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from Electoral Vote.com
GOP strategist and pollster Frank Luntz appeared on "Face the Nation" on Sunday, and opined that Donald Trump was probably (but not definitely) going to lose the election. Luntz lamented the lost opportunity, declaring that victory in 2016 should have been a "slam dunk" for the Republican Party.
Any Republican who hears this kind of assessment from a veteran GOP operative, whether Luntz, or Karl Rove, or Mary Matalin, or any other, should be very concerned. At the moment, there are no "slam dunks" for the GOP when it comes to the White House. As we have pointed out many times, the Party begins an election cycle up against a blue wall of 242 electoral votes from states that have gone Democratic six straight times (soon to be seven). Other states (Virginia, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada) are moving toward the Democratic column, and they are not being offset by equivalent states moving toward the Republican column. If Hillary Clinton wins, the GOP will have taken the popular vote just once since George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988, and that occasion (2004) was by only a small margin. If Party leaders convince themselves that 2016 was just bad luck, they are overlooking serious demographic problems that are not just going to go away.
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