We live in a post-factual era. Thanks to the Inte

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We live in a post-factual era. Thanks to the Internet and social media.

Confirmed daily on this board! OK, these graphics are not 'destiny', as the authors so state. That said, have at it ODS sufferers, free range reality deniers and bat-sh*t conspiracy theorists! LOL!

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/

The Electoral College: The Only Thing That Matters
It’s a long way to November, but for the moment the GOP is an underdog

Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley
March 31st, 2016


We live in a post-factual era. Thanks to the Internet and social media, which mix informed and uninformed views in equal measure, the old rule — that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own set of facts — no longer applies.

Somewhere in cyberspace, you can now find blogs and treatises with “facts” that support your opinions, no matter how bizarre.

Here at the Crystal Ball, though, we are going to cling to one central fact about presidential elections: The only thing that matters is accumulating a majority of 270 votes in the Electoral College.

Creating Electoral College projections is a marvelous parlor game, and we’ve been doing so here since we obtained our magical sphere of crystal from China many years ago. (All other details shall remain confidential.)

We’re now at the point in the nominating process where it is, er, crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will end up being the Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, while not at all the certain winner, is the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee.

So it’s time to adjust our 2016 electoral map for the first time since we rolled out our initial ratings last May. That map, shown below as Map 1, reflected a generic Democrat versus Republican matchup, and it depicted a close, competitive general election.


Map 1: First version of Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College ratings, May 2015

Map 2: Revised Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College ratings for a Clinton vs. Trump matchup


Table 1: Crystal Ball 2016 Electoral College rating changes


If you’re unhappy with this projection of November’s results, dear reader, just wait a while. No analyst that we know correctly predicted the GOP nominating battle. Why should the general election be any different?

The roller coaster of 2016 will lead to revisions — perhaps massive — in this, our Electoral College map. Expect new calculations at regular intervals in this exceptionally unpredictable campaign.

However, our first update in 2016 does reflect that the GOP primary battle has made the Republicans general election underdogs.

They are not unquestionably doomed to this fate: If we were totally confident about the November outcome, we’d call Florida, Ohio, and the other swing states “safe” for Democrats instead of just leaning toward them.

So there is a long way to go, and after the rise of Trump we’re not even close to 100% confident of much of anything. But a general election race that at the start of the cycle looked like a Toss-up just isn’t right now, which is why we have made such dramatic changes to our ratings.

Every now and then, one of the major parties goes off the track and forfeits an election, as in 1964 and 1972. This time, it is possible that the Republicans are the new Whigs, headed for a crackup, an oft-made comparison that historian Michael Holt recently examined in the Crystal Ball.

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