are not polling the Clinton-Trump race.

Since Aug. 20, seven polls from a combination of professional national pollsters, media outlets, and universities have been publicly released. Six of the seven find Clinton holding the lead. One, the Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California’s continual panel-back tracking program, says Trump is carrying a two-point advantage. Factoring in these recent seven results, Clinton’s average advantage is 3.4 percentage points, usually in the span of 42-38 percent.

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Nevada’s Critical Role in November

By Jim Ellis

June 17, 2016 — As we examine the 2016 political landscape, it appears that Nevada, the small four-congressional district western state of 2.8 million people, will play a defining role in electing a president, determining which party controls the United States Senate, and whether or half of its House seats swing.

The developing Senate contest between Rep. Joe Heck (R-Henderson) and former two-term Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto (D) became official in Tuesday’s statewide primary. Masto and Heck each recorded landslide victories in their respective nomination contests and have now begun the arduous general election campaign. The state also hosts two nationally significant House races.

In the 3rd Congressional District, businessman and frequent candidate Danny Tarkanian upset state Senate Majority Leader Mike Roberson to win the Republican nomination from the politically marginal district that encompasses south Las Vegas and the succeeding territory all the way to the Arizona and California borders. Tarkanian will now face software developer Jacky Rosen (D) in the general election. Until Rep. Heck made his district politically secure, the 3rd delivered victory percentages of only 47.4, 48.1, and 50.4 from 2008 through 2012.

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