Will Hillary or The Donald become our 45th president?

By Steve Corbin   |   Cedar Falls

In this crazy and caustic presidential race, unprecedented with the two main party candidates garnering 56 percent (Clinton) and 68 percent (Trump) negative ratings, who can predict the outcome? Examining the latest conservative leaning Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls alongside the liberal leaning Washington Post/ABC News surveys, where the truth lies somewhere in between, makes sense.

Both polls, conducted within the last two weeks, note Hillary Clinton will become our 45th president on Jan. 20, 2017.

In the conservative leaning Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Clinton wins by 11 percentage points; 48 percent to Trump’s 37 percent. In this same poll, Trump barely beats Clinton on just one attribute:  being honest and straightforward. Hillary has a commanding lead over Donald on seven factors: 1) having America’s interest on trade, 2) dealing with the economy, 3) changing the country for the better, 4) appointing Supreme Court justices, 5) being a good commander-in-chief, 6) having the right temperament to be president and 7) dealing with issues of concern to women.

Similarly, in the liberal leaning ABC News poll, Clinton has a 12 percent lead over Trump; 50 percent versus 38 percent. Hillary is winning the women’s vote by a 20 percent margin, men’s preference by 3 percent, college graduates support by 25 percent, non-college graduates by a 3 percent margin and non-whites approval by 54 percent.

Another reliable source is Microsoft Research’s PredictWise, an aggregation of market analytics, online/social media, prediction research and multiple polls. The bottom line reveals Clinton will garner 323 electoral-college votes to Trump’s 215 votes; 270 votes are needed to win.

PredictWise notes that Trump has a 54 percent chance of winning Iowa’s six electoral-college votes.  Not surprisingly, U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, Republican, has a 97 percent probability of beating Patty Judge, Democrat.

PredictWise reveals Democrat David Loebsack (Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District) is 99 percent assured of returning to Washington, D.C. Similarly, Steve King, Republican, is 98 percent confident of retaining Iowa’s 4th Congressional District.

It is interesting that PredictWise has Democrat Monica Vernon with an 83 percent chance of ending Republican Rod Blum’s seat for Iowa’s 1st Congressional District. The race to watch is Iowa’s 3rd Congressional District, with incumbent Dave Young, Republican, only having a 52 percent winning probability versus his Democrat opponent Jim Mowrer.

There are three other interesting and somewhat odd sources to predict political outcomes. First, when the Consumer-Confidence Index is high prior to an election, the party in control of the White House will “usually” win in the November election. September’s 103.5 index was the highest in nine years and October’s index numbers were also respectable.  Hence, the odds-on favorite is Clinton.

Believe it or not, there are Republican-based and Democrat-oriented stock investment portfolios.  Strategas Research Partners reveals “its Democratic portfolio has outperformed its Republican portfolio by some 3 percent this year, implying a 59 percent probability of a Clinton victory” (Wall Street Journal, Sept. 28, 2016).

Finally, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, “The Mexican peso is emerging as the investment world’s favorite proxy for betting on the U.S. presidential race” (Sept. 28, 2016). Whenever Trump has risen in the polls, the peso has plunged and visa versa. With the peso being down for quite a while now, Clinton is favored to win.

Regardless of findings by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, NBC News, ABC News, PredictWise, Strategas Research Partners, Consumer-Confidence Index or the peso’s performance, which are all inanimate objects, the only vote that counts is yours.

On Tuesday, Nov. 8, be an honorable citizen in our democracy by voting. In this bizarre election, the words of renown Dubuque, Iowa, author Robert Byrne are fitting:  “Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least.”

Steve Corbin, a professor emeritus of marketing at the University of Northern Iowa, is a resident of Cedar Falls.

— 20161031 —