Thursday, March 10, 2016

2016: Road to the White House

2012 Final Results
Click the map to create your own at 270toWin.com

Who is your candidate, and how can they win the minimum 270 Electoral College votes to make him or her the next president?

If you're a Hillary Democrat, the answer is easy...

You hold on to states won by Barack Obama, and she's got room to lose a few, since President Obama won with a whopping 62 more electoral votes than he needed.

I posed this question to Cruz supporters in various threads and got no response, probably because it would take a miracle for him to win a national election. Any GOP candidate will have to flip some states President Obama won in 2012. 

The Maps

The links that follow go to electoral college maps.  They are interactive and you can click on a state to turn it blue or red, and the tally at the top keeps score.

You can start with the 2012 Election Result Electoral Map

Or, if you are a Cruz fan, you can use the Hillary-Cruz 2016 Map that starts out based upon current polling.

The Big Three 

If a GOP candidate could flip Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania, he would win, but that is way harder than it sounds.

Pennsylvania is a perennial GOP disappointment, so fuggeddaboudit. Rubio could take Florida, Kasich could take Ohio, but neither is on-track to get the nomination.

Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and perhaps even Michigan could be flipped by the right GOP candidate, but I don't see anyone other than Trump doing it.  Even if a GOP candidate did take those states, it still wouldn't be enough to win. Throw in Florida, and you're looking at a GOP president, but Michigan is another far-off fantasy for Republicans.

Lastly, I don't see Hillary flipping any 2012 GOP states, so really, it comes down to, which states will Hillary fail to hold on to, and will she lose enough to give the GOP candidate the win.

Play around with the maps and give us your predictions.  We may pull them out after the election and award meaningless, valueless prizes for the best predictions, while ridiculing those whose predictions really sucked.


Related:
RCP Polling
HuffPo Polling

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