When the Democratic National Convention comes to a close on Thursday night, the general election will have officially begun and the two parties’ candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, will spend the next four months presenting their best case as to why voters should support them in November. Right now, the presidential hopefuls are neck and neck in a number of polls, and there are even some that show Trump in the lead. Perhaps the most persuasive, or at least intriguing, of these forecasts strongly suggests that Clinton will almost certainly win her bid for the White House, but with one big caveat: the first female president will only serve one term.
According to an analysis by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Donald Trump has just a one-in-three chance of winning what the forecasting firm dubs America’s “unpopularity contest.” Clinton’s presumed victory doesn’t hinge on her merits as a candidate, but rather on Trump’s weaknesses. With a penchant to offend, a disorganized campaign, and a lack of support from his own party, the brash billionaire is his own worst enemy this election. Clinton is more or less along for the ride.
A seat in the Oval Office requires 270 of the 538 electoral-college votes up for grabs. According to the E.I.U., the real-estate mogul is expected to win 21 states, for a total of 170 electoral votes, while the former secretary of state will likely win 20 states, plus Washington, D.C., for a total of 253 electoral votes. Of the nine states the E.I.U. identifies as up for grabs, Trump needs to make up ground in seven; Clinton need win only three. That shouldn’t be a problem for the veteran politician, according to Joseph Lake, the director of global forecasting at the E.I.U. “She’s just got a very well-oiled and efficient campaign machine,” Lake told me in a recent interview. “She has been at the face of U.S. politics for three decades, and she is just very well prepared for this, and in stark contrast to Donald Trump, who is sort of going day-to-day with no grand strategy over the next four months.”
The country’s changing demographics, too, are in Clinton’s favor. Because the United States is even less white today than when Mitt Romney lost in 2012, Trump would have to secure a far larger portion of white voters than Republican candidates have in the past to win the presidency. Changing gears to win over some percentage of minorities to make up that shortfall, the E.I.U. estimates, would be nearly impossible given how the G.O.P. nominee has offended African-American and Hispanic voters over the course of the election thus far. “At the margins, that makes quite a difference when the elections are as close as they have been,” Lake explained. “And when the Republicans have nominated somebody who is not only not really appealing outside of white voters but has actively offended a lot of non-white voters, it just makes it extremely difficult.”
It also doesn’t hurt Clinton that she is campaigning at a time when the U.S. economy is healthier than it has been in years. Despite Republicans’ ungenerous portrayal of the Obama administration, unemployment is below 5 percent and the economy is expanding. “In years where the economy is doing quite well, the incumbent [party] in the White House often wins,” Lake said. “And the economy—it has been a pretty sluggish recovery—but it has been recovering for seven years in a row now.” This all works in favor of Clinton winning—for now. The E.I.U. does, however, concede that if the U.S. slips into another recession over the next four months as a result of an external event, the scales could be tipped back toward Trump.
But the economy is a double-edged sword for Clinton. Just as it will likely contribute to her chances of winning this fall, it could be the reason she loses re-election in 2020. The E.I.U. predicts that the U.S. will go through a mild business-cycle recession within the next two to three years, causing Clinton to lose her chance at a second term. “[This cycle of expansion] is already looking a little long in the tooth, but expansions don’t just die of old age. Something has to cause them to come to an end, and we think in 2019 that inflation will be a little high [and] the fed will raise interest rates that will sort of choke off consumer spending,” said Lake. It is very difficult for one party to hold onto the White House for three terms in a row, “but the Republicans have shot themselves in the foot here by nominating somebody who is just extremely unpopular across minority voters,” said Lake, adding, “We are not saying that Clinton is a very strong candidate here; we are just saying that the weakness of Trump as a candidate means that it is actually much more achievable to get this third term that otherwise would have been quite difficult.”
This should allay some voters’ fears of Donald Trump with his finger on the nuclear trigger. And for all the Clinton dissidents out there—hang on for just four years. Considering we are in the midst of an election with two arguably less-than-ideal candidates, perhaps a fresh start in 2020 is a more ideal result.
