Why Is Hillary Running Left?

[bedstuy]

That's a sloppy article by a Republican who wants the 2014 electorate in 2016. 

He clearly did not crunch the numbers.  He cherry picked for the numbers he liked.  It's funny that he doesn't mention age at all.  These two graphs are instructive.

[bedstuy]

He did mention age actually in some detail, and took it into account. Check his link. Part of it is that there is a double counting factor, since younger voters tend to be less white. Young whites do not vote all that differently from their parents.

We must be talking about different articles.  I was referring to the RCP article.  The author is clearly a Republican who engages in wishful thinking, right?  There are so many statistics floating around about the election that it's very easy to lie with statistics.

[bedstuy]

He did mention age actually in some detail, and took it into account. Check his link. Part of it is that there is a double counting factor, since younger voters tend to be less white. Young whites do not vote all that differently from their parents.

We must be talking about different articles.  I was referring to the RCP article.  The author is clearly a Republican who engages in wishful thinking, right?  There are so many statistics floating around about the election that it's very easy to lie with statistics.

It's his article that he links in the RCP article. I have no idea what Trende's political affiliation is, but even if a Pub, just because you are a Pub doesn't mean ipso facto that you engage in wishful thinking as a habit does it?  I mean, just look as to how "fair and balanced" I am, for example. Right?

RCP has pretty mediocre analysis from what I can remember and it's clearly a Republican website. 

It certainly seems that there is a perceptible advantage for Democrats based on the higher turnout in a Presidential election, especially in the swing states.  Maybe the argument is, it's not as much as an advantage as you think.  But, it's still clearly there and it matters, right?

[bedstuy]

A big reason why this analysis sucks is the multivariate nature of an election.

If you hold everything else equal between two elections and focus on one thing, maybe you have a point about that one thing.  You need to make those assumptions to get a clear picture.  But, elections are dynamic and complex beasts. 

You could say Hillary Clinton will lose the male vote because she's female, so holding everything else equal, she will lose votes vs. Obama.  But, she's a woman, so she can gain those votes back with women.  You could say Hillary Clinton will lose the black vote because she's white, so holding everything else equal, she will lose votes vs. Obama.  But, she's white, so she can gain those votes back with white voters. 

These trend analysis articles are never very accurate at predicting the future.  People thought Obama would lose because of PUMA voters in 2008, because of the 2010 election in 2012, because of the weak economy, because of racism, because of lack of enthusiasm in 2012, etc.  It never happened. 

The only proven predictor of elections is public polling.  In current polling, Hillary Clinton is ahead.  So, the clear strategy is to focus on appealing to the base.  At the point, Hillary Clinton just needs to solidify her base, get Obama voters to show up and show her authenticity.  It would be easy necessarily, but that's a clear strategy.