It’s seven days out from the election. So it’s time to go on the record with last minute predictions. Who will win the White House?

President Hillary Clinton?

It seems pretty obvious to many people that Hillary Clinton is destined for the White House.

HRC is a superior candidate in many ways. She has “experience” and is “qualified” – nebulous words – but more importantly, she is a normal politician. She’s an insider. It is rare that an outsider, like Reagan, wins. And even Reagan had to prove his bona fides as a serious person and public servant by governing California first.

In addition to conventional wisdom, there are good reasons to think HRC will win:

Polls

• Clinton has enjoyed a lead in the polls for months. The Real Clear Politics average favors her on Nov 2nd and has unabated since October 2015.
• The 538 Blog favors her, even though Nate Silver acknowledges on Nov 2 that Trump has a chance, (about 30% on Nov 2nd.)
• Also, most individual polls favor her – YouGov, ABC, NBC, etc. All this data tells in Hillary’s favor.

Anti-Trumpism

• Trump is the most hated presidential candidate in decades. People think he is a boorish, psychologically unwell, adulterous racist.
• Democrats, understandably, hate him. But many Republicans hate him.
• Young people hate him – One 21 year old student said: “If Trump wins, the next four years will look like hell. It will probably be the worst four years ever.”
• Although he has Breitbart and Drudge, most of the media hate him – Huffington Post editor’s have committed to posting the following disclaimer at the end of every one of their dozens of posts about Trump (18 articles on Nov 2 alone): “Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.”
• Actors hate him.
• Comedians and other artists hate him.

My Bet

Nevertheless, I am putting my money on Trump/Pence. Why?

Some gut reasons, and other more scientific reasons.

Gut reasons

1. No one bet on him in the Republican primaries (except Ann Coulter) yet Trump surprised everyone and won – by a lot. No one bets on him in the general. But it stands to reason he might surprise and win – by a lot. Why? Partly because the same thing might happen as happened with Obama – lots of new voters who aren’t reflected in past patterns. No one yet has been able to predict who and how many Trump voters will come out of the woodworks to vote for the first time.
2. Michael Moore thinks Trump will win, and doesn’t trust the polls that say otherwise. He thinks rustbelt voters, angry white men, Hillary’s unpopularity, depressed Sanders voters who stay home, and the “screw you” to the establishment indicate that Trump will win.
3. Brexit left people scratching their heads, too.
4. Scott Adams favors Trump because Trump is more persuasive.
5. Trump has generated more art, actually, than any other candidate I can think of, besides Obama. Some for, some against, including rap songs and photography. The basic level of attention and engagement actually tells in his favor, even though much of it is negative.

Quantitative Reasons

1. The USC Dornsife poll favors Trump, and has consistently (with exceptions) since about August. As of Nov 2, it is outside the 95% confidence interval.
2. The IBD/Tipp favors Trump, and has for several weeks. At Nov 2, they were technically tied, but Tipp has had him up recently. And they were the most accurate in 2012.
3. The Stock Market favors Trump. The stock market S&P 500 performance has predicted when the challenger would win 86% of the time since World War II.
4. Allan Lichtman predicts Trump will win using his 13 “Keys to the White House”, which have predicted each election since 1984.
5. Another Political Science Professor, Helmut Norpoth, used a statistical model that predicts Trump. He’s been right 96% of the time.
6. The incumbant party rarely wins; it’s the Republicans “turn” for the White House.
7. Internet searches reflect more Trump searches. An AI inventor said: “If Trump loses, it will defy the data trend for the first time in the last 12 years since Internet engagement began in full earnest,” Rai wrote in a report sent to CNBC.”

Only time will tell

Only time will tell whether these predictions are right or wrong. And only time will tell whether the lovers or the haters will to be right or wrong.

The Buhler Report