According to Marko Papic, chief geopolitical strategist at BCA Research the probability of Trump getting elected, at around 25%, remains fairly low. But, he expects this to rise as the election gets nearer.
Speaking on the Brewin Dolphin podcast recently, Papic explained that Trump’s strategy of appealing to white, blue collar workers (a strategy he dubbed, “the great white hype”) is, from a mathematical perspective, absolutely the correct one for Trump to pursue victory in 2016.
“If Trump pursues increasing the white share of the vote for the GOP then states like Ohio and Florida are very much in play,” he explained.
“The problem for Trump is that boosting the share of the white vote by 5% nationwide is really tough. Romney won 59% of the white vote, you are asking Trump to win 64% and we haven’t seen those sorts of figures since [Ronald] Reagan was elected.”
However, he pointed out, because of the electoral college system, Trump doesn’t actually need such a large nationwide boost, instead, in order to compete successfully in swing states like Florida and Ohio, what he needs is between 1% and 2% more of the white vote than Mitt Romney got in those states in 2012.
But he added: “If he can win Ohio, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina, the states we believe he has to win to remain competitive, then he only has 260 electoral college votes and he needs 10 more. So, he would then need to win either Virginia and Colorado – states he is currently losing by about 10%.”
