All About Politics: Trump, Hillary, Senate Races, Obama in Kalorama

**Trump’s Silent Supporters**

All the polls show Hillary Clinton winning by a comfortable margin. Some even indicate a possible landslide. Donald Trump has now started calling the polls “crooked.” He goes on to say, even more brazenly, “The whole election is being rigged.”

More sober observers point to two recent votes, not in this country, where the polls were very wrong. One was the referendum in the United Kingdom, where voters decided that the nation shall leave the European Union. Trump has said that the U.S. presidential election would be “Brexit all over again.”

The other example is in Colombia, where voters voted “no” to a peace accord between the government and Marxist rebels. In that country, polls indicated that it would pass by a margin of at least 20 points.

A prominent and widely respected Republican consultant and pollster – Whit Ayers – believes that all these “silent supporters” of Trump will more than be offset by what he calls “Hillary Republicans.” These are voters who can’t bring themselves to admit publicly that they are for her.

There is also something called the Bradley or Wilder factor. This refers to Tom Bradley and Doug Wilder. Both were African Americans who ran for governor of their respective states. Bradley was leading in California and Wilder in Virginia. But, in the end, Bradley lost and Wilder just squeaked by with a narrow margin.

Voters who were polled, it was thought, did not want to tell the pollster they were voting against an African American. They did not want to be perceived as voting against someone for “racial” reasons. In the privacy of the voting booth, however, they did the opposite of what they told the pollster they would do.

I believe on Tuesday, Nov. 8, Hilary Clinton will be the decisive winner. The demographics of the country, more than anything else, will be the major factor.

**Trump Expenditures**

Trump’s largest expenditure has been on online advertising. He has spent $21 million on that item. Another juicy nugget: Corey Lewandowski, who was dumped as his campaign manager and is now a pundit for CNN (and still travels with Trump), received a final paycheck of $100,000.

**Iowa and Ohio**

The two battleground states that seem the strongest for Trump are Iowa and Ohio. Iowa has very few African Americans (2.9 percent); Ohio, very few Hispanics (3.5 percent).

**Big Surprises to Watch for Election Night**

Georgia is considered a Republican state, but Clinton is running close there. Arizona is considered a Republican state, but Clinton is surging there. Reddest of them all is Texas. I read somewhere where they have not elected a Democratic statewide since 1994. If Clinton wins in Texas, it will definitely indicate a massive landslide.

**Senate Races**

As I have predicted before, in Illinois and Wisconsin it looks like the two Republican incumbents — Senators Mark Kirk and Ron Johnson — will go down to defeat. The winner of Illinois will be Tammy Duckworth (she went to George Washington University for grad school). The winner in Wisconsin will be Russ Feingold, a former senator. When he was a senator, he was the only one to vote against the Patriot Act.

The other three most-watched races, all with Republican incumbents, are in New Hampshire (Kelly Ayotte), Pennsylvania (Pat Toomey) and North Carolina (Richard Burr).

The Democratic challenger in New Hampshire is Maggie Hassan, the state’s governor, and she is in good shape. In Pennsylvania, challenger Katie Mcginty will benefit from Clinton’s strong showing there. Finally, a big surprise: Democrat Deborah Ross in North Carolina looks like a possible winner.

Add Indiana with Evan Bayh and Jason Kander in Missouri and the Dems could possibly have a super Tuesday night.

**Last State Dinner**

President Barack Obama could have made up for his years of taking D.C. for granted and disrespecting us by inviting some D.C. elected officials to the grand final state dinner at the White House for the Prime Minister of Italy. But that was not to be. At a minimum, how about inviting his District Council member, Jack Evans (the White House is in Ward 2)?

Obama will become a D.C. resident, living in Kalorama, after Jan. 20, 2017. Maybe then he will feel the sting of being a voteless third-class citizen that the rest of us have endured for so long. I surely hope nothing in the city is named for him. As I have said over and over, Obama has totally overlooked us and refused to champion our right to be included in America’s democracy. It seems he couldn’t be bothered.