Trump won 2.2 million less votes than Bush in 2004 in non-swing blue states – CA, CT, DC, HI, IL, MD, MN, NJ, NM, NY, OR, VT, WA – and in several deep red states – SD, NE, KS, OK, UT

That is most of the popular vote difference.

This isn’t suspicious at all.

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2016/12/05/recount-unrecountable/95007392/

>Doable : New Hampshire, Maine & Minnesota.

Those three and Nevada are closest.

>Trending non-White but still close: Virginia, Nevada and Colorado.

Nevada is actually trending GOP since 2008. Partisan lean went from D+2.6% –> D+1.4% –> D+0.3%.

Colorado is in the middle of the road right where it has been for a long time.

Virginia is trending Democrat, but actually voted majority GOP for Congress this year.

New Mexico is still doable as well.

>Possible in “Morning in America” Nixon/Reagan type re-elect scenario: Oregon, Connecticut and Delaware.

This group should also include NJ. The next tranche of RI, Maine CD 1, Washington and Illinois is more of a reach but possible.

>Unlikely unless running against Keith Ellison /Colin Kaepernick: Hawaii, California, Vermont, Massachusetts, Illinois.

Illinois doesn’t belong in that group, New York and Maryland do.

Margin in a tied race based on 2016 results:

NH R+1.5%
MN R+0.4%
NV D+0.5%
ME D+0.8%
328 Electoral Votes

CO D+3.0%
VA D+3.5%
NM D+6.3%
355 Electoral Votes

OR D+9.0%
DE D+9.5%
CT D+11.8%
NJ D+12.0%
ME cd1 D+12.6%
RI D+13.6%
WA D+14%
IL D+15.1%
423 Electoral Votes

NY D+19.4%
MD D+24.5%
VT D+24.5%
MA D+25.3%
CA D+28.3%
HI D+30.3%
DC D+84.9%

Re: Colorado

If we measure turnout by absolute numbers of votes in districts that should be pretty equal, CO districts 1, 3, 4,5 6, and 7 produced between 361,000 and 387,000 votes for congress, while district 2 (Boulder-Larimer-1/2 of Jefferson) produced 452,000.

As far as the difference between votes for Congress and President, the following counties had the largest shifts in margin and votes for Egg McMuffin:

Arapahoe: 48,000 towards GOP, 3400 for McMullin
Boulder: 11,000 votes towards GOP, 1400 for McMullin
Denver: 27,000 votes towards GOP, 2100 for McMullin
Douglas: 28,000 votes towards GOP, 3100 for McMullin
El Paso: 24,000 votes towards GOP, 4200 for McMullin
Mesa: 2,000 votes towards GOP, 900 for McMullin
Pueblo: 9,000 votes towards GOP, 400 for McMullin
Weld: 10,000 votes towards GOP, 1600 for McMullin

Interestingly, Jefferson and Larimer counties showed no swing of this sort. Jefferson did produce 3500 votes for McMullin, and Larimer 2700.

Those counties are your #NeverTrump movement in Colorado.

The difference in vote tallies from President to Congress is mostly explained by adding the Trump and McMullin votes and then shifting around 70,000 or so votes from Clinton to the GOP for Congress. The Libertarian total stays the same, and the Green and “Other” vote simply doesn’t vote for Congress, producing most of the drop in total votes. Only about 7500 voters each for Trump and Clinton apparently didn’t vote for Congress.

Too bad there aren’t a lot of people either.

There are 40 million people in the area between Minneapolis-Detroit-Cincinnati-Louisville-St. Louis. I.e., more people than California in an area that is smaller than California.

Amtrak gets over $6 billion a year in subsidies, mostly to support a large union workforce.

More like $1.5 billion. The whole company doesn’t even spend $6 billion in a year.

But after a half hour sitting around the railstop, I still didn’t know when the train would arrive, so I drove 120 miles. The explanation was that Amtrak didn’t own the lines, the freight rail companies did, so they couldn’t be sure of when their trains would get sidetracked for freight to go through.

Amtrak does run to a schedule which is supposed to be adhered to, and real time location information on trains is available on their website to highlight any delays.

Is there some kind of IT way to allow Amtrak to be more reliable?

The only thing required is to prioritize the movement of passengers and freight on schedule, and to move passengers before the freight. We did it from 1830 to 1990 without many problems. By allowing rail companies to liquidate their extra tracks in the 80’s and 90’s, consolidate dispatching centers to central locations where the dispatchers had little relation or understanding of their territories, and to de-prioritize the movement of passenger trains, we have our current problems.

No other country in the world would have allowed their railroads to rip up and scrap as many tracks and lines as we did, some of which are now being restored at incredible cost, and often by the taxpayer. Here are some key lines that were single tracked (meaning the second main line, which eliminates waiting in sidings was removed):

Richmond-Jacksonville
Alexandria-Atlanta
Milwaukee-Minneapolis
Chicago-New Orleans
Chicago-Pittsburgh
Boston-Albany
New Haven-Springfield
Chicago-St. Louis
Chicago-Detroit
Sacramento-Reno
Jacksonville-Miami

Whiskey, they are segregating by charging more for “quiet cars” on Amtrak.

There is no extra charge for the Quiet Car (or for a table in the cafe car. There is only an extra charge for larger seats in business class.

what about from 2000 to 2008 in your numbers? That looks like a dramatic shift (> 5%).

The shift from 1988/1992 to 1996/2000 was equally dramatic in the other direction. I see it as normal fluctuation in that state.

Any thoughts on the differences between the two groups of states?

There is a very obvious difference between the two groups of states.

The midwest and Utah are long settled states with relatively little influx of new residents. They are socially stable. This gives them a settled culture with norms which people are not supposed to breach, but which admitting Trump support in some circles would breach.

The south and west are full of new residents from everywhere. There is less of an established and expected pattern of behavior there. These are places you can move to if you want to reinvent yourself. New Hampshire, with its huge influx of Massachusetts residents, perhaps also fits that pattern.

2. Pollsters trying to influence the outcome.

There has been a natural progression of polling and poll analysis. Before 2000, the media did polls to find out and tell a story. Starting in 2004 the story became the average of the polls to figure out the outcome. In 2012, this was flipped – massive numbers of polls were taken to create a very accurate average. In 2016, it seems like polls were taken to drive the media narrative (Trump is losing), and many fewer polls were taken.

3. An actual change in people’s preferences over that time period.

The final election results were accurately predicted by the results of the primaries in both parties. I don’t think there was a big change in anyone’s mind over the past year. The GOP outvoted Democrats in OH-MI-WI-IA-AZ-FL-NC, etc. primaries and also won all those states in the general. Democrats outvoted the GOP in NM, OR, MN and won those states in the general. The only states that were “wrong” were PA, VA, and NH. PA is a closed primary where independents could not vote and the primary result was very close. Independents in PA lean GOP and produced Trump’s margin. VA and NH were likely affected by #NeverTrump. Polling from over a year ago was showing Hillary was a weak candidate who would lose to a generic Republican. I was convinced Trump was going to win for over a year now, but his potential margin was diminished by the fierce opposition of the GOP establishment.

4. All undecideds just happened to break for Trump, but only in one group of states.

I don’t believe the people were undecided. I knew some people who were still undecided in September, but by mid-October, everyone had made up their mind.

The Trafalagar Group (@trfgrp) did a number of polls late in the cycle that accurately predicted Trump’s performance in PA-MI-FL-NC-UT-GA when others were suggesting he would lose most of those states. They purposeful worked at ferreting out Trump supporters from the shadows. They accurately predicted the 306-232 final, getting only WI-NH-NV wrong (but balancing out in total). They didn’t poll WI or NH. Here were their polls listed Trump-Clinton-(McMullin in Utah only)-Johnson-Stein:

CO: poll 44.3-44.8-5.0-3.9 actual 43.3-48.1-5.2-1.4
FL: poll 49.7-46.1-2.4-0.6 actual 48.7-47.5-2.2-0.7
GA: poll 51.6-45.1-1.9-0.4 actual 51.1-45.9-3.1-N/A
MI: poll 48.5-46.8-2.9-0.9 actual 47.6-47.3-3.6-1.1
NV: poll 49.6-45.0-2.6-0.6 actual 45.5-47.9-3.3-N/A
NC: poll 49.2-44.1-3.6-0.5 actual 49.3-45.6-2.7-0.1
OH: poll 48.5-44.2-1.9-0.5 actual 51.9-43.4-3.2-0.8
PA: poll 48.4-46.5-2.3-1.0 actual 48.4-47.3-2.4-0.8
SC: poll 53.3-37.6-3.4-0.7 actual 54.7-40.5-2.3-0.6
UT: poll 40.0-29.5-24.5-3.9 actual 45.4-27.8-21.4-3.5-0.8

That’s a pretty good record for their method. Their only miss was Nevada, and they took their poll just before a last minute push by Democrats to drag voters out in Las Vegas in early voting.

Run it along the turnpike, although the tunnels would have to be expanded

There is a reason the PA Turnpike is very fluid and has relatively little traffic. It doesn’t go anywhere useful once you are out of metro Philly, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh. It misses Reading and Lancaster, misses State College, Altoona, and Johsntown.

And there is not really much of a market to go from Philly to Pittsburgh.

I think most of the noise about light rail and high speed rail is literally because upper middle class people think diesel buses are icky and for proles. For a great many transit problems they make by far the most sense.

Buses ARE icky. They are cramped and offer very little room when laid out with 2-2 seating. The seatback tables are tiny and useless. There is no food offered on board. They are stuck in traffic.

You could build isolated bus lanes where they can go 100 MPH and take people efficiently from close to origin to destination on most intercity routes. A lane or two of I-95 and the Jersey Turnpike in the northeast could be walled off for buses only. Buses are more energy efficient than trains that make any stops.

No you can’t do this. There aren’t anywhere close to enough buses for this to make sense out of a few high density urban busways. This is the same reason truck only roads will never be built. Roads work because they can carry a mix of traffic at incremental costs to the user.

Buses are also terribly slow when they get off a highway. And 80% of all intercity passenger trips involve going to/from smaller cities and towns and rural homesteads. The hyperfocus of airplanes, high speed rail, and Megabus style service advocates on moving people on major corridors between the top 50 cities ignores most actual transportation needs of the American people.

One thing about trains: you can have a good freight network and a crummy passenger network, or you can have a good passenger network and a crummy freight network. It’s not that feasible to have both unless they have entirely different tracks.

Wrong. See Russia, but also the other former Soviet Republicans like Ukraine, Belarus, etc. Or the US before 1966.

Freight doesn’t care if it’s late, it doesn’t care if it sits there all day, or if it needs to get rerouted. Passengers do. Trying to mix freight and passenger trains always ends up messed up.

Quite a bit of a freight most certainly does care if it sits around and gets late. Especially perishables and auto-parts.

As to mixing traffic, we mixed freight and passenger traffic intensely from 1830 to around 1966 in this country without incident.

Europe moves about 75% its freight via highway; the US moves about 30% of its freight via highway.

Actually, Europe moves a lot of freight coastwise via the seas, and on the Rhine and Danube. And the US moves more than 30% of freight by tonnage on highways.

A lot, but it’s hard to determine the exact percentage. The Colorado Front Rage was fundamentally transformed from 1989-99, and it’s now full on SWPLville. But it’s just not Colorado. Californication has culturally and politically influenced every metropolitan area West of I-35.

This is really exaggerated about CO. This is the partisan voter index for CO over the past 9 cycles:
84 – R+5
88 – even
92 – R+0.75
96 – R+5
00 – R+4.5
04 – R+1
08 – D+0.75
12 – D +0.75
16 – D +1.75

2016 would be R+1 if you looked at votes for Congress instead of President, thanks to #NeverTrump.

I don’t see any sort of trend you think you are discerning.

Hillary had sabotage on her own team in the form of Bernie Bros.

There is always significantly more crossover of registered Democrats when a Republican wins in the northern states.

However, an organized campaign by a large slice of a political party to sabotage their own Presidential candidate is extremely rare. Remember, #NeverTrump garnered the support of:

Both President’s Bush and their wives
Governor Romney
At least 13 of 54 GOP Senators including Senators McCain, Graham, Kirk, Ayotte, Sasse, Collins, Flake, Portman, Gardner, Murkowski, Gardner, Sullivan, and Hecker
At least 8 of 31 sitting GOP governors, including Governors Hogan, Kasich, Martinez, Bentley, Haslam, Herbert, Sandoval, and Baker
Former RNC Chairs Steele, Mehlman and Martinez
Dozens of sitting GOP Congressmen
Various prominent GOP ex-elected officials like Jeb Bush, Vin Weber, Tom Ridge, Norm Coleman, Larry Pressler, John Warner, William Milliken, Christine Whitman, Jon Huntsman and others.
The entire NeoConservative wing of the GOP’s officialdom
Most of the conservative press
Big donors like the Koch Brothers, Meg Whitman, and Paul Singer
The leaders of the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention

The movement resulted variously in endorsements of Hillary Clinton by former high level GOP officials, pledges of support to Gary Johnson, the creation of the Egg McMuffin sock candidate, pledges to write-in Mike Pence for President, and outright condemnations all around of Donald Trump.

Basically 1/4 of party officialdom come out openly in opposition to the Party’s candidate.

That really doesn’t compare to some angry random Bernie supporters.

How would you build the line from Pittsburgh to philly? It needs to go over the mountains, very expensive.

Actually, the number of mountains it needs to go over is relatively minor. It would mostly follow the length of mountains and use a minimum of tunnels. The existing line could be easily upgraded to much higher speeds if there was interest.

The reason trains don’t work in America is because of the massive scale of America, our cities aren’t just a hop skip and a jump away from one another.

This is a huge misconception. France, which has lots of high speed rail, is both the size and equivalent population of MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA, PA, OH combined.

Spain, which has a similarly well developed rail network has the size and population of IN, IL, MI without the upper Peninsula, WI and the directly adjacent St. Louis, Minneapolis, Louisville and Quad City metro areas.

Spain is also a similar size and population to NC, SC, GA, and FL combined.

Most people who think of the US as vast and unpopulated and Europe as small and very dense have never driven anywhere in Europe.

Even in places where they would work like the Midwest or the north east, 5heyse cities are already so over developed that it would be hard to install flat straight line rails in and around everything.

It’s not necessary to go fast in cities, since you are going to stop there. Its important to go fast outside them, and to make good connections to local distribution. The last mile (or really last 5-20 miles) issue is where a great deal of travel time is wasted on both ends in all modes.

This a problem all over America. Upgrading interstate highway system to 3-4 lanes where one could drive 80 would be life improvement for millions on daily basis.

The simplest way to do this is to provide commuter rail around cities to remove traffic from the existing highways, and to adopt policies that encourage truck freight haulage to move back to rail.

Compare the number of freeway lanes around Philadelphia or Boston (relatively minor, but with extensive regional rail systems) to similarly sized Houston or Dallas.

Removing just 10% of the traffic on the roads makes them significantly more fluid (as we saw in 2008-2010 during recession). Aim for the low hanging fruit.

The problem with passenger rail in the Amtrak era is that rail only makes sense for a few densely populated corridors (mainly the Northeast) but in order to get funding from Congress they have to spread the $ out across all the states.

That isn’t true.

Passenger rail makes sense for small town to big city transportation that is no longer handled by bus or plane. Amtrak has significant success across the country when it is able to serve such markets with reasonable schedules. Rail has a significant comfort and speed advantage over buses in such markets and a cost advantage over small airplanes.

The main problem with Amtrak today is that it is far too small to make a difference outside the northeast.

Trump would have taken Minnesota if McMullin hadn’t made it onto the ballot there. McMullin got about 53,000 votes and margin for Hillary was around 40,000.

Trump would also have won New Hampshire and Maine for similar reasons, and won Virginia and Colorado if GOP voters hadn’t defected to Hillary due to #NeverTrump.

Huntsman has the sort of understated personality that makes a good Secretary of State. I wasn’t aware of him wilting in October though under Pussygrabgate.

You guys are hopelessly outnumbered and will soon be a minority. I like our chances.

Nope, white women (and Asian and Hispanic women) keep fraternizing with us “the enemy”. I’d say you need to be concerned about the bleaching of your colored wombs by our seed and the lack of fecundity of homosexuals and trannies.

You guys are old and non-fecund. In other words, NOT THE FUTURE.

(Looks around house, notices all five children are still there.)

What’s that you say bro?

Knowing that the churches you attended will be converted into mosques.

How will that happen?

That your daughters will bear Children of Color.

Correct, they will bear children with blonde & red hair, and blue & green eyes and pink to milk-white skin. You know, actual colors, as opposed to a muddy brown/black.

That your sons will have to play on a level playing field.

Pretty sure my #WhitePrivilege is still going to work for them.

That you will have to pay reparations.

If I have a small amount of slave ancestry, can I get reparations too? Will it be paid to me by mulattoes with a large amount of slave owner ancestry? How will this work?

That you will not be allowed on social media. That your fake news sites will be shit down.

Let me know about how you plan on repealing the First Amendment to the US Constitution. Very curious.

The interstate compact to award electoral votes to the (plurality) popular vote winner is getting enough support that we will probably lose the EC anyway.

It’s most likely that this compact will be declared unconstitutional if it is ever attempted to be implemented. States cannot legally bind their electors based on public sentiment outside their state borders. There is no instance of a state doing anything but appointing electors based on state popular vote or indirect state popular vote via a vote of their democratically elected legislature.

http://digitalcommons.law.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2686&context=lawreview

Its is just a scheme by the Democratic states to magnify their political power (which is already magnified by their huge numbers of non-citizen residents increasing their electoral vote power), as is obvious from which states have adopted it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact

The bottom line is the Republicans can’t win without this arcane 18th century mess of a regulation. They’ve only won ONE election fair and square in the last quarter century.

Reminder: from 1948 to 2004, the Democrats won exactly two majorities in the popular vote – 1964 and 1976, while the Republicans got majorities in 1952, 1956, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2004.

Reminder: No Clinton has ever won a majority of the popular vote.

I’d say Trump has much more in common with the interior north Republican political tradition of Abraham Lincoln, Ulyssess Grant, Teddy Roosevelt, Senator Bob LaFollette, Senator Robert Taft, and Senator Robert Dole, than Nelson Rockefeller or any of the New England/Northeast internationalists like Lodge and Scranton (or the Bushes or Romney’s).

Reminder, Trump’s political mentor was Roy Cohn (yes, that Roy Cohn, aide to Senator Joe McCarthy).

Trump’s political support is centered on the area in and behind the Appalachians over to the Rockies, not coastal New England. He was decisively rejected in all the Rockefeller Republican/Country Club Republican neighborhoods in the northeast, which went for Kasich in the primary and Clinton in the general, and he had no special draw in the southern coastal areas and was disdained in the coastal west.

He is a fusion candidate of Appalachia, the Ozarks, the Midlands, the Great Plains and the northern Midwest.

Well, traditionally liberal Upstate New York, which was largely settled by post-Puritans from New England

I don’t know about that Steve. My upstate ancestors came from the West Country of England to Long Island and western Connecticut, then went upstate in late 1700’s. They and many others were Anglican/Episcopalian, and many neighbors were Methodists, not New England Puritan/Congregationalists/United Church of Christ/Unitarian.

See maps. https://philebersole.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/the-geography-of-american-religion/

I wonder what percentage of Whites in Upstate New York are refugees from New York City, Newark, and Hartford?

Outside of Ulster County and perhaps the Albany area for government jobs, not many. It’s mostly used as a vacation/second home area by New Yorkers. They don’t move there. Winters are brutal, and civilization, as a New Yorker would understand it, is sparse.

In the end of the day, young white men are rioting in Portland because they have no jobs, no woman, no children, and no home. Their actions are what they sincerely believe are most likely to get them at least some of those things, especially a woman. Address those issues and rioting by whites goes away.

Regarding the black and Hispanic vote.

I took a look at inner city Philly. Trump took Romney’s 1% black vote to 2%, and Romney’s 4% Puerto Rican vote to 8%. A small but helpful part of winning the state.

The Sailer Strategy not only prayed open the 80 electoral votes of the Midwest, but also the 8 votes in Maine and New Hampshire. It also was surprisingly impactful in Rhode Island, which saw as large an shift in partisanship as Maine, Ohio, and Iowa.

It had no net effect on partisanship in CT-NJ-NV-CO-NM.

It had a negative effect not only in AZ-GA-TX-VA, but also WA.

MA-MD-CA-IL proved imperviously liberal, NY-VT-HI shifted, but not enough to be remotely close.

The shape of things to come will depend on whether Trump can bring middle of the road white suburbanites in Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Philly, Connecticut, both Portlands into his coalition to cement a hold on the north, perhaps if their defection was an anomalous function of the woman card and pussy grabbing, and what happens with immigration and deportations.

SFG: Upstate is around 6.5M out of 19.8M. Trump carried upstate by 50K after coming out of the cities there down 150K.

Rockland-Nassau-Suffolk-Staten Island about 4.1M. Trump won those by around 50K.

Still vastly outweighed by rest of NYC and Westchester County at 9.2M voting overwhelmingly Democrat, giving Clinton a 1.66M vote margin.

The GOP winning NY would take a 70% margin among whites + 50% of the Asian vote, 30% of the Hispanic vote, and 10% of the black vote. Possible, but not likely given the liberalism of whites there.

What are the odds that the DOJ will be pursuing hate crime convictions against the perpetrators?

About as much as a snowball in a volcano, or am I being too generous?

They probably hear ''immigrants'' and associate it with ''Diversity''. If they straight out said Mexicans instead it should be higher than a third.
I know we dream of Trump or other future Trumpist candidates peeling off a fifth or so of the black vote with nationalist policies and thus rendering the Democrats all but unelectable (at least until the Hispanics start hitting 18 and registering in greater numbers) but could it be a worthwhile and maybe more realistic endeavour to look for Barbara Jordan type Democrats in black congressional districts? People who would be conventionally left wing on everything but immigration, they could even spout BLM style nonsense – as long as they supported every item of Trump's immigration policy it'd be a game changer both in the arithmetic in the House and in PR terms to have prominent blacks opposing their people's rapid relegation from second tier citizens to third. A lot of cucks on both sides of the aisle could suddenly find the courage to oppose open borders if they had that kind of cover.

The Dallas Police Chief is conflicted on the entire issue.

His son was a cop killer.

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2010/06/the-virulent-eruption-surround.html/

http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2010/06/decision-to-use-on-duty-office.html/

“Do African Americans really like open borders and sharia law that much?”

African-Americans stick together. Since your skin is your uniform, they are all in it together. They’ll still be in it together when we are ruled by Hispanics or Muslims.

Wiki On President McKinley:

“However, his legacy was quickly cut short when he was shot on September 6, 1901 by Leon Czolgosz, a second-generation Polish-American with anarchist leanings; McKinley died eight days later, and was succeeded by Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. ”

That damn second generation again!

My reaction was to let Darwin work it all out with the Gorilla and fool child. There’s hundreds of millions of fools where the boy came from and a few thousand gorillas. Sometimes people need to learn the hard way.

Most of the deaths attributed to Mao were actually the result of collectivized farming and crackpot communist agricultural theories…

So you’re saying Mao was fool, not knave. Hmm.

No more so than the crackpot American theory of “Rain follows the plow.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_follows_the_plow

Turkey has the most Syrian refugees of any country, by far. And they have their own demographic problems — the Europeanized secular coastal elites becoming outnumbered by the country bumpkins (already happened) and now the country bumpkins are being outbred 2-1 by the Kurds, who are even more backwards and disloyal to boot.

Emphasizing once again how brilliant the implementation of the Treaty of Sevres would have been.

Coastal European/Secularized Turkey would have been part of Greece and thus part of Europe, Russia would have controlled the Straits, and Country Bumpkin Turkey would have been its own country and separate from a united Kurdistan.

Such a tragedy that no follow through was given to protect this.

Exactly. Woman are much more easily swayed, wooed, or bamboozled by the CEO. This is why I vote against every woman who is a director for every company whose stock I own along with voting against the CEO pay package. I wish more investors would do the same thing.

My maternal family was a modest Anglo-Norman baronial family with two manor villages named with our surname back into the mists of time in England and then Normandy. In the US various ancestors managed to attain political offices like Governor and Congressman, owned and ran plantations, managed several mega-construction projects, got a couple of mountains named after the family and a small university. I am a 6th generation college graduate and well inside the top 5% of family income for my age. I would call that persistence of family status over 1000 years. My paternal family cannot be traced as far, but in general they were prosperous and mobile independent German/Swiss farmers and mechanics and Protestant ministers and they continued as such in the US. My most distantly traced paternal ancestor hand built pipe organs in medieval Churches. But socio-economic status doesn’t come to each generation handed on a platter for free – it requires hard work and thrift and it is very easy to slip back down by just being a bit lazy.

If poor people stay poor because of poor decision making and a lack of self-denial, which I think is true, the contrary is true for well-off people and families. Good decisions and personal discipline and thrift go a long way to producing and maintaining wealth and status to be handed down to later generations.

Muslim takes off in 1989.

“nationalism dates to the Peace of Westphalia (1648).”

Westphalia begins the concept of formalized land borders (land, not riverine) and international law to govern the relation ship of states.

Nationalism in Europe was already present at the Council of Constance and the organization of the student bodies of medieval universities along national lines (German, French, Hungarian, Italian, English, etc.). Similarly, the Orthodox Church had fractured into national bodies with the decline in authority of the Roman Empire in Constantinople by around AD 1000. This saw the beginning of the Bulgarians and Serbians, as well as the de novo creation of the Romanians in Moldavia and Wallachia.

In the Islamic east however, nationalism was tied up with religion until very recently. In the Russian Empire for example, the various Turkish tribes in Central Asia said their nation was “Muslim” until Stalin bequeathed them names, while all east Slavic groups called themselves some linguistic equivalent of “Russkij” – “Russian”. Similarly, the Ottoman’s created a national system based primarily on religion, so all Orthodox Christians got termed as “Rum” – “Roman” while Catholics were “Frangi” – “Franks”.

“if WV can spill over into Western PA, which according to some recent polls is now up for grabs, then Trump could do quite well in PA”

Richard Mellon Scaife has been part of a long term venture to turn SW PA all Republican by converting the working class. It’s beginning to bear real fruit in the past 8 years or so.

But what will really help Trump is his enormous popularity in NE PA around Scranton and Hazleton. That area is still much more old-line Democrat. Losing it would be a serious blow to Dems.

Point one, the election tropes of Reagan in 1980 are as useful to 2016 as those of Wilkie in 1944 were to 1980.

Point two, Reagan’s legacy is distorted through the lense of post-Reagan Bushian-Cuckservatism. Most of what is claimed to be Reagan’s legacy really stems from that time. This includes:
1) endless foreign wars (starting with Panama and Gulf War 1.0, Somalia, using US military and NATO to support Yugoslavia break-up)
2) modern mass immigration (1990 Immigration Bill)
3) free trade agreements (NAFTA signed in 1992, EU forms in 1992)
4) social issues politicization (started in opposition to Clinton changes in early 1990’s – “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, reaction to Casey vs. Planned Parenthood which birthed Lawrence and SSM)

Point three look at Reagan’s actual agenda. Much more like Trump than Cuckservatism:

1) Tax cuts and tax rationalization
2) Strong military to back-up foreign policy seeking world peace, seek confrontation but avoid conflict
3) Implacable opposition to Communism as a source of “evil”, no calling them a “political movement of peace”
4) Push-back on unions and strikes
5) Save Social Security as is, no cuts
6) Federalism
7) Protect American industrial might for vehicles, electronics, steel, textiles, sugar,
8) War on drugs
9) Deregulate energy production

“White folks need Covenantism. Like Jews, they need their own unique Covenant with God. Be a prophet, seek it, and you shall find it.”

We have it already. It’s called America. The Covenant was made by thousands and millions as they passed over the sea in faith like Noah and Moses and took possession of their inheritance in the land.

All you have to do is open your eyes to find what they bequeathed to us. It’s all around us and is already ours because they made it and we inherited it.

All around me are towns and houses and schools and Churches my people built, fields they cleared and planted, roads they blazed and graded, and factories they created; governed in order and harmony by institutions they founded and laws they wrote in the light of faith.

The Covenant was made when our ancestors stood up as free men, took on responsibility for their own, and swore an oath to God promising fidelity in exchange for a new beginning in a new country.

Vote Trump to renew it and keep it.

The gun people are already voting for Trump. He wins PA, OH, MI based on capturing the private industry union vote, not guns.

The reaction of prissy Paul Ryan is instructive. When Ryan started talking about what the Republican Party meant to him he says it’s the party of Lincoln, Reagan, and Kemp (!).

Yes Jack Kemp.

The Cuckservative hissy fit is because their “ideas” conservatism they’ve been pushing for 40 years just got Trumped by big government tribal nationalism and protectionism.

If Trump got to write the Republican platform, it would look like what McKinley, Roosevelt, Taft, Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover ran on.

This is the period of Republican dominance that Ryan couldn’t even bring himself to mention in talking about the Republican Party he believes in. Even though Roosevelt is on Mt. Rushmore. Instead he is stuck on the distorted mythic origin, Reagan, and his personal guru.

I dare say if you polled the average American, they’d take Teddy Roosevelt type policies over Jack Kemp policies. And the Roosevelt type policies are what today’s Union guys want. Which is why running Kemp Conservatives keeps producing losses up north.

Those are not the Droids you are looking for.

“Michigan won’t flip too many blacks, Arabs & white liberals. PA is 80% white so there’s a shot he can flip it.”

Yeah just impossible. I mean who can remember the last time Republicans held the Governorship in Michigan, both chambers of the State Legislature, and the elected row offices? That couldn’t possibly happen, could it?

So how about?

(large font)America First
(underneath)Make America Great Again
(in italics and quotes)For Ourselves and Our Posterity

“As I recall, the “Polish Corridor” physically separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany — and that was what led to the war.”

As any student of German history could tell you, East Prussia was not part of the German Empire until 1871 and historically been part of the Kingdom of Poland and Danzig was historically a free city outside the Empire. Further the Polish corridor was mainly Polish other than the German towns on the Vistula and the Danzig Free State. Prussia may loom large in the mind today, but historically Vienna, Strassburg, and Prague were far more important German cities and regions.

The Polish Corridor was a minor and resolvable issue compared to the refusal of ethnic rights to Germans in Austria, Tirol, Bohemia, Moravia, Alsace-Lorraine, Bratislava (Pressburg), Eupen-Malmedy, Upper Silesia, Memel, Sopron (Odenburg), and more.

The Polish Corridor issues affected about 2 million Germans. The refusal of union with Austria and the dismemberment of contiguous German lands from Germany and Austria affected around 15-20 million Germans, so the problem is an order of magnitude different in significance.

A negotiated peace in 1916 might have dismembered Austria-Hungary to satisfy Russia, Italy, and Serbia, but could have lead to a united Germany with a size and power not seen since the middle ages including Flanders, Trieste, South Prussia, Bohemia, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

“which brings the total to 271, which means he wins.”

Republicans need to get away from the “path to 270” rubbish. Narrowly trying to win an election generally means you are going to lose. The Democrats tried that in 2000 and 2004 and let the Republicans barely eke by, but otherwise they went for the jugular.

We should instead aim for 350+ like Obama did, knowing that if we lose a few, which is inevitable, we will still win. I honestly think there is a chance for a 450+ wipeout, especially if Trump can pull off the NY upset.

For Trump going for 350, that means competing for most of the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast (we can let MA, RI, and MD, and DC slide), the industrial midwest in Ohio, Michigan, and Iowa, and sandy swing states Florida, Nevada and New Mexico. This also has the advantage for Trump of making his travel itineraries simple and letting him sleep at one of his homes most nights.

WI, MN, CO, VA, and OR will be pulled along by external events nationally rather than overt campaigning – they are not Trump country.

Consider for a moment that winning Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida early is an opportunity to call the race at 11p EST and start partying, something Republicans haven’t gotten to do since 1988! There is a lot of pent up psychological frustration to win big that is going to come into play.

“My gut feeling is that Trump cannot win. Any recent immigrant won’t vote for him.”

Trump’s wife is a recent immigrant. His mother was an immigrant, and 4 of his 5 children were born of an immigrant. He has a very compelling personal story to use to show he is not in any way prejudiced against immigrants per se, just illegals. And he has not even begun to use this story.

“Most women will vote for Hillary.”

My gut is that Trump will start displaying and describing women he has employed in high positions for decades with equal or better pay and contrast that to Hillary, who cannot even pay women in her Senate office equally with her male employees even as she decries wage discrimination.

Trump has already neutralized all the religious right social issue nonsense for the election, so the decision for or against him will be on economics, security, illegal immigration/border control, and personal trust. There won’t be any campaign discussion this year of birth control and transgender bathroom access or denying white women who are raped by a black criminal an abortion.

Most women may vote for Hillary unless this turns into a landslide, but these will primarily be blacks, other minorities, and single white women Trump was never going to win. On the other hand, he is going to push her into being incredibly alienating towards men, starting with #OffTheReservation.

“the Germans wanted to reunite their nation (which was split into two separate parts after Versailles)”

Germany was not split in two after Versailles, but refused the ability to unite. Austria was forbidden to unite with Germany, and the Sudeten and Triolese Germans were split off Austria and the Alsatian, Danzig and Vistula Germans split off Germany.

The Anglo-French fear was that allowing Germans self-determination after WWI would have left a German state emerging out of the war that was stronger than what had gone in and twice the size of any other European state in people and land.

Hitler had nearly created this unified Germany peacefully in August of 1939. The choice for war was a terrible mistake on his part and the part of the German elites, just as was the failure of the Kaiser to negotiate a peace in either 1914 or 1916 in WWI. All sobering lessons.

America First

“The nation-state remains the true foundation for happiness and harmony” (Donald Trump)

A nation state needs a nation. America First means Americans First and prioritizing our country and its sovereignty. It also implies we are a true American nation (or perhaps more accurately American nations – white, black, Indian).

“(and he’s been depantsed organizationally by Cruz, so his management skills are similarly questionable)”

Yes what a fool he is for not wasting millions of his own money employing thousands of campaign workers to secure the delegates he deserved instead of simply winning enough votes with free media to force everyone else out the race.

“There might have been a more nuanced way to deal with ethanol subsidies”

What is wrong with ethanol subsidies? You’d rather buy another 1 million barrels of oil per day from the Saudis?

Ethanol keeps our money here in the US benefitting Americans.

Here is what the German people think of this.

https://youtu.be/J9rvjdB-VRc
Video Link

“Ted Cruz has won 7 million votes so far, not only 500k votes. When you win 11 states, you don’t get only half a million votes.”

Ted Cruz has only won 4 elections – Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, and Wisconsin.

Everything else Ted “won” was a selection where he could pack the vote with true believers.

And 1 in 6 votes he won was in Texas. Color me underwhelmed.

“I miss Jim Traficant, I wish he could see this.”

God bless Jim!

I miss him. If he was still in Congress, he would have been the first Democrat to publicly endorse Trump.

Bad luck.

Having a Spanish surname and running a campaign in Indiana when the day before the vote your strongest region witnesses grade school age Mexican kids waving Mexican flags and vulgarly cursing out Anericans on national TV.

Interesting how much that goes with what common sense tells you.

Yep. That has been my point all along.

CT and NJ should be competitive to a NY Republican, they don’t have NY City that makes NY out of reach for Trump.

Yep, and you’d expect NJ to be competitive before CT, and that is what it shows.

Even the granular detail by congressional district is strikingly common sense. In NY, for example, it shows Trump doing best in Staten Island, Southern Nassau County, suburban Buffalo, and Suffolk County. His worst districts? Harlmen/Washington Heights, Upper West Side, Upper East Side.

In Pennsylvania it shows Trump’s three best congressional districts are 9, 10, and 11 (Shuster, Marino, and Barletta). Not surprisingly, these three men have endorsed Trump.

In NJ, is anyone surprised Trump’s three best districts are 3 (Burlington County), 2 (Gloucester/Atlantic City), and 4 (Ocean/Monmouth).

MI, PA and OH have always been the Rust Belt states most likely to flip.

The three of them are much more alike than are Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota.

VA is too much of an establishment colonised area now

Trump’s weakness in VA is entirely in the three northern VA districts in Arlington/Alexandria, Fairfax, and Loudon (8, 10, 11) and district 3 (black majority part of Richmond/Norfolk).

however Trump is strong in the Mid Atlantic so not surprised to see DE as up for grabs, Paul Manafort and Rick Wiley had it as a target in his presentation to the RNC.

DE went with the winner every year until 2000. It was surprising to most when it did not go with Bush. It is very much like south Jersey and Chester County.

NV and FL are Trump home states

He has amazing relative strength in Las Vegas for a Republican.

NM more likely to flip than too nice IA, surprised by CO.

Both NM and IA exhibit their typical partisan breakdown in Trump vs. Hillary. It just seems like Trump gets a bit more support in NM than he gets in blue parts of Iowa.

The real surprise in WI, where Trump does poorly as expected in Milwaukee and Madison, but also continues to show poorly in the WOW Counties where Cruz killed him – Waukesha/Ozaukee/Washington.

CO is becoming a SJW SWPL Whitopia like Oregon/Washington, with a side of Northern Virginia-like FedJobs dependency + academia in metro Denver-Boulder. Not a good combination for Trump. The SWPL/SJW liberal white college kids are the type of Sanders voters who will NOT be voting for Trump in the fall.

In fact if you could get a breakdown of Sanders voters between working class folks and SJW/SWPL’s, it would tell you where Trump will and will not pick up Sanders votes in a way that would matter. My gut tells me the midwest and PA is where they will be helping him, and not CO and the Pacific Northwest.

“It’s an on-line poll.”

I’m going to keep trying to make this point.

Don’t use it as a poll where you are expecting it to provide you precise percentages of support. Use it as a tool to measure relative strength of candidates. Let it show you where support is strong or weak for one candidate vs. another.

Used in this way, it has been highly accurate and predictive regarding where Trump would do best vs. where Cruz would do best and showing where Kasich would find the most support.

“All indications are that Trump will be attempting to expand the map and win over independents. It will be interesting to see whose theory of the election is correct.”

Its interesting to consider the ISideWith map of Trump vs. Clinton to examine areas of relative strength.

Trump shows up with a unique map. He shows disappointing but perhaps understandable weakness in CO, VA, MN, IL, ME, and WI, but he shows surprising strength in MI, OH, PA, NJ, DE and NH. In between these groupings are CT and IA.

His weakest states are DC, WA, OR, CA, HI, MA, MD, and NY, while his strongest are not surprisingly LA, MS, AL, WY, SC, WV, ID, ND, TN, OK.

http://www.isidewith.com/map/JNty/2016-presidential-election-donald-trump-vs-hillary-clinton#z4

If you line the states up by the percentages shown for Trump vs. Clinton, the state projected to put Trump over the top is interestingly Utah, and it puts him over the top because of relative strength in MI, OH and ME Distrct 2.

Following this map, I could see Trump losing VA, CO, WI, and MN but winning outright with 335 electoral votes by carrying much of the northeast and Michigan while holding most of the south and west.

If the survey percentages were to actually turn out to be accurate (farfetched, I admit), Hilllary would suffer a 1980 style wipeout, carrying only CA, WA, MA and DC and losing 457 to 81.

“The Mexica — the Aztecs — originated in Arizona and Colorado where they built a civilization for a thousand years before migrating to Mexico in the 1280s. ”

And the archaeological and geneaological/genetic and linguistic evidence for this is …. ?

Oh, that’s right, non-existent.

Aztlan was located 150 leagues, or 450 miles, from Mexico City, which is well inside Mexico.

I suppose it is sacred since it is the origin of these crazed devotees of human sacrifice.

“As the idiot California progs, who are literally supporting their own ethnic cleansing, will tell you the precipitous decline in education is because the Republicans defunded colleges and schools.”

Yeah sure, and the Democrats just can’t figure out how to refund them after decades of one party control?

“People seem to keep missing the point that these protesters see themselves as the indigenous people of California (and Texas, Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona).”

The indigenous people of those states live in them or on their own Indian Reservations.

If assorted Conquistador-Americans and Mixtec peasants see themsevles as indigenous to California, they are high on Mexican dope.

“Their”

They are or They’re. Grammar is your friend.

“asserting something much closer to the claims made by Blacks in apartheid South Africa,”

The indigenous blacks in South Africa were the Hottentos and Bushmen. The Bantu’s invaded South Africa after the arrival of the Dutch Boers. The Boers arrived and found essentially an empty land. The Boers mixed freely with the few native non-Bantu blacks and created the “Colored People” who adopted Boer culture and speak Afrikaans and form most of the inhabitants of Cape Colony.

“Palestinians in the the West Bank”

Many Palestinians are actually recent immigrants from other Arab countries, such as yasser Arafat, who was born in Cairo.

The Jews, of course, have been in Palestine since the time of Abraham, circa 2300 BC.

“The point being that their claim is of an entirely different sort than any others. The case of Mexican militants in the US is sui generis and uniquely troublesome.”

How is it troublesome? You are concerned evidence will be uncovered by Archaeologists that the Aztecs, Mayas, Olmecs, or Mixtecs once had an empire stretching north to Denver and San Francisco? Because such a thing never happened.

Native Mexicans never controlled the American Southwest, and the Spanish and Hispano-Mexicans combined ruled over the area as an empty colony devoid of more than a few thousand Spaniards for less than half the time it has been part of the US (1769 to 1846 = 77 years vs. 1846 to present = 170 years).

I don’t notice the descendants of the most robust Spanish settlement there – Santa Fe and New Mexico – wanting to leave the US and return to a Mexico they were never even really part of due to their isolation.

“Americans and Mexicans are rejecting Trumps violent racism and anti-semitism.”

And this comment is why Americans have rejected the two naturalized Conquistador-Americans running for President. We don’t trust them to be on our side.

Which is why the “Natural Born Citizen” clause exists.

“The hardcore nationalists would never go for it. Here’s Ben-Gurion:”

And why should they?

Some of history’s most amazing photos are that of the Israeli Army troops liberating the Temple Mount in 1967. Anyone with any national or religious sense would understand the significance and emotion involved.

Only a clueless Jew hater would fail to comprehend and suggest something so stupid as evacuating Israel.

Since the Berlin Wall already fell and Russia bloodlessly recaptured Crimea, the only thing I could think of to rival 1967 would be a Greek or Russian army capturing Hagia Sophia.

Again anyone with slightest bit of national consciousness should understand and appreciate this.

“Trump was born in Jamaica Queens, then a white middle class area, now a dangerous slum that is nearly 100% black or latino.”

I guess you have not actually been there. There are some really amazing places around Jamaica which are quite nice especially Jamaica Estates, Jamaica Hils, and Kew Gardens. Jamaica itself is not a dangerous slum as most people would think of it.

I’m not sure how you tell the two apart.

Thrifty is avoiding unnecessary monetary expense.

Austere is avoiding frivolities and having a severe manner.

You can be thrifty without being austere.

“I don’t mean to refute his thesis except to say that as stated it lacks nuance.”

I’ll say.

I’ve mentioned here before part of my mother’s family is west country petty nobles who colonized Long Island and Connecticut in the period 1625-1655 and then into upstate New York. They were Anglican devotees, not Puritans. His thesis doesn’t really have room for this type of English settlers at all, even though they were the northern ruling class in New York and later the Midlands, merging themselves in part with the Dutch of New Netherlands and spreading west. People like the Roosevelts and the so-called Rockefeller or Scranton Republicans, in other words the actual WASP ascendancy, are inexplicable and impossible to describe without knowing who these people were and are. They most certainly weren’t Puritan derived Congregationalists or Unitarians – they were either Episcopalian or Presbyterian. And rather than being from New England (except SW Connecticut) they were from New York, New Jersey, non-German Pennsylvania (i.e. excluding the Great Valley), northern Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Montana, Wyoming, etc. on through the non-Scandanavian/non-German/non-Mormon midwest and plains. In many of these American Nation’s schemes, they seem very much confused with Yankess, which they are not.

My father’s family was Pennsylvania German religious dissidents who arrived between 1685 and 1755. Pennsylvania Germans are most decidedly not part of Quaker culture except for sharing a passion for pacifism and religious quietude. For example, Pennsylvania Germans are notorious for being cheap/thrifty, something a Quaker would never be mistaken for being – Quakers are austere, not thrifty. Pennsylvania Germans are also not really related at all culturally to midwestern Catholic and Lutheran Germans from the 18th century migrations, but many schemes lump us together as Midlanders.

I suppose there is a lot more to say about this but its enough for now.

Although Trump supported Reagan early on, he was a Democrat until 1987

I’m curious where you get your evidence for this?

Trump and his supporters, any of whom are outsiders entering the party and taking it over

I’m a lifelong GOPer from a GOP family that has been party of the party since the 1856 election and I (we) support Trump.

The “winner” has always been defined as the one who gets 50% of the delegates.

Trump has over 50% of the delegates awarded to date. You need to find a new talking point memo.

If Trump becomes the winner, he’ll do it with a minority popular vote.

The word you are looking for is a plurality, not a minority. Trump will also have a record for the highest total number of GOP votes in the primaries ever. Plurality winnners in the primary popular vote have been coronated before. See McCain, Nixon (68), Goldwater, Eisenhower,

Cruz represents the old traditional Evangelical and small town Republicans.

Can you please name some small towns or rural counties outside Texas that Cruz won with over 50% of the vote? I think there may be perhaps 25 such counties out of the thousand or so that have voted. 8 in Missouri, 7 in Wisconsin, 6 in Idaho, 3 in Kentucky, 1 in North Carolina, and 1 in Oklahoma. So in your mind, this 2.5% showing by Cruz in dominating rural counties makes him the representative of such areas across the country? You do realize Trump won more rural counties by a majority in a single state – Alabama, where he won 27 by a majority – than Cruz did in the entire country outside Texas and Utah?

He wins in the heartland states of the great plans

No Great Plains states have had a primary election yet, so which states are you thinking of there that Cruz has “won”? Wyoming, Colorado, and North Dakota which didn’t actually bother to hold elections for a candidate for president?

the rocky mountains

4 Rocky Mountains states have voted – Trump won Nevada and Arizona and Cruz won Utah and Idaho.

intact parts of the other areas (such as western Michigan, or parts of Kentucky that haven’t succumbed to the opiate epidemci).

This condescending tone towards everywhere that has not supported Cruz is why he is losing. There is nothing non-intact about most of the areas that voted for Trump. They certainly aren’t all on opiods.

His voters are the people who go to church every Sunday, stay married and stay clean.

Gosh, I never knew that as a Trump voter I failed to go to Church every Sunday, I failed at my wedding vows and got divorced and remarried like Cruz’s own parents, and I failed to stay clean and fell into a life of casual sex (like Ted Cruz with his mistresses and whores) and drug use (like Ted Cruz, who used to use cocaine in college).

Isn’t this fun?

Trump has cleverly outmaneuvered them with his supporters, many of whom are outsiders and new to the party,

Can you define the word “many”? Like how many percent of Trump’s support do you think is outsiders?

Regarding Trump and working class whites, his primary tallies in Delaware County, PA in working class communities along the Delaware River are pretty overwhelming.

Marcus Hook – 71% of GOP voters, 52% of all primary voters
Tinicum Township – 70% of GOP voters, 52% of all primary voters
Lower Chichester Township – 68% of GOP voters, 48% of all primary voters
Eddystone – 61% of GOP voters, 45% of all primary voters
Trainer – 72% of GOP voters, 42% of all primary voters
Aston Township – 61% of GOP voters, 42% of all primary voters
Clifton Heights – 70% of GOP voters, 40% of all primary voters
Upper Chichester Township – 62% of GOP voters, 40% of all primary voters
Ridley Township – 59% of GOP voters, 40% of all primary voters

Obama won all of these towns in 2012 except Aston, some of them decisively. And keep in mind the primary is closed so no independents or crossover voting.

Marcus Hook – 63% Obama
Tinicum Township – 52% Obama
Lower Chichester Township – 58% Obama
Eddystone – 65% Obama
Trainer – 68% Obama
Aston Township – 47% Obama
Clifton Heights – 60% Obama
Upper Chichester Township – 55% Obama
Ridley Township – 53% Obama

“RI and CT break it down by towns, and Kasich’s only wins were”

I’ve been looking at town wins in Pennsylvania by Kasich. So far its:

Philadelphia City:
Ward 9 (Chestnut Hill/West Mt. Airy)
Wards 5, 8, 15, 24, 27, 30 (Center City/Fairmount/University City)

Montgomery County
Lower Merion Township
Narberth Borough
Bryn Athyn Borough

Delaware County:
Radnor Township
Swarthmore Borough
Rose Valley Borough

Chester County:
Easttown Township
Tredyffrin Township

Allegheny County:
Mt. Lebanon Borough
Sewickley Borough
Fox Chapel Borough

Kasich didn’t win a single town in Bucks County. In fact, he only won a single precinct in the entire county, one section of Doylestown Borough (the wealthy county seat). He couldn’t even win his home town of McKees Rocks

Bryn Athyn (a strange, wealthy town run by the Swedenborgian Church) is the only reliably Republican voting district on this list. Radnor/Easttown/Tredffrin is mixed or perhaps leans Republicans in a good year.

Lower Merion-Narberth-Radnor-Easttown-Tredyffrin is the famous and very wealthy Main Line

Swarthmore is a wealthy liberal college town.

Chestnut Hill/West Mt. Airy and Center City are the wealthiest areas in the city by a wide margin. Chestnut Hill/West Mt. Airy are two neighborhoods in the city with huge mansions and large estates nestled into a city park. Center City is like a mini-Manhattan of apartments and brownstones. Chestnut Hill last leaned Republican around 1980.

The boroughs in Allegheny that he won are the rich elitist towns in the county.

I haven’t tried checking the whole state, but my gut tells me that those are probably the only ten communities he could carry out of 2,561 townships, boroughs, and cities in Pennsylvania. Pretty pathetic.

“The difference was that Reagan also got the support of most traditional Republicans and ended up with almost 60% of the primary votes.”

Reagan ended up with 60% of the primary votes because his opponents dropped out before the end of the primaries. Romney had the same experience in 2012. He only reached a majority long after everyone else dropped out and he started winning essentially uncontested primaries with 60-80% of the vote.

“Trump seems to be using his Trump Democrats to take the party away for the divided traditional Republicans without winning over most of them over,”

Again, most of Trump’s lead and victories comes from winning in closed primaries with only Republican voters.

Nevada, Louisiana, Kentucky, Hawaii, Florida, Arizona, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, Delaware were all closed and New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Georiga, North Carolina, Rhode Island were semi-closed and included Independents.

The only closed elections Trump lost were Iowa, Alaska, Oklahoma, Maine, and Idaho.

“and if he gets 50% of the delegates will probably become the nominee with 40%-45% support in the end.”

He already has 50% of the delegates to date. In my estimate, with around 25 million votes in, the remaining states are going to provide another 7-8 million votes and Trump is going to get over half of them which will put him at 14+ million votes out of 32 million or 44%. Cruz is going to have around 8-9 million and Kasich is going to have 5 million.

“Trump, an outsider and former Democrat, has seemingly taken over the party from its traditional electorate and leaders despite being outnumbered and outvoted by them*, by in part bringing in other outsiders.”

Trump is a Republican and the vast majority of his voters are traditional registered Republican voters. All of his biggest victories (northeast, Florida, Arizona) have been in closed primaries where only Republicans can vote. To the extent Independents or Democrats are coming into the party, which is a good thing since it is not a closed club, it is because someone like Trump is running.

“As of now, Cruz and Kasich who are cooperating with each other combined have more votes than does Trump. They roughly represent the traditional Evangelical/small town, and big business wings of the Republican Party.”

Cruz represents the Religious Right wing of the party, not small towns or Evangelicals. He is doing terribly in rural and small town areas across the country which are being won by Trump. Even in Wisconsin, Trump won most of the towns and rural areas. To date, Cruz’s entire support could be summed up as Texas, Mormon’s, and SE Wisconsin GOP Establishment.

Kasich is the representative of business and usual/country club/green eyeshades Republicanism in the tradition of Eisenhower and Rockefeller.

Post March 15 in a 3 man race, Trump has 2.555M votes and Cruz/Kasich/Others have 2.540 million votes.

“in Pennsylvania, Trump also won every county, but the county where he performed worst was Chester County – McMansion country and the richest county in the state.”

Actually his worst county was Lancaster County, home of goofy Protestant religious fanatics who went for Cruz. 44% for Trump, 31.6% for Cruz.

“In neighboring Montgomery County (PA – same name, different state), second richest in the state, Trump also scored less than 50%.”

Yes, based on soft support in two areas.

1) In 1%er land, Kasich beat Trump. That is Lower Merion Township, Narberth Borough on the Main Line, and Bryn Athyn Borough. This is the home territory of the ruling elite and includes all the large estate suburban areas with $5 million plus multi-acre estate homes.

2) In 10%er land, Trump won, but with support in the 38-45% range due to higher Kasich support. This is the well-off collar Townships around Philadelphia with lots of professionals. Includes Whitemarsh, Springfield, Cheltenham, Abington, Upper Dublin, Lower Gwynedd, and Upper Gwynedd Townships and Jenkintown and Ambler Boroughs. These are the traditional streetcar and commuter rail suburbs built out to a great extent before 1940.

3) Trump did much better in the ordinary suburban areas of Montgomery County. He got majorities in Lower Moreland, Upper Merion, West Norriton, Limerick, Lower and Upper Providence, Horsham, Upper and Lower Pottsgrove and Hatfield Townships for example. These are what I would call newer suburbs and exurbs from the Interstate era. He also won all the old industrial boroughs and working class Townships in Montgomery Township.

A similar pattern was seen in Philadelphia. Kasich won outright the Republican vote in the 1%er Wards 5, 8, 15, 24, 27, and 30 in Center City and Wards 9, 22, and 59 (Chestnut Hill, West Mt Airy, West Germantown), again heavy on the mega wealthy and professionals. Trump crushed it elsewhere, including surprisingly wealthy Ward 38 (East Falls) – home of Gov Rendell and Sen Specter and the late Princess Grace. In Northeast and South Philadelphia, the River Wards (Port Richmond, Bridesburg, Jensington), and Roxborough, Trump was getting close to 75% of the GOP vote – rather like Staten Island (and also like the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area in NE PA).

A bigger takeaway is that Republicans are a small minority (just 15-35% of the general electorate) in many of these elite/professional 1%er/10%er areas already in PA. Losing a bunch of bitter Kasich voters there to Hillary since they are desperate for illegals and slop from the government and don’t want to look bad to their Democrat friends really doesn’t add up to much compared to the middle and working class people Trump is pulling in and his overwhelming support among regular middle class Republicans.

“but Pennsylvania still does and is the swing state potentially most receptive to his message”

Iowa is the swing state most conducive to Trump. It has more manufacturing and manufacturing losses, it has more illegals, its closer to being won every time, and it lacks a big city Country Club Republican set who might tip towards Hillary.

” or his tax returns have something embarrassing in them, like he’s not really all that rich?”

More likely that he claims little income and pays little taxes (thanks to depreciation and other real estate write-downs).

The idea that Trump is not rich is preposterous. Besides all the buildings and resorts he owns, he flies around in a full size jet (a 757 – not a Gulfstream or Lear jet), owns a huge yacht, and owns multiple residences worth tens of million each. You can’t maintain that lifestyle without very big money coming in off even bigger assets.

“That’s the point I’m trying to make. You can’t compare total D turnout and total R turnout on one day and draw any conclusions from that for November. ”

You can if its an open primary with very high turnout compared to the last general election. I.e. Michigan (63% of 2012), Wisconsin (78% of 2012), Missouri (63% of 2012), Virginia (56% of 2012), Ohio (75% of 2012). Closed primaries are harder to analyze.

“And what I have found is that in most states, Republican turnout is anywhere between solidly and way higher than 16 delta 12 and delta 8, and Democrat turnout is significantly down if not way down 16 delta 8.”

Republican turnout is at an all time record, Democrats are depressed down, despite Bernie.

Kasich is losing Montgomery County, MD, but he may be winning the central core of the county, which is the key.

“Okay but the Democrats’ turnout is 10 or 20% higher tonight than the GOP turnout in PA.”

In Delaware County, which Kerry won 57%-43% and Obama won 60%-39%, Republicans are outvoting Democrats 51%-49%. Republicans have not won Delaware County since 1988.

Statewide as outstanding rural areas come in, the total vote tally is narrowing now 1.26M to 1.42M. Most outstanding precincts are in York, Lancaster, Chester, Adams, Lebanon and other south central heavily Republican counties.