Todd Simmons: There’s Clinton and There’s All the Rest
Secretary Clinton’s persuasive debate performance Tuesday gave her candidacy an adrenaline shot and set up strongly favorable electoral dynamics for next year.
For efficiency鈥檚 sake, a compelling case could be made that we simply start referring to Hillary Clinton as Madam President now, and skip the alternately tiresome and repetitive customs of the coming year (if I never have to listen again to the whimsically reported vote breakdown of Dixville Notch, N.H., for instance, there will be zero tears shed).
I鈥檓 only half-joking. Tuesday鈥檚 heavily watched Democratic debate (CNN reports a record 15.3 million viewers) drove home the undeniable point that Secretary Clinton is the only candidate in either the Republican or Democratic fields with the experience, intellect and gravitas acceptable for the role of leader of the free world. Several of her opponents score well in one or two of those categories, but she鈥檚 the only one who runs the table.
Personal qualifications alone don鈥檛 assure anyone the presidency, of course. The shoulders of the road to the White House are littered with the wreckage of campaigns of individuals who might have made fine presidents, but had fatal flaws in other critical areas 鈥 campaign savvy, personal lives, fundraising ability, temperament and the stamina required to run a long-distance race, to name some of the most important.
Though Clinton was easily the shortest in stature on the Tuesday night stage, she stood head and shoulders above her accomplished colleagues on all these measures. Likewise the madding crowd that squeezes itself onto the stage of each Republican debate. From Jeb Bush to Carly Fiorina to Ben Carson, there鈥檚 simply no one who comes close (especially including “carnival barker” Donald Trump, as Democratic candidate Martin O’Malley memorably described him Tuesday night).
But there are other factors whose importance looms this election season and that virtually preordain its outcome, even with months remaining until the primary process begins and still one year left before the general election vote. Here are the most vital three:
Favorable Electoral Map. The Democratic nominee, which every respectable pollster agrees is nearly certain to be Hillary Clinton ( aggregated her chances at 77 percent this week), approaches the election with a decided advantage in the electoral map 鈥 a starting point of an estimated 217 of the 270 votes needed to take the White House. According to , there are approximately 85 possible combinations that would yield the 53 votes Clinton needs to win.
A generic GOP opponent would need 79 votes, but would find fewer possible scenarios that would take him/her there 鈥 72. In head-to-head matchups based on current polling, Clinton enjoys substantial electoral advantages against every potential GOP opponent who has participated in significant polling.
Presidential campaigns are billed as popularity contests. But they鈥檙e decided by the Electoral College, and Clinton鈥檚 strategy is built around exactly that fact.
Fat Lead in Key Endorsements. The public support of a popular, trusted leader provides influential validation to those candidates able to earn it, and in this category, Clinton is steamrolling the other 13 endorsed Democratic and GOP hopefuls.
And not just by a little. As of Wednesday, she had earned 361 endorsement points from congressional representatives, U.S. senators and state governors 鈥 more than 10 times that of her closest competitor in these sweepstakes, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, as tracked by . Five of her endorsements have come within the past two weeks. The combined total over that same period for all other candidates? Six. Following Tuesday night’s strong performance, Clinton’s lead in this area is only likely to grow.
Boding well for Clinton, groups that tilt Democratic are young and expanding 鈥 Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, millenials (ages 18-33) and the religiously unaffiliated. Republican-leaning groups are comparatively older and contracting, including white evangelicals, white Southerners, Mormons, low-educated white men and the elderly (69-86).
Support of Women and Latino Voters. Last month at the apex of coverage of Clinton鈥檚 email issues, largely driven by the House Select Committee on Benghazi, media were awash in stories about her sharply declining support among Democratic women. Clinton鈥檚 trustworthiness ratings had been primarily eroding from the email/Benghazi issues, and women were among the most affected.
But Christmas came early for Secretary Clinton when in a period of days, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy admitted the Benghazi committee鈥檚 raison d鈥檈tre was to drive down Clinton鈥檚 poll numbers (an admission ), and her chief Democratic rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders, barked dismissively at Tuesday鈥檚 debate, to thunderous applause, 鈥淓nough with the emails!鈥
But even at its nadir, Clinton鈥檚 overall lead among women was still sizable and the overall gender gap between her and other candidates equally large. As she puts the last of the email/Benghazi drama behind her, disaffected women voters are likely to find their way back to her camp 鈥 not only because she鈥檚 a woman and would become the first female president, but because her positions on a range of issues critically important to women will draw that support. And she鈥檒l be making her case against a Republican field that continues to be accurately defined, in part, as leaders in the so-called “war on women.”
President Obama won re-election with the 鈥 12 percent 鈥 and it鈥檚 hard to imagine that, freed of scandal and running at full strength, Clinton wouldn鈥檛 draw even larger support from women, who made up 53 percent of the vote in 2012. It should be noted that for 17 of the past 18 years, Americans have named in TIME magazine鈥檚 annual poll.
Among Latino voters, Clinton鈥檚 position is expected to be at least as strong. Her history of work on health care, education, labor and immigration issues important to Hispanics stand in stark contrast to a Trump-led Republican field, including Hispanic U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, that has gone out of its way to demonize and insult the Latino community and obstruct progress on immigration reform. She already enjoys endorsements from and actress Selma Hayek, among others.
As many analysts have said, there is no path to the White House that does not include significant Latino support, given the demographic鈥檚 growing size in the overall U.S. population. Mitt Romney lost the Latino vote to Barack Obama by a 71 percent to 27 percent margin in 2012; McCain to Obama 67 percent to 31 percent. George W. Bush lost the Latino vote by much smaller margins to Al Gore and John Kerry and still won, but the Latino voting population has grown significantly since the last of those elections more than a decade ago.
So much can happen between now and November of 2016 that might turn all of the above on its head. But Clinton鈥檚 staunchest opponents have already come at her with everything they have and come up not only short, but looking dishonest and craven. She seems to have learned in recent months how to effectively talk about her use of a private email system while she was Secretary of State 鈥 a practice not only employed by prior secretaries, but that has yet to be implicated in any wrongdoing. And she鈥檚 been in the public eye for so long in heavily scrutinized positions, it would be hard to imagine any new issue surfacing from her past that would imperil her chances for the future.
News media have a strong commercial interest in portraying the presidential election as a neck-and-neck horse race and nurturing dynamics to make it so. Indeed, on the surface, individual affiliation or likely affiliation with either the Republican or Democratic parties is close and would seem to lend itself to a close contest.
But when one looks beyond individual registrations, a decidedly more attractive picture is emerging for Democrats and likely nominee Clinton . According to the Pew Research Center, groups that tilt Democratic are young and expanding 鈥 Hispanics, Blacks, Asians, millenials (ages 18-33) and the religiously unaffiliated. Republican-leaning groups are comparatively older and contracting, including white evangelicals and Southerners, Mormons, low-educated white men and the elderly (69-86).
As many have said, the presidential race shouldn鈥檛 be a coronation, and no one who has been watching the Democratic race over the past several months would mistake it for that. But some of the most important dynamics of this contest are now beginning to tilt decidedly for Clinton. Those who recall the excitement over America鈥檚 election of its first African American president in 2008 seem increasingly likely to witness another historic presidential first next year.
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