April 12, 2016

Trump-Sanders vs. Clinton-Cruz (thought experiment)

Here's a worthwhile thought experiment. Ignore your personal feelings about who you'd like to see as a nominee and running mate. The point is to objectively analyze a perhaps not-so-outlandish scenario that might unfold in this time of seismic political party re-alignment.

Suppose that Trump got the GOP nomination (which appears most likely), and sensing the great need to turn many blue states red, he chooses Bernie as his running-mate. Bernie accepts, having lost the Dem nomination and resenting the corruption in the Dem nominating process.

Then suppose that Hillary gets the nomination on the Dem side (most likely), and sensing the shifting red-blue map against a Trump-Sanders ticket, she chooses Cruz as her running mate. Cruz, stinging from losing the GOP nomination, accepts in order to keep the #NeverTrump spirit alive all the way to voting day.

1) Discuss the similarities that would link Trump and Sanders together, and those that would link Clinton and Cruz together. How much coherence would the Trump-Sanders campaign have in the fall of 2016, and how much coherence would the Clinton-Cruz campaign have?

2) What would most greatly distinguish the two campaigns, in other words what would be the greatest fault-lines in the general election?

3) Which campaign does best with which demographic groups?

4) More importantly, which campaign takes which states? And therefore, which one wins the election? You can be general or specific (play around with the 270 to win site).

Again, this isn't fantasy football. This is an exercise in surveying the state of party politics during a period of great re-alignment. I'll post my own thoughts later in the comments.

26 comments:

  1. 2) Faultlines -- nationalism vs globalism. The Trump-Sanders ticket requires reconcilable non-negotiables between the Trump and Sanders camps. Our (Trump) camp's non-negotiable is a Whitening of America, however that's phrased. Sanders' camp non-negotiable is a "citizenist" welfare state. That center can hold, in theory. If it does, great things are possible. The Clinton-Cruz side of the faultline favors business as usual in terms of foreign and economic policy, and appeals to risk-averse voters on both sides of the traditional GOP-DEM divide.

    3) Demographic groups -- Trump-Sanders take the majority of Whites who are young. Also married White lower-middle and working class AND SWP/striver Whites. Clinton-Cruz takes upper middle class Whites, old Whites, single White women, and evangelicals. They also take even more minorities than Obama did (Asians and Hispanics especially), but with Black male vote going to Trump slightly more than in recent elections.

    4) Which states -- Trump-Sanders take both coasts and maybe desert states. Clinton-Cruz take flyover west of the Mississippi.

    PA

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  2. The election could go either way given how up in the air either side of the 2 parties' bases would be in this scenario.

    The one thing I can feel safe in saying is this: Whoever won would win it with less than 300 electoral votes.

    The most likely winner I see from this would be Clinton/Cruz because of west of the Mississippi cuckservatives *and* identity politics dems from the same area, combined with middle aged/elderly partisan hacks east of the missispi. That said, any win by them would be significantly closer than a trump win -- think only making it over the 270 mark by a few points.

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  3. Sanders' wimpishness, especially w/immigration would make that hard to stomach.

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  4. Trump/Sanders would represent the best and most distinct of the White/Jewish instincts in America, whereas Hillary and Cruz would meet each others eyes from across the room, perform simultaneous efficiency-optimization subroutines, and then melt together into a doughy yet disturbing hyper-individualist amalgamation calculated to win exactly 50.5% of the delegates.

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  5. Even though it could (ultimately) lead to a huge realignment, for the most part people would just vote the way that they have always voted. 90% of votes are locked in. So I'm only going to look at races that were close on 2012.

    Adding Sanders to the Trump ticket would help bring out the Reagan Democrats, but Trump was already going to pull them. Adding Cruz to the Clinton ticket brings in even more swing-voting suburbanites. So in just those terms Clinton already benefits, grabbing Virginia for sure and maybe North Carolina. What states switch because of Sanders as VP? Maybe New Hampshire. He would help Trump in Ohio and Florida but Trump was already going to win those states. There are too many non-whites in NY, RI, NJ for Sanders to make a difference.

    Beyond demographics there are other factors. Cruz is young; Sanders is old. Cruz could go onto become president after 4-8 years as VP. Sanders won't get another chance. This dynamic favors the Clinton/Cruz ticket.

    Then there is the fact that both political parties would be on the side of the C/C ticket, rather than the T/S ticket. Sure Trump would have the R after his name, but the local Republican parties would shift resources and personnel to the local democratic parties. The Republican party would become an empty shell. That empty shell might then gradually turn into a strong party that can win the presidency but more likely than not we'd move to permanent single party rule.

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  6. Yeah, even if the conditions for this hypothetical were met the results wouldn't be so good.

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  7. Meanwhile, one establishment cuck has chickened out http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/paul-ryan-i-do-not-want-nor-will-i-accept-gop-nomination/ar-BBrFtiC?li=BBnb7Kz&OCID=DELLDHP

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    Replies
    1. With the thoughts you'd be thinkin4/12/16, 11:15 PM

      Ryan is slime, he has performed the same routine before and graciously accepted as the elite has bestowed on him positions he claimed he didn't want.

      http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/10/08/rep-paul-ryan-wisconsin-house-speakers-job-thanks-but-no-thanks/73588750/
      http://observer.com/2016/04/exclusive-paul-ryan-to-attend-secret-donor-meeting-next-week-in-manhattan/

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  8. Trump/Sanders win in a landslide. Those two are the only candidates with any actual excitement associated with them. They draw huge crowds and their geographical strength is complimentary.

    They would own the Northeast, Midwest, Florida, and the Northwest. That alone is enough to win. Trump's strength among the Scotch/Irish would probably extend his dominance as far south as Tennessee and North Carolina but it would start waning as he encountered the evangelicals in South Carolina, Georgia and states to the west. Cruz/Clinton would capture much of the South (minus Virginia, North Carolina and Florida) and much of the Rocky area, but there aren't nearly enough electoral votes to counter Trump/Sanders.

    Trump/Sanders would win everything from WI, IL, TN, NC to the northeast. They'd also get WA, OR and FL. That alone is 291 electoral votes. And I'm assuming Clinton/Cruz win everything else which is questionable. The evangelical/libertarian types in the Rocky areas don't care much for Trump, but they HATE Hillary so they might still go with a Trump/Sanders ticket.

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  9. Actually, the simpler way to look at it is that a Trump/Sanders ticket might actually be reconcilable. There is enough common ground. The Hillary/Cruz ticket just can't work because both candidates win their allegiance by getting their voters to hate and fear the opposite party. I just don't see how normal Cruz fans could possibly stomach Hillary on the ticket, just as Hillary fans couldn't stomach Cruz on the ticket.

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  10. Working backwards, I can see T/S winning with 284, making some pretty generous concessions to C/C:

    T/S takes the states east of the Mississippi, except for a FedGov Establishment corridor consisting of NC, VA, MD, DE, and even NJ. Out West, T/S takes only AZ, OR, WA, and HI.

    The idea is to look where Trump and Sanders both won, and weight it more heavily for how the state usually votes. That gives Trump the Deep South, FL (given how badly he beat the Repubs, even if Sanders didn't do well there), and the Appalachian states that don't have a foothold in the FedGov corridor -- TN, KY, WV.

    New England shows the biggest convergence of Trump and Sanders appeal, so they take that region.

    New York is already in play from Trump alone, throw in a populist Dem who's also a native New Yorker, and there it goes.

    T/S is also going to heavily overlap in the Rust Belt, so they take PA, MI, OH, IN, IL, and WI.

    Trump wins AZ all by himself.

    The Pacific NW is deep blue country, but it went heavily for Sanders. Throw in a non-culture war Repub, and they'll be happy. WA and OR.

    HI went to both Trump and Sanders.

    You can take some of those out -- maybe IL would be too friendly to the Clinton machine. But then throw in NJ for T/S and a couple residual red states from the Plains or Mountains, and it washes out.

    I'd feel safe with a Trump/Sanders ticket.

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  11. "90% of votes are locked in."

    That's the losing fatalist mindset that made Romney choke like a dog in the last election.

    If 90% of voters were just doing the same ol' thing, Trump would not have dominated New England and the Deep South, let alone with double-digit percent increases in the number of voters turning out. Dem turnout is pathetic, but in white states is going toward Sanders -- unthinkable 8 years ago.

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  12. "Adding Sanders to the Trump ticket would help bring out the Reagan Democrats, but Trump was already going to pull them."

    It's not clear that he'd do it in such a landslide, though. With Sanders as his running mate, it all but guarantees wins throughout New England and much of the Great Lakes region. That would be winnable with Trump alone, but it'd be an uphill battle.

    "Cruz could go onto become president after 4-8 years as VP. Sanders won't get another chance."

    I don't think most people are thinking that far ahead -- they really, really want to get over this one big obstacle in 2016. Hell, I think both sides of the T/S ticket would be fine if they agreed that Bernie could run in the Dem primaries in 2020. This unity ticket would be to knock out the Establishment once and for all.

    "The Republican party would become an empty shell. That empty shell might then gradually turn into a strong party that can win the presidency but more likely than not we'd move to permanent single party rule."

    I think there'd still be a healthy amount of Dem and Repub politics at the state level, and in Congress, albeit with a lot of shaking up.

    We actually did have one-party rule during the period of falling competitiveness in the early 19th C -- under the Democratic-Republican Party, peaking in 1820 when Monroe ran unopposed.

    Didn't last long, though, and by 1824 it split 4 different ways. So even if we did have a T/S unity party for awhile, it would soon break into a Trump party and a Sanders party. That's fine -- as long as we shut out the Establishment for awhile in the meantime.

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  13. "The most likely winner I see from this would be Clinton/Cruz because of west of the Mississippi cuckservatives *and* identity politics dems from the same area, combined with middle aged/elderly partisan hacks east of the missispi."

    There aren't many electoral votes to be had in the Plains and Mountain states, though, aside from Texas. That's the thinking that has dug the Republicans into the hole they're in today -- making their stronghold a region that has hardly any clout in the electoral college.

    Plains + Mountains, including Nevada and Alaska, only adds up to 155 electoral votes -- they'll get killed forever if that's their base.

    There aren't enough partisan hacks east of the Mississippi to make up for a dependence on Prairie-Mountain values voters. Cruz couldn't pick up the South, and Clinton won the South but it's not blue states so she'll lose there too. Same for the Northeast and Great Lakes.

    The only place where partisan hacks could put a large dent in the T/S ticket is MD, DC, VA, and NC.

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  14. "Our (Trump) camp's non-negotiable is a Whitening of America, however that's phrased. Sanders' camp non-negotiable is a "citizenist" welfare state."

    I think it could be more palatable to just be the de-immigrantification of America -- whites, blacks, and descendants of legal immigrants (no anchor babies or their families, and any legals who are here temporarily will be going back when their visa is up), and a pause +/- on future immigration.

    We can sell that to the class-oriented Dems on jobs, wages, incomes, and lower prices for housing, schooling, health care, etc.

    But throw in the angle of not introducing invasive species for the enviro types. And not risking pandemic diseases for the public health types. We've already had one Spanish Flu pandemic thanks to open borders, killing millions -- we don't need another. (Or the Black Plague, or any other major killer due to widespread population movement.)

    I think the Sanders side shouldn't push too much for "free shit," but more pressing matters like breaking up Wall Street and re-igniting the labor movement. We don't have a level playing field when mega-corps and their fly-by-night executives can do whatever they want, and the population has no say. Break up the big banks, and allow workers to bargain collectively with the management, and a lot of the "free shit" problems will take care of themselves.

    And something about student loans -- Trump has already said, more or less, he's going to cut off the federal loans that fuel rampant inflation, making students a conduit for fed loans going into the colleges' coffers. He's also said introducing a low interest rate, longer deferments, and presumably allowing them to be discharged in bankruptcy court like other loans.

    "Boy, I beat those banks so hard when I threw that dying company into a chapter... but don't feel sorry for them, folks, they're vicious killers and hahribble yuman beings."

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  15. Two more thoughts:

    This little exercise shows how strong a T/S ticket could do -- it could work even if they were an independent / write-in choice.

    Let's say Clinton chooses an Establishment Dem, and Cruz or Ryan or whoever chooses an Establishment Repub after the RNC steals the nomination from Trump.

    That might make it even easier for T/S to win -- if the above speculations are even halfway right, T/S could take on the *combined* forces of Clinton and Cruz. It would be even easier if the Establishment was too fragmented and status-striving to come together in an Establishment unity ticket. They certainly haven't been able to come together so far in this election cycle.

    In effect, Clinton and Cruz would split the Establishment / Pussy vote, and make it easier for T/S to win with only a plurality of the state's popular vote. Remember how Wallace won several of the Deep Southern states in 1968 -- he got less than 50% of the vote, but it was still more than either Nixon or Humphrey.

    Clinton would be hard-pressed to win against both Cruz and Trump/Sanders in just about any state other than California. But throw in a few other Dem party strongholds, like present-day VA, MD, and DC.

    Cruz would win many states in the Plains and Mountains, but again that doesn't add up to much.

    Trump-Sanders would win outright majorities in many big states back East, and even in closer races would still win a plurality albeit less than 50% -- somewhere like MO, IL, etc.

    So, who knows? If the Dem Establishment beats Bernie fair and square, or if they steal it from him, and if the GOP steals it from Trump, they could team up and use the "splitter strategy" against the Establishment. Majorities in states where both Trump and Sanders won the primary, and largest pluralities in many others.

    If they could unite, that would give them an even greater shot at clearing 270, against a split Establishment field.

    The Trump campaign has been a great example of "how to win states with less than 50% of the vote against a split field". Why not carry it into the general?

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  16. The other thought:

    If Trump got the nomination only by accepting an Establishment figure as VP, there would be a real incentive for the Establishment -- of either party -- to assassinate Trump after taking office, which would move the Establishment stooge into the Presidency through the back door.

    Shades of Bush being forced on Reagan back in '80, and Reagan nearly getting assassinated by a member of a family that was connected with the Bush family.

    To remove that incentive, Trump's VP would have to be someone who the Establishment would not want to see promoted to President. Sanders is anathema to Establishment Dems, and even more so to Establishment Repubs.

    They'd have to assassinate both the VP, choose an Establishment replacement, then assassinate Trump, for an Establishment figure to replace him. One assassination is already pushing -- two back-to-back, so nakedly anti-democratically? There would be an armed rebellion, and every politician would be gunned down by an angry mob, not to mention wealthy mega-donors being gunned down.

    Sure, Trump could and probably will try to pick an anti-Establishment Repub as running mate, who like Sanders would be anathema to the Establishment of both parties, and also serve as an insurance policy.

    The point is that Sanders would do well in that role as well.

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  17. Sanders also fits the basic profile of what Trump has repeatedly said he's looking for in a running-mate:

    1) Make a good replacement if something happens to Trump. That means, in effect, anyone who's anti-Establishment, not controlled by the donor class, who's for populist/nationalist trade and economic policies, who's for extirpating corruption in the government, not pursuing adventurist / idealist foreign policy, not worshiping Israel and Saudi Arabia, etc.

    On that score, Sanders is better than the other Repubs who've been running this time, or last time or the last.

    2. Bringing in states that will help Trump win. Sanders helps Trump secure New England and other parts of the Northeast, makes him strong in the Great Lakes, and even in the Pacific NW, which is heavily Democrat but which voted overwhelmingly for Bernie.

    3. Being a seasoned Washington insider, who can bring Trump up to speed on how Congress, etc., works, who can serve as a liason to Congress, and so forth. He's been in the House and Senate for 25 years -- slightly longer than Jeff Sessions.

    Bernie would also make it much, much easier to attain bipartisan consensus on Trump's program, as opposed to a conservative stalwart like Sessions.

    Bernie could also play these roles without being Trump's VP -- maybe serving in a cabinet position, or staying in the Senate as an Indy but meeting regularly with Trump a la Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan.

    But it certainly wouldn't go against Trump's criteria, whereas all other Repubs who were/are in the race would violate at least the first two and most important criteria (anti-Establishment bona fides and electability).

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  18. You overestimate Sanders. He's a old, tired, wimpy puppet opponent for Hillary. He'll cave without a fight come primary's end and endorse Clinton, I guarantee it.

    Proof? Look how many vulnerabilities the old dyke has, how fragile her hold on the party is. Now look how many he's exploited to turn her into a combination of pariah and laughingstock.

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  19. Random Dude on the Internet4/12/16, 10:21 PM

    I think the Trump ticket, regardless of VP, will get us to over 270. It will be the Romney states + Ohio + Florida + Virginia + Nevada. That takes us to 272 electoral votes.

    With a Sanders VP, I could see Vermont, Wisconsin, and New Hampshire flipping to the Republicans. Now we are at 289 EVs for the GOP.

    Iowa, Colorado, Maine, Oregon, and Pennsylvania become battleground states. That's another 46 electoral votes on the line.

    In terms of political realignments, that will take time. Mormons for example may dislike Trump but they will reliably vote for a Republican in 2016, even if they don't care much for the Presidential nominee. In 2024, it could be a totally different story. For now, we will see some signs of shifting but not enough to dramatically change the map.

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  20. I read an article in which a Super PAC running Trump hater acknowledged that they've conceded NY to Trump and probably won't put up much of a fight in places that he's polling well in. I've seen some MSM/anti-Trump writers cite Wis. voters to validate anti-Trump animosity. Give me a break. We've seen some progress made in coverage of what defines certain white ethnics but few in the 1st and 2nd tier press have noted that MN/Iowa/Wis. are exceptional on account of being the Lutheran belt.

    Absent the other candidates simply dropping out and clearing the way for the leader. the momentum narrative is a myth. Every state/region has unique customs and demographics. Do New Jersey Italians care about how Karl Schmidt or Eric Olson voted?

    Who are the anyone but Trump crowd kidding? Creepy Ted isn't getting any less slimy (when hit with an accusation, whether it's the mistresses or delegate chicanery, he usually goes for the ad hominem rebuttal instead of specifically refuting the charge) , the pro Trump crowd isn't backing down, and the more pro social/rooted cucks go for Kasich while the zealots go for Cruz. Trump's redoubt among the brave, vigilant, and yearning isn't weakening. His disciples will renounce the GOP if they don't get a Trump nom. The party will be toast not only in the general election but also in other elections as hordes of disgruntled voters let their feelings be known.

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  21. A sign of the changing climate will be repudiating the legacy and influence of the dreaded Bush and Clinton dynasties under whom we've been deceived and poisoned. Time to get the fangs out, cleanse our blood, and kill the snake.

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  22. Ok, the problem is that people are treating this as a Trump/Sanders co-presidency vs a Clinton/Cruz co-presidency. It is nothing of the sort. It would be a Trump vs Clinton race with an interesting twist.


    "If 90% of voters were just doing the same ol' thing, Trump would not have dominated New England"

    He didn't dominate in New England. He dominated (some) of the Republican primaries in New England. Let's look at Massachusetts, the state that I grew up in:

    Trump got 311,313 votes. Clinton got 603,784 votes. Let's assume that all of these votes go to them again. Then we see that Sanders got 586,716 votes. Those Sanders votes are not all going to go to a T/S ticket. Most likely 80% would go to Clinton, 10% to Trump, and 10% would stay home. Let's be generous though, and give Clinton 60%, have 20% stay home, and 20% go to Trump. Ok so that bumps Trump to 428,656 and Clinton to 955,814. I could go on, splitting up the votes of the other candidates and then adding in non primary voters, but in the end we see that Romney (who was a very popular governor) could not beat Obama. If Romney couldn't win MA with his home state advantage then there is no way that Trump could, even with a VP pick that would add to his appeal. (and with Cruz hurting Clinton in MA). The margin is just too big.

    I could talk about other states, etc... but in the end it would be Trump vs Clinton. People vote for presidents, not vice presidents. The interesting thing about T/S vs C/C tickets would be in the long-term effects on how they share the future of the parties.

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  23. "He's a old, tired, wimpy puppet opponent for Hillary."

    I've already said that in other threads about the Dem race.

    As a running-mate for Trump, though, he'd bring more than the other Repubs who ran, and more than most of those who didn't. Only the handful of populist/nationalist Repubs could do better, like Jeff Sessions (although again, what states does he help win, compared to Bernie?).

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  24. "He dominated (some) of the Republican primaries in New England."

    He'll dominate all except for the less rooted state of Maine. That's clearly what we meant by Trump doing so well in New England.

    You can't compare vote counts across parties in primaries, since they're not running against each other. Overall turnout, to measure enthusiasm, OK. But not Clinton's count vs. Trump's count -- who was still running against a ton of other candidates on March 1st (Mass. primary).

    You're assuming that all the non-Trump votes in the Mass. primary will continue to stay away from Trump in the Mass. general election -- but that won't happen. If Trump is the nominee, a lot of those who voted for Kasich or Rubio or whoever in the primary are going to pull the lever for Trump. Only some are such hardcore NeverTrump-ers that they'll defect to Hillary Clinton.

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  25. You can win the biggest11 states and win 270, which has been the Dem strategy since Mondale. Immigration has made 270 easier for them. With Sanders, Trump wins nearly all of them. It's not going to happen but it'd be an amazing expression of Sailer's citizenism strategy combined with repudiating "invade, invite, in debt" elite strategy.

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