From slam dunk to blue funk sums up Hillary Clinton and the Democratic party's feelings about where the US presidential elections stand. In the space of two weeks, Hilary's chances of being the 46th President of the United States have plummeted. From predictions of a landslide, the talk is shifting to unsavory thought of four years (at least) of Donald Trump. So is Trump going to pull off a Ronald Reagan by coming from behind in the last weeks of campaigning to march triumphantly to the White House? Yes, he could.
There are many theories and there will be many more if Donald Trump wins on Tuesday, but this election was Hillary's to lose and she may pull off that remarkable feat. In an American system of not one, as a commentator put it, but 51 elections, it is important to keep your supporters together across the states that your party is strong in. And this is where she seems to have failed and Donald Trump succeeded - in breaking down the Democratic coalition that was carefully built over two decades and worked, even when they lost to George Bush Jr. Twice. Remember that in 2000, Al Gore lost the election because of the dubious Supreme Court decision to uphold rejecting votes in Florida that would have given him the presidency. (Gore lost Florida by 527 votes.) And even the boring John Kerry only lost in 2004 by falling short of 19 electoral votes. A switch of one state would have seen him home.
To understand what's happened to the Democrats is to understand their coalition. This is a higgeldy-piggeldy hodge-podge of ethnic groups, age groups, educational levels and income groups. For Obama (in both elections) it was a coalition of working class whites, huge minority support, people under 44, liberals, most Democrats and women. Since there were (and still are) more Democrats than Republicans, his losing the independent voters by a small margin did not upset his path to victory. And a look at the states that the Democrats haven't lost in the last six elections supports this.
These are the liberal New England states, and those on the west coast, the big minority and liberal states of New York-New Jersey, the big rust belt states running from Pennsylvania to the Great Lakes with a large white-working class and blacks. These 18 states carry 242 electoral votes out of the 270 needed to win, which is why the Democrats have done well even while losing twice to Bush.
What Donald Trump has done is to play on the fears of the white working class and wean them away from the Democrats. The essence of the message has been that the US is at a cusp, and if Hillary is elected, the country will be swamped by immigrants (non-whites), and we the whites will be a minority; to this basic meal, he has added the garnishing that the Supreme Court will be a liberal bastion allowing planned parenthood, the banning of firearms and the legalization of immigrants. Finally, he has played the economic car: that eight years of Obama have left Americans less well-off than they were when he got elected. This is partly true: growth in per capita income across the US has been a measly 1% since 2007 (at constant prices). Which means much of America, given that the rich have got richer, are poorer than in 2007.
What stands out from this chart above is the huge drop of support from Independents who constitute more than a third of the electorate (of course, at the moment a large number of independents are "don't know"), and in the High School leavers, again the largest education group. Even amongst women, Hillary has lost support.
This is probably why suddenly states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota have slipped from being solid Democrat states to those in the Battleground category. Even Ohio, which supported Obama, has become pink despite a high level of union support for Hilary. In the post industrial towns of these states, Trump has managed be the voice of all fears.
If one plays the numbers game, then it becomes quite easy to see why Hillary is worried.
Defending a total of 332 electoral votes that Obama got in 2012 should not have been difficult, but it takes less than four states (just four!) moving from Democrat to Republican to overturn the majority, assuming that Trump wins all the states that 2012 Republican candidate Mitt Romney did. And this is not a very big task. Most of those state are die-hard red: old southern confederate states, those in the Bible Belt running through the middle of America. Only North Carolina, of the Romney states, is under any real threat of flipping to the Democrats.
But on the Democratic side, the list of wobblers is endless. Ohio and Iowa with 24 electoral votes may already be lost by the Democrats. Florida (29 electoral votes), where Obama won by just 0.9% margin, was always suspect, but analysts felt that Hispanic and black support would help Hillary win it. Now, with black and Hispanic support for her falling (not necessarily voting Trump, but staying at home) a Republican win could well happen in Florida. If it does, the 332 of Obama is already down to 279 for Hilary, leaving Trump in need of just nine votes for a new address: 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
And for those 9 electoral votes there are many possible contenders that could help Trump: Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16), Wisconsin (10), Minnesota (10), Colorado (9) and Nevada (6). All them have seen huge activity by both campaigns in the last few days along with Florida and North Carolina. An example of how worried the Democrats are is Colorado: the Democrats have re-started advertising which they stopped in July, thinking it was in the bag!
The fear that blacks will not turnout in enough numbers for the Democrats has had Hillary speaking to black congregations for the last two Sundays, jointly campaigning with Michelle Obama in North Carolina, and sending Obama to the black-dominated areas of Ohio. Bill Sanders and Chelsea Clinton campaigning for the younger voters, and the Clinton campaign has scheduled Jay-Z, Katy Perry, Cher and Bon Jovi concerts to reach the millennials.
And while Florida remains the main focus (Bill Clinton and Trump were there earlier this week), the Republicans' back-up plan seems to be Pennsylvania and Michigan. Trump has already been to Pennsylvania and is revisiting it this week; his running mate, Mike Pence , has also gone there and, surprise, surprise, Melania Trump is being deployed to Philadelphia! As for Michigan, the sons and daughter of Trump are headed there. These two states with 36 electoral votes would more than compensate for a loss in Florida.
Opinion polls in the last few days which have shown a decline in support for Hillary are wide apart on who is leading. The latest batch, except one, suggests a very close race in terms of popular votes (within the margin of error) and looks like this:
But they tell only half the story. As one Republican analyst said, it does not help the Republicans if they gain white votes in Alabama (a traditionally Republican state). The real battle is in the 10-12 key battleground states. Given the winner-take-all system for electoral votes (except for Nebraska and Maine), a victory By the smallest margin in popular votes gets the winner a huge bonus. Bush won Florida by just 527 votes and that was enough to make him President.
Of course, Hillary could still pull it off. She still leads, albeit by small margins, in many of the key battleground state including Florida, Pennsylvania and Michigan, and could win them all and flip the Republican states of North Carolina and Arizona. If she does, it would be an electoral landslide. But there is a final googly in the pack. Many polls show a large don't know/can't say group of voters. Are they genuinely that, or are they Trump supporters too shy to admit it? And what about that fact that registered voters are up by, according to one agency, by 50 million? Where will these first timers go?
Finally, in 2012, in the last national opinion polls, Obama was ahead in 3 (1-3%), Romney in 2, and 2 were tied. Obama won by almost 4%. Make what you will of it.
(Ishwari Bajpai is Senior Advisor at NDTV)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.