Without Birtherism - A 2012 TL

In 2011, New York Businessman and current US President Donald J. Trump attempted to run for President of the United States but attacked President Obama on his Birth Certificate. But what if he hadn't and instead campaigned on regular tax cuts and a better foreign Policy? This TL will answer those very questions.

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Wolf Blitzer: "And after a long and brutal Campaign, Businessman Donald J. Trump of New York wins Florida and thus wins the Presidency against President Obama with 29 Electoral Votes. This has been a Major, Major upset as Obama was leading by 7 points in the polls today. But now, Donald J. Trump, President-Elect of the United States"

Donald J. Trump (R-NY)/Rob Portman (R-OH): 272/51.3%
Pres. Barack H. Obama (D-IL)/ VP Joe Biden (D-DE): 266/48.5%

The Questions I am sure everyone is asking is "How did we get here?"
 
Oh boy where to begin. For one I can't see Trump winning the nomination let alone the primary. I believe the circumstances that lead to his rise to fame in 2016 were very unique to that election cycle. Without a full eight years of Obama I don't think many republicans could have won let alone him. Don't get me wrong I am not a Trump hater by a long shot but I think this is a borderline ASB scenario. The only way I could see this happening is if some major blunder shook the nation's collective faith in Obama and even then the chances of Trump being able to cash in on it versus a more moderate seeming guy like Romney are slim to none.
 
Oh boy where to begin. For one I can't see Trump winning the nomination let alone the primary. I believe the circumstances that lead to his rise to fame in 2016 were very unique to that election cycle. Without a full eight years of Obama I don't think many republicans could have won let alone him. Don't get me wrong I am not a Trump hater by a long shot but I think this is a borderline ASB scenario. The only way I could see this happening is if some major blunder shook the nation's collective faith in Obama and even then the chances of Trump being able to cash in on it versus a more moderate seeming guy like Romney are slim to none.

Many people seem to forget that Obama was beatable in 2012. He had an Approval rating in the 40s and so any Republican had a good chance to beat him. So to say that Obama is #unbeatable in 2012 is ridiculous beyond belief. Mitt Romney squandered his chances in 2012 but other candidates did have better chances (Paul for one), though Santorum and Romney were not as good for winning.
 
So let's see--in 2012, Obama carried VA against Romney by 3.88%. In 2016, certainly a better year nationwide for the GOP than 2012 (and not just on the presidential level), HRC carried VA against Trump by 5.3 points. Yet you have Trump beating Obama in VA in 2012. Why? He would have been poison in the DC suburbs in 2012 as he was in 2016.

"This has been a Major, Major upset as Obama was leading by 7 points in the polls today. But now, Donald J. Trump, President-Elect of the United States"

FWIW, the national polls were not wildly off in 2016: on average they had HRC leading Trump in the popular vote by 3.3 percent, pretty close to her actual 2.1 percent margin. The problem was the pundits who mostly failed to recognize that the polls were entirely consistent with a very close popular race, and that this in turn meant that Trump might win in the Electoral College.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/e...rump_vs_clinton_vs_johnson_vs_stein-5952.html
 
The problem is that it is really hard to discuss a Trump 2012 campaign without discussing the 2016 one. Just try to argue whether he would have over- or under-performed Romney in 2012, and you inevitably get into a discussion of whether Trump did better or worse than another GOP candidate would have done in 2016. I wouldn't go so far as to say that any discussion of Trump is a current-politics discussion, but I do think that a discussion of Trump in 2012 is, almost as much as one dealing directly with Trump in 2016.
 
Many people seem to forget that Obama was beatable in 2012. He had an Approval rating in the 40s and so any Republican had a good chance to beat him. So to say that Obama is #unbeatable in 2012 is ridiculous beyond belief. Mitt Romney squandered his chances in 2012 but other candidates did have better chances (Paul for one), though Santorum and Romney were not as good for winning.

He was certainly not unbeatable, but there are different kinds of "approval ratings in the forties." If it's say 41-59 the odds against a president being re-elected are pretty great. But if it's in the mid-to-upper forties, with approval and disapproval about equally balanced, the president has a good chance of re-election--just as GW Bush did in 2004.

Consider Bush's ratings in May-August 2004;


2004 Aug 23-25

49 47 4

2004 Aug 9-11

51 46 3

2004 Jul 30-Aug 1

48 49 3

2004 Jul 19-21

49 47 4

2004 Jul 8-11

47 49 4

2004 Jun 21-23

48 49 3

2004 Jun 3-6

49 49 2

2004 May 21-23

47 49 4

2004 May 7-9

46 51 3

2004 May 2-4

49 48 3

http://news.gallup.com/poll/116500/presidential-approval-ratings-george-bush.aspx

These are very similar to Obama's ratings from 2012: http://news.gallup.com/poll/116479/barack-obama-presidential-job-approval.aspx

(Bush had higher job approval ratings in early 2004 than Obama had in early 2012; but that was just after Saddam Hussein had been captured and before the Spring 2004 uprising https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraqi_insurgency_(2003–06)#Spring_2004_uprising)

Objectively, therefore, Obama's odds of re-election were about the same as Bush's. Indeed, most presidents get re-elected, 1980 and 1992 being exceptional in that respect. Truman, GW Bush, and Obama were all re-elected with job approval ratings in the forties for much of election year.

Now I know some people will say, "Yes, Truman should have been defeated and GW Bush should have been defeated and Obama should have been defeated, but Dewey, Kerry, and Romney all ran bad campaigns." Maybe. But it does seem odd that incumbent presidents keep getting such "weak" opponents (who were not necessarily regarded as weak before they lost...) Maybe there is something deeper, more structural at work here?

My own view is that Romney did about as well as a Republican presidential candidate could be expected to do in 2012. One indication of this: "Still, Romney ran ahead of almost all of his party’s Senate candidates — and sometimes well ahead. In Nebraska, Ohio and Arizona, he outperformed the Republican Senate hopefuls by more than two points. In six other states, he outperformed them by more than six points. So whatever Romney’s flaws were, he was still able to do better than other members of his party." https://www.washingtonpost.com/opin...858eba91ced_story.html?utm_term=.2e71adfc9f20
 
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