The Six Parts Of Trump's Coalition

 

The Washington Post identified six parts of Donald Trump coalition. The question is whether that coalition can continue to be unified after Trump is gone. It is doubtful, since they disagree on many things.

Can Clinton Hold The "Obama Coalition" Together In 2016 ?

The two maps above show the electoral vote distribution in the 2012 and 2008 presidential elections. The maps are from Sabato's Crystal Ball -- where Larry Sabato and  Tim Robinson show the electoral maps for all American presidential elections from 1824 through 2012. All of the maps are interesting, and if you are a history or politics buff, the page will be well worth your time.

I show the 2012 and 2008 electoral results, because they show the "coalition" put together by President Obama to win the White House -- with 365 electoral votes in 2008 and 332 electoral votes in 2012. The amount of votes needed to win is 270. That means the Democratic candidate can't afford to lose more than 62 electoral votes from the states won by Obama.

Can Hillary Clinton (who I presume will be the Democratic nominee) hold most or all of these "blue" states? The answer, of course, is anyone's guess right now. It will depend on who the GOP nominee turns out to be, and how well the two nominees are able to campaign for the general election.

However, I think Clinton has a very good chance of holding at least 270 of those blue state votes. And if the GOP nominee is one of the two current leaders, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, she could even add to the states that President Obama was able to win (in 2008 or 2012). Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but I just can't see most Americans wanting either Cruz or Trump to be their president.

We're only about a month away from the start of the primary season, and 6 to 7 months away from the general election campaign. The fun (for us political junkies) is about to start -- and it should be a very interesting few months.

Religious Coalitions In 2012 Election

This is another, and slightly different, view of the coalitions put together by each of the presidential candidates. Note that Willard Mitt Romney's coalition depended mainly on white christians (75%). This broke down to 37% white evangelical protestant, 19% white mainline protestant, and 19% white catholic. Only 16% came from African-American and Hispanic christians and people from other religions, while 8% came from non-religious people. The chart shows that Romney's coalition was most similar to the over 65 age group. Actually it was the picture of an even older America -- America like it was three generations ago.

But the Obama coalition was much broader based. It was composed of 38% white christian, 26% African-American and Hispanic christians, 13% other christians and other religions, and 23% non-religious people. Note that his coalition fits neatly between the 18-29 and 30-49 age groups. In other words it is more representative of the America that exists today. It is also more representative of the America of the future, where non-religious voters and minority christian voters and voters from other religions will play an ever-growing part in our elections.

Much has been made of the fact that the Romney campaign (and Republicans in general) did not appeal to minority voters (losing 95% of African-Americans, 71% of Hispanics, and 73% of Asians). But there is another group that Republicans did very poorly with, and it's a rapidly growing group. It is the non-religious sector of the American population. And like minorities, this segment of voters is growing large enough that it can no longer be ignored.

America is changing, and the change will grow larger with each election. The day a national candidate can win by appealing only to white christians is fast disappearing. It may work in House Districts (because many of them are still dominated by white christians), but it is a losing proposition for a national candidacy, and will soon be a losing proposition in most statewide contests.

The Republicans face a choice. Do they want to continue campaigning only to white theocrats, and remain a party that can only win diminishing seats in the House? Or do they want to alter some of their policies (the ones that are abhorrent to minorities, young people, and non-religious people) and once again become a competitive national party?

I don't think they are ready yet to make that decision. Too many in their teabagger base still think they just didn't have a conservative enough candidate this time, or just didn't sell their hateful views hard enough. It will be interesting to watch the Wall Street Republicans fight the teabagger Republicans for control of the party. I still think the teabaggers will rule the day for a while longer (numbers over money), but someday soon the Republicans will have to face the truth -- or join the Whigs in the dustbin of history.

'Coalition' Falling Apart In Iraq

Bush has always claimed that his invasion of Iraq was not a unilateral action, but a legitimate war conducted by a "coalition" of nations. The idea is ridiculous of course.

A few other nations were pressured to send a few hundred troops to give Bush some cover for his unneccessary unilateral action, but these few troops from a few other nations never added up to even 10% of the "coalition" forces in Iraq. And in fact, many of them have either already withdrawn (such as the Polish troops), or are in the process of withdrawing (like the few Italian troops).

The largest force besides the U.S. troops has been the British troops sent by P.M. Blair, and they only have 7200 troops in Iraq, mostly patrolling around Basra in the south. Now, even the British are abandoning the "coalition".

The Guardian newspaper in London is reporting that the British will pull out at least 1000 troops in May of this year, and by the end of 2008, the British will have pulled out all of their troops. This will leave the U.S. alone in Iraq.

No one, including Bush himself, expects the violence in the Iraqi civil war to be under control by then. But Blair has been ruined politically (and possibly the Labour Party itself) and can no longer justify continuing the war. The British public simply will not stand for Blair's support of Bush's war any longer, and may actually put the Tories back in power in the next election. Blair has no choice. He must withdraw.

This effectively destroys the pretense of a "coalition". But don't expect this to have any effect on Bush. He long ago gave up hope of winning in Iraq. Now he is spending American lives in the vain hope of salvaging his own pride.

He lied to get us into this war, and now that it has blown up in his face, he is lying to keep us there. His pride is more important to him than the lives of American soldiers. It is time for Americans to demand an immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. Anything else is just bloody futility.