Prediction Model That Nailed 2018: Trump Will Lose

Like many, I view Donald Trump as a foul and abhorrent individual and worry that the nation could not survive if he were to be re-elected in 2020.  According to a researcher at nearby Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia, that widespread sense of dread and loathing may be what is key in seeing Trump defeated in 2010. Apathetic Democrat voters who stayed home in 2016 - as well as Never Trump Republicans who threw away their votes on third party candidates - elected Trump.  According to this researcher who correctly predicted the Democrat gains in the House of Representatives in 2018 believes no such apathy will be witnessed in 2020.  I hope and pray that she is correct and the long national nightmare ends in January, 2021.  Here are highlights from The Hill:

The prediction model that accurately predicted Democratic gains in the House four months before the 2018 midterm elections says President Trump will lose his reelection bid.

The latest "Negative Partisanship" model by Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, released Monday, predicts Trump will lose the Electoral College with the Democratic candidate earning 278 votes.

The model predicts Trump will earn 197 electoral votes. That leaves 63 votes a toss-up – still not enough to overcome the Democrat's lead.  Bitecofer highlighted Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as states the incumbent will have difficulty winning this time around.

"The complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president, has been replaced with the terrified electorate of 2020, who are convinced he’s the Terminator and can’t be stopped," she said. "Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is everything."  She also pointed to his low approval rating among independents as an impediment to a second term.

Bitecofer's model predicted a 42 seat House Democratic pickup in 2018, and the Democrats won 40. Many other models did not predict such a large victory.

She acknowledged the Democratic candidate has not been chosen yet, but argued it is not incredibly important who the nominee is.

"Does the Democrat’s nominee matter? Sure, to an extent. If the ticket has a woman, a person of color or a Latino, or a female who is also a person of color, Democratic Party turnout will surge more in really important places," Bitecofer wrote. "If the nominee is Biden he’d be well-advised to consider Democratic voter turnout his number one consideration when drawing his running mate to avoid the critical mistake made by Hillary Clinton in 2016."

"But the Democrats are not complacent like they were in 2016 and I doubt there is any amount of polling or favorable forecasts that will make them so. That fear will play a crucial role in their 2020 victory. We will not see a divided Democratic Party in 2020," she wrote.

Will 2018 Be the End of the Trump Presidency?

As 2017 comes to an end, the usual predictions for the coming year are being made.  One issue that bookies are still taking wagers on is whether 2018 will see the end of the presidency of Donald Trump.  As much as I detest Trump - and Pence as well - and as much as I would be thrilled to see him exit the White House, as a piece in Vanity Fair lays out, 2018 will likely not see that dream realized.  As for 2019, the results of the 2018 midterm elections could shift things should the Democrats sweep and regain control of the House of Representatives and the Senate.  Until we know that result, prognostications for 2019 would be premature.   Here are article highlights:

At this point, London bookies still think it’s likelier than not that Trump will exit before his first term is over, something no president has done while still alive. So it’s time to revisit the betting terrain and prognosticate for the coming year.

Will Donald Trump be impeached in 2018?  Mighty, mighty unlikely. If you don’t stand to multiply your investment by 20, I’d skip the bet. Impeachment is a political act, and the Republican majority will remain in place through 2018. If the investigations into collusion with Russia were yielding anything seriously damning (and if journalistic blunders on the subject weren’t outpacing scoops), it’d be different. As things stand, however, special counsel Robert Mueller seems to have found little in the way of collusion—at least that we know of—and instead shifted his focus to the obstruction of justice.

Obstruction of justice is a significant crime in itself, of course, but people are more willing to punish it if it’s part of the concealment of a bigger crime rather than the sum of the crime. As people are starting to notice, independent counsel investigations have a tendency to start by focusing on one thing and then indicting people for something else, after the process itself has made them trip over their own feet. Republicans are not going to join a pile-on over what role Donald Trump played in the false statements that former national security adviser Michael Flynn made to the F.B.I. Even Democrats are likely to flinch from impeachment talk, recalling what happened during the Clinton years.  In sum, make sure you get a big return on any Trump-impeachment bets.

Will Donald Trump be removed by the 25th Amendment?  Again—very, very unlikely. To remind readers, the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution lays out an elaborate palace-coup process with which to depose a sitting president. Such an ouster is arguably even harder to pull off than impeachment, except in cases of obvious emergency. Unless Trump interrupts a state visit to tear off all his clothes and run down Pennsylvania Avenue in winter, the palace coup won’t happen.

Will Trump resign in 2018?  Still very unlikely. To be fair, the odds of resignation are slightly better than those of impeachment or of a 25th Amendment palace coup. It requires only one powerful man, Donald Trump, to sign on. . . . . The odds of this happening with Trump, however, are mighty low. Donald Trump, while thin-skinned and incapable of rising above provocation, is indefatigable as a fighter, reminiscent of Clinton, Nixon, and other presidents in his resilience. Resignation would wound his pride too severely, because there’s no face-saving way to do it.

Will the Democrats sweep the midterms? Yes and no. They’ll do great in the House. Sean Trende of Real Clear Politics predicts a 40-seat gain, which would give Democrats a handy majority. Midterm elections have favored the incumbent president’s party only twice in the past 60 years—the first in 1998, when Republicans pushed to impeach Bill Clinton, the second in 2002, when Americans were rallying after 9/11. Trump has poor approval ratings, and there are many vulnerable House Republicans.  Flipping the Senate, though, is a lot harder.

Will Trump destroy much of life on earth?  Trump could go to war with Iran. As the fiercely anti-war Pat Buchanan has warned, U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley seems to be helping Trump to lay the groundwork for it. That would destroy Trump’s presidency, kill countless Iranians, and hasten the collapse of the United States as a great power. A bad outcome, to be sure. But it probably wouldn’t end in nuclear fire or mass civilian death in the United States.

As for North Korea, we may, ironically, be safer now that its nuclear program is nearly complete. It reduces Trump’s temptation to attack the country pre-emptively.

Prediction Panel: The Supreme Court Will Rule Against Gay Marriage Bans

No one knows for certain how the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on gay marriage bans except the justices themselves and perhaps their law clerks.  As the Christofascists continue to carry on and wail as if the world is soon to be ending - the only thing ending is the ease with once they have stigmatized LGBT individuals - various legal prognosticators are predicting how the Court will rule.  As the Wall Street Journal reports, most believe that the Court will invalidate all state bans, especially given its refusal to hear appeals from the 4th Circuit ruling that brought same sex marriage to Virginia.  Note, only those affiliated with the hate group, National Organization for Marriage predict victory for the Christofascists.  Here are some article highlights:

The Supreme Court by next week is expected to decide whether gay couples are constitutionally entitled to marry. With the votes still unknown, Law Blog asked a group of legal scholars to predict the outcome in the historic case.

The big question in the case, which justices argued in April, is whether the 14th Amendment requires all states to perform same-sex marriages. Most legal experts who spoke with Law Blog anticipate a victory for gay rights.

Ilya Somin, a constitutional scholar at George Mason University School of Law, thinks that justices, by a vote of 5-4 or 6-3, will decide that laws banning same-sex marriage are unconstitutional.
Cornell University law professor Michael Dorf makes the same prediction. He said the Supreme Court tipped its hand last year when it left in place rulings from several lower courts striking down state bans.

The decision not to intervene then effectively expanded gay marriage to states like Indiana, Oklahoma, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, and Mr. Dorf said he doesn’t think the justices would have allowed same-sex unions in those states to proceed if they “weren’t confident that there were at least five votes to find a right to same-sex marriage,” he said.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of UC Irvine Law School, predicts a 6-3 gay marriage victory, with Justice Anthony Kennedy writing an opinion arguing that state laws prohibiting same-sex marriage violate equal-protection guarantees.

Chapman University law professor John Eastman, the chairman of the anti-gay marriage National Organization for Marriage, expects Justice Kennedy will be a swing vote — but in a ruling against gay marriage.

Peeking further into the crystal ball, Law Blog checked in with FantasySCOTUS, the Supreme Court fantasy league sponsored by Thomson Reuters. This year’s contest drew more than 4,000 contestants — many lawyers and law students but others from non-legal backgrounds — who compete for a grand prize of $10,000 by predicting outcomes in Supreme Court cases over the course of a term.

Collectively, the online fantasy league is predicting a 5-4 gay marriage win. The league’s top-three leaders, including the league’s reigning champion Jacob Berlove, are  betting on that outcome too.

A ruling in favor of marriage equality on either Thursday or Friday - the Court has added a day for releasing opinions - prior to HR Pride's big event on Saturday would be wonderful!

Pat Robertson Sees Socialism and Economic Rebound Under Obama

Constant local embarrassment to the non-Kool-Aid drinking set and major media narcissist Pat Robertson is spouting off his annual predictions and in terms of the economy, I hope he's correct. Just about anything will be an improvement over the less than wonderful economy brought to us by the Chimperator and the GOP. In terms of socialism, Robertson backed the Chimperator and look at the growth of government under that nit wit's watch. Candidly, the guy is increasingly out of touch with reality, but he always spouts off brings unwanted attention to the fact that he resides in Virginia Beach. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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Citing information he says is from God, Christian broadcaster Pat Robertson said Friday that America is headed for veritable socialism as well as an economic rebound under President-elect Barack Obama in 2009. "What the Lord was saying, the people are willing to accept socialism to alleviate their pain," Robertson said on a broadcast of "The 700 Club." He hosts the program, which is aired from the Christian Broadcasting Network studios in Virginia Beach.

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Robertson said the economy, particularly the stock market, could start rebounding by the second quarter. . . . Robertson said on New Year's Day that "nothing will stand in the way of a plan by Obama to restructure the economy in the same fashion as the New Deal in the '30s," according to videotaped comments aired on Friday's show.

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The New Deal consisted of economic initiatives, such as publicly funded job programs, that Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt promoted during the Great Depression. Robertson said Friday that with a New Deal-style initiative, "you're federalizing many of the things you're doing. And it'll be the largest transfer of power to Washington since the '30s, but people are just willing to accept it because the pain has been so bad."