Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton. Who’s going to win and be the next President?

I’m getting somewhat tired of hearing and following the incessant media coverage of the 2016 Presidential Election.

I decided to write a post on who I think will win the 2016 elections, so that way, I can stop worrying about the day-to-day details of who said what.

As of now, March 2nd, a day after Super Tuesday, it looks like the final presidential race will be Donald Trump versus Hillary Clinton.

Trump did decently well on Super Tuesday states. Cruz did better than expected and picked up a large number of delegates in Southern states where has support. Trump’s ability to pick up voters in the different regions in the country bodes well for the rest of his campaign.

Clinton continues to do well, buoyed by a commanding lead among African-Americans. She did well in the Southern states voting on Super Tuesday — Texas, Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas. She also eked out a win in Massachusetts.

Regardless of the nominee in either party, the final winner will be based on the Electoral College, which awards all the delegates in one state to a single candidate.

Let’s take a look at the map.

Come November, each of these states is going to be allocated to one candidate or the other. That is the electoral college.

Remember Mitt Romney? The guy who the 2012 Republican nomination. Well, he lost big in the general election. So we don’t have a President Romney.

For all this talk of a President Trump, it doesn’t matter if he wins the Republican nomination.

If a candidate can’t win the general election, he will cease to be relevant.

It’s that simple.

Let’s start by looking at the 2012 results. Out of the 538 electoral votes.

2012 Election Results:

Obama — 332
Romney — 206

And in 2008,

2008 Election Results:

Obama — 365
McCain — 173

Obama did very well in 2008, after a Bush presidency that left the country in two wars, and the worst recession in 70 years.

Obama did less well in 2012.

The Democratic candidate for President in 2016, only has to do as well as Obama in 2012, and can do even a little worse, and can still win the Presidency.

The reason?

Demographics and voter polarization.

Let’s look back at the 2012 map.

Now let’s only focus on states where the race was closely contested in 2012, as measured by the gap between the Republican and Democratic candidates in each state’s popular vote.

You can view that data here.

Hmm…it looks like there was only one state that was closely contested in the entire country.

That state was Florida.

Obama won Florida in 2012 by 0.88%, or 74,309 votes.

In 2012, no other state, on either side, had a margin of victory less than 2%.

That is hugely significant. In other words, the results of the 2012 election show that it wasn’t that close. Despite media coverage saying it was close and prediction markets saying one thing, the electoral college show it wasn’t contested race.

Let’s look at another recent election where things were close. In the 2000 race between between Bush and Gore, there were a whopping six states where the margin of victory was less than 2%, and five of those states had a margin of victory of less than 1%. These six states were: New Hampshire, Oregon, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Iowa, and Florida. New Hampshire and Florida went to Bush and the others to Gore.

With the exception of Florida, all these swing states in 2000 are now solid Democratic states.

Also since 2000, the country has become more divided, more polarized. Independent voters might not like Hillary Clinton, but they certainly don’t like Donald Trump. Expect independents to stay out of the race entirely, or split their votes between the two.

I don’t think Trump will win Florida in a general election, although Rubio might (his home state). Assuming Trump wins the Republican nomination, he might pick up Ohio, sure. It’s a notorious swing state, and Obama’s victory in Ohio in 2012 was the second slimmest out of all the 2012 states at 2.98%.

Obama won handily in Virginia in 2012. He received 51.16% of the vote versus 47.28% for Romney. Virginia demographics have been driven by continued population growth in liberal northern Virginia. Virginia is simply no longer a swing state.

In other words, you would need a total meltdown on the Democratic side. Hillary Clinton would have to be indicted, to see states shift their political allegiances.

Look at the 2012 map again:

I have no reason to believe the 2016 election results will be vastly different from this map.

If Trump is the nominee, I believe Republicans could win Ohio, but won’t win Florida. If Rubio is the nominee, I believe Republicans will win Florida, but not Ohio.

But even if a Republican managed to win both Ohio and Florida, that’s still not enough electoral votes to win the election.

In the scenario where a Republican wins Ohio and Florida, the final delegate count would be:

Democratic Candidate — 285 votes
Republican Candidate — 253 votes

You need 270 to win.

Note: The more interesting race between Republicans and Democrats is for control of the U.S. Senate. See my predictions here.