One year from today, we will have witnessed the swearing in of a new President.

There's not been a single caucus or primary vote cast yet.  Nonetheless, as I sit here and look over the candidates, the campaigns so far and, most importantly, the electoral map, I will make the following prediction:

This time next year, we will be watching the Inaugural Balls with President Hillary Clinton dancing the night away.

I say this mainly by just looking at the Electoral Map.  Going back the last 20 years, over the five Presidential election we've had (96, 00, 04, 08, 12) we see that there are 18 states, and DC, that voted for the Democratic candidate all five times.  And these states make up 242 of the 270 Electoral votes needed to win.  Further, there are 3 states that voted Democratic in 4 of those elections (Iowa, New Hampshire and New Mexico) for a further 15 Electoral votes.  If we include those, that gives the Democratic nominee 257, just 13 Electoral votes short of victory.

Both Florida and Nevada have voted for the Democratic candidate three times, and they both have growing Latino and Hispanic populations which are trending Democratic in their voting.  These states combine for 35 Electoral Votes.  If they go Democratic, it's game over for the Republican candidate.

In fact, the Republican candidate would have to win Florida and ALL the other 28 states (including Colorado, Ohio and Virginia which are all trending Democratic lately as well) to win.  They'd have to in essence, run the board.  But I'll go so far as to say the Republican can NOT win the White House if they do not take Florida, and probably Ohio and Virginia as well.  And even doing THAT doesn't guarantee them a win.  They'd still have to somewhere else pull at least three trending or solid Democratic Electoral Votes over to their side.

Impossible?  No.  But I think it's highly unlikely.  Bear in mind, a LOT can happen in a year.  Hillary might get seriously ill or die.  There may be some scandal as yet undiscovered (although with the Republican hate machine/propaganda going full force as it's been for the last 9 month or so, if there was something more out there, I'm sure we'd know about it by now).  And of course, she may not even get the nomination, although I seriously can't see how that could happen, regardless of what happens in Iowa and New Hampshire.  But the future hasn't happened yet, so who knows?

So, based on the fact that I think Hillary IS going to be the Democratic nominee, and based on the fact I think the Electoral Map of 2016 greatly favors the Democratic nominee, I predict Hillary will be sworn in a president one year from today.

Who will her opponent be?  Who the hell knows?  I can't imagine the Republican primary voters would be crazy enough to nominate Trump, but then again, they ARE rather batshit crazy this year, so again who knows?

But I will predict, right now, Hillary's running mate; current Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and former mayor of San Antonio Texas, Julian Castro.  He's young (41 years old currently) which offsets her age.  He's male, which offsets her being female.  He's Hispanic, which should help with that demographic.  And he's from Texas, which won't help put Texas in the Democratic column, but which will balance the ticket geographically and hopefully increase the Democratic vote count in Texas.  Which again, won't be enough to win the state for her, but MAY help get some Democratic candidates into lower level offices as well.  Which will help in the future.

So mark it down somewhere, the Polt made his predictions on January 20, 2016.  In one year, we shall have President Clinton and Vice President Castro.

POLT