An interesting piece from FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver and his take on the 2016 election as it will play out the remainder of 2015. He doesn’t see any big changes in polling, unless President Obama’s poll numbers begin to tank, which will lead us into a very, very competitive election next year.
Story from FiveThirtyEight:
There’s already plenty of bad punditry regarding the chances of Hillary Clinton — who officially announced her candidacy on Sunday — to become the 45th president. You can find Democrats boasting about their “blue wall” in the Electoral College and how hard this will make it for any Republican to win. Or Republicans warning that the Democratic Party rarely wins three elections in a row.
Most of this analysis is flimsy. So is the commentary about the ups-and-downs in early swing state polls. And when you see some pundit declaring a minor misstep to be a “game changer,” find someone else to follow on Twitter.
The truth is that a general election win by Clinton — she’s very likely to become the Democratic nominee — is roughly a 50/50 proposition. And we’re not likely to learn a lot over the rest of 2015 to change that.
You should read the article, which is lengthy, before commenting. Silver’s underlying data for the toss-up prediction is the fact that polling indicates that no candidate can break 50% in favorability, including President Obama. Therefore, if Hillary Clinton, who also sits at just under 50% favorability, is the Democratic nominee, it will come down to a very close election since none of the candidates, in either party so far, appear to be more or less liked than another.
My take is that perhaps 2016 could become a more issues-driven campaign versus a personality driven one, such as President Obama’s ascension in 2008. I know, that sounds crazy in this day and age. It’s a good read for a reasonable assessment of where the race will head in 2015.
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