The Ben W. Dalton 2016 Political Forecast! Presidential Edition

Welcome to the first edition of my soon-to-be-obscure 2016 political forecast! I’m starting this series (monthly? twice?) of predictions in May because I was temporarily dumbfounded, struck blind, deafened, and stripped of my senses of smell, taste, and balance by the sudden and unexpected (as of May of 2015) rise of Donald J. Trump, who apparently ran for the Republican nomination and defeated THE MOST ACCOMPLISHED AND WELL-QUALIFIED SLATE OF PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES IN MODERN POLITICAL HISTORY! They all lost.

This edition will focus on the most important contest of this election: President of the United States of America. Whoever wins this race will assume the helm of the world’s most powerful country and immediately become a lame duck. We have to pick wisely, because this person will have nothing to do and will be on TV all the time.

The presidential race is difficult to judge. On the one hand, we have Hillary Clinton, the nearly presumptive Democratic nominee, who has high negative ratings and complete command of the issues. She is currently dogged by the strong opposition of Bernie Sanders and his fellow communists, who detest Clinton’s liberal stances. On the other hand, we have an insurgent Republican with even higher negative ratings who treats the media like an abused spouse. Despite the early polling in Clinton’s favor, it’s too soon to tell exactly how much Trump will lose by. At least 7 or 8 points.

In other words, the race is over.

I wish I could be more equivocal, but Donald Trump will lose because African-Americans dislike him, Hispanics despise him, and half the human race that occupies the United States and makes up more than half the voting population—women—are absolutely disgusted by him. Also, conservatives hate him. Also, Republicans hate him. Also, everyone hates him.

On the other hand, he’s really got the moderately downscale less-educated semi-independent non-religious white male vote locked up, so it could be closer than we think! Less than 15 points?

But I don’t want to be premature. In reality, Hillary Clinton won’t be President either. She’ll eventually wind up serving thirty-years-to-life for her reprehensibly violent email crimes, making her ineligible for the proper security clearances (“So, So Secret”) necessary to govern the country. However, her indictment won’t come until November 7, the day before the election, throwing the part of the country that checks Twitter into chaos and resulting in an Electoral College divided among Clinton, Trump, Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and little-known but late-surging Working Families Party candidate “Mikey Bloomberger” and his less-well-known Vermont Progressive Party Vice-Presidential candidate “Bernard Sandermaners.” With the election thrown into the House of Representatives, now perfectly split between Democrats and Republicans (voters in California elect a nominally independent but actually fiercely apathetic harbor seal to the 435^th seat), a week-long high-stakes political struggle ensues that results in (a) Ted Cruz being quickly and untraceably dispatched and (b) Arnold Schwarzenegger being elected President. I could make some further projections beyond that, but the Supreme Court is a little too hard to predict, since many of them are almost dead.

In short, nothing’s going to change much.

Thanks for reading! Until next time, when I preview the North Carolina gubernatorial race, pitting Pat “Are you really a girl?” McCrory against Roy “Why the hell are you even asking?” Cooper. North Carolina loses.