General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The ugly, unspoken truth about this election. [View all]karynnj
(59,504 posts)the floor for what ANY Republican nominee would get. I have listened to various PBS shows that have tried to get people to define why they are for one candidate or the other. Many who say Trump admit they have problems with him but go on to say they are voting for the Supreme Court and against abortion, for the "second amendment", against executive actions against carbon pollution ... etc.
The closest I have ever been in their position was as a NJ citizen in 2002. It was very clear that Torrecelli was pretty sleazy, but it was possible that fall that NJ could determine control of the Senate. Both my husband and I were prepared to vote for him - even though in a primary we would have gladly voted against him. Now, bad as Torrecelli was, he was not Trump level bad ... and this would have been a Senator not the President.
I honestly do NOT see that her being a woman could affect 5 to 10%. This would assume that as many as to 8 to 16.7 % of Democrats and Independents would be so against voting for a woman that they would vote for a male with the type of baggage Trump has. This assumes that Democrats are 40% and Independents 20%. (ie to lose 5 to 10% of the total, she needs to lose 8 to 16.7 % of the people who might have considered her and assuming that is 60% is generous.) Note this includes ALL independents including some who are right leaning. In addition, it does not account for a portion of normally Republican women, of whom even before Trump got the nomination, were identified as potential Clinton voters. It is possible that there are more normally Republican women that she wins because she is a woman than normally Democratic votes lost because she is a woman.
Telling me to "look at a Trump rally" ignores that it is highly likely that NONE of the people there were likely to vote for ANY Democrat. Look at twitter comments -- the people proudly calling themselves "deplorables" are not attacking just Hillary Clinton ... or just HRC and Elizabeth Warren. They are just as negative on Obama ... and if you think that is just based on race ... they are just as negative about Joe Biden (how white male can you get?) and John Kerry.
You need to look at the universe of even remotely reachable people. (Note HRC's deplorable comment openly speaks of this.)