Here are five things to watch today that will tell you about the next four years.
Is the GOP staying close in the Senate?
The GOP had a tough hand to play this year. They had to defend the worst senator in America (Illinois . . . shiftless Kirk who betrayed conservatives and turned out to be a racist). He is sure to lose and many other blue states are on the line.
Yet, the news is not all bad. In two years, the GOP will regain the Senate if they can keep it close. Imagine this: If Republicans were to keep the Senate, then a HRC victory will be nearly meaningless.
No Senate, no power for HRC. She will do her grifter thing, but the Senate will rightly check her power.
Watch New Hampshire. If Kelly Ayotte wins, then things will go well for the GOP. They need 51 and polls have said they will not get it, but 49 means that a healthy majority will exist in two years for Lincoln’s Party.
Another key is the Missouri race. The election in Missouri features the second-worst type of GOP candidate (Kirk is alone as worst): the aging veteran running one race too many. Trump may save the Lion in Winter, Roy Blunt, and if he does, then functional veto power in the Senate is likely. Missouri is one of the few races where Trump helps.
Will there be a GOP “check Clinton” Senate wave? Then look to Wisconsin, where Ron Johnson has a chance. If he wins, then the GOP is safe and Clinton will be a lame duck on day one.
Does Trump Win Florida and North Carolina? If so, then the race is all about Michigan or Pennsylvania.
It is both or the race is over. That’s obvious, but given losing Nevada (and perhaps Utah), Trump must win Pennsylvania or Michigan as well. If he gets Florida AND North Carolina, then the race is all about those two states. They are his best chance, meaning he has no chance at all.
Do the polls underestimate Democrat turnout in Presidential years?
President Obama changed the electorate. Meanwhile, the “white” share of the voting public keeps declining. Trump claimed he could win “the Hispanics.” There is some evidence that a record number of Latino/Latina voters are going to the polls. Can DJT surpass Romney with Hispanic voters? If not, he will lose.
I suspect that he will lose: Hispanic voters will build a wall of votes around the White House to keep DJT out.
Does Evan McMullin win Utah?
No Republican can win without the six electoral votes of Utah. If McMullin wins them, then there is a functional Mormon veto over the nominee. That would mean no DJT in the future.
Does the race stay close enough to merit the “stab in the back?”
Trump voters are being told DJT will win. He is unlikely to do so. If the race is within 2/3 points, then there is some plausibility that DJT was taken down by Republicans who refused to vote for him. Oddly, that might make Trump viable in 2020. If he loses by four or more, then he lost to the weakest Democrat to run in my lifetime. If he does worse in the electoral college than Romney, there is no spinning it: he lost.
Predictions:
HRC will win an electoral college landslide, doing better than Obama.
On the other hand, the Senate will stay GOP (51), because voters will wish to check POTUS power. (If on the other hand, HRC wins the Senate and the POTUS, then she will be All Powerful. We will get single payer, socialized college, and many bad things.)
Rob Portman, Ben Sasse, and soon-to-Senator Evan McMullin will be GOP frontrunners for a 2020 campaign that will begin on Friday.
The race will be definitive enough that “rigging” claims will fade quickly.
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There are my opinions of what WILL happen, not what I wish would happen.
I am writing for myself and not any institution I am associated with.
Bias Alert: Here in Texas, I will vote a straight GOP ticket except at the top. I will write in Evan McMullin.
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