The U.S. Election, and Why it is Totally Bonkers

The United States holds presidential elections that probably last the longest in the world. The 2016 race began when Senator Ted Cruz first announced he was running at the end of March 2015. The election will end in November, meaning people have been campaigning for this presidency for one year and seven months. Which means that there have probably been millions of different op-eds on this election, and yet here I am taking my own shot at it.

I'll start by saying this election simply has no precedent. It is completely insane.

One the Democratic side, the two remaining candidates are Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Both are unprecedented. Though women have run for president before, none has been as successful as Hillary, who has (and I am using the British betting markets for this) the odds of 4/11 of becoming the next POTUS. A woman has never been the nominee of a major party in the U.S, much less the president. What is even more shocking is that she has higher unavailability numbers than any person to run for POTUS, save for her even more unpopular opponent.

And Bernie Sanders is quite simply the most successful socialist in American history. Several socialists have run for office before, but none have cracked 10% in a presidential election or come so close to becoming a major party's nominee. It is actual proof that the word "socialist" is not the death-knell for electoral success that it once was.

The Republican side may be even more absurd. The presumptive nominee, Donald Trump, is a populist, but this isn't completely unprecedented. Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater can all be considered populists. What is new is that Trump is the first nominee for a major party with no government experience, in anything. He was never a governor, a senator, a representative, a mayor, NOTHING. And that is exactly why people like him. And he also has the worst favorability of any candidate ever, including his opponent.

None of this is going to stop me from trying to predict the outcome, as I love predicting elections. I even predicted the last Canadian one correctly (although I didn't think the Liberals would win by such a large margin). So I will do my best here, and will keep my analysis to purely numbers and not positions.

1. Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. Sorry Sanderistas, but to overtake Clinton he needs not only to win all of the remaining states, but by margins up to 85% to 15%. Because delegates are given out proportionally, beating Clinton isn't enough anymore. You would need to win by margins comparable to Sanders Vermont victory, in his home state.

2. Sanders will get little concessions out of Clinton at the convention. She isn't likely to budge much farther than she has already, especially when she wants to attract moderate voters. What she may do is become more vocal about positions she already supports. For example, promising to nominate a Justice that would overturn Citizens United. She has said numerous times that she is against money in politics, so making such a promise isn't shifting, but it is a clear way to attract Sanders supporters.

3. Sanders will support Clinton. He's not going to enjoy it, but he will. Although there are sharp disagreements between him and the Secretary, he knows it is far better for his movement if Clinton is in the White House over Trump. They can continue to badger Clinton if she is POTUS, while Trump can easily ignore them. Though Trump and Sanders share similar opinions on free-trade they disagree on pretty much everything else.

4. Clinton won't get indited. The most similar high-profile email-scandal was General Petraeus, He was sharing confidential emails with his extra-marital lover, which is probably a worse crime than using a private server when you should have used the government one. The General was put on probation for two years and paid a $100,000 fine. Clinton can't be put on probation and can easily cough up that money, and such a result is still more unlikely because her breach was smaller.

4. Clinton will beat Trump. This requires a longer explanation. Many are concerned that Trump is pulling ahead of Clinton, with one poll beating her 45 to 42. But compare that number to 2012, when Obama beat Romney 51 to 47. In 2012, only 2% of voters chose a third-party. In the current poll, about 13% of people are choosing neither candidate.

A lot of voters make up their minds right up to the election. In 2012, it is believed that Romney's statement on how 44% of Americans don't pay taxes was the thing pushing moderates over the edge. So if we consider that 13% of Americans haven't picked which candidate they loathe more, let's think why.

The Democratic primaries still aren't over, and many Sanderistas think they may still have a chance. They really don't, but if any of them picks up a phone and is asked if they would rather have Trump or Clinton, many are currently happy saying neither. But when Sanders endorses her, and after months of Trump vs. Clinton coverage, most of the Sanders supporters will shift to her, and the polls will change to be closer to that Romney/Obama result.

And remember, in a tight poll the Democrats have the advantage. They undoubtedly hold the advantage with younger voters, who are less likely to have a landline and respond to a poll. This is a big reason I was wrong in my Canadian prediction, as I took the polls too seriously (which predicted a close Liberal minority government). Instead the Liberals over performed, as many of their voters had never answered a poll before. I never have, but my Grandparents have many times.

Although the overall result may be as close or closer than the 51% to 47% of 2012, the Democrats also have the advantage in the electoral college. In 2012 Obama crushed Romney by 332 to 206, despite a difference of 4% overall. There are simply more safe "blue" states than "red" ones. In order for the Republicans to win they need to win more states than the Democrats. Romney only got one swing state, North Carolina, which wasn't nearly enough.

Trump would have to win at least Ohio, Florida, and a couple others to win the election. The last time a Republican has done this was 2004, where Bush had the incumbent advantage. Since then we have a popular incumbent and the demographics have changed, both in favor to Clinton. It is believed with Latino support Clinton can still easily win Florida, and that alone gives her the victory.

The numbers since now can change, but I think if they do they will move in favor of Clinton. She is still competing against Sanders and will inevitably get his support. There are still Trump-Clinton debates to be had, which are probably his worst format and her best.

He still has a chance, as in any U.S. election there are only two options. A economic downturn or large terrorist attack can swing moderate opinion in favor of the Donald. But short of election-changing events, it appears that 2016 will elect the first woman as leader of the free-world.

The Canadian Election in Retrospect

In the months after the November election in Canada that brought Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party control of the country, Canada briefly became popular internationally. In a poll Justin was thought the most attractive world leader, and international media applauded the country for electing such a non-controversial looking fellow.

But I voted in that election, and it certainly was not without controversy.

The majority government to Trudeau surprised everyone, but then most people seem to be pretty okay with it now. Harper made a terrible campaigning decision to focuses on leadership when he should have focused on his economic record. He thought that by pointing out that Trudeau had little leadership experience people would realize that the sitting PM of nine years was the better choice. But by focusing on leadership instead of policy, he was directing attention not just to Justin, but to himself. And after nine years, most of the country didn't like him anymore.

The other option was Tom Mulcair of the NDP, who had little personality other than anger over how people disagreed with him. Trudeau was able to capitalize on this by essentially pointing out he was young, handsome, and a nice guy that wanted to do things differently. His campaign was pretty refreshing, as it was far more positive ("sunny ways") and he seemed more focused on getting everyone's vote than just his base.

Trudeau also got elected promising a platform that is pretty radical; he said he will run up deficits for the next four years in order to overhaul Canada's infrastructure to boost economic growth. The budget is already projected to run up higher deficits than the Liberals originally projected, but people probably won't get too upset even if they got more than they asked for.

Many people in the news are drawing comparisons of Trudeau to Obama, (Obama himself remarked on it) but Trudeau does have a huge majority so will get most of what he wants without much resistance, unlike in America where Obama lost the House of Representatives two years in office.

Canada's economic situation is a bit of a mixed-bag. Most GDP growth has been due to Alberta's oil sector, which has now tanked due to the oil price. The remaining sectors seem to be doing alright (depending on the sector), and the country seems to be in only a technical recession. Most people outside of Alberta aren't feeling too much of a hit (though that province has been hit hard). The NDP provincial government has made the situation even worse as they are trying to implement environment regulation and increase corporate tax.

Harper has done some great things in the past, as he's greatly lowered taxes, making corporate taxes lower than America's while income tax is lower than before. This is effective as it is really businesses that drives economic growth not an individual's spending. He also pushed the TPP and I'm a huge supporter of free trade (raising two billion people out of poverty). But Harper's approach to the current economic problem is to me deeply flawed. He wanted to focus on balancing the budget, which I think was important before the downturn but irrelevant right now (cutting government spending, or austerity, is not going to improve the economy if there is a recession).

The NDP promised they would balance the budget but made even more promises than the Liberals (such as free childcare) so few people took them seriously. Others decided Trudeau was "the man to beat Harper." An NDP government would be even more liberal than the liberals, as they would have broken the TPP and instituted government day-care and a whole bunch of other stuff that would be difficult to implement in this economic climate.

The Liberals main platform focused on a large infrastructure spending plan, which essentially amounts to "we don't care about balancing the budget for four years." It's going to throw a lot of money at the provincial governments in the hopes it will spur spending, efficiency and overall economic growth. It's Keynesian economics, that when times are tough the government throws money, when they are good they should scale it back. Federal Banks behave the same way with interests rates. Whether it will work I don't know, and there is going to be a lot of debt at the end of the tunnel, but we'll probably manage (we still have less debt per person and by GDP than a lot of developed countries).

The Liberals are going to cut tax rates slightly for 40-80k and raise them by the same percentage for 200k+ (29% to 32% I think). There aren't any other federal tax brackets. Corporate taxes won't change but they are going to close loopholes for both businesses and individuals. The Liberals are not adding any new program like day-care, and aren't even making federal environmental law, but are instead planning on setting a new emissions target and then working with each provincial government individually to work out how the target will be met. The Liberals are honestly quite moderate in those respects, as they aren't obviously socialist or obviously conservative.

The Liberals obviously won the election. The Conservatives look to be in full repair mode, ditching Harper as leader, and tacked left on some issues to appear more moderate. For instance, the Conservative's new interim leader says they have accepted gay marriage and are only concerned about Marijuana in terms of access to children. They appear to be trying to find a balance between criticizing the new PM without alienating voters that clearly like him (he has very high approval ratings).

The NDP are in worse straights. The Liberals outmaneuvered them by promising deficits while the NDP sounded unrealistic by promising a balanced budget and more benefits. The lost they most votes, and have returned to their third-party prospects. Mulcair has been ousted as leader which will trigger a leadership race, but both the Conservatives and NDP do not have clear frontrunners.

If the Liberals avoid controversy, they will have an effective four years of leadership, and may be able to maintain more.