In most things, I have no use for the New York Times, but on Election Night 2016, the Times was the only place I could go for hope.
While the TV pundits were gleefully predicting a Hillary Clinton victory, the Times was cautiously ticking its prediction needle surprisingly close to an even race. The exit polls apparently said Clinton would win, but now it wasn’t so sure.
How ironic that if you were a Donald Trump supporter, the only place you could go for reassurance was the New York Times, whose newsroom and editorial board hate Trump with a passion. Yet, their prediction model was based on math, not political preference, and as actual results started to come in, the needle moved further and further toward the Trump side.
The rest of the media, and especially the election panels on the networks and cable channels, all held on to the “Trump is doomed” narrative. But if you were checking out the New York Times election page, what looked like a lost cause when the first results came in, suddenly began to seem like a resurrection story. Donald Trump could actually win this thing!
Ever since then, I’ve turned to the Times for guidance on election nights, and they have proved remarkably accurate, so I was delighted to read the story by Nate Cohn in the Times yesterday titled “Trump’s Electoral College Edge Could Grow in 2020, Rewarding Polarizing Campaign.”
I don’t think Cohn was happy about it, but there it was on the front page of the Times:
[Trump’s] advantage in the Electoral College, relative to the national popular vote, may be even larger than it was in 2016, according to an Upshot analysis of election results and polling data.
That persistent edge leaves him closer to re-election than one would think based on national polls, and it might blunt any electoral cost of actions like his recent tweets attacking four minority congresswomen.
You know that saying Trump might win in 2020 is the last thing the Times wants to do, so you have to assume that there’s some validity there.
Of course, they couldn’t just say that Trump is popular without bashing the voters who support him. Thus we get the following insult:
A strategy rooted in racial polarization could at once energize parts of the president’s base and rebuild support among wavering white working-class voters. Many of these voters backed Mr. Trump in the first place in part because of his views on hot-button issues, including on immigration and race.
The only strategy of “racial polarization” that I see is from the Democrat side. And what exactly are Trump’s views on “race”? I dare the Times to find anything the president has said that doesn’t treat all people of all races the same.
So yeah, you might have to grit your teeth when you read the Times article, but it’s good news, and packed with lots of valuable insights about how strong Trump is going into 2020, so you might want to give it a try.
If you don’t want to soil yourself by visiting the Times, then I will leave you with this one last insight:
… Mr. Trump’s approval rating has been stable even after seemingly big missteps. And if it improves by a modest amount — not unusual for incumbents with a strong economy — he could have a distinct chance to win re-election while losing the popular vote by more than he did in 2016, when he lost it by 2.1 percentage points.
The president’s relative advantage in the Electoral College could grow even further in a high-turnout election, which could pad Democratic margins nationwide while doing little to help them in the Northern battleground states.
It is even possible that Mr. Trump could win while losing the national vote by as much as five percentage points.
If that happens, be prepared for liberal heads to explode — and expect some real explosions, too! The “resistance” will probably get violent this time.
If you enjoy reading these daily essays, I hope you will consider purchasing one of the books of the “Why We Needed Trump” trilogy. Part 1 is subtitled “Bush’s Global Failure: Half Right.” Part 2 is “Obama’s Fundamental Transformation: Far Left.” Part 3 is “Trump’s American Vision: Just Right.” My new book is “The Media Matrix: What if everything you know is fake?” They are available at Amazon in paperback or Kindle editions. Also visit Heartland Diary on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1FmrOF2TF-njRznqoU4yjA
