The Electoral College: The Only Thing That Matters [View all]

[dlwickham]

We live in a post-factual era. Thanks to the Internet and social media, which mix informed and uninformed views in equal measure, the old rule — that people are entitled to their own opinions but not their own set of facts — no longer applies. Somewhere in cyberspace, you can now find blogs and treatises with “facts” that support your opinions, no matter how bizarre.

Here at the Crystal Ball, though, we are going to cling to one central fact about presidential elections: The only thing that matters is accumulating a majority of 270 votes in the Electoral College.

Creating Electoral College projections is a marvelous parlor game, and we’ve been doing so here since we obtained our magical sphere of crystal from China many years ago. (All other details shall remain confidential.)

We’re now at the point in the nominating process where it is, er, crystal clear that Hillary Clinton will end up being the Democratic candidate, and Donald Trump, while not at all the certain winner, is the leading candidate to become the Republican nominee. So it’s time to adjust our 2016 electoral map for the first time since we rolled out our initial ratings last May. That map, shown below as Map 1, reflected a generic Democrat versus Republican matchup, and it depicted a close, competitive general election.

http://www.centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/articles/the-only-thing-that-matters/