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Hey! So, believe it or not, I just finished writing this post.....but then I forgot to save. So I'm going to try and get this out as soon as possible, and I'll slowly add links and citations as time goes on. This probably won't be my best writing, as i've had to re-write ALL of what I've wrote from memory.
TLDR: I believe that Trump will win, because of four aspects of the election that lean in his favor: Scandals, Voter Turnout, Party Unity, and Polling Trends.
Let's start with Party Unity.
Party Unity
Conventional wisdom throughout much of the primaries stated that the Republican Party was fractured and splintered, while the Democratic Party (early on) was more or less united behind Clinton. That wasn't really true then, and it's especially not true now. As I see it:
The Republican Party is solidly behind Trump BUT the Democratic Party is not united behind Clinton.
Now, on it's face, that sentence might seem ridiculous. You've had a Republican primary with over a dozen candidates. Not to mention numerous high-profile Republicans denouncing Trump, and, in some cases, withdraw their endorsements. Whereas virtually all high-profile Democrats, including Bernie Sanders himself, have thrown their lot behind Hillary Clinton. BUT, that dosen't matter. Why you ask?
Another very important detial: Party representatives and their constituents are not analogous. Just because party elites throw their support behinds someone, doesn't mean the actual Republican or Democratic base of voters will do the same.
Most Republicans strongly support Trump. Polls consistently indicate that a solid majority stand by him and view him favorably. He won by overwhelming margins in both many states contests and debates during the primary. Many, Americans, including the Republican Base, despise the role of money in politics. A major advantage in Trump's favor is that he portrays himself as an out to this system, the "anti-establishment" candidate, as some would say.
Now, unlike in the Republican Party, there are clear schisms and fractures in terms of support for the nominee. One YouGov poll found that only 51% of Sanders supporters planned to vote for Clinton come November. Many millennials especially, view HRC in poor terms. Progressives have long detested Hillary Clinton's hawkish record on foreign policy, closeness with financial elites, and flip flopping
When Trump has much stronger Party Unity than Clinton, it means his supporters are far more likely to turn out in high numbers which---oh!--leads into the next point!
Voter Turnout
Generally, when turnout is low, Republicans have the advantage, and when turnout is high, Democrats have the advantage. This is because low turnout usually means that older voters, which tend to lean Republican make up the majority of those voting, while high turnout means that many minorities and younger voters yield the opposite effect for Democrats.
Much of a fuss has been made about Hillary Clinton's ground organization campaign, and how it dwarfs Donald Trump's. Here's the thing, that too, does not matter.
The majority of Trump supporters are much older than your average millennial (DUH DOY). So GOTV (Get Out The Vote) efforts are not nearly as important, since older voters have voted in many elections prior, thus, they likely already are aware all logistical nonsense involved.. Furthermore, Trump supporters tend to be much more enthusiastic about their candidate than Clinton supporters.
On the other hand, the Democratic Party registration rosters are filled with millennials, who's association with the party began and ended with Bernie Sanders' campaign. Don't be fooled by amount of doors knocked, or registered Democrats called. GOTV efforts only work if you're helping people who actually want to vote for your candidate, to do so. If much of your base (in this case, the Democratic Party) is splintered, organization is far less important because turnout will still likely be low.
That's not to say there's not a significant portion of the Democratic Party that strongly supported Clinton during the primary, and continue to now. But that faction isn't nearly enough to outnumber the base of the Republican Party, as well as Sanders' supporters which abstain, or in a small minority of cases, vote for Trump. Polls also tend to show that the amount of supporters
Polling Trends
For those following Real Clear Politics' Trump v. Clinton average, there's been a very odd phenomenon that follows a predictable pattern. Basically, HRC and Trump start off at a chasm, with HRC leading by as much as 10+, then over the course of about a month, they converge to more or less even, then something will happen to Trump and the chasm will begin again, but after another month, they will converge.
Of all the twists and turns in this election, one thing remains constant, when it's all said and done, Trump and Clinton end up in dead heat.
Now, you might counter me by saying that, while the trend does fluctuate, recent polls do still favor Clinton, but here's the thing: Those polls may very well be a result of something called "Herding", wherein pollsters change their methodology to preclude the possibility of their polls being statistical outliers. If you think I'm just being conspiratorial, don't! Nate Silver himself suspects the same thing
As you can see, most polls fall within a pretty strict range of +2 to +4 in favor of HRC. Nate Silver had written that this is probably somewhat a result of "herding". Especially in an election of this magnitude, nobody wants to be the outlier. As Nate Silver again put it this could be "a case of the blind leading the blind".
Now, there are two polls that don't share this trend, the IBD/TIPP and the LA Times/USC tracking polls (Note: Nate Silver adjusts polls with a "trendline" so these aren't he except numbers). In both instances, these polls have Trump ahead by a view points. T
Other polls, (which Nate Silver alluded to in this tweet) might be victim to something called :herding
There's something very special about those two polls, not only were they among the most accurate in 2012, they are both tracking polls. Whereas most other polls take a sample once, ask them questions, and then likely never touch the same sample again, tracking polls stick with the same sample for the duration of the election. Though the LA Times/USC poll does continuously add new members to its sample as the election goes on.
So why is that important? Well if you closely study the RCP graph you saw earlier, you start to notice that the "gulfs" in which HRC lead Trump overwhelmingly came generally at the same time he has a major media gaffe like the "Obama Founded ISIS" thing in August. When that happens, his poll numbers drop off, but curiously, that does not happen in the tracking polls.
Of course, this can mean many things, but my take is that people tend to be far less willing to say they'd vote for Trump immediately following a major incident in the media, which is completely natural behavior for any candidate. Since tracking polls foster a stronger relationship between the pollster and those polled over the course of the election, the tracking polls are likely far less susceptible to those swings in support than most other polls are.
So, it's very possible that Trump and HRC are much closer in the polling than many might believe, and when the polls are close, who wins? The candidate with the higher turnout, due to stronger party unity, Speaking of unity......
Scandals
Remember the saying, "a chain is only as strong as its weakest link!". That's never been more pertinent to the point of how scandals affect party unity. Fundamentally, scandals affect the Republican base far less than they affect the Democratic Party base, why is that?
American trust in the media has reached a historic low, and the overwhelming majority of Americans, even a majority of Democrats believe that media is biased in favor of Hillary Clinton.
When Donald Trump is seen as the anti-establishment candidate, its much more likely that scandals will slide off of him because most people see the media as inherently biased anyway. So people in general not just the Republican base, are less likely to take as seriously negative coverage on Donald Trump.
On the other hand, the scandals which affect Hillary Clinton, such as potential corruption through the Clinton foundation, Wikileaks, DNC collusion, leaked "basement dwellers" comment, and email investigations, only stoke the schism that exists between Sanders' supporters and loyalist Democrats. Since party unity is already weak, and because even most Democrats believe mainstream media to be biased in favor of Clinton, negative coverage and new revelations are much more impact. Especially to former Sanders' supporters that never strongly supported Clinton to begin with.
Conclusion
To tie everything together, there is a schism in the Democratic Party, of the like which does not exist in the Republican Party. While most Republicans strongly back Trump, and have some guarantee of high turnout because older voters tend to vote consistently, those that need to turn out in high numbers for HRC to win, namely millennials, will likely not turn out in high numbers. Nor will most former Sanders' supporters generally.
Since unity in the Democratic Party is weak to begin with, scandals, especially scandals that involve corruption, will further the schism between loyalist democrats and former Sanders' supporters.
The polling trends tend to favor a convergence between Trump and Hillary, and generally, when two candidates are tied, whoever has the more passionate supporters (in this case, Donald Trump) will win.
Democrats, you should've nominated Bernie!
