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Douche of the Day: A political science professor

Just this morning I read the following headline, which prompted me to read a bit further: "Political science professor forecasts Trump as general election winner."

No, given the fact Donald Trump is the current favorite to represent the Republican Party in the coming election, it's not completely asinine to predict he'll be our next president. However, Stony Brook University political science professor, Helmut Norpoth, decided to take the prediction a step further in order to make it asinine.

According to Mr. Norpoth and his can't-miss formula, if Donald Trump winds up becoming the Republican nominee, he has at least a 97% chance of winning the general election, regardless of who the Democratic candidate is (likely Hillary Clinton).

Norpoth elaborated by saying, "The bottom line is that the primary model, using also the cyclical movement, makes it almost certain that Donald Trump will be the next president if he's a nominee of the [Republican] party."

He added: "When I started out with this kind of display a few months ago, I thought it was sort of a joke. Well, I'll tell you right now, it ain't a joke anymore. ...You think 'This is crazy. How can anyone come up with something like that?' But that's exactly the kind of equation I used to predict Bill Clinton winning in '96, that I used to predict that George Bush would win in 2004, and, as you remember four years ago, that Obama would win in 2012."

Lastly, the Stony Brook professor said this:

"Trump beats Hillary 54.7 percent to 45.3 percent [of the popular vote]. This is almost too much to believe. The probability of that [outcome] is almost complete certainty, 97 percent. It's almost 'Take it to the bank'."

Yeah, while I won't yet officially predict this hypothetical general election matchup, I will say I'm over 97% certain Donald Trump won't garner 54.7% of the vote nor defeat Hillary Clinton by 7.4%. Why? Well, I don't need a fancy formula, just in-your-face numbers.

- According to a recently released survey, 8 in 10 Hispanic voters have an unfavorable view of Donald Trump, including 7 in 10 which have a very unfavorable view - double the percentage of any other candidate. Not only that, but in a general election matchup, Hillary Clinton bests Donald Trump with this demographic by an astronomical 57 points (73% to 16%).

- About a month ago, polls showed Trump's favorable ratings are at -70 with Democrats and -27 with Independents, the worst of any candidate. He was also at -20 overall, once again, the worst of any remaining candidate.

- No candidate has won a general election by at least 7.4% since Bill Clinton did so in 1996, beating Republican challenger Bob Dole, 49.2% to 40.7%. Since then Barack Obama has come the closest, defeating John McCain by 7.3% in the 2008 election, 52.9% to 45.6%.

- Three of the four polls conducted this month have shown Hillary Clinton defeating Donald Trump in the general election, with the most recent one showing her up by 5 points.

I don't care how confident Professor Norpoth is with his formula, I'm at least 97% certain he's wrong. A lot can change in 8 months, but Trump is currently being dominated among Hispanics, is disliked by Independents and voters in general, hasn't done himself any favors with women or Muslims,  and is currently trailing Hillary Clinton in most polls. While I'm not 97% confident Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump in a general election, I'm much more certain about that than the reverse. I don't know what Helmut Norpoth was smoking when he concocted his formula, but it's resulted in him receiving my Douche-of-the-Day award! Congratulations!

https://www.sbstatesman.com/2016/02/23/political-science-professor-forecasts-trump-as-general-election-winner/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2016/02/25/poll-trumps-negatives-among-hispanics-rise-worst-in-gop-field/?hpid=hp_rhp-top-table-main_poll-710am%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/188177/trump-image-among-democrats-independents-negative-gop-candidate.aspx

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/polling-matters/188936/trump-negative-image.aspx

http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/us/general_election_trump_vs_clinton-5491.html

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