Six months left: Clinton v Trump and the consequences for the White House and Congress

Although neither of them has technically secured all the number of delegates that they need to be absolutely certain of their nominations, there is little doubt that Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be the candidates for the Democrats and Republicans respectively. As Election Day falls on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November (8 November 2016), then exactly six months from now we should know the identity of Barack Obama’s successor in the Oval Office and have a clear idea about what sort of House of Representatives and Senate that person is destined to work with. Only death, incapacitation, arrest, or a more surreal event can prevent a Clinton/Trump showdown.
Both aspects of this outcome are to a degree surprising. On the Democratic side, the time that it has taken for Mrs Clinton to dispose of Senator Bernie Sanders was not anticipated. In different circumstances it would imply that she was unlikely to win in November. Such a defeat would confirm the historical norm that it is very hard for the party which has held the presidency for eight years to retain it. In recent times, just George Bush Sr. in 1988 has done so. Mrs Clinton might have seemed set to follow Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Gerald Ford in 1976, Al Gore in 2000 and John McCain in 2008.
That this is now not expected to be the case is, of course, due to the extraordinary character of the Republican nomination contest. Donald Trump’s apparent victory is without any relevant precedent. He has exploited his hold over two core Republican constituencies (the economically aggrieved and cultural conservatives), and the divisions within his opponents, to be on the brink of a coronation at the Republican Convention in July despite the die-hard opposition of virtually the whole of the GOP establishment and a huge proportion of those who participated in the primaries and the caucuses. Even now, some senior Republicans are manifestly unwilling to endorse him for the White House.
As a result of which, Mrs Clinton starts the next six-month stage of the campaign as the favourite. It would be a mistake, nevertheless, to assume that her election is inevitable. Most analysts appear to think that Mr Trump has between 0% and 10% of defeating her. That is too low an estimate. He has truly dreadful negatives but she is also loathed by a large section of the voters. That offers Mr Trump the chance to be seen as the lesser of two evils, especially to those inclined towards the Republicans.
The better assessment of the race is that Mrs Clinton has a 70%-75% of prevailing. That is high in the context of a two-person race but not so high as to make a Trump triumph utterly implausible. This is a very strange year for American politics. There might be more rogue elements to come, not least if the economy were to slow and how the American citizenry responded to any evidence of recession.
The fact that this is a battle between two contenders who repel large sections of the electorate (in some instances the same sections) indicates that this will be an exceptionally bitter and negative contest (even by US standards) and that the turnout will fall from the comparatively robust rates of around 60% in the past few elections to something closer to 50%-55% and conceivably even lower. A Clinton-Trump struggle has wider consequences for the White House and Congress from November.
Will anyone have (in a positive sense) a meaningful mandate once elected President?
It is hard to see how the six months to come will be about policy more than personality. A few broad themes might emerge but in essence this is a question of whether larger numbers of voters want to stop one or other of these individuals assuming office on 20 January 2017. There is a risk that Mrs Clinton will win but find that her only ‘mandate’ is not to be Mr Trump, and there is also the lesser possibility that Mr Trump will prevail and believe that he has the blessing of the country to impose his agenda on Washington only for Washington to take the view that his one legitimate claim is not to be Mrs Clinton. In either scenario, there will be plenty of Republicans who will conclude that Mrs Clinton is in the White House by default and who start preparing to stand against her immediately. If Mr Trump is in the Oval Office, there will be at least as many Democrats convinced that his chance of obtaining a second term is minimal. The 2020 election campaign could begin almost obscenely early.
The outcome of the Clinton-Trump contest will come down to demographics
It is already clear what are the relative strengths and limitations of the two candidates, and so which demographic constituencies and which states are likely to prove fundamental to this election. The strength of the Clinton candidacy is based on the weaknesses of her opponent. Mr Trump is viewed badly by three critical groups: Hispanics, women and (to a lesser degree) the economically affluent in suburban America. He is seen more favourably by culturally conservative, poorer, white male voters.
The core of this election is, therefore, whether Mr Trump can either reverse his negative reputation with Hispanics, women and economically affluent suburbanites while retaining his high rating (for a Republican) with white men overall, or whether he can so dominate white men that his losses in the other three slices of the electorate are not of a scale to deny him the presidency. He appears to be more inclined to attempt the second route to the White House (maximising his base) then the first one (reaching out to those currently estranged from him). This makes victory harder but is not an illogical stance allowing for the scale of opposition to him. It is, for example, very hard to conceive how Mr Trump will match even the (inadequate) 27% of the Hispanic vote that Mitt Romney ran up in 2012 (well behind the 44% that George W. Bush brought in when achieving re-election in 2004).
In electoral college terms this means that Mrs Clinton’s strategy will be to retain all of the states that Barack Obama won in 2012 plus others such as Arizona, Indiana and North Carolina where sufficient numbers of natural Republicans may refuse to back their party’s standard-bearer. Mr Trump, on the other hand, needs to keep everything that Mr Romney seized but add to it larger states in the East and Mid-West where economic discontent is high such as Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania.
What will be the impact of the presidential ballot on the Senate and the House?
In any circumstances this would have been a challenging year for the Republicans in the Senate. A third of that chamber is elected every two years for a term of a six-year duration. The 2016 cohort was hence last elected in 2010 which was a very good year for the Republicans. This means that of the 34 seats ‘up’ this time, 24 are being defended by Republicans and a mere 10 by Democrats.
As the chamber is presently controlled 54-46 by the Republicans, a net loss of four seats in the case of a Clinton White House or five seats were there a Trump Oval Office (in the event of a 50-50 tie in the Senate, the Vice President assumes the casting vote) would mean that chamber switched control. As of today, of the ten Senate seats that look most vulnerable to change, eight are held by Republicans.
A clear Clinton victory might well be enough to allow her party to snatch the Senate as well. A swap is less likely in the House of Representatives where the Republicans have a 247-188 seat lead, their largest majority in that legislature since 1928. Despite this, if there were a catastrophic debacle for the Republicans at the presidential level, then it is not impossible that the House could fall too. The dilemma for the Republican establishment is whether the best means of limiting the scale of such a defeat six months hence is by rallying round the unwanted Mr Trump or by running away from him. The most plausible result is a Clinton victory, an almost evenly split Senate and a Republican House.