Two Candidates, Three Scenarios For The Next Four Years

As we look to the 2016 presidential election, we need to understand that while we only have two candidates who might be president, we actually have three likely scenarios we might see over the next four years.

The first possibility is that Trump wins. Don’t write it off. Yes, thankfully, he is down in most national and swing state polls right now, and is running an undisciplined campaign, which has succeeded in offending two-thirds of the American public. But Trump is an aggressive counter-puncher who knows how to throw his opponents off their game; a lot of the big swing states are still too close for comfort; and a Democratic victory requires a strong turnout of African-American, Latino, unmarried women, and young people, and that is not guaranteed by any stretch. Turning out voters requires inspiration from the candidate, passion from hundreds of thousands of fired up volunteers, and enough money for a strong voter registration and get-out-the-vote ground game. None of that is a given.

So let’s say we have the worst case (but unfortunately plausible) scenario: national Democrats get comfortable with this lead and start taking the win for granted; Hillary plays it safe and picks someone dull and centrist for her VP, and in general runs a campaign that doesn’t inspire; Trump lands some tough punches and throws Hillary’s campaign off its game; and too much money is spent on TV ads and not nearly enough is allocated to voter reg and GOTV. Trump pulls out the upset and is president.

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