Looking Ahead: Clinton vs. Trump

The battle lines for the United States presidential election later this year appear now to have been drawn, even as there is still more than a month of voting left in this year’s party primary calendar.  On the Democratic Party side, Hillary Clinton has emerged as the all-but-certain winner that party’s nomination for the presidency, despite the stronger-than-expected performance by the left-wing Senator Bernie Sanders.  On the Republican Party side, the picture for the past few months had been much less clear, due in large part to that party’s antipathy towards the two front-runners for the party’s nomination, the populist Donald Trump and the arch-conservative Ted Cruz.  Now, the events of the past few weeks have shown that the Republican Party’s efforts to thwart a Trump nomination have come to naught as he has moved much closer to that hard-fought nomination, setting the stage for a fascinating presidential election in November.

Just a few weeks ago, it appeared that Republican leaders had formulated a strategy that had a strong chance of preventing Donald Trump from winning that party’s nomination for the presidency.  However, Republican leaders failed to anticipate the surge in support for Trump and the lack of support for his two remaining challengers, Ted Cruz and John Kasich.  Last week, Trump dominated the five primaries that took place in the northeastern United States, as was expected.  However, his surge in support in Indiana caught many by surprise, as earlier polls had indicated that Cruz was very popular in that state.  Moreover, recent polls in states with upcoming primaries, many of them in the western US, have also indicated a surge in support for Trump and a lack of support for his rivals.  As a result, Ted Cruz decided, in the wake of his defeat in Indiana, to pull out of the race, effectively handing the nomination to Trump and setting the stage for a battle between him and Hillary Clinton.

In nearly all national polls taken in recent weeks (with the exception of some questionable Rasmussen polls), Hillary Clinton has held a sizeable lead over Donald Trump in terms of voter intentions for November.  Interestingly, similar polls show that Bernie Sanders would have had an even larger lead over Trump, highlighting the negative views that many US voters have of Clinton, but that appears to be of little consequence in this election.  Of course, Trump has surprised many before by his ability to maintain high levels of support in the Republican nomination race, but never before has a presidential candidate for a major party made it to the election with so many voters staunchly opposed to them.  Due to this fact, it appears that Trump will have a very difficult time in defeating Clinton in November, as his disapproval rating among major voting blocs (women, minorities, etc.) is so high.  Of course, as this is the United States, national polls don’t necessarily reflect the likely outcome of a presidential election, as Al Gore found out in 2000, so for Trump to win, he is going to have to win a number of battleground states and will have to target a few traditional Democratic strongholds to pull off the upset in November.

Throughout much of the United States’ recent history, the electoral map of the US has remained very consistent, with presidential elections being decided by a handful of battleground states.  However, this year’s unique election means that the electoral map could be dramatically shaken up, with surprising outcomes in a number of states.  For example, recent polls have shown that Clinton is ahead of Trump in a number of traditionally Republican states, including North Carolina and Arizona, and she is likely to compete strongly in Republican strongholds across the southern US.  In contrast, Trump is polling relatively well in the Midwestern United States and will need to win Ohio and a host of other states in this region if he hopes to pull off the greatest election surprise in US history.  Nevertheless, even more than the national picture, the state-by-state electoral map points to what is likely to be a historically large victory by Clinton in November.  However, the election is still six months away and much can change in US politics over the next six months.  What is certain is that this is likely to be the most closely scrutinized election in world history.