I’ve been watching this crazy, relentless US Presidential campaign over many months, open-mouthed at how low it has sunk. A reality TV celebrity kingpin real estate billionnaire (who, I learned this morning, is an anagram of ‘Tan Dump Lord‘) is extremely close to winning the Presidency against probably one of the most qualified, deserving and divisive of candidates, and its first woman (not before time).
How close? It all comes down to the little north eastern state of New Hampshire, the ‘granite State’.
The state that almost started the whole dang voting process back in January (Iowa snuck in first with its caucus), with only 4 electoral college votes and 1.3 million population, would provide the GOP nominee with sufficient to get him to 269.
By my calculation, at this moment, he is more likely than not to get to 265 electoral college votes, 5 short of an overall win. New Hampshire can push him up to 269 and a tie with Clinton. Now, wouldn’t that be entertaining?
According to the combined polls-only model at FiveThirtyEight.com States where he is more than 60% chance to winning gets him to 215 votes. Add in the 3 toss up states of Florida, Nevada and North Carolina (worth 50 votes combined) where he is currently more than 50-50 in favour of winning each gets him to 265. (See calculation below.)
If he wins New Hampshire’s 4 electoral votes, where he currently is favoured 38% of a chance (so not impossible by any means), he gets to 269, and a tie. Clinton would also be a 269.
If that happens, the House of Reps votes on the President, and the Republican leaning House would vote their man in. In a wonderful twist, the Senate would vote for VP, and if that goes Democrat, we might have Tim Paine as Donald’s VP. Or would the current Senate (which is Republican) get to vote?
It would be poetic beauty in many ways, and was predicted by the storyline in the wonderful comedy Veep, where the erstwhile Julia Louis-Dreyfus character is forever VP and never, quite, makes it to the top job.
FiveThirtyEight has Donald at 35% chance of becoming President, about the same as his chances of winning New Hampshire. It’s more than a 1 in 3 chance, and a far better chance than the Chicago Cubs had in winning last week’s world series (especially after coming from 3-1 down and not having won in 108 years). Yet that happened.
In the polarised world, most of the other States will vote as they will, with a certainty factor of 75% or more. Tuesday’s election will come down to 4 States, and Trump has to win them all to fall over the line by the slimmest of margins. Clinton needs just one of these to block his route.
So, if you want him in (or, like me, don’t) watch Florida, Nevada, North Carolina and New Hampshire. 3 of them are east coast states so will be called earlier than others, probably around 10am here in Western Australia.
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Here’s how I got to a 269-269 tie:
States that Clinton has a lock on give her 201 votes
– she’ll probably (more than 68% chance) also win Colorado, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Virginia & Wisconsin, which add 68, bringing her to 269
States Trump has a lock on gives him 164 votes
– he’ll probably also win (>68% chance) Arizona, Georgia, Iowa & Ohio, which add 51, bringing him to 215.
– add the toss up states (where is just ahead, between 50-53% chance) of Florida, Nevada and North Carolina, which give him another 50, and he’s at 265.
– New Hampshire is currently 61% (and falling) chance of going to Clinton. If Trump flips that, he gets their 4 votes, and he’s at 269.
Trump’s case is much more solid if he can win any of Clinton’s states (Colorado, Penn., Michigan, etc) but he has to hold all his. If he fails to do this and Clinton wins just one of the States (or new Hampshire), she’s won.
