The Democrat-leaning newsletter, the “Cook Political Report,” has come out with a new analysis of the 2016 election showing 11 states moving toward the Democratic column.
Some are deep red, some are toss ups, but none are really surprising given the results of the last two presidential elections.
“This has been an exceedingly unpredictable year,” the analyst said. “Although we remain convinced that Hillary Clinton is very vulnerable and would probably lose to most other Republicans, Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity with wide swaths of the electorate — women, millennials, independents and Latinos — make him the initial November underdog.”
Colorado, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin were all shifted from toss-up states to leaning Democratic. The “solid Republican” states Missouri and Indiana were downgraded to “likely Republican.” New Mexico is now solidly Democratic, and North Carolina is a toss-up after leaning Republican.
The analyst also shifted Arizona and Georgia from likely Republican to leaning Republican.
Cook also moved one House race toward Democrats: Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, which was considered solid for Republicans and is now classified as a toss-up race.
Maine’s 2nd District was the only reclassification that favored the GOP, going from solid Democrat to likely Democrat. The Report classifies congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska because they are the only two states that don’t award their Electoral College votes on a winner-take-all basis.
Although it’s still 6 months before the polls open, the analysis highlights why Donald Trump, or any other Republican, is facing an uphill climb to win a national election.
The only states on that list that President Obama did not win in 2008 are Missouri and Georgia. And both of those states have seen a large influx of Hispanic voters, making them ripe for a Democratic flip.
No Republican would be likely to win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or New Mexico in 2016. But there were high hopes after the 2014 midterms that Colorado and Virginia were ready to fall to the GOP. That still might happen, but again, it’s an uphill fight to claim them.
The country is getting browner, older, and more dependent on government for their comforts. Trump is good at telling people that he can make things better using government, so unlike most Republicans, he speaks the language of dependency.
But he has energized minorities, motivating them to go to the polls in November. Unless he can find a way to tamp down their anxiety, it is going to get very ugly for Trump on election day.
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