Unless You're Looking For Comedy, Ignore Pundits Telling You Trump Is Going To Win The Electoral College; He Won't

I'm not saying the ad helped Beshear, but it didn't hurt him

David Wasserman presents himself-- and it widely accepted as-- as an elections expert and he does know more about it than most high school students. But his report for NBC Thursday about Trump advancing his electoral college edge despite losses in the suburbs, is idiotic. Imagine if someone was stupid enough to say Democratic wins in gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Louisiana-- two of the reddest states in America and neither of which is part of any Democratic path to victory-- were good news for Trump. Wasserman thinks so.

"Democrats are rightfully ecstatic that they won two of the three 2019 elections for governor in deep red Southern states," Wasserman concedes, "overcoming relentless campaign visits by President Donald Trump. But in truth, their twin triumphs had less to do with Trump and more to do with GOP Gov. Matt Bevin's toxicity in Kentucky and Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards's popularity in Louisiana." Is that so? This is where his argument becomes fatuous.

He admits that Edwards and Beshear ran well ahead of Hillary's 2016 support virtually everywhere in their states. Beshear even won coal mining counties and the ones he didn't win, he increased Democratic competitiveness in-- counties, by the way, that went for Bernie very strongly in 2016, counties looking for real change, not for the fake change the Democratic establishment was promising nor for the fake change Trump has delivered. "But," wrote Wasserman, instead of 'and', "the results also reaffirmed where Democrats' true opportunity lies in 2020: suburbs with lots of college-educated whites."

Wasserman further undermined his argument by pointing out that "Democratic victories in Kentucky (where Trump won by a huge 30 points in 2016) and Louisiana (where Trump won by 20 points), are all the more impressive because turnout skyrocketed compared to the races four years ago. In Kentucky, the number of votes cast spiked 51 percent over 2015, and in Louisiana, votes cast surged 31 percent-- far higher than the 21 percent increase in Mississippi, where Democrats fell short." He further concedes that "continued migration of highly college-educated suburbs away from Republicans in the Trump era is welcome news for Democrats. The Kentucky and Louisiana results are a continuation of midterm gains for Democrats in places like the suburbs of Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Charleston and Oklahoma City."

His argument, though, is this turnout was through the roof for both Democrats and Republicans but Democrats won because of white college-educated voters in the suburbs of Cincinnati and New Orleans and there are fewer whites with college educations living in the swing states he identifies: Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Arizona and Nevada. He wrote that "Overall, Democrats' narrow wins in both races wouldn't have been possible without changing suburban attitudes. In the aggregate, blue gains in the 20 Kentucky counties and Louisiana parishes with the highest shares of whites with college degrees-- concentrated in the New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati metro areas-- were barely enough to offset Republican gains elsewhere."

He contends that Democrats didn't do well in other parts of Kentucky and Louisiana and he's just flat out wrong. Beshear won lots of counties Hillary lost and beat her in virtually every county in the state. Maybe Wasserman wrote this when he was in a tryptophan turkey coma but Beshear's totals in non-suburban white college educated counties swamped Hillary's. Take Warren County (Bowling Green) a GOP strong hold and home of Rand Paul. In 2016 Bernie beat Hillary narrowly in the primary-- 5,365 (49.9%) to 4,829 (44.9%) and then Trump trounced her in the general election, 28,673 (59.2%) to 16,966 (35.0%). This time Beshear flipped Warren County, beating Bevin 18,249 (50.8%) to 17,118 (47.6%). This is exactly the kind of county Wasserman meant wasn't going blue. But it did. The key comparison is Hillary 35.0% and Beshear 50.8%. Beshear flipped 21 counties that Trump won, only 2 in the Cincinnati suburbs.

But let's look at counties Bevin won. Pike is a red bastion. Trump beat Hillary in a massive landslide-- 19,760 (80.1%) to 4,277 (17.4%). Bevin won but, disproving Wasserman's theory entirely, it was much closer-- 9,011 (54.3%) to (42.9%). Key numbers: 42.9% is way bigger than 17.4%. Let's go way to the other side of the state to traditionally Republican McCracken County, where Trump trounced Hillary 20,774 (66.4%) to 9,134 (29.2%). Again, Beshear did way better, winning 41.6% of the vote. This was the way it went throughout the state-- Beshear beating Hillary's totals everywhere. Even in Trump's best-performing county in Kentucky, Leslie-- as red a hellhole as you'll find anywhere-- Trump beat Hillary 89.4% to 8.9%-- Beshear improved Democratic performance in comparison to Hillary. She lost with 8.9%. He lost with 22.5%.

And as for Kentucky's two blue counties, Jefferson (Louisville) and Fayette (Lexington), black voters in Louisville were largely responsible for Hillary's 54.1% to 40.7% triumph over Trump. Beshear beat Bevin 67.0% to 42.6%, again, making a wish-mosh of Wasserman's bullshit theories. In Fayette, where Trump appeared on election eve with Bevin this year, he clowned onstage, "If you lose, it sends a really bad message. You can't let that happen to me." They did let it happen to him. In 2016 Hillary beat Trump is Fayette County 69,776 (51.2%) to 56,890 (41.8%). Last month Beshear beat Trump's candidate there-- with a hugely higher Democratic turnout than in the presidential election-- 73,397 (65.5%) to 36,915 (33.0%).

As for the swing states Wasserman identified as not having enough white college suburbanites for Dems to count on for the electoral college, this is even crazier. In every single one of these states-- no exceptions-- Trump's favorability since 2017 has plummeted drastically. Here are the most recent numbers in the Wasserman states:

• Maine- down 21 points to minus 13
• New Hampshire- down 21 points to minus 20
• Pennsylvania- down 19 points to minus 9
• North Carolina- down 21 points to minus 3
• Florida- down 24 points to minus 2
• Michigan- down 21 points to minus 13
• Wisconsin- down 23 points to minus 17
• Minnesota- down 18 points to minus 14
• Nevada- down 24 points to minus 14
• Arizona- down 24 points to minus 4

Ahhh... Arizona, a red state that is looking more and more wobbly, especially now that Trump tops the party. Being underwater by 4 points now doesn't mean Trump can't win the state's 11 electoral votes next year. He can, but he's going to have to fight for them-- in a state Republicans haven't had fight for in decades. Yesterday Los Angeles Times reporter Mark Barabak, focusing on Arizona, noted that Trump has turned the suburbs into a GOP disaster zone and asked if it dooms his reelection. Since Trump occupied the White House, "the orderly subdivisions and kid-friendly communities that ring the nation’s cities," wrote Barabak, "have become a deathtrap for Republicans, as college-educated and upper-income women flee the party in droves, costing the GOP its House majority and sapping the party’s strength in state capitals and local governments nationwide. The dramatic shift is also reshaping the 2020 presidential race, elevating Democratic hopes in traditional GOP strongholds like Arizona and Georgia, and forcing Trump to redouble efforts to boost rural turnout to offset defectors who, some fear, may never vote Republican so long as the president is on the ballot."

Me The People by Nancy Ohanian

He talked to a lifelong Republican in Arizona who said she now considers Trump "reprehensible as a human being" and the Republican Party morally bankrupt. She re-registered as an independent and is likely to vote for a Democrat for the first time in her life.

“It’s amazing the change, in just the last few years,” said Q. Whitfield Ayres, a pollster who has spent decades strategizing for Republican campaigns and causes. “It’s not any one place. It’s everywhere.”

That includes Arizona, where in 2018 Kyrsten Sinema, a congresswoman from the Phoenix suburbs, became the first Democrat in 30 years to win a U.S. Senate seat. She ran as a centrist focused on bipartisan problem-solving, a direct appeal to pragmatic suburban voters, and her success is seen as a model for turning the state from red to blue in 2020-- or at least making Arizona competitive in a way it has not been in decades.

With 11 electoral votes, Arizona is a bigger prize than Wisconsin-- a Midwestern battleground both parties view as a key to the election-- and the Grand Canyon State is expected to draw lavish attention and a fortune’s worth of advertising over the next year. Visiting last month, Vice President Mike Pence said he and Trump “are going to be in and out of Arizona a lot.”

The ancestral home of conservative icon Barry Goldwater and John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, Arizona has undergone a slow but steady transformation as the growing Latino population and a flood of newcomers from places like California erode Republicans’ long-standing hegemony.

The movement has been accelerated by Trump and his alienation of voters in typically Republican suburbs like Scottsdale, Gilbert and here in Mesa, which has grown from a far-flung satellite of Phoenix into the state’s third-largest city.

...[S]urveys have consistently shown most suburban women have little regard for Trump.

The exodus stems not so much from his policies-- many of which are standard GOP fare, like cutting taxes and regulations-- but rather the president’s behavior: the bullying, belligerence and ad hominem insults.

“Sometimes I want to print out every single one of his Tweets and tape them to people’s doors,” said Christie Black, a 35-year-old stay-at-home mom who abandoned the GOP and voted independent in 2016 rather than support Trump. “I want them to see in writing that these are the things he’s saying. Those are worth tax cuts to you?”

“Yeah,” her brunch companion, Kaija Flake Thompson, chimed in sarcastically. “We have no moral compass, but, hey, we have conservative judges!”

Neither lapsed Republican has decided on a 2020 candidate, though both like Pete Buttigieg, the youthful mayor of South Bend, Ind. Black, a self-described conservative, said she could even vote in good conscience for Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, with her vision of a vastly expanded federal government.

“We would still have our checks and balances,” Black said, which she fears are steadily eroding under Trump. “I think right now the most important thing is to get those principles of democracy tied down, get that return to regular order, and then we can worry and get back to squabbling about conservative versus liberal.”

Wasserman largely missed the scope of the 2018 anti-Trump/anti-Republican wave and it appears like he's downright determined to miss an even bigger 2020 anti-Trump/anti-Republican wave as it gathers irresistible strength.