Why is the GOP even bothering to select a candidate for next year?

[Dad2three]

"you and me" and "every citizen and non citizen could vote for Rep....." implies the voting public is to have no substantive say in the election of Hilary. Does that mean there is something sinister involved in her putative election?

I'm saying nothing more or less than that, if the GOP fielded Yeshua ben Yosef himself and received every single vote cast in the election without a single exception, then Hillary would still be smiling real pretty for the cameras as she gave her speeches and took the oath of office on the Capitol steps come January 20, 2017.

Nonsense

 

[Statistikhengst]

It's painfully obvious that they don't have anyone competitive, or even palatable to the majority of the country. It's just as obvious that it wouldn't matter if they did. Anyone they nominated would lose regardless. Hillary is going to win. It doesn't matter whom she runs against. It doesn't matter what scandals occur between now and her scheduled first inauguration in 2017. It doesn't matter if she loses the popular vote. It doesn't matter if she loses the electoral vote. I shouldn't think it would matter if she dispensed with the formality of actually running a campaign at all. She's going to win and literally nothing - absolutely nothing - could change that fact. I would honestly even go so far as to say that Bush will be the last GOP president for a long time, if there's ever a non-Democratic president again.

I don't agree to you.

Anything can happen in a presidential election. The GOP can win in 2016. Only, statistically, it is looking unlikely, at least at this time.

We have never in the course of polling ever seen so many big numbers for a Democratic candidate like we are seeing for Hillary. As of today, there have now been 294 polls total, with almost 1,100 name-to-name matchups. In the national polling, with 64 polls and 223 matchups to day, Hillary has won 97% of those matchups, and with large margins. Overall, she has, including deep-red states, won 79% of all matchups.

In reliably blue states, her margins are well over Obama's polling margins from both 2008 and 2012.

In very reliably red states, she is losing, but with narrow margins, sometimes unbelievably narrow margins, for instance, in Louisiana, Arkansas, Georgia and Kansas. Yes, Kansas. She is dead on in Kentucky, even against Paul.

In the critical battlegrounds, she is winning big and consistently in all four of the Quadrifecta states: Ohio, Pennsylvania, Florida and Virginia.

The only state of the Obama pick-up states from 2008 and Obama retentions from 2012 where Clinton is really suffering is: Colorado. That state is currently the ripest GOP pick-up opportunity for 2016.

In the meantime, it is entirely possibly for Clinton to open battlegrounds in KY, AR, LA, GA, AZ, KS, ND, SD. And then there is quirky Alaska, where Obama improved his statistic by 12% in margin between 2008 and 2012. Alaska, a traditionally +25 or more RED state, when for Mitt Romney by only +13. So, the GOP may open up 1 battleground and Clinton open up 9-12 new battlegrounds. Shell-game.

And the very most important data-point is that Clinton is quite ahead in Ohio, especially against Bush. So, in Florida, where she is well ahead of anyone but Bush, he is way behind her in Ohio. The other data point that is interesting is that for the first time perhaps ever, we see a Democrat polling with stronger winning margins in Ohio than in Pennsylvania, in spite of the fact that Ohio is a more right-leaning state in national elections, that PA tends to show a margin 2 to 5 points more to the left, quite consistently.

And you cannot have a candidate winning nationally by an average of at least 10 points over all comers without that candidate already being well above 300 EV in current polling, and that exactly the case with Clinton as of now and has been so for the last 27 months straight.

Now, naysayers will scream "early polling means nothing", but they are very wrong. In fact, Nate Silver proved more than once that very early polling is often far more predicative than people want to realize.

Is there a possibility that there is disparity between national polling and state polling? Yes: it happened in 2012. Can some state polls be wrong? Yes: but not all of them.

In order for the GOP to win in 2016, it really has it's work cut out for itself. At current, I can count only 10 states that I am pretty sure will never be won by Hillary, assuming a two-person race:

UT, WY, ID, MT, OK, AL, SC, TN, WV, MS