Economists say Democrats will lose

Pianin, 1/24/16 [Eric, staff writer, The Fiscal Times,

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2016/01/24/Odds-Are-GOP-Win-White-House-Unless]
Economists are often as obsessed as pollsters and pols with analyzing the political tealeaves in the throes of major
elections. Thats especially true in 2016 when the economy once again could determine whether the Democrats
maintain their hold on the White House or if Donald Trump, Ted Cruz or some other Republican will be the next

the stock market in a

major swoon, an economic slowdown sowing fears of a renewed recession
and evidence that the deficit is on the rise again, the Democratic nominee
whether its former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton or Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont -- will find it
challenging to convince voters they should succeed President Obama. While pollsters are having a
president. Related: How Trump Could Run the Table if He Beats Cruz in Iowa With

hard enough time projecting winners in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary next month let alone

economists and financial whizzes are fearlessly

turning to well-tested models to predict the winner. And right now, their findings are not
good news for Democrats. The latest economic wise man to step up to the plate is
Steven Rattner, a New York financier and former Obama administration adviser on the auto
which party will prevail in the November general election

industry who offers regular economic commentary and analysis on MSNBCs Morning Joe program. Related: Trump,
Cruz clash over values and eligibility in tense Republican debate There are three ways of looking at the election
Rattner explained on Friday, beginning with the ebbs and flows of the stock market, then, turning to economic
growth and inflation, and finally gauging the impact of the incumbent presidents approval rating in the run-up to
the election. Many economists believe that the state of financial markets, the economy and other quantitative
metrics can be used to successfully predict the outcome of presidential elections, Rattner explained.

Trump will win; more supporters than many think

Bland, 1/8/16 [Eric, staff writer, Politico, http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/trumpsupporters-big-tent-217481#.phxzlin:GOQw]
Republicans explain away their unwelcome poll-leader by dismissing his supporters as a loud but narrow network of

A POLITICO review of private and public

polling data and interviews with GOP pollsters shows a coalition that certainly
begins with conservative, blue-collar men now extends to pro-choice Republicans,
independents and even registered Democrats unnerved, primarily, by illegal immigration.
angry white men and celebrity chasers. Its not true.

Story Continued Below Indeed, the uncomfortable truth, for the pundits and fellow Republicans who turned their
noses up at Trump, is that his appeal has spread over seven months so far beyond a rabble-rousing,
anti-establishment rump to encompass the very elements of the American electorate the GOP has been eager to
reach. And while its no majority, its a bigger group than anything the rest of the fragmented Republican field has
galvanized. His coalition is not all angry working white males, said Adrian Gray, a Republican pollster. Its all
stripes. Its a pretty big coalition. And among other demographics where hes doing worse,

hes still

leading or in the top two. Certainly, non-college-educated men have formed his base. Every one of
10 recent Iowa, New Hampshire, and national polls of Republicans shows Trump with more male support than
female support and significantly more support from non-college graduates than those with degrees. Trumps robust

Though
Trump has less support with women and educated men, hes still at or
near the top of the GOP field in those categories. And, exposing the depth of the GOP
performance with this group, however, has deflected attention from the breadth of his coalition.

establishments misunderstanding of Trumps support network, his coalition includes far-right conservatives as well
as people who hardly register on Republican radar. Trumps supporters skewed significantly against the GOP grain
on abortion, for instance, in an internal poll of Iowa caucus-goers conducted for a rival presidential contender last
summer. Respondents who identified themselves as pro-choice were three times more likely than pro-life voters
to support Trump, according to a Republican strategist with knowledge of the survey. One large dataset shows

Trump excelling above all with voters who call themselves Republicans even
though they arent officially registered as Republicans.

Trump is most likely to win

Schreckinger, 1/19/16[Ben, reporter, Politico,
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/01/how-donald-trump-defeats-hillary-clinton217868]
If he were the Republican nominee

he would get the highest percentage of black votes

since Ronald Reagan in 1980, said Republican messaging guru Frank Luntz, referring to the year
Reagan won 14 percent of that bloc of voters. They listen to him. They find him fascinating, and in all the groups I

if theyre AfricanAmerican they would consider Trump. Another longtime Republican pollster and veteran of
multiple presidential campaigns has tested Trumps appeal to blacks and Hispanics and come
have done, I have found Obama voters, they couldve voted for Obama twice, but

to the same conclusion. He behaves in a way that most minorities would not expect a billionaire to behave,
explained the pollster, who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid damaging relationships within the party. Hes
not a white-bread socialite kind of guy. Theres more. The rest of Trumps path to general-election victory, as laid
out to POLITICO by pollsters, his campaign and his former advisers, looks like this: After winning the nomination on
the first ballot, Trump unifies the party he has fractured behind him and reinvents himself as a pragmatic
businessman and family man at the Republican National Convention. News of small-scale terror plots on American
soil, foiled or successful, keep voters in a state of anxiety .

Trump minimizes his losses with

Hispanics

by running Spanish-language ads highlighting his support for a strong military and take-charge
entrepreneurial attitude, especially in the Miami and Orlando media markets. He draws the starkest possible
outsider-insider contrast with Hillary Clinton and successfully tars her with her husbands sexual history. If he does
all that, holds Mitt Romneys states, and drives extraordinary levels of working-class white voter turnout in the
suburbs and exurbs of Ohio and Virginia, as well as in the Florida panhandle and Jacksonville, he can flip those three

Winning any one of Iowa, New Hampshire,

Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada or New Mexico would put him over
the top and make Donald John Trump the 45th president of the United States .
Obama states and rack up 266 electoral votes.

Shrinking Democrats edge with black voters is just one of the counterintuitive wrinkles to the scenario in which
Trump stuns the world and wins the White House. His path also includes playing the gender card against Clinton, a
Karl Rovian gambit to turn his opponents strength her feminist appeal into a weakness. In October, Roger
Stone, Trumps former longtime political adviser who left the campaign amid acrimony in August, published The
Clintons War on Women, a book that portrays Bill Clinton as a serial sexual abuser and Hillary Clinton as complicit
in silencing his victims. Trump has seized on that line of attack this month. He greeted the New Year by tweeting, I
hope Bill Clinton starts talking about womens issues so that voters can see what a hypocrite he is and how Hillary
abused those women! on Jan. 2. Five days later, his campaign released an Instagram video that features images
linking the Clintons to Monica Lewinsky, Anthony Weiner and Bill Cosby and declares Trump the true defender of
womens rights. It is an especially audacious move for Trump who left the first of his three wives for his thenmistress and was the subject of a since-recanted accusation of marital rape but one that has already re-injected
Bill Clintons sexual history into the political conversation. Before hell get the chance to take on Clinton though,
Trump will have to win the primary. With less than three weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, polls show Trump
leading nationally and in nearly every state except for Iowa, where he and Ted Cruz are neck-and-neck. If Cruz wins
Iowa on Feb. 1, as many expect he will given his campaigns organizational muscle and the endorsements he has
landed from many of the states top conservatives, Trump would need to finish a solid second to hold together his
double-digit lead in New Hampshire. Eight days later, Trump would likely need a win in New Hampshire to defend his
frontrunner status heading into the Feb. 20 vote in South Carolina, where polls show him in the low 30s, roughly 10
points ahead of the Texas senators second-place standing. Winning South Carolina and avoiding embarrassment in
the Nevada caucuses three days later would set Trump up to win big in the 12 Super Tuesday states, including six of
South Carolinas southern neighbors, that vote on March 1. If Trump fends off Cruz on Super Tuesday, and
establishment voters rally around a single candidate too late or too tepidly, Trump could land major delegate hauls
in winner-take-all states like Florida and Ohio, which vote on March 15, and from there roll on to the nomination. Its
a scenario that requires many unreliable voters to show up at the polls for Trump and for the businessman to avoid
the kind of last-minute reevaluation that drove voters away from Howard Deans 2004 Democratic primary
campaign. Its still possible for big-money Republican donors, who so far have sat on the sidelines, to find an
effective attack on Trump and get it on the air. And even if Trump wins a plurality of the delegates, if no candidate
enters Cleveland with the 1,236 needed to win the nomination, he would find himself negotiating on hostile territory
in the case of a contested convention. But Republican insiders are increasingly coming to grips with the possibility
of nominating Trump.