The last Steve Schale memo is now up: steveschale.com/…. This one is devoted to taking a big picture look at the EV and giving a prediction. He has HRC winning by 1.5% to 2.5%. More importantly, he has DT’s chances of winning at very low, because we have a more diverse electorate, HRC has a clear edge among NPA voters, and we have as many 2012 voters as they do to bring to the polls today. He suspects that we are ahead in the EV by 3 to 4 points, which means that Trump would have to win the e-day vote by 6-8 points (out of the 3.2 million voters left) and it isn’t there for him, given the sheer number of favorable voters we will bring to the polls in our big counties.
On a scale of 1 to 10, he puts the Clinton probability of a win at a 9.
I think the margin is going to be higher than 1.5% — 2.5% (basically an Obama 2008 margin) for the following reasons:
- We’re going to turn Miami Dade County into Los Angeles County, with a massive margin exceeding 30 points and a massive volume (1 million votes) (Schale would not disagree with that). Broward is also going to set a record.
- We still have a reservoir of voters to turn out in Palm Beach County, which will offset any upswing for Trump in North Florida or other places.
- Within key GOP counties like Lee and Duval, there are nearly as many or more Dems left to vote than GOPers. We may also get some help from the NPA voters in these counties. So we have an opportunity, with an effective turnout machine, to get enough voters out there to blunt Trump from adding to his red county margins. We can do this without dipping into our margins in the blue counties.
- Crossover — Schale’s methodology assumes that GOPers vote GOP and Dems vote Dem. Well we know that there is some softening in the typical GOP coalition as there is a sizable percentage of GOPers who cannot abide Trump. HRC is getting a net positive cross over of Latinos who are registered Republicans and suburban white women who are registered Republicans. White Republican men who do not like Trump are less likely to vote for HRC, but you may see support for Gary Johnson in some red areas that knocks Trump’s margins down below Romney’s. TargetSmart had HRC +8 because of this. I think a result that is in the 4-6 point range is possible.
- Red County Dems — I think red County Dems are turning out for her. They're going to get closer to 2008 numbers than 2012 in red counties. I don’t see how Trump can build margins if red county Dems are turning out.
- Voter enthusiasm — There is great enthusiasm on our side. I think there will be some wavering GOP & GOP leaning Indie enthusiasm after the market jumped 300 points on the Comey letter update, which was also driven in part by the FL EV trends. Elderly voters whose retained wealth is market dependent may not be so gung ho for Trump. For a lot of Republicans, Trump is a guilty pleasure and the bad things he would do are external to them. It’s someone else’s problem. But when the market tells you that Trump is a problem for your portfolio, Trump becomes the guilty pleasure that you can no longer afford.
- My standing prediction has been HRC + 300k to 500k votes, which would be in the 3% to 5% range approximately. I see no reason to waver from that prediction. It’s quite possible that the result could be on the upper end of the range or higher.
If you’re in FL, vote for her today. Help GOTV if you’ve already voted. It’s winning time!