Former White House Press Secretary: Clinton The Clear Favorite For President
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Former White House Press Secretary and current cable news host Dana Perino believes the current voting demographics in America give Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton a clear advantage in the general election over any of the current Republican candidates.
Perino, in an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said the electoral map is clearly tilted in the former Secretary of State's favor.
"No matter who the Republicans nominate to be their presidential candidate, it is going to be so hard to beat Hillary Clinton, just by shear numbers. If you look at the fact that the electoral college takes 270 votes and she already probably has 246 in the bag. That means Republicans have to win almost every other state...Let's say Trump is the nominee. It's possible that he could get all of the rust belt states. If that's the strategy that they pursue, they would have to win 65 percent, nationwide, of the white vote. That has not happened for a Republican since 1984, in Ronald Reagan's landslide and with the demographic changes in America, I think it's even tougher. And with Hillary Clinton at the top of the ticket and 25 percent of the electorate is single, young women, yeah, I think it's really hard."
Regarding the race for the Republican nomination, she said there is still a lot more drama left to play out before a winner will emerge.
"In nine days this could look very different. Next Wednesday, the sixteenth, we'll have a much clearer picture of where things are headed. Now, it still might be murky about the direction that people want to take, but I also think that we have to let these states vote. I think that some of the election results from Saturday surprised people because Cruz over-performed his numbers, Trump under-performed. Rubio vastly under-performed until Puerto Rico, in which he got almost 80 percent of the vote. So, it's still really up in the air."
Perino also assessed why she thinks former Florida Governor Jeb Bush's presidential campaign failed to gain any serious momentum in spite of spending over $130 million in political advertising.
"My gut instinct was that Bush fatigue was more real than they thought and that consumer preferences had moved on. For example, kids that used to shop at the Gap but now shop at J Crew say I don't want to go back to shop at the Gap anymore. I don't think it was personal. Everybody thinks he's a good man. Of course he was a good Governor. He just was not the guy that was interesting them this time around. Also, talking about the money, he spent a ton of money, he raised a lot, he spent a lot, and he didn't have the results to show for it. There's a lot of money in politics but that is not determinative right now of who is going to win an election."