And Now for Something Completely Different

A Way to Early Look at the 2016 General Election

Posted Thursday, May 5, 2016, at 2:46 PM

Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

First things first, the general election is still half a year away. Donald Trump is the presumptive nominee of the Republican Party after John Kasich and Ted Cruz dropped out of the race. Hillary Clinton is in the lead of the Democratic Party so this is going to be a cursory glance at the probable match up for the 2016 General Election.

There are certain things we know going into the general election. First, we know that there are certain states that are going to vote for the Democratic nominee and Republican nominee. Second for one nominee to win the election they will need to win 270 delegates. Finally, what decides who becomes president is the number of delegates, not the total number of votes.

Also as in 2012 I will be focusing on state polls as the national polls really do not mean much at all. There really are not a lot of state polls out but I will factor what is out there into my tabulation.

I am going to list the states that are solidly in each category along with the number of delegates each state has

Solidly Democratic:

Maine - 4 delegates

Vermont - 3 delegates

New York - 29 delegates

Massachusetts - 11 delegates

Rhode Island - 4 delegates

Connecticut - 7 delegates

New Jersey - 14 delegates

Delaware - 3 delegates

Maryland - 10 delegates

Pennsylvania - 20 delegates

Washington D.C. - 3 delegates

Illinois - 20 delegates

Michigan - 16 delegates

Minnesota - 10 delegates

Wisconsin - 10 delegates

California - 55 delegates

Oregon - 7 delegates

Washington - 12 delegates

Hawaii - 4 delegates

Total delegates:

242 delegates

Solidly Republican:

West Virginia - 5 delegates

Kentucky 8 delegates

Tennessee - 11 delegates

South Carolina - 9 delegates

Georgia - 16 delegates

Alabama - 9 delegates

Mississippi - 6 delegates

Louisiana - 8 delegates

Arkansas - 6 delegates

Missouri - 10 delegates

North Dakota - 3 delegates

South Dakota - 3 delegates

Nebraska - 5 delegates

Kansas - 6 delegates

Oklahoma - 7 delegates

Texas - 38 delegates

Arizona - 11 delegates

Utah - 6 delegates

Wyoming - 3 delegates

Idaho - 4 delegates

Montana - 3 delegates

Alaska 3 delegates

Total delegates:

180 delegates

All of these states have voted either for the Democratic or Republican candidate in each of 4 prior elections dating back to 2000. Before the race even starts the Democrats hold a 242-179 delegate lead. Remember that the winning candidate needs 271 delegates.

In other words Clinton will need to pick up 29 delegates to win the presidency. Trump will need to pick up 92 delegates.

There are 117 delegates in the remaining states that have voted either one way or another.

Toss up states:

New Hampshire - 4 delegates

Virginia - 13 delegates

North Carolina - 15 delegates

Florida - 29 delegates

Ohio - 18 delegates

Indiana - 11 delegates

Iowa - 6 delegates

Colorado - 9 delegates

New Mexico - 5 delegates

Nevada - 6 delegates

Now let us take a look in the polling that has been done up to this point.

FLORIDA:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Trump with an average of 46-41% and in the latest poll 49-36% with 15% undecided. So at this point Florida's 29 delegates will be lean to Clinton.

OHIO:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Donald Trump with an average of 45-42% and in the latest poll by the same margin. At this time, the 18 delegates will slightly lean to Clinton.

NORTH CAROLINA:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Donald Trump with an average of 43-41% and in the latest poll 49-37%. At this time the 15 delegates will slightly lean towards Clinton.

VIRGINIA:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Donald Trump with an average of 45-35% and in the latest poll 44-35% with other getting 14%. With the current average lead of ten points Virginia at this time with it's 13 delegates will solidly go to Clinton.

NEW HAMPSHIRE:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Donald Trump with an average of 45-37% and in the latest poll of 45-40% with 15% undecided. At this time Clinton will get the slight lean and the 4 delegates.

IOWA:

Hillary Clinton currently leads Donald Trump with an average of 47-41% and in the latest poll 48-40% with 12% undecided. Clinton will get the lean and 6 delegates.

In a bit of a surprise in the last two polls out of Arizona Clinton and Trump were tied in one and Clinton led Trump in the other.

This leaves Indiana, Colorado, New Mexico, and Nevada with a total of 31 delegates to be decided.

With the polls we have Clinton currently has a delegate lead of 327-180.

Remember, this is very early in the process and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I used www.pollster.com and http://www.270towin.com/ for the polls and to color in the map.

Comments

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Be sure and not color over the lines, Michael! And don't forget to put your colors down and go out and play at recess!! The sun will do you good! When are you actually going to get a life? Or, will you ever? You do know that obsessions are not healthy, do you not?

-- Posted by allstar69 on Thu, May 5, 2016, at 11:29 PM
I prefer to call it a hobby. Further more, no one is forcing you to read any of this. I would say your little obsessions is way worse than my supposed one is. I mean, seriously, I had not written on this website for two years and yet here you were just waiting to throw the same tired, elementary insults at me.

Get to a psychiatrist, or something. You clearly are not healthy. A five year old would laugh at your insults.

-- Posted by MichaelHendricks on Fri, May 6, 2016, at 10:29 AM
Missed you those two years! (sarcasm alert)

-- Posted by allstar69 on Fri, May 6, 2016, at 12:51 PM
Typical liberal! Demands tolerance from everyone but has no tolerance for anyone disagreeing with them. You clearly have more knowledge about the thoughts of five-year-olds than I do.........

-- Posted by allstar69 on Fri, May 6, 2016, at 1:42 PM
Where exactly are you disagreeing with me allstar? You start and end with insults about my personal health. Where exactly did you disagree with me that I am not tolerating?

You sound more like a moronic troll. Someone who thinks they are highly intelligent but actually says nothing at all.

Of course I have more knowledge than you do. That's a given.

-- Posted by MichaelHendricks on Fri, May 6, 2016, at 2:12 PM
I do not doubt your analysis at this time. The pollsters have been off on the low side in many races involving Trump--apparently their normal methods do not predict his support correctly.

If Hillary wins, I think that will be ironic. She will get the blame for the recession that has probably already begun.

A historic win as first woman president.

I do believe the surge of voters against the establishment elite in both parties is not well understood, and is severely underestimated. Trump has tapped into the understandable resentment of voters against that elite.

So we have a choice between an egomaniac and a criminal. I cannot find anyone who really likes either one of them, as your father pointed out in his column.

JG

-- Posted by JohnGalt1968 on Sat, May 7, 2016, at 9:45 PM
I do agree with you on one point. This election if it goes through with the current leaders of each party's nominating process will feature the two people with the highest unfavorable ratings in the race. That is telling on a couple of points. It is proof to my eyes that we need to abolish the two party system and second people are just flat out tired and angry at politics as usual.

The choice really boils down to a man who insults everyone he can think of or a woman who chances her stances as often as the win changes direction.

-- Posted by MichaelHendricks on Tue, May 10, 2016, at 11:49 AM
The polling through the primary process has been ugly at best. Most polls have under represented Bernie Sanders throughout the process. There have been times when they have under represented Trump but for the most part have been relatively close. In other words, when Trump has won no one has been surprised. When Bernie has won or came within a few points of Hillary everyone was surprised.

I do not expect to see the same issues moving into the general elections. Polling during the primaries is not very good and in some states is non existent. Nebraska votes today for the Republicans and there hasn't been a poll there for two years.

As the national election takes more focus the major pollsters will begin doing a lot more polls in most states (mostly the toss up states) that will give us a pretty clear picture of the race.

The last national polls before the 2012 election either had Romney winning or within the margin of error but the state polling showed a very different picture.

My recommendation is to not even pay attention to the national polls at all. Go to www.pollster.com or www.fivethirtyeight.com for your polls. Nate Silver, who runs 538, has a very strong track record of predicting outcomes.

-- Posted by MichaelHendricks on Tue, May 10, 2016, at 12:00 PM

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