Playing With the Demographics On The Electoral College Map: March 2016 Edition (Updated)

You probably notice I like messing with interactive maps.

There's a fun one on 270towin.com where you can predict which state goes Red or Blue for 2016, and can see which states the polling experts still view as toss-ups.

Well, Jamelle Bouie from Slate has been tweeting a bit about Trump's lack of popularity among the demographics of the projected 2016 voters, and he's pointing to another map generator, this time created on RealClearPolitics that goes by the actual voter turnout nationwide from 2012, and how those votes configured into the Electoral wins by state.

This generator seems to go by how the ethnic votes were split between the major parties, with the Republican percentages up for adjustment with the Democratic percentages auto-correcting (this might not reflect the real-world percent sharing).

So this map allows you to alter two things: the shared percentage by ethnic voting bloc, and also by actual voter turnout by that bloc: over 66 percent of Whites, 64 percent of Blacks, 48 percent for Hispanics and 49 percent Asians.

Some trends you need to consider for the election going into 2016:

• Voter turnout for Whites is projected to drop due to simple demographic fact of dying and aging voters from that bloc.
• Hispanic voter enrollment is expected to go up, not just because of the demographic shift but due to political activism in response to Trump's anti-Mexican anti-Immigrant rants.
• Voter turnout by minorities and college-age youth - which favors the Democrats - may take a hit from anti-voter suppression efforts in roughly 22 states - which, guess what, are run by Republicans - that can see a minor yet significant drop to those demographics.

So how would things look for Republican voters vs. Democratic voters in the general election for the Presidency?

If Trump's current polling numbers are correct then he's getting about 49 percent of the White voting bloc (to Hillary's projected 40 percent).

Remember, Mitt Romney got about 59-60 percent of Whites in 2012... and still lost.

If we apply that to the RCP map generator, we should get this:

The map also adjusts the projected turnout by state, and that's if voter turnout remains the same (sans any voter suppression of non-Whites).

Dear God, look at those numbers.

The Democrats will absolutely crush it with the Popular vote getting 60 percent of the turnout at 79.4 million voters. Hillary will get 40 states plus DC to Trump getting 10. Hillary will win states that Democrats haven't naturally won in decades: Mississippi, South Carolina, Nebraska, Arizona and Georgia and Missouri and Kentucky and Tennessee will go Blue. TEXAS for the Love of God, Trump can lose Texas to the Dems.

And that's if voter turnout by the non-Whites stay the same. Given the insults Trump is throwing at Mexicans and Asians, I doubt the Republicans will see any love by those blocs.

Let's say the Republicans drop among Hispanics to 20 percent support - and this is being generous, there's every likelihood the Hispanic vote could drop to single digits like Blacks have done - and 25 percent support for Asians. The map is going to look like this with the same voter turnout as 2012:

Popular vote turnout for Dems go up to 81 million. Trump LOSES ALASKA in this. I'm surprised Kansas lasted this long before flipping.

This is a legitimate interpretation of that Washington Post poll, which shows Hillary and the Dems getting 79 percent of the minority voting blocs (mixing in Blacks, Hispanics and Asians together). So this could be a genuine result this November.

This is why the Republican Establishment is committing public ritual suicide as we speak.

This is why not only are the Republican party leaders planning and praying for a Third Party intervention (which really won't work the way they hope), this is why there's going to be some very nasty voter suppression efforts where the Republicans can pull it off. And why the civil rights groups defending voters need a ton of support to stop those suppression efforts.

Because if the Republicans do force the turnout by minorities down, with the voter turnout the way the polling suggests now. Say for example the voter suppression efforts knock Black turnout down from 66 percent to 60, and Hispanic turnout to 40 percent and Asians to 45 percent...

Wow. They're still losing Texas. Republicans do get back South Carolina and Mississippi, but without Texas' massive Electoral count the GOP is still screwed.

So that voter suppression has to really kick in - let's say forcing voter turnout among all Non-Whites down to 10 percent for each group, and knocking a few percents off for Whites who could be college-age and blocked by the lack of ID - for the Republicans to see any advantage:

Actually, wait, that won't work either. Hillary still wins the Popular vote by 49 million to Trump's 43 million... and wins the Electoral College with 352 Electors. It is entirely possible the percentage of voter turnout by state may not actually reflect this via suppression efforts: however, given that there's no legal way the Republicans will suppress minority voter turnout to THAT degree we shouldn't expect the result to be this GOOD for Republicans. Which, of course, it isn't.

Wow. Republicans really are screwed this Presidential cycle.

The only thing that could throw this whole thing to the Republicans now would be the anti-Hillary voters among the Bernie supporters in the Democratic primaries. The ones who are opining that they'd rather stay home than vote for Hillary (or worse, vote for Trump).

This is now the time for sane and responsible persons reading this blog to calmly sit down with Bernie supporters and remind them that FOR THE LOVE OF F-CKING GOD GET THE GODDAMN VOTE OUT FOR THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY THIS NOVEMBER. Thank you.

Update: After a night of thinking about it, I realized I need to see how the demographic generator could project what level of turnout the Republicans DID need in order to win enough states for the Electoral counts. So I went back in and messed with the numbers some more.

I decided to keep the Republican White Non-Hispanic numbers close to where Romney had it in 2012 (around 60 percent). Even though Trump is showing signs he'll never reach that level, let's just give them to them as their best-case scenario.

I dropped the voter turnout for the Non-Whites (Blacks, Hispanics, Asians) to reflect the voter suppression efforts that are bound to work. I didn't go as severe as 10 percent across the board, because even THAT would be too obvious a rigged election, and unlikely to happen. There still has to be an aggressive amount of blocked voters for this math to work...

I did go with keeping Black support for Republicans at 6 percent, and I did drop Hispanic to 20 percent for Republicans because Trump's anti-immigrant platform has made the party toxic to that group (I'm still being generous: there's every likelihood Hispanic support will drop to single digits). I dropped Asians to 29 percent as part of the response to the GOP's anti-immigrant hostility (of course the percentage can easily drop like Blacks and Hispanics into single digits).

With all that set, I started adjusting the one thing that could boost a Republican win: overall White voter turnout. Currently at 66 percent, I wanted to see how high it had to go for the Republicans to see a win.

I got to 83 percent before the Electoral count shifts from Democrat to Republican.

And that's with me being generous on the minority voting blocs not going into full Rejection mode against the GOP (and noting that voter suppression won't deny every minority voter who shows).

There's one little problem with this, and the Republican leadership likely knows it: the current public mood against politics - thanks to decades of mudslinging and partisanship - has killed off interest from potential voters to register and turn out. Getting White voter turnout to swing UPWARD against a demographic shift that has them going down down down defies not only the laws of logic but the laws of physics (gravity is a harsh mistress). There is no sane way Republicans can get White voter turnout to jump up from 66 to 83 percent.

Outside of massive nationwide vote rigging (likely, but risky due to any one miscue blowing it all up), there does not look to be any sane way the Republicans are going to win in 2016 despite all their hopes. And Trump is dumping on those hopes with one big heaping pile of dung that can't get shoveled away.

Which is probably why the Republican elites are clinging to the insane ways, as though a three-party run can split enough Electoral states to throw the results into a Republican-controlled House.

Just to be on the safe side, America; get the damn vote out for ALL the demographics, and for the Love of GOD vote Democrat.