2016 Electoral Vote Contest

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As a little election-season fun, see if you can guess what the Electoral College result will be.

Details

Start Date = Today

End Date = Friday October 14th at end of day

Winner = Whoever is closest to the actual electoral vote is the winner.

Open to = The contest is open to all registered SI users, but the Editors, Moderators, etc. are not eligible for the prize (only bragging rights).

Prize = $25.00 Amazon Gift card for electoral college. Example: Clinton 290 to Trump 247. Use the helpful 270toWin to model.

Tie-breakers and Bonus prizes:

  • Pick who will win the Senate. Example: Republicans 52 to Democrats 48. Extra $2.00 added to the winner if correct party guessed.
  • Pick who will win the House. Example: Republicans 234 to Democrats 201. Extra $2.00 added to the winner if correct party guessed.
  • Pick who will win the House seat of your own Congressional district for an extra $1.

Winner potential prize up to $30.

Caveat: Contest must have at least 10 eligible submissions. SI moderator or admin posts will not be counted as an eligible submission.

Multiple submissions permitted, but only your latest revision will be counted.

No electioneering on the contest thread!

Canadians may submit entries (the Don Johnson rule)

Discussion

Here is my entry:

Clinton 347

Trump 191

Senate: 50-50 tie, but vice-president Kaine gives control to Democrats.

House: Republicans 230 / Democrats 205

House district pick: VA_02: Scott Taylor.

Clinton 326

Trump 212

Senate 51 Republican - 49 Democrat - Including the Independents that vote with the Dems (Bernie and Angus)

House 237 R - 198 D

House Pick - ME02 - Bruce Poliquin

I’m going to hold out hope that Mrs. Clinton gets federal housing in Waseca (women’s prison) instead of Washington DC.

Trump 280, Clinton 255

Senate 52 GOP/48 Democrat/independent

House 240R-195D

MN1-Tim Walz (DFL-CCCP) retains seat

Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.

Assume for a minute that Hillary Clinton will win the Presidency: Democrats will have the same power that they have now in that eventuality. But what happens if they also capture the Senate?

[no campaign] money, and all indications are that far more will be raised during the last two months of the campaign, will apparently go to incumbents Mark Kirk of Illinois and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin who have apparently been written off. But roughly $60 Million of it will go into television ads in seven states; Indiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

Since I have an undergrad degree in Political Science, this is interesting to me. I’ll post some numbers in early October.

Remember that in the last 6 Presidential elections, Democrats have won the same 18 states and the Dist. of Columbia consistently, giving the Democratic nominee 242 electoral votes, needing only 28 more to win. Republicans have a lot of ground work to do, while Democrats have an easier path to win. Anything can happen in politics. The Libertarian Party may be a wild card this time, although I don’t see the Libertarian ticket winning any states. But it would be interesting to see the election placed into the House (President) and Senate (Vice-President).

Wally Morris

Charity Baptist Church

Huntington, IN

amomentofcharity.blogspot.com

Hillary:

“You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?” … “The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic—you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that.

I might have to redo my picks toward the end, especially if Hillary keeps fainting like she did today and having coughing fits.

http://danburrell.com/?p=1363

Excerpt:

It would serve us well to remember that when she says “homophobic” — she means someone who believes in traditional marriage between a man and a woman. When she says “racist” — she means someone who believes that cops should be respected, that all lives matter, BLM is a divisive movement and that helping people of color means more than throwing money in their general direction. When she says “misogynist” — she means those who think that a baby has a right to LIFE more than a woman has a right to kill an inconvenient infant. When she says “xenophobic” — she means people that think that borders and immigration laws should be respected. When she says “Islamaphobic” — she means those who think that coddling terrorists who practice a violent religion needs to stop. When she says “Basket of Deplorables” — she means God-fearing people who care about their country, respect traditional values, believe gun-ownership is a Constitutional right and aren’t ashamed to wave an American flag — you know, people like those who don’t protest in the streets, burn down convenience stores, didn’t attend Ivy League indoctrination centers and don’t draw their income from the Federal government.

A Handy Explanatory Guide for Hillary Clinton’s Basket of Deplorables:

Racist — a white only person who says someone should not be judged by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.
Sexist — a man only who treats and talks to women like they are different than men.
Homophobic — a person who believes the Bible is the Word of God, which says that homosexuality is sin and/or that marriage is only between a man and a woman.
Xenophobic — an American white male only who (1) opposes illegal immigration, (2) desires the execution of immigration laws, (3) wants a wall built on the southern border of the United States to aid in stopping illegal immigration, and/or (4) believes certain cultures are superior to others.
Islamophobic — a person who is suspicious of a person with a literal, strict interpretation of the Koran or who thinks that Islam causes terrorism or that Islamic terrorism comes from Muslims.

The real New York Times scandal: Ignoring why Democrats can’t win the House

For six months now — and an amazing four times in the last two weeks of August alone — the [The New York Times] has ignored or whitewashed history in trying to explain this fall’s battle for the House. Time and again, almost impressively, the Times has managed to write 1,000-plus-word stories about the struggle for Congress that do not mention either of the two most important words — redistricting and gerrymandering — or that diminish the centrality of the maps with a bizarre, passive shrug that this is just the way it is. The actual history has now been denied so many times, and with such similar language, that it’s hard to conclude it’s not intentional and official Times style.

Now, the strategy Rove outlined — called Redistricting Majority Project or REDMAP, for short — performed better than the GOP ever imagined. It explains why Republicans were able to draw state legislative lines so stout that in Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina they’ve captured supermajorities — or something close — in state legislative chambers despite often losing the popular vote. It helps clarify how Republicans held the U.S. House in 2012, taking the overwhelming majority of seats in states like Ohio (12 of 16), Michigan (9 of 14), Pennsylvania (13 of 18) and North Carolina (10 of 13) where they lost or closely divided the popular vote. And it explains why Hillary Clinton could sweep all four of those swing states this fall without a single congressional seat changing sides.

Democrats need to win 30 seats to retake the House. You would be hard-pressed to identify 30 competitive districts. (Indeed, the Times cannot, returning again and again to a Kansas seat where a Democratic challenger apparently trails by at least 15 points and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Also, again and again, the Times suggests Trump has made Florida Rep. John Mica vulnerable, ignoring that he’s actually vulnerable because a court forced his district to be redrawn.) There’s a lack of competitive seats because of the way the lines were drawn in 2011. This, too, was part of the GOP plan.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/citi-people-arent-taking-possibility-1234…

A new note from Citigroup Inc. says that while the firm still puts the probability of Hillary Clinton securing the U.S. presidential election at 65 percent, investors are not taking the remaining chance of a win by Donald Trump very seriously.

“A 35 percent probability for a Trump victory is more meaningful than investors may be appreciating,” the team, led by Chief Global Political Analyst Tina Fordham, writes in a note published on Tuesday. “Political probabilities are not like blackjack — there is only one roll of the dice, and 35 percent probability events happen frequently in real life.”

While Trump has defied expectations this election season, the Clinton campaign has suffered a few perceived mishaps that could tip the balance. Moreover, there are a number of cards in play that could cause Clinton to have a poor performance on election day. The Citi analysts cite low turnout for the Democratic party as enthusiasm wanes, an unforeseen event such as a terrorist attack, or a health incident that causes a withdrawal from the election, as key risks.