Face the Nation election diary: John Dickerson’s take

 Welcome to the Face the Nation Election Diary. New entries throughout the day. Scroll down to read John’s opening view of the election in the bottom entry labeled: “6:24 pm, November 6: Welcome to the Face the Nation Election Diary.”

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2:30 am November 9th, Trump could take the stage

As Donald Trump considers getting on the stage here, if he really thinks that the numbers are going in his way, this is the first act of conciliation, or the first act as a new president with a country that is obviously, deeply divided and partisan. A country in which people are going to be elated but also very scared.

This is his first chance, if he honestly thinks he is going to win. How he handles this next moment is the first test of how, or if, he is going to kind of try to repair the breach that is obviously there. Even despite his historic achievement. 

The normal conciliatory things you say as a victor about your opponent have the slight conflict with the fact that he said he is going to have his attorney general investigate Hillary Clinton if he is elected president. So that adds another bit of context to what he may or may not say tonight. 

12:30 pm November 8th, Trump’s gamble

Donald Trump made an enormous gamble on basically assuming all the smart people in politics were totally wrong and repeatedly he kept the gamble going down on his own. This is an enormous thing that he has done. He bested 16 Republicans in his primary. And he’s running the table. Running the table is not an easy thing to do. And that is what he has done so far. 

12:21 pm November 8th, It’s down to a couple of votes

It’s just amazing to watch this. In Pennsylvania now, as I look at it it’s about 2,000 votes that separates the two of them. We’re watching this enormous country, all of this collective behavior, and it’s coming down to a hand full of votes in these states to determine who the next president is. 

10:45pm November 8th, All eyes on the battlegrounds

There are two questions. One is how are they going to split up the battleground  states. The other is can Donald Trump pierce the so-called blue wall, those traditionally democratic states. Michigan is one of them. Wisconsin is another one. And Pennsylvania is a third. So does Hillary Clinton hold on to those? The limited number of pathways that Donald Trump had was based on the idea that a number of states would follow their historical path. 

10:22pm November 8th, Trump’s view of the electorate has been ratified

When you look at the map, all of that red, Trump doing a little bit in each place. Hillary Clinton is doing it in big places around the cities. One thing I think we can conclude basically here is at the beginning of the night there was a big question-- did Donald Trump’s vision of the electorate, which was in contrast to many, many Republicans, that he could do well by appealing to the electorate on his terms. That’s been ratified. He did well by appealing on his terms. He may or may not be president, but in terms of that theory of the case, he has done well enough tonight to prove that he was right about that. 

9:16pm November 8th, Battles for the next President

I was talking to Senate Republicans before we started to get results in tonight and we were talking about what Hillary Clinton would have to do to reach out if she were to win. It was a bit of a weird conversation to have because the vote hadn’t taken place, they were already assuming a bad night for Donald Trump, but they were already laying the markers she had to meet and said she can’t be kind of a Elizabeth Warren type Democrat--very liberal. 

The point is for whoever wins, the traps are laid for them and the score will already start being kept based on what they say in their victory speeches in terms of this question of whether a whole new round of partisan battle begins. You know, no honeymoon, once they win the partisan battles will pick up. 

8:13pm November 8th, Trump’s Strategy

One of the key questions is whether Donald Trump’s strategy of paying close attention to white voters was going to pay off. Ronald Reagan won with 54% of white voters. Mitt Romney got 59% and lost. The difference, the share of white voters, there were more of them in Ronald Reagan’s day. The exit polls suggest that only 70% of the electorate is white voters. In 2012 it was 72%. Donald Trump is working with a smaller group. Within that non-college white voters in 2012 they were 36% of the electorate now they are 34% of the electorate. These are not huge numbers but in close race if your base is not turning out the premise of the Donald Trump campaign was not just that he would match writ Romney, but grow them. 

7:50pm, November 8th, Evangelical Voters

Keeping an eye on North Carolina exit polls for evangelical voters. Who are they going for? The state is 35% Evangelical Christians, which is identical to South Carolina, but nothing close to Tennessee or Kentucky. (Pew: Evangelical landscape study on NC.) In 2012, Mitt Romney won them with 79 percent to Obama’s 20 percent. Tonight, in North Carolina, we’re seeing Hillary Clinton with 19 percent, Donald Trump with 77.

7:38 pm, November 8th, Hillary Clinton More Honest

My colleague Jake Miller saw in the exit polls (subject to change later as more come in) that Hillary Clinton eclipsed trump on the question of who’s more honest and trustworthy, a flip from the trend we’ve seen in pre-election polling through much of the race. 

Clinton: 

Is honest and trustworthy: 37%

Is not honest and trustworthy: 60%

Trump: 

Is honest and trustworthy: 32%

Is not honest and trustworthy: 64%

7:00pm: Interpreting polls tonight

Edge is if a candidate is ahead but not by so much that statistical error could remove that advantage. Lean is if a candidate has an advantage that is a little more stable. And if a candidate is doing even better than that then we’re on our way to making a projection.

6:45, November 8th: “This is a test of electoral theory”

2:52 pm, November 8: Why we’re so anxious

This is an anxious election because voters have highly unfavorable views of the two candidates. 56% had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump. 54% felt that way about Hillary Clinton. It’s not just that people have negative feelings. They have strongly negative feelings.

But if this is a special election, the view that the opposition is the enemy has been growing before this cycle.. Politics has steadily become so personal that the other party is no longer viewed as well-meaning but wrong. The other party is cast as a threat and is viewed as a threat.

According to Pew, 45% of Republicans now view Democratic policies as a threat, up from 37% in 2014. And 41% of Democrats say the same about the Republican Party’s policies, an increase of 10 percentage points from two years ago. More than half of Democrats (55%) say the Republican Party makes them “afraid,” while 49% of Republicans say the same about the Democratic Party. Among those highly engaged in politics – those who say they vote regularly and either volunteer for or donate to campaigns – 70% of Democrats and 62% of Republicans say they are afraid of the other party.

This sentiment explains why your facebook and Twitter feeds feel so toxic. According to another Pew study, roughly half of users feel the political conversations they see on social media are angrier (49%), less respectful (53%) and less civil (49%) than those in other areas of life. 83% say that when their friends post something about politics that they disagree with they usually just try to ignore it. One-third of social media users (31%) say they have changed their settings in order to see fewer posts from someone in their feed because of something related to politics, while 27% have blocked or unfriended someone for that reason.

11:24 am, November 8: What role will Millennials play tonight?

In 2008, a spike in young voter turnout pushed President Obama over the edge to win North Carolina, a state that had previously voted Republican since 1980. This year, Millennials have been in the news yet again and could determine who wins in 2016. 

So what can we expect from this key demographic? Here’s a link to our podcast, where we talk about the signs we should be looking for tonight as the votes begin to roll in. Listen here.  

9:05 am, November 8: Donald Trump’s play for Michigan

Donald Trump is making a last minute push into Michigan. The state hasn’t gone for a Republican since 1988. One of the questions on the board Tuesday is whether any of the 31 states that traditionally vote for either party behave in a new way.

How hard is that? Only two states—Indiana and North Carolina—switched sides between 2008 and 2012 (a record), and only three states switched sides between 2000 and 2004, New Hampshire, Iowa and New Mexico. But, while the maps have been more rigid since 2000, more states have been competitive in this election. That is, there have been more battlegrounds which some would argue is a good thing because it means more votes matter, which means, in theory, the candidates are paying more attention to and will be influenced by a larger portion of the country

11:31 am, November 7: Obligatory Alexis de Tocqueville Reference

We’ve never seen an election like this before, but we have seen echoes (We’ve spared you the famous Twain quote on this topic). We’ll be marking some points from the past where we hear an echo now and again between now and when it gets hot and messy on Tuesday.

The first installment comes from political scientist Carah Ong Wahley at the University of Virginia who reminded me of this from Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America written in 1835:

“As the election approaches, intrigues become more active, agitation more lively and more widespread. Citizens divided into several camps, each of which takes the name of its candidate. The entire nation falls into a feverish state; the election is then the daily text of public papers, the subject of particular conversations, the goal of all reasoning, the object of all thoughts, the sole interest of the present.”

6:24 pm, November 6: Welcome to the Face the Nation Election Diary

Welcome to the Face the Nation Diary Election Blog. Before I write a thousand little posts about the details of this race, I want to collect my thoughts and step back a bit.

This presidential campaign two extremely well-known, unpopular candidates from New York City face off. A campaign that analysts once thought might focus on the issue of income inequality has elevated two members of the 1 percent who have spent much of their adult lives being ferried on the leather seats of town cars. On election night their victory parties will be less than two miles apart in one of the most exclusive cities in the world.

The election feels like it has gone on forever. First the earth cooled and then the candidates started campaigning. It has not been uplifting. That’s why so many voters are anxious. Because both candidates are unpopular, a lot of voters are voting against a candidate rather than for one. This is already true: the most unpopular person to win a presidential election in the history of polling will win Tuesday night.  Eighty-two percent of voters told CBS pollsters that the election made them feel more disgusted about American politics.

The dreary choices come at a time when we can’t afford to dislike politics. Through politics we peacefully work out our biggest issues that require collective action. There’s plenty of work to do.Most Americans say their family’s income is falling behind the cost of living and the majority of Americans believe the economic system unfairly favors the wealthy and most powerful. The education system that should produce skilled workers for next generation jobs is not working. Entitlement programs have not been adjusted to account for rising health care costs and the retirement of the baby boomers; the growing costs will limit the government’s ability to spend on important programs like maintaining crumbling infrastructure. The tax code is complicated and costly, and most Americans believe that they don’t have a fair shot at the American Dream.

As a nation, Americans seem incapable of working out our differences. The polarized political system discourages compromise. Social media promotes the intemperate voices and frightens those in the middle. We only talk to people who agree with us. Campaigns once adjudicated central questions. Now targeting and partisanship encourages candidates to talk only to their base. We can’t even agree on existential threats. I left climate change and terrorism out of the above list of issues and no doubt liberals noticed the first and conservatives noticed the second. Donald Trump has taken this partisan approach to a new height.

What Kind of Change Election?

In its broadest form, the election is a battle over change. If Donald Trump wins, it will be in part because voters wanted a change from two terms under Democratic president. If Hillary Clinton wins it will be because she was able to take advantage of the demographic changes shaping the nation. This is also an election about change in the Republican Party too. There’s a battle going on in the GOP between insiders and outsiders. Donald Trump is an outsider at odds with his party’s leaders on policy and vision. That’s another big change story we’ll be watching after the polls close.

If Hillary Clinton is elected it will be a historic change, but the history of change is working against her. Only once since the 22nd Amendment passed in 1947 limiting a president to two terms, has a party held the White House for three terms. (In 1988 George H.W. Bush succeeded two-term president Ronald Reagan.) Over two terms, grievances pile up against the party in power. That motivates the opposition to stay focused after eight lean years and it depresses the incumbent party which gets complacent and weary after the inevitable disappointments and compromises that come with governing.

On the other hand, there’s a little history working in Hillary Clinton’s favor. Emory professor Alan Abramowitz, who studies the structural factors that lead to presidential success looks to presidential approval as a strong predictor of victory. If a president’s approval rating is below 50 percent that means the change dynamic is strong. Barack Obama’s approval rating is 51.6 percent, which means voters aren’t frantic about change. (Though approval ratings aren’t what they used to be. Obama’s approval ratings, on average, continue to be more politically polarized than any president’s dating back to Dwight Eisenhower, according to the Pew Research Center. That means while his approval rating might be better it’s coming from Democrats and independents, not Republicans.)

Is Demography Destiny?

What role will demography play? Will Hillary Clinton benefit from the votes of groups that are growing in the electorate or will Donald Trump be able to squeeze out an old-style GOP win by maximizing his vote among white voters?  

From 1968 to 1988 Republicans won five of six presidential elections. That pattern led to the view that Republicans had a lock on the electoral college. Now it’s Democrats who have experienced a winning streak. From 1992 to 2012, Democrats won the popular vote in five out of six and the Electoral College in four of those.

What changed? One major change was the country’s demographic makeup. In 1992 when Bill Clinton won, white voters represented 87 percent of the electorate. In 2012, white voters represented 72 percent. Mitt Romney won 59 percent of white voters. That’s more than Ronald Reagan got in 1980 when he won 44 states with only 56 percent of the white vote. In 2012 Romney lost 24 states because he was getting a larger share of a shrinking portion of the electorate.

Romney lost the African-American vote by an 87-point margin, the Latino vote by a 44-points. He only won 27 percent of Latinos compared to the roughly 40 percent that George W. Bush got in 2004. This is what made leaders at the Republican National Committee so interested in repositioning the Republican Party after the election loss in 2012. The party needed to learn to compete in the larger electorate.

Donald Trump did not go with the GOP repair strategy. He is trying to maximize the white vote and limit Hillary Clinton’s appeal to her base. The white share of the 2016 electorate was on pace to drop from 72 percent to 70 percent. Will it? We’ll learn Tuesday. If it stays at 72 or even grows, it’ll be a good night for Donald Trump.

Donald Trump has been talking about a “silent majority” of voters. If they exist, that number will be close or over 72. Within that group, a sub-group to watch is whites without college degrees. They represented 36 percent of the electorate in 2012. Mitt Romney won non-college whites by 25 percentage points. In an average of 18 national polls, Trump is up by 27 percentage points among this group.

For Hillary Clinton the great questions are whether African Americans, Latinos, younger voters and college educated women turn out for her. In 2012 13% of the electorate was African American and Obama won them 93% to Romney’s 6%. Latinos were 8.4% of the electorate and Obama won them 71% to 27%. Obama’s national vote share among Latinos was the highest for a Democratic candidate since 1996.

Mitt Romney won white college educated women voters by six points. Polls have consistently shown Hillary Clinton up by double digits with white college educated women. One thing to watch is whether those traditionally Republican voters came back to the party in recent weeks in key states. (Oh and let’s not forget the fathers. Hillary Clinton has been targeting Republican men by asking them how they will defend their vote for Donald Trump to their daughters.)

Voters age 18 to 29 made up 19% of the electorate in 2012 and Barack Obama won them by a 23 point margin. We’ll have more on how they might turn out in this election in a Face the Nation Diary with Louise Dufresne on Monday, so don’t worry.

David Wasserman of the Cook Political report points out that Obama won just 690 out of 3,141 counties, 121 fewer than Michael Dukakis did in 1988. That is another way to think about the changing nature of the country as you watch returns come in Tuesday . Democrats are sinking into the cities. Republicans own the larger map. As you watch the states light up on CBS Tuesdaynight, you’ll notice huge areas of red in battleground states representing the Republican votes in the suburbs and rural ares and dots of blue representing the cities where Democrats have a concentrated deep bench.

The race can get really small really fast.  For Obama-- again this is according to Wasserman’s work-- three counties— Broward in Florida, Cuyahoga in Ohio and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania— were the ones that provided Obama’s victories in those three states. Those are three to watch on Election Night to see if Clinton is turning out her voters.

Which Map?

The majority of the states won’t be a part of the conversation Tuesday night based on their behavior in the last few presidential cycles. Sixteen states have voted for Democrats in the last six elections totaling 242 electoral votes. Only 13 states have voted that way for Republicans and they only add up to 102 Electoral votes.

When people say Hillary Clinton has an easier path to the 270 electoral votes she needs, this is what they mean. When 31 states plus the District of Columbia vote the same way for that many years, it narrows the uncertainty.

    This leads to a few possible scenarios:

1.    2012 plus: For a campaign full of surprises this route to victory for Hillary Clinton would be the least surprising one. Voters for Hillary Clinton would behave as demographic trends would suggest. She’d get the roughly 242 electoral votes Democrats traditionally and add the battleground states of Virginia, Colorado, Nevada and maybe North Carolina. This would mean she held the rust belt states in the Democratic column like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, while picking up the states with minority voters and a high percentage of college educated voters nervous about Trump. Trump would win Iowa and Ohio which have smaller minority populations and a greater percentage of blue collar workers.

2.    Clinton Comes Alive: Under this scenario Clinton holds the Democratic states and wins more battleground states than named in the above example like Ohio and Florida. Florida would go for Clinton because of huge Latino turnout. The win would require Trump’s “silent majority” not to show up and more Reluctant Republicans to stay home.

3.    The Silent Majority Speaks: In this scenario, Donald Trump’s boasts come true. His campaign says there may be voters who haven’t participated in elections for 12 years who will turn out. His forays into Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania would pay off breaking through the Democratic lock on 242 electoral votes. Trump would not only rob Democrats of traditional states, but take home Trump-friendly states like Ohio and Iowa and take close states like North Carolina and Florida.

The outcome could also fall somewhere between those scenarios and there are, of course, exciting opportunities for a tie of the electoral college, but these are the big likely scenarios. They’re clothes lines I’ve got set up and on Tuesday night we’ll look at the battleground states to see which ones we should hang on which scenario as we look at the possible narrative for the night.

We’ll look forward to going through it with you. Send an email to facethenationpodcast@gmail.com with thoughts or if you want to sign up for our email the Face the Nation Diary

Thank you to Cara Korte, Louise Dufresne, Jake Miller, Khalea Robinson, Elizabeth Hinson, Gabrielle Ake and Elizabeth Campbell for all the research help.

In:
• Hillary Clinton
• Donald Trump
• 2016 Election