UP Elections 2017 - BJP's stunning landslide victory in UP & story behind it's making

On March 11^th Uttar Pradesh (UP) delivered the biggest landslide to any single party since 1977. . The aftershocks of this massive landslide for BJP will be felt for years to come.During my conversations with folks who had connections with workers inside BJP, I was told that this time around they were quietly hopeful of netting 250+ seats, a number which I myself was a bit skeptical of. The whopping number (325 seats i.e.80+% of all seats) of seats won by the BJP & its smaller allies was surely beyond the expectations of even the most ardent BJP supporter.  The genesis of this political tsunami or what some in the media have called “Tsu- NaMO” is a fascinating story in itself.

The story begins not as one might expect in Lucknow (capital of Uttar Pradesh) but rather 555 kms away in New Delhi on a cold & foggy morning (typical winter weather in Delhi). This however wasn’t just any other day in the nation’s capital but was January 26, 2015, India’s 65^th Republic Day. It has been a tradition that on this day a high level foreign dignitary is invited to be the chief guest for the annual Republic Day parade in India. In the early years the chief guests tended to be pretty much political “lightweights” either from regional neighbors or 3^rd world nations. Mind you the recent invitee list was impressive with names like King Abdullah (2006) Presidents Vladimir Putin (Russia) in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy (France) in 2008 & Lee Myung Bak (South Korea) & Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (Japan) in 2014. But Narendra Modi who had just completed 8 months in office after coming to power in huge landslide victory in 2014 managed pull off the biggest scoop of them all (in terms of chief guests for Republic Day) when he succeeded in getting Barack Obama (then sitting US president) to be the chief guest in the annual Republic Day parade. This being the first parade since the change of guard in New Delhi plus the maiden visit of Barack Obama to India led to huge frenzy/hype in the media with wall to wall coverage of the event. Modi turned up at the parade in monogrammed, pinstriped suit. The suit instantly made headlines because of a specific feature - its stripes were made of repetitions of a single motif: the Prime Minister's name, Narendra Damodardas Modi. The narrative of this historic meet was to be the increased bilateral co-operation in various areas such as trade, security, terrorism, etc. between the world’s largest democracies & gradual warming of ties between 2 nations that had once an adversarial relationship during the Cold War. All this was turned on its head once sections of India’s now (famous/infamous) sensationalist media’s focused only the suit. If you ask most people what they remember the most from that day, the answer would neither ne Obama’s visit nor what happened when they met but just the suit that Modi was wearing. Modi tried to put to rest this “suit controversy” a month later when the suit was auctioned off for charity however this ghost would come back to haunt him later.

Fast forward to April 2015, Rahul Gandhi while participating in a debate on agriculture crisis in the Lok Sabha, openly mocked Narendra Modi saying “yours is a Suit-Boot ki Sarkar", a reference to the PM's monogrammed suit. He alleged that the BJP government had frozen minimum support price for crops and had diluted the land acquisition law to weaken the farmers in favor of industrialists. The speech (one of the very few Rahul Gandhi had given to this point: just 5 in 11 years) was one of the most hard hitting blows delivered to the Modi government. The opposition’s allegations against Modi such as “Only few big industrialists have benefitted from Modi’s rule in Gujarat & not the common man” which earlier during the 2014 campaign had failed to stick to Modi had now hit close to home beginning to dent Modi’s image. Rahul’s speech was looking to stress on Modi being "pro-business" and "anti-poor/anti-farmer". Modi government was immediately put on the back foot by this attack. BJP was in a minority in Upper House Rajya Sabha where they required support from other parties to pass any type of legislation. The Land Acquisition Bill had given the opposition something to rally around against Modi. Sensing the stiff opposition to this bill driven by these “suit boot ki Sarkar” comments, Modi had to (in one of the few major pullbacks) drop the Land Acquisition Bill by end of August 2015. Electorally also the juggernaut set in motion with the win in 2014 & in state elections thereafter came a screeching halt with the loss in Delhi (Feb 2015) & more importantly in Bihar (Nov 2015) in that same year. These defeats were huge setback for Modi, especially the Land Acquisition Bill which was one of the several “big bang” reforms he wanted to implement to speed up investment, growth & development in India. He knew that he had to immediately shed this moniker associated with him of being “pro-business” both for the good of his & BJP’s electoral future otherwise both of them would be finished. There was no better than person than Modi who understood this newer “aspirational” & young (India 2/3 of India’s population is below 35 years of age) Indian voter who was seeking a betterment of their lives currently stuck in poverty and/or hardship. Any failure in helping the poor would mean a possible desertion by the same “aspirational” voters that brought him to power in 2014.

He then started to work earnestly to transform his image to overcome this negative perception of his. He started to work on multiple schemes (some of which were started before 2015) geared towards the poor which formed a huge chunk of the Indian electorate. Most famous of them was the Jan Dhan Yojna which was to open bank accounts for all, especially the poor people who had no access to banking system before. In the past money from welfare schemes used to doled out to the poor through actual transfer of cash but what used to happen in practice is that the corrupt middle man through which money was routed to the poor took his own “cut” short changing the needy recipient. Now by directly depositing money into the bank accounts of the poor, Modi has removed the need of the poor to “grease the palms” of the corrupt middle man to receive their benefits. Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana & Suraksha Bima Yojana were just 2 small examples where BPL(before poverty line) families could get life & accident insurance of upto 2 lakhs at highly nominal rates of just a few rupees per month. One of these schemes which has been a silent factor in the huge win in UP is Ujjwala Yojana. It is a scheme where BPL families got free LPG connections. This has been proven to be a big hit with the womenfolk in UP where 5+ million got benefit of this scheme. Now that LPG cylinders are very common in the cities, we tend to underestimate the hardships with associated with running an old wood fired “chullah”: laboring every day to collect wood, inhaling the toxic smoke that comes with burning it, etc. By getting these LPG connections these women were able to break free of this for the first time in their lives. All these schemes slowly built up goodwill for the Modi regime over the course of its current term. But the master stroke at the end was of course demonetization. A problem described by people from all walks of life which affects them the most in India today is the rampant & unchecked corruption. During the last 3 years of UPA-II government hardly few months went by without any new corruption scandal breaking out. However no one inside or outside government had any idea on how to tackle the menace of corruption. Modi vowed to tackle this head on during the campaign in 2014 which many thought to be a hollow promise to which was made to simply get elected. Opposition leaders constantly reminded him of his promise in 2014 to deposit 15lakhs in account of every Indian by forcing all the black money stashed abroad to be returned to India. On Nov 8^th 2016 by demonetizing the 1,000 & 500 rupee notes overnight he sent a clear message to the masses that the status quo will not be maintained & that his government is taking concrete steps to tackle this issue head on. There were issues like the goals of doing this as explained by the government changed quite a few times a.k.a. “shifting of the goalposts”. In addition the economic benefits of demonetization are debatable due to various factors as majority 97% of the cash found its way back to the banks, etc. but the social implications are not at debatable. As an experiment when I was in Ahmedabad & Mumbai in January this year I tried to get a sense of mood of the people post demonetization. I tried to strike up conversations about it with people from all walks of life from businessmen, retirees, white collar workers, servants, drivers, etc. The striking feeling I got that what I read in the newspapers & online while in the US regarding massive anger among people, opposition leaders protesting everywhere, etc. was completely divorced from the reality on the ground where it was massively popular with few exceptions here & there. Many economists & opposition politicians cried foul about the massive shock to the Indian economy & pain felt by especially the poor. But they missed the general point that this move was wildly popular was the general masses. The masses especially the poor saw the corrupt businessman/politicians/mafia nexus as the source of all corruption. In their mind this was a lesson taught to the corrupt by Modi to set them straight & hence they were willing to bear some short term pain for it. After decades of suffering, apathy & inaction on corruption, Modi was the first politician taking firm action to solve the issue (inspite of what the actual benefit/result was). This is similar to Brexit & Trump election phenomenon where the masses tired of the status quo support radical moves which “gives the appearance of someone wanting to change things around ” even if it doesn’t always lead to any actual benefit on the ground. As I mentioned in my blog before the UP results that with this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor Modi had overnight solidified the change in BJP’s image from a middle class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party. This was meant to win over the poorest of the poor who weren’t traditionally BJP supporters. All these welfare schemes + demonetization + surgical strikes across the border with Pakistan have gradually built up the narrative of Modi being a resolute leader working for the betterment of the nation with unwavering zeal. On the ground in UP where citizens on being asked by various reporters (across various media outlets) on why did they liked Modi the most common answer by far was that  “Modi is a decisive leader”. This was a stark contrast to some previous leaders who made simply made promises but did very little once elected. All the moves by Modi’s government  looks much different from the so called “policy paralysis” in 2^nd half of UPA-II government which was beset with scandals & everyone including bureaucrats scared of taking any major decisions for fear of being implicated rightly or wrongly at a later point in time.

 As it rightly said that even the most successful politician needs a great backroom operations manager. Amit Shah is the “Chanakya” to Modi’s “Chandragupta”. He led the massive mobilization of BJP/RSS Cadre on the ground in UP planning meticulously right from the booth level up to each constituency. This level of detailed organizational planning missing from any of the other opposition party puts them at a serious disadvantage when trying to turn out the vote. In 70 seats where BJP was weak he “imported” leaders from other parties to fight elections mind you in face of fierce opposition from local BJP leaders. With the traditional BJP upper caste vote solidly behind him solidly he identified the weakness of the opposition’s coalition’s (non-Yadav OBC’s for Samajwadi Party) & (non-Jatav Dalit’s for Bahujan Samajwadi Party). Both Akhilesh & Mayawati rode to power in Lucknow based on broad support from OBC’s & Dalit’s respectively. However once in power their own sub-caste’s (Yadav’s & Jatav Dalits) have to seem to be benefited the most (at expense of other sub castes) in many people’s eyes. This leads to resentment among the non-Yadav OBC’s & non Jatav Dalit’s that this was a new form of discrimination against them (which in the past was done to them by upper castes). As Shekhar Gupta has pointed out that new young Indian voter is no longer bound by caste & he wants to break free of this mold & aspire for a betterment of his lifestyle. Amit Shah tapped into this anger by fielding a record 150 non-Yadav OBC’s & several non-Jatav Dalits. This social engineering packaged along with Modi’s popularity & OBC credentials created an unbeatable combination. Modi & Shah also tapped into another type of discrimination anger: favoring of Muslims for various benefits by the previous SP government. With the “shamshan/kabristan” comments from Modi reverse polarization was achieved as people perceived that the SP was openly favoring Muslims at the cost of the remaining Hindus. This result overall was seen by many as a backlash against the identity politics practiced by both SP & BSP who when in power favored a few at the expense of all others. BJP knew that with 20% of Muslim population never voting for it + hardly any support from the BSP’s 10% Jatav Dalit & 10% SP’s Yadav OBC’ base it had to simply capture a majority of the remaining 60% of the electorate (which they did by winning 40% vote share). For the last 30 years with the mushrooming of innumerable regional parties in the mutli-polar contests the threshold for majority was much lower & hence one won elections by simply consolidating the votes among your main communities/castes + disenchanted floating voters from others. Amit Shah by creating this “rainbow coalition” across castes means in a form of a Hindu consolidation has blown up this old school “Mandal school politics” of pandering to just your own communities which doesn’t work anymore. Also importantly gone are the days when BJP simply asked for votes simply in name of Ram Mandir. BJP knows that with the issue stuck in courts there was no need for this to be the main focus of campaigning as they would not be able to fulfil it & at the end of their term pay the price for not fulfilling their promise.

 Akhilesh has marketed himself a popular leader pursuing development above the stereotypical lawlessness associated with his SP party. But he simply couldn’t overcome the years of built up negative perception of “goondagardi” of his government & many ministers. His alliance with Congress failed to materialize any tangible benefits as the Cong vote share simply collapsed. Many SP leaders now question the benefit of going with Congress in the first place as they didn’t got many votes transferred from Congress to their kitty. Talking to a friend about this SP – Cong alliance I jokingly said that “25 + 0.5 is still only 25.5” i.e. not much difference to SP by adding the negligible Congress votes. Akhilesh if he reforms his party & win over the intra family squabbles can surely comeback to power some day in future as he is young & the future of the Samajwadi Party. Mayawati’s future on the other hand is bleak. She has failed to develop the next generation of leaders, remains inaccessible from both media & her supporters, and spends most of her time in New Delhi rather than on ground in Uttar Pradesh. Add to that the fact that she got routed so decisively in UP this time around that she lacks the requisite no. of MLA’s to renominate her to Rajya Sabha when her term ends in 2018. Her ranting in a press conference about EVM’s being supposedly hacked by BJP without offering any proof was downright bizarre. Her Dalit base is being slowly poached away by BJP while her experiment of giving tickets to Muslims to woo them to her side also failed miserably. The Mandal politics of getting votes based just based on caste of SP & BSP have been neutralized to a large extent. Modi & Amit Shah have been successfully creating a pan Hindu coalition (vs BJP being a just upper caste party in the past) breaking across all caste barriers. The worst situation that any opposition party finds today in is the Congress party. They have lost elections after elections in the past 5 years (barring a few exceptions like Punjab) & are getting dangerously close to getting wiped off the map in major states across India. Except North East they control only 3 states: Punjab, Himachal Pradesh & Karnataka which goes to polls next year. They have been supplanted by BJP as the new pan India national party. Their base is massively shrinking with passage of time & there is no section of the society which today then can call as reliable voters for Congress. Their base which at one time used to be the poor is being lured away in all directions by other parties: by Modi with his new pro welfare schemes & by Aam Aadmi party by its promise of free electricity & water.  They can’t seem to be giving out the standard response “introspection is required” after every successive loss. The party appears completely rudderless without the stewardship of their president Sonia Gandhi. They are failing on providing even a credible opposition to the policies of Modi government like demonetization, etc. Sonia’s ill health preventing her from campaigning in UP this time around foretells that she might not be even around in 2019 for the next Lok Sabha elections. Hence the burden of dragging the party out of the doldrums simply rests with Rahul Gandhi who has been proven until now to be a completely ineffective leader. Many people including some leaders in his own party simply don’t understand his infrequent engagements in discussions on important issues (followed by long periods of silence on sidelines), lack of focus & vision, bizarre comments like “being little down in UP “when in fact they were even behind the tiny Apna Dal outfit in terms of seats, unexplained absences away from party affairs & reluctance to lead from the front. One of the most interesting stories which will touch upon most of the above factors was when the ex-Congress politician Himanta Biswa Sarma went to meet Rahul Gandhi. Himanta Biswa Sarma was the de-facto no. 2 in Assam govt. below Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi. Initially both men were close but started drift apart due to rising popularity of Himanta & Gogoi trying to promote his son as his successor. Himanta went to meet Rahul Gandhi to implore to him that Tarun Gogoi who was fighting 15 years of anti-incumbency was deeply unpopular in Assam. He stressed that to win elections again Gogoi needed to be replaced by someone else which necessarily didn’t have to be him (Himanta). Rahul during the meeting apparently didn’t even listen to him & according to Himanta was busy playing with his dogs, feeding them biscuits & looking at his phone. Himanta frustrated with this, quit the Congress party. Amit Shah brought him over to the BJP where he worked to thrash the Congress in the assembly elections last year & subsequently also worked towards the BJP’s maiden win in Manipur last week. The fact that the Congress candidate stood 4^th in Amethi portends to the fact that it wouldn’t be a complete shocker if he were to lose from Amethi in 2019 Lok Sabha polls (in absence of any pre poll alliance). As many journalists like Ruhi Tewari & Sagarika Ghosh have noted that he needs to take accountability & work 24 x 7 instead of being a part time politician or otherwise step aside for the good of the party.  Right now Modi & Shah are not only popular but simply outworking Rahul Gandhi by the sheer amount of work they put in every single day to plan for the future. As seen in UP even a master strategist like Prashant Kishore in UP can’t save Congress from a debacle if the electorate is not buying what the Congress party is offering right now. When reporters who travelled UP extensively asked about Congress for most of the voters the question seemed more like a joke as they didn’t care at all about the Congress party. Question for Congressmen is that if he doesn’t step aside will they rebel to force change or are they simply not doing it right now out of respect for Sonia Gandhi. However if they wait too long for either Rahul Gandhi to change or force a change at the top, the damage to the party might be unmitigable. Congress does have a role to play in national politics as the primary opposition to BJP to keep the government’s power in check & keep them honest. If it doesn’t mend its ways soon, Congress tally in 2019 will be even lower when it could theoretically cede the title of main opposition party to some other regional party who has more seats.

Modi & Amit Shah has transformed the BJP into an unstoppable snowball rolling down the hill for 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Even opposition leaders like Omar Abdullah have openly commented that if the current situation persists then opposition should forget about 2019 Lok Sabha elections & instead start planning for 2024 elections. One thing opposition has been guilty of many times is personally attacking Modi which does no good to their own fortunes. Cheesy one liners similar to those seen in 80’s Bollywood movies like “maut ke saudagar” doesn’t work anymore. Modi is able to masterfully spin these personal attacks to his benefit sometimes even playing the “victim card”. Opposition needs to come up with a better & a coherent strategy to combat Modi on issues that affect the common man (like seen with the Land Acquisition Act). They have look beyond the usual wooing of certain sections of society as their vote banks as it invariably helps the Modi - Shah axis to masterfully create reverse polarization. Modi’s popularity especially among the youth as reported from the ground in UP is very high. Hence they have to rethink their old time tested strategies which might have work with older voters in the past but which is becoming more irrelevant with each passing day as more & younger voters joins the electoral rolls. Shekhar Gupta has eloquently said that the new young voter doesn’t vote like his fathers & grandfathers based on caste or past history of party but rather on basis of “what have you done for me lately”.

Modi has created this new broad arching sense of nationalism packaged with welfare schemes for poor independent of caste & creed. Modi for his part once he achieves close to majority in Rajya Sabha in mid-2018 he should be able to pass legislation much easily & move his development agenda forward without much resistance. Failure to provide growth will lead to resentment among the people & we have seen in the past that the “aspirational” voter can get restless very easily & throw you out of power if his/her situation is still the same after 5 years. Also the thorny question of how to have inclusive growth that uplifts along with others the Muslims also remains to be seen. BJP might not have given tickets to Muslims in UP due to what they say was the “winnability” factor. But at same time they can’t afford to be seen what other parties did in the past i.e. working for betterment of only some & not all. They will have figure out how to work for all 100% of the population without leaving behind the 20% Muslim population in UP.

Currently with the opposition appearing disjointed & dispirited, Modi looks to continue his electoral success in 2019. Biggest impediment to a repeat BJP win is taking things for granted/ overconfidence which has been the downfall of many popular governments in the past. BJP has to simply look back at last time it was in power for 5 years at Centre & how its “India Shining” campaign flopped miserably. Modi who has transformed his image successfully to project himself as the “messiah” of the poor right now has no equal in Indian politics & has been called the tallest leader in Indian politics by many. Some have even compared his popularity to the massive popularity that Indira Gandhi once enjoyed. This blast from the past should however accompany with a statutory health warning. Indira Gandhi who at the zenith of her popularity in 1971 coined the “Garibi Hatao” slogan (similar to the pro poor agenda by Modi today) came crashing down 6 years later post Emergency due to hubris & abuse of power.

UP Election 2017

Before I delve deep into the politics of Uttar Pradesh (UP) let me give everyone a perspective on the gargantuan size of state of Uttar Pradesh.
India’s most populous state: UP is home to 200+ million people (roughly equal to population of Brazil). If UP were a country by itself, in terms of population it would be the 5^th largest in the world & it would be the 4^th largest democracy in the world (after India, USA & Indonesia).

I shall break down this article on the basis of the title of the yesteryear Kapoor hit film KAL (History of UP Politics), AAJ (2017 Elections) AUR KAL (Future)

KAL (History of UP Politics)

UP politics like most of India till the late 1980’s was primarily dominated by single party (Congress) which is no different from rest of India during that period of time. In the late 80’s & early 90’s two major factors shaped UP politics: MANDAL & MANDIR.

Mandal symbolized political changes in early ‘90s in the wake of implementation of Mandal commission recommendations providing reservation to OBC’s (Other Backward Classes). MANDAL commission’s granting of reservation to OBC’s led to the rise of the Yadav’s in UP politics. Mulayam rode this wave to become CM in 1989. After the breakup of the erstwhile Janta Dal in the early 90’s he setup his own outfit: Samajwadi Party (SP). He was one of the architects of the M –Y (Muslim – Yadav) combo which help him win seats consistently over the years. He did share power with BSP after 1993 & once again in 2003 after rebel BSP MLA’s defected to SP. In the last election in 2012 his son & current CM Akhilesh Yadav orchestrated a landslide win for SP.

BJP rose to national & local prominence in the late 80’s /early 90’s with the Ram Mandir movement with the stated goal to build a temple at the disputed site in Ayodhya. In 1991 it achieved a majority by itself in UP though the government was later dismissed by central government after the Babri Masjid demolition in 1992. Subsequently it did return to power in 1998 but short of majority & with support from BSP.

Around the same time Kanshi Ram’s Bahujan Samaj was picking up momentum by positioning his party as the sole championer for Dalit causes & equality. He was providing an outlet for the Dalits who he believed were marginalized by the mainstream parties run by upper castes. BSP did have power sharing agreement with SP in 1993 & with BJP in both 1998 & 2002.  In 2007 riding on a coalition of Dalits + non-traditional BSP voters like Brahmins & Muslims she won a landslide ending years of coalition governments in UP. 

Uttar Pradesh in its last 2 elections has delivered decisive majorities to the victorious parties. In a 4 way contest between SP, BSP, BJP & Cong a 30% share of vote has translated into a landslide mandate for BSP in 2007 & SP in 2012.

This time around with the Congress joining hands with the Samajwadi Party it becomes a 3 way contest & the vote share required for a majority would now be around 34% (vs 26% in a 4 way contest) Uttar Pradesh has one of the most caste centric electorate in India. They are broken down as follows:

Upper Caste 20%

OBC’s 40% (10% Yadav’s)

Muslim 20%

Dalit 20%

The 3 main parties of Uttar Pradesh have their own bases pretty much aligned to them & the issue is how to attract the so called “floating” voters.

SP relies on the Muslim + Yadav vote bank being solidly behind them getting the required 30% which as I explained earlier is good enough in a 4 way contest but not enough in a 3 way contest. They have to get some of the Other OBC’s i.e. non-Yadav OBC’s to put them over the mark.

BSP relies on the unwavering loyalty of the 20% Dalit vote. It did pick up a lot of the Upper Caste & Muslim vote in 2007 when it came to power in a landslide. They do have to pick up a significant number from other caste groups such as Muslim’s & Upper Caste’s to be in reckoning.

BJP has always been recognized as an Upper Caste party. Apart from the 20% Upper Caste vote it has struggled in recent times to get over the finishing line due to lack of strong support from any of the other caste groups. An outlier to this was the 2014 Lok Sabha election where the Modi wave swept away everyone else with a 42% vote share. He was able to convince both OBC’s & Dalit’s to switch from their normal allegiance to SP & BSP which resulted in them getting absolutely crushed at the polls.

AAJ (2017 Election)

After the big win for SP in 2012 Mulayam surprisingly relinquished the CM’s chair & installed Akhilesh as CM (much to the chagrin of his brother Shivpal). His eyes were on a far bigger prize in New Delhi. Thinking that he can replicate this success in 2014 he can sweep UP in Lok Sabha polls & in a hung Lok Sabha become PM of a 3rd front government with outside support from anti BJP parties like Congress. But for SP the massive drubbing at the Lok Sabha polls in 2014 gave a huge jolt to SP & especially Akhilesh. This along with the constant stream of public statements from his father Mulayam about the bad governance in UP forced him to take action as he knew otherwise he would out of power in 2017. He quickly realized that to hold on to the CM’s chair the usual strongman politics practiced by Samajwadi party especially his father & his uncles. He learned the hard way from 2014 that the modern voter has become more aspirational which was successfully tapped into by Modi in 2014.  He knew he had to expand his base beyond the traditional Muslim – Yadav base. He started a two prong campaign: On one hand he started to focus more on developmental projects designed to fulfil the voter’s needs. He began to push forward infrastructure projects like highways connecting various districts of UP & also populist measures like distributing laptops to youths, bicycles to the poor, setting up a Samajwadi Mahila Pension Yojna which has been a hit with the poor women, etc. He has thus tried to nurture a loyal cross-caste base of voters who were not traditional SP voters in previous elections. Secondly to work on his personal image similar to what Modi did before 2014 campaign he setup a team with associates of Steve Jarding, a public policy professor at the Harvard Kennedy School to start a communication program to build up his image all corners of the state. He took out full page advertisements in newspapers & had TV & radio spots extolling the work his government had done. Interestingly in this entire media blitz the party patriarch Mulayam was noticeably absent which was surprising to watchers of UP politics, but this was deliberate strategy of slowly building up his image while escaping from his father’s shadow. This has very importantly help him remain popular with the masses even though the moniker of “goonda raj” , problem of lawlessness, land grabbing , etc. does stick to the other members of his party.  He simultaneously started to assert himself more like reversing his uncle Shivpal’s decision of inducting gangster turned politician Mukhtar Ansari last September. This was the start of the months long family feud with his father Mulayam & uncle Akhilesh which finally ended in early January. However the time lost during all the internal squabbles led to precious time being wasted which could have been used for campaigning. To overcome the vote% hurdles that I described earlier & the time lost he aligned himself with Congress in a pre-poll alliance. This was to make sure that the small vote share of Congress added to his kitty can put him over the top. In seats with high % of Muslim population his goal was make send a message to the Muslim voters to get all lined up behind his alliance vs getting their votes fragmenting among SP, BSP & Cong inherently helping the BJP. Even though local SP MLA’s are deeply unpopular in most parts of the state

Mayawati after the debacle of 2014 which saw her getting wiped out from the Lok Sabha had disbanded all her local party bodies and started planning meticulously for the 2017 elections. Due to the infighting within the SP she had a heads up in terms of planning for 2017. She is counting on the non – Jatav Dalits (Mayawati’s cate is Jatav) who were wooed away by Modi in 2014 will return to her fold due to anti Dalit incidents like Una flogging, Rohit Vermula suicide, etc. In order to widen her support bases she has fielded around 100 Muslim candidates to sway the Muslim vote in her favor. Even though she had multiple corruption cases against her people cutting across all classes agree that the law & order situation was much better under her than under SP rule. She has promised to ensure communal riots like in Muzzafanagar riots in 2013 never occur again. This is due to the widely accepted fact that the Akhilesh government which calls itself as the champions of Muslims was widely blamed for inaction during the riots in 2013. Since she has allied with the BJP in the past in coalition governments she has promised this time around to not tie up with them under any circumstance to allay fear of Muslim voters

BJP in UP as mostly in UP has been traditionally identified by voters as a forward/upper caste party. The numbers simply don’t add up for them to succeed on the basis of votes from just one group. BJP in 2014 rode a Modi tsunami to sweep Bihar winning 73/80 Lok Sabha seats. What it was able to do is successfully poach “floating” Non-Yadav OBC voters from SP & Non-Jatav Dalits from BSP. If you remember from my earlier blog in 2014 on the campaign trial, UP was where Modi (now famous or infamous depending on your POV ) pulled out the OBC card by telling voters that he was attacked by opposition because he is from “neech jaati” i.e. OBC. However repeating this won’t be as easy as in 2014. As I mentioned earlier some of the non-Jatav Dalits due to disenchantment with the BJP due to various incidents would migrate back to BSP. That leaves the last block non- Yadav OBC’s which I think holds the key to BJP coming to power in Lucknow. BJP in it’s heyday in UP in 1991 when they won election singlehandedly its CM was Kaylan Singh, an OBC from Lodh community. Realizing the importance of these non-Yadav OBC’s BJP’s chief strategist elevated Keshav Prasad Maurya an OBC import from BSP to the post of BJP president to woo the OBC’s.  Similar to 2014 a lot of tickets have distributed to OBC’s candidates. In addition they have aligned with two very small OBC & MBC (Most Backward Class) parties Apna Dal (AD) & Soheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party (SBSP) which have a strong following among their respective caste groups. Many non-Yadav OBC’s have complained that development might have occurred but the lion’s share of benefits have to gone Yadav fold & areas. For e.g. people in Purvanchal complain that all new infrastructure development like new roads is in Etawah, Safai, etc. & in metros where they see no benefit or the complaint that all the freebies promised by Akhilesh are lapped up mostly by Yadav’s leading them to scrounge for the leftovers. They see this as a new form of discrimination where now Yadav’s hold a disproportionate level of power while the other OBC’s are being left behind. This is the disenchantment that Amit Shah is looking to tap into to form the so called “rainbow coalition” of various castes to succeed this time around. He has worked with RSS for last couple of years including holding multiple mela’s/fairs for wooing these OBC’s to BJP fold. RSS has quietly worked in the background to ensure BJP win but also firmly avoiding the limelight unlike Bihar election just in case any inflammatory statements come back to hurt BJP’s electoral chances. Although BJP is working against some headwinds of no local leader/CM candidate & dissatisfaction among workers with ticket distribution & anger among Jat’s in western UP regarding reservation & demonetization.  It was interesting that in the first few phases Modi talked about development & SP/BSP failures but in middle of the campaign the “shamshan/kabristan” comments were uttered ensure complete reverse polarization where they can consolidate the entire Hindu vote towards the BJP.

 Aur KAL (Future)

Many see this election as a direct presidential type election between two hugely popular Modi & Akhilesh. Akhilesh if he succeeds in pulling off a repeat win he will be the undisputed king of UP, earning him the moniker of Modi slayer (which few can lay claim to) & most likely consigning his dad & uncle into the dreaded “margdarshak” (euphemism for forced retirement) wing of the party. For Akhilesh this election is not a matter of simply keeping BJP away from power but also his own warring kin at an arm’s length. If he loses the knives will surely be out & will be blamed by his many detractors in SP for the loss. In that case one can expect even more family drama in the upcoming months. One impression many observers get is that due to his clean image plus his relative youth (43 years is toddler age in Indian politics) means he will around to recapture power in the future if not successful this time around.  Due to his cross caste popularity due to his populist schemes he should be able to compensate the Muslim votes he loses to the BSP & other voters who were turned off by their alliance with the Congress Few open questions is the extent of damage done by infighting within SP & moves by Shivpal & his supporters to sabotage SP candidates & more importantly what was the impact of starting the campaigning so late as he was stuck in Lucknow first in party feud & then in seat sharing negotiations with Congress, precious time which could have spent on the road campaigning especially in a large state like UP. All these positive & negative points taken together might prevent a landslide majority for him while also preventing a total collapse for alliance in case they lose. Even if they are ahead the “friendly fire” with Congress where both put up candidates in around 15 seats inspite of being in an alliance will come back to haunt them if they lose those seats & just fall short of majority.

Mayawati on other is fighting hard to stay relevant in UP. She has been nurturing Muslims with the hope that Muslims moving en masse to her side will lead her to victory. If that doesn’t occur she is doomed as she has very few crossover voters from other caste groups. She very well knows if she loses this time then 15 years in the wilderness (even with the most ardent support base of any political party) she risks being irrelevant in future elections. Her draconian control of the party will ensure no splits but there could more desertions from the party especially among the non-Dalit leaders (like Keshav Prasad Maurya who defected to BJP last year) who will look for greener pastures among other parties.

 Inspite of all the negative press surrounding demonetization & its associated hardships faced by many, Modi remains incredibly popular. With several steps such as demonetization, surgical strikes he is often labelled as a “decisive leader”. Demonetization did cause pain to the poor voters as they mentioned but the all agree on why the step needed to be taken which was to reduce the black money with the corrupt rich people/businessmen/politicians. With this one Robin Hood type master stroke plus other schemes for the poor in last couple of years Modi has overnight transformed BJP’s image from a middle class/traders/businessmen party to a pro poor party which was meant to win over the poorest of the poor : OBC’s/Dalits which form a bulk of the electorate in UP . A word of caution that his popularity however doesn’t automatically guarantee success at the ballot box in a local election especially when up against a popular incumbent CM , a lesson learnt painfully by BJP against Nitish Kumar in Bihar in 2015. This popularity of his should however hold in good stead in 2019 Lok Sabha elections where national issues carry greater weightage.

Last but not least the smallest of these players is Congress. A tie up with SP probably saved it from oblivion. Many were shocked at the numbers of seats (100+) given to them by SP considering them to be a non-existent force outside their strongholds of Amethi & Rae Bareilly in UP. A win with SP in UP will lead to much jubilation but they need to be mindful of their descent into total irrelevance. For a big national party like Congress alarm bells should be setting off at 24 Akbar Road that it had to ride on the coattails of strong regional parties like RJD/JD(U) in Bihar & SP in UP to remain relevant in big states. More noticeable was the absence of multiple heavyweights campaigning in UP. On the campaign trials multiple correspondents reported that youth totally dismissed Rahul Gandhi as immature & Congress party as not even in the discussion of whom to vote for. A loss for Congress in 2019 if went alone in Amethi or Rae Bareilly which once would have be considered unfathomable is no longer an unlikely scenario due to the current depilated state of party.

This has been one of the most difficult elections to figure out. Due to the lack of any overarching issue like lawlessness in 2007 which brought Mayawati to power or corruption in 2012 which brought Akhilesh to power or the Modi wave for change & development in 2014 there is no wave/”hawa” this time around . This combined with sheer size of the state which leads to various variances in different parts of the states makes it one of the most difficult elections to predict.

Also consider a reversal of usual roles in UP this time around: Mulayam was known to be master strategist who knew that Muslim –Yadav consolidation is not simply enough & used to have these micro alliances with local outfits in various parts of state to ensure smaller caste groups vote for SP.  However his son Akhilesh is instead relying on a macro alliance with Congress & appealing to cross caste voters voting for his development & populist measures. This time in a role reversal this stitching together of these mini alliances is being done by Amit Shah to consolidate the OBC vote towards BJP.

 Modi & Akhilesh are very popular in their own right. How their popularity translates to actual votes & determines the outcome of this election is to be seen. Akhilesh is working against anti-incumbency where many of the local MLA’s are deeply unpopular & SP - Cong alliance is banking of the voters forgetting about their MLA & simply voting for Akhilesh. Ditto for BJP where they are banking on reverse polarization of Hindus, smaller alliance caste arithmetic & the Modi charm offensive to beat the opposition. As I mentioned earlier non-Yadav OBC’s hold the key to the election on if they can be swayed to BJP or they go for SP. Modi has practically staked his reputation on this election with an unheard 3 days of straight campaigning with majority of the cabinet in Varanasi. This opens a possibility that if he loses not only it dents his image severely in this so called “semi-final” before his reelection in 2019 but also will give his detractors ample ammunition (like they had post Bihar election loss in 2015) for openly criticizing the Modi – Shah axis of power. This aggressive campaigning might indicate a feeling of unease within BJP of getting about either getting over the hump or being actually behind before the last few phases. With the displeasure of Jats in Western UP they might have done weaker in Phase 1 which means they might compensate elsewhere to make the numbers. 
BJP will require all that he has got in this last phase of campaigning to put them over the line with a small majority to end their 14 year “vanvas” in UP (which ironically won't be lost on a few people as it is the exact number of years that Ram spent in vanvas in Ramayan) or in worst case be the single largest party in event of a hung assembly.

What just happened on Nov 8th?

Nov 8th happened to prove one of the classic maxims of politics to be true : "You don't declare a winner until all the votes are counted". The underlying reasons for this seismic shock were there all along but I didn't believe that enough people who held Trump's view of the current state of affairs will come out to vote. Digging deeper into the election results, in hindsight it is easy to be a Monday Morning QuarterBack Wednesday morning Quarterback saying that the signs for this were visible all along & no one connected the dots causing it to be missed by everyone. 
As with any shocking result like this there is more than just a single reason to describe the outcome that we just had on this past Tuesday.

1. NUMBERS GAME

 Trump will win the presidency by winning lesser number of votes (~60 million as of today) than Romney's 60.9 million [who was soundly beaten in 2012] & very close to McCain's 59.9 million [who was routed in 2008 in the electoral college]. Over the same period Democratic numbers have consistently trended down from 69.4 in 2008 to 65.9 in 2012 to 60.4  million in 2016. This ~5 million reduction of the vote total for Hillary (vs Obama in 2012) will be studied for years to come by political scientists as to where the missing voters from past elections went. With the increase in voting population every 4 years this is not the trend you want to be on. The question now asked by political experts & pollsters is that were the higher numbers for Democrats in past 2 cycles solely due to Obama & will it be replicable moving forward?.i.e. Is the Obama coalition transferable to future Democratic candidates?
Looking at the numbers even though Trump won comfortably in the electoral college, Hillary won the popular vote by 1% which was just 2% different from the foretasted +3%. To emphasize the quirkiness of the electoral college vs popular vote, Nate Silver has a great FiveThirtyEight piece on what would have happened if just 1% of the vote shifted to Clinton, where the electoral map would have basically flipped in favor of Clinton emphasizing the super closeness of this race.
Coming to the electoral college, 3 states which made ultimately the difference in the end were Pennsylvania, Michigan & Wisconsin which hadn't gone for a Republican since the 1980's in the heyday of the Reagan & Bush Sr. years. Clinton lost Michigan by just 13,000 votes, Wisconsin by 27,000 votes & Pennsylvania by about 68,000 votes, a grand total of 108,000 votes. Putting it in a different way if just 54,000 people of these Trump voters would have voted for Democrats (out of approx. 125+ million nationally) or if 110,000 more voters had voted for Democrats, the election result would have been vastly different & we would have been talking today about a comfortable win for Democrats. These are the razor thin margins that elections are won & lost by!

Trump according to the exist poll data won the white voters without college degree by an astonishing 39% which was a margin last seen in 84 when Reagan won a landslide against Walter Mondale. With his issues on women & Hillary being the 1st major female nominee she was supposed to do very well with women. However in the end his support among women was bad but it didn't crater as expected. These shifts plus the slightly lower turnouts among minorities lowered Hillary's chances of winning.

Trump earlier in the campaign was criticized for campaigning in rural America where there weren't that many voters to begin with & most of them were voting Republican anyways. In the end it proved the master stroke as he simply ran up the numbers in smaller rural counties to offset the expected losses in the cities. The image below for Pennsylvania is one of these examples which shows how the Democratic vote % which was either constant or little lower in the urban areas got overcome with huge increases in Republican vote% in multiple rural counties negating the big advantage Democrats had in the cities & statewide.

Another number to keep in mind is 1: Number of times the same party has won the White House 3 times in a row since the dying days of World War 2. (Reagan 80, 84 & Bush 88). Incumbency does set in after 8 years as it does in most parts of the world. People crave for change after few years & as we now know change was a big theme in this election cycle.

2. HILLARY'S ISSUES

Hillary did tout herself as the most prepared candidate for the highest office in the land. But the electorate wanted someone new who was not a career politician. In this climate of craving for change she was the wrong candidate for this cycle. Her unpopularity remained constantly high even when Trump was self destructing. Her email issue whatever you think it was never handled properly from day one & kept festering on till election day eroding her trust among the electorate. Among the rural working class whites who had enough of the Washington elites her long record of being in Washington plus these trust issues made them feel that she was the embodiment of what was wrong with the country irrespective of the fact that if she alone was responsible for all the ills facing them or not. She could never gain the confidence of  enough of the rural white working class voters to put her over the top in Rust Belt states that she narrowly lost. Hindsight is 20/20 but the warning signs were all there with the shock upset victory of Sanders in Michigan & later in Wisconsin in the Democratic primaries. As J.D. Vance of the N.Y. Times bestseller Hillbilly Elegy told Chuck Todd that based on his interactions with many folks he had in the Rust Belt where he grew up, he said that this was more of a anti-Hillary vote than a pro-Trump vote. Many of them knew that Trump wouldn't be able to fulfill many of his promises but they knew that Trump was at least seen trying to change things.

Many people now believe that Sanders would have carried these Rust Belt states on his way to the presidency. I think that the 100+K vote margin that I talked about in the 3 Rust belt states would have been overcome if someone like Sanders was the candidate. Democratic party establishment will now have to shoulder some of the blame of being too cozy with the Clinton's helping her win the nomination at expense of Sanders.

That brings me to my last 2 factors which you probably have not heard of:  MORAL LICENSING & NEOLIBERALISM.

3. MORAL LICENSING

I came across this fascinating term this summer listening to one of favorite authors: Malcolm Gladwell. By definition moral licensing Malcolm says is a new social psychology concept that basically says that "Past good deeds can liberate individuals to engage in behaviors that are immoral, unethical or otherwise problematic, behaviors that they would otherwise avoid for the fear of feeling or appearing immoral. When we do something good then sometimes we give ourselves permission to do something bad". As a simple example one might think the following : Since I went to the gym today, I can eat unhealthy fast food.

Barack Obama got elected twice with support from not just minorities but also a significant % of white men & women. In theory one would think that since Obama was elected it would allow his supporters to be in future to be more open minded, express non biased opinions & elect more non traditional candidates. But as per a study by Daniel Effron the opposite was true. Since they voted for Obama these people feel like they had shown already that they were not biased, giving them a license to subsequently express racially prejudicial views & not vote for anyone who is different. Gladwell also describes this "tokenism" phenomenon which says that when a favored group, a majority group, does an act of generosity towards an outsider, it doesn’t necessarily signal that more acts of generosity are coming, sometimes it just gives them license to then go back to their old ways. So the thing that perpetuates prejudice is acts of openness.

Basically since we had 8 years of black president certain part of the population consciously or subconsciously are wanting to go back to the male white candidate that they grown accustomed to. Gladwell asserted that support for Donald Trump was at least partially driven by an anti-black racial backlash against the first black president. I believe that even though Hillary is not black but just because she is female, disqualifies her in their eye. They want to return to the original status quo/tradition of electing a while male for presidency as it was done for over 200 years till 2008.

4. NEOLIBERALISM/POPULISM

I believe this is the most important factor in understanding why the events that happened on Nov 8th occurred. 

Neoliberalism refers primarily to ideas associated with laissez-faire economic liberalism. These include economic liberalization policies such as privatization, deregulation, free trade, and reductions in government spending in order to enhance the role of the private sector in the economy.

An excellent book on how this neoliberalism caused populism to rise today is the The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics by John Judas. It is a must read for anyone who wants to study the origins & history of populism in the Western world. Much of what I describe below is derived from it.

HISTORY OF NEOLIBERALISM IN US 

Origins of neoliberalism in the modern US history can be traced back to 1970's when after couple of decades of prosperity post World War 2, business started facing competition from Japan & Western Europe who had rebuilt their industries post war. Facing issues the business created think tanks, policy groups & lobbying entities to promote tax cuts and the repeal or weakening of regulations. Democrats initially had skepticism about these policies but faced with inflation & rising unemployment gave in to these deals promoted mostly by the Republicans who were advocates of free trade & supply side economics. Over the years both parties would accept other key aspects of the neoliberal agenda, including trade pacts like NAFTA , deregulation of finance, and immigration measures to accommodate unskilled and highly skilled guest workers. The key contention that sustained the neoliberal agenda was that the older New Deal liberalism, by focusing on raising consumer demand and reducing inequality, would stifle growth and reduce Americans’ standard of living. By contrast, the neoliberal and supply-side agenda, while not directly confronting economic inequality, promised to spur economic growth, which would benefit all Americans. By the 1980's this created a “dual economy” composed of a high-wage FTE (finance, technology and electronics) sector and a low-wage one of semi-skilled and unskilled workers in a shrinking middle-income group of manufacturing and white-collar jobs fueling discontent among the blue collar workers. However with the economy booming during the 90's plus the incomes rising the issues seemed to have been swept under the rug for the time being. Recession after 9/11 was  blamed on the war & the dot-com excesses & not the neoliberal policies.During the Great Recession of 2007 the financial deregulation policies passed both under Democratic & Republican administrations came back to hurt everyday older middle class Americans hard who now saw their savings dwindle & incomes reduce. Obama administration didn't prosecute any of the bankers while bailing out the banks. The stimulus package spending was interpreted by some as runaway spending helping the fat cat bankers & not everyday Americans. Obamacare which passed a few years later was seen by white working class folks interpreted as more government intervention in their lives. 

During the Great Depression (1930's), unemployment climbed as high as 25 percent, and threatened the middle as well as the lower classes. During the Great Recession (2008), most Americans enjoyed the protections (Social Security & MediCare) created by the New Deal after Depression. They didn’t have to fear actual starvation, homelessness, and having their savings wiped out in a bank crash. The recession far less affected the older, white middle classes, who formed the base of the Tea Party movement than it did the lower classes. During the Great Recession, the middle class, lost some income but the unemployment rates were far higher for those with only a high school education or less than for those with some college or a bachelor’s degree. That created a situation in which what parts of the middle class feared most was having to subsidize through higher taxes or healthcare premiums those in the lower classes or illegal and recent legal immigrants. It encouraged a right-wing rather than a left-wing response to the Great Recession.

POPULISM 

This phenomenon of populism is not only seen in US with Donald Trump (& to an extent with Bernie Sanders) but also seen in Europe where both right wing & left wing populism have captured the imagination of a part of the electorate. Main difference between which takes hold in a country as described by John Judas in the book as the following. 

When the "bottom falls out" causing very high unemployment (similar to Depression like levels) both the lower & middle classes fall into poverty like it did in Greece left wing populism takes hold. Here the people want more benefits from government as a safety net, more taxes on the wealthy to redistribute wealth & anti capitalist measures to rein in the wealthy from becoming more richer. But when there is a Recession where the economy is doing bad but nowhere near Depression levels, the lower class will fall into poverty while the middle class is doing worse in terms of savings & income but not have exactly fallen into poverty, right wing populism takes hold. Here the problems are usually blamed on on immigrants & more nativist feelings take hold. This is what happened here in the US.

EFFECT OF NEOLIBERALISM IN US & GROWTH OF DONALD TRUMP

The majority of growth in US over the last few decades has occurred in the big cities. Most of the new jobs today are in the technology & finance sector which are primarily concentrated either on the coasts or in large cities. For e.g. One of the biggest innovators 100 years ago was the Ford Company who manufactured automobiles. This would require them to open up factories in multiple states employing 100's of thousands of workers greatly boosting employment & raising living standards of wide section of society. However today's biggest innovators are in the tech world where let's say a company like a Facebook or Google might create only few thousand jobs concentrated in just a few urban cities limiting the benefits to smaller section society concentrated in a few areas predominantly cities. On top of the the neoliberalism policies we also had globalization, automation & transference to a digitized economy. All of this together has led to a crushing blow to middle America which was heavily dependent on manufacturing & heavy industries earlier. White working folks in middle American feel that they have been left behind & ignored by the elites. The benefits of free trade sold to them by the politicians were false & it simply benefited the big businesses & their corporate lobbyists who were close to the Washington based politicians. They therefore no longer trust regular politicians who they believe have contributed to their current misery, left them high & dry to suffer & no longer care about their well being. This has stoked anger in middle & rural America against unregulated finance, growing economic inequality, and a corrupt and undemocratic political system. Many authors have described this situation as 2 Americas completely out of sync with each other where the urban America has progressed very well over the fast few decades while the rural America has been stuck in rut. This dichotomy of America has left the people living in the urban areas totally insulated from what's happening in rural America.With more passing years the feelings of angst among the rural Americans has been growing feeling that the elites living in cities especially the politicians while not doing anything for them have grown themselves rich  cozying up to lobbyists in Washington at their expense.

 Donald Trump whatever you think of him has tapped into this "throw the bums in Washington out" anger successfully in a way never seen before in American politics. He was able to successfully combine the xenophobic, racist impulses of the far right along with the proposing of tearing up of free trade deals, imposing tariffs on Chinese goods etc. which are far left wing proposals. He additionally has advocated getting rid of all the corrupt politicians in Washington of the with "drain the swamp" talk. His anti establishment talk with combining both extreme right wing & left wing ideas has resonated with the white working class. They especially like his straight talk as they grown tired of the double talk given to them by the regular politicians. They are so tired of their situation that they don't at all about the misogyny, hate & xenophobia that he spews on the campaign trail. He for them is straight talking messiah who will improve their lives by bringing well paying jobs back to their towns & lives which are currently hopelessly broken down beyond repair .

FUTURE OF POPULISM:

Northern Europe which was able to whether the Great Recession much better has sprung up more Right wing populist parties opposing immigrants most of which are Muslim from Syria & talk about reasserting control of their currency & borders (which was lost by joining the European Union) while Southern Europe where recession hit very hard had left wing populist parties like Syriza in Greece & Podemos in Spain gained popularity.

Future of populism is hard to predict as we have little data of them being in power or influencing ballot measures (like BREXIT). Current results from Europe seem to be mixed, Left wing populist Syriza party in Greece came to power on back of anger of the Greek people to hardships experienced by the tough austerity measure enacted by ECB (European Central Bank). Once in power they threatened to default on their debt obligations to renegotiate for better terms. After a lengthy standoff they later capitulated to even worse terms than what were offered before angering the electorate which elected them hoping for change. Syriza found out that you can rant all you want against the establishment when in opposition but once in power it is not easy to govern, a sentiment that Arvind Kejriwal (a left wing populist by the way) is finding out the hard way while running the Delhi state in India. In Britain the UKIP (UK Independence Party) were able to successfully like in US convince the rural British public who had suffered similar to those in US, that their government was not working for them & immigrants from the other European Union countries were coming over & taking over their jobs. Similar to here in US on back of high turnout in rural Britain they drove up the vote count for Leave campaign vs the STAY vote in the cities to win the BREXIT vote. Long term we will have to look if any of the European populist parties like UKIP in Britain or National Front led by Marine Le Pen, or People's Party in Denmark, Five Start in Italy or Geert Wilder's Party for Freedom if elected how do they actually govern.

5. CONCLUSION

Trump's win was the perfect storm of several factors such as high white working class turnout, ignoring of the working class by politicians, lack of enthusiasm among Democrats, Hillary unfavorability, moral licensing among white voters , etc. The question now is what is generally asked with about other populists: How many of the dozens of promises (many populist) that were made by Trump are going to be actually fulfilled in the next 4 years? Can President Trump can fulfill his promises on the jobs for the Rust Belt & middle America? If so it will go a long way to helping him getting reelected in 2020, but if nothing changes & people think that they got swindled by him like any other politician, they will throw him out like they have done to others before him.. Republicans who always do poorly in elections in the cities. Due to them faring poorly with minorities the changing demographics also hurts them long term. So they have to nurture & work for development of this working class who feels neglected because if they simply revert to championing neoliberal policies once again they might be at the receiving end of a serous hiding next time around.

For Democrats it isn't a lost cause as they lost an extremely close election where 110K votes could completely changed the outcome. Getting a candidate who excites their base plus championing policies that help all Americans including white working class will help them win. But they shouldn't rely too much on the just the changing demographics to win. 

Trump won by both tapping into anger among the working class people & simultaneously tapping into the underlying prejudiced subconsciousness of certain part of the electorate. There are for good reasons a lot of worries now regarding freedom of speech, press & religion, tolerance for minorities, authoritarianism, etc. Since now he is elected president he simply can't disavow what he said & called for on the campaign trail. I am not trying to be a Trump apologist here, but it would simply disingenuous for all those who opposed him to generalize & say that each & every one of the 60 million Americans who voted for him are dumb & simply racist which many have been saying over the past few days on social media.I agree that some % of his supporters are racist & nothing will change that but what the rest of us all who disagree with him & especially the politicians on both sides of the aisle need to understand is that what kind of situation including economic hardships, lack of jobs & opportunities would force some Americans vote for a person who displays all tendencies of demagoguery, xenophobia, nativism, authoritarianism & has big red flags in both personal behavior & business. Even if the economy improves in the next few years, adding a lot more jobs this problem  is not going to magically vanish into thin air. With ever increasing automation & digitization day by day more low income - low skilled jobs are going to disappear in the next few years leading to more angst among the working class in general. If these issues are not addressed there is a risk of all out class warfare between the upper class & the working class in the future which could even bring to the front a populist person more dangerous than Donald Trump.

REFERENCES:

1. Judis, John B.. The Populist Explosion: How the Great Recession Transformed American and European Politics

2. Washington Post

3. NY Times

4. FiveThirtyEight

5. Malcolm Gladwell: Revisionist History 

6. BBC NEWS

U.S. Presidential Election 2016

So finally the 2016 US presidential election is upon us which seems in hindsight light years away from the actual start of campaigning in early 2015. This marathon has proven to be one hell of a ride for not only the actual candidates but also for the electorate, politicians & media alike. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie would have been hard pressed to write a script long enough which would match all the twists & turns that this presidential campaign has taken over past 1.5 years. With the unconventional nature of campaign this time around compared to past campaigns mostly courtesy of Mr. Trump, many people have simply thrown their hands up at trying to predict what happens on Nov 8th. As you all might already know by now that I for sure am not one of those people trying to shy away from putting on my psephologists hat & trying to predict the outcome of this election. Compared to my previous blogs on elections I have purposely tried to wait as long as possible to collect the most information possible to account for the now daily shocks & twists in the campaign. With so many of them coming on a frequent basis you never know if there is just another one lurking around the corner ready to pop right up just before the election.

As you most of you very well know that the system in US presidential election is of electoral college. By winning a state & you get all of it's electoral college votes (except Maine & Nebraska where it's split by districts). Electoral votes assigned to each state are proportional to the population of that state  vs nationally. With 538 total electoral votes the magic number for each candidate is 270.

So let's begin with the obvious blue state electoral counts for Clinton vs red state electoral count for Trump which is 223 for Clinton & 158 for Trump. The ones in grey are tossup states which I shall categorize in various sub categories that I shall describe in more detail.
 

FAIRLY SOLID LEAN RED OR BLUE

All of  these states are classified as tossups but are truly fairly solid Democratic such as Michigan, Colorado & Pennsylvania or fairly solid Republican like Utah , Arizona & Georgia. Let's examine all of them one by one

Michigan: This has been a solid blue state  that hasn't gone for Republican since 1988 for George W Bush. Trump is hoping to capitalize with the disenchantment with white low income union workers who have seen their jobs dwindle over the years due to Recession & shipping of manufacturing jobs to overseas. This might be the best bet for Trump to break the Midwest Blue Wall of Democrats as he is more far behind in Wisconsin & Minnesota. With the recent reports of lower turnout among African Americans in this state where they make up sizable chunk of the population due to lack of enthusiasm this might put the state within margin of error of being won by Trump but at the end of the day Democrats should hold their lead here & win the state by a smaller than usual but safe margin.

Colorado: This state has gradually tuned towards the Democrats over the past 2 cycles & with the change in demographics with the Latino population plus the electorate getting younger due to influx of young millennials this seems like another stretch for Trump to win. Polls getting close here could simply be attributed to tightening of polls all over the country.

Pennsylvania: This is a unique state where it can easily chopped into 2 divergent states to understand it better. First there is Pittsburgh & Philadelphia which account for most of the state's population & then there is the rural Pennsylvania in between which is solidly Republican. Many times the election here comes down to suburbs of Philadelphia among the white working class college educated voters. Republican strategists for several of the past presidential cycles have talked about capturing Pennsylvania but it remains "fool's gold" for them. With Trump doing poorly among white college educated women Trump campaign has put Ivanka last month & again in coming days (one of their best female surrogates) to talk to the base in the Philly suburbs to boost the turnout in usually solidly Republican stronghold. If Trump loses among these voter as badly as he is doing right now in the polls in these suburbs it is "game, set, match" for him here are impossible to overcome with gains in rural Pennsylvania. Due to the strategic importance of this state the Clinton's & Obama's are ending their campaign on Monday night in Philly to ensure there is no enthusiasm gap on Tuesday. With no early voting in this state the result here depends all on single day turnout on Nov 8th.

Georgia: Currently polls show Clinton down by just 2 or 3 points in Georgia which Democrats think can be easily overcome come election day. Earlier Clinton when was up big nationally after the release of  the infamous Access Hollywood tape, this state became close for a while leading Democrats to think that it was suddenly winnable, but even then it looked like a stretch to me. With the now widely reported lack of enthusiasm among African Americans it looks like a fantasy for Clinton to win here unless college educated Republicans suddenly decided to stay home.

Utah: This is one of the most fascinating states due to an independent challenger here called Evan McMullin of whom you probably never heard of before. He has made this a rare three way race in presidential politics. He is a former CIA officer & lifelong Republican who is contesting as independent & as an alternative for the conservatives who can't bring themselves around to voting for Trump .Many Mormons (who make majority in Utah) dislike Trump & along with other well educated whites have an option in voting for a conservative candidate other than Trump. But Trump is leading here currently with a small margin & belief is that McMullin is more of a "spoiler" candidate & enough conservatives will eventually come around to voting for Trump.

Arizona: Another one of the traditionally red states that "appeared" to be in play when Trump was losing badly in the polls but with Republicans eventually "coming home" to Trump looks kind of out of reach for Democrats. Even with the reported higher than usual Latino turnouts the early voting gives an edge to Republicans. Democrats are wishing for miracle that a massive turnout in Phoenix against controversial sheriff Joe Arpaio who is also is up for reelection on Nov 8 energizes the base (including Hispanics) enough to come out & vote in huge number also giving them an outside chance in winning the state for Hillary. With the changing demographics & rising voting eligible Latino population this will however be a swing state & future flip for Democrats.

So going back to the map the count is now 268 for Clinton 191 for Trump.

With Clinton virtually at the magic 270 number she needs to only win one more of the true swing states while Trump has to "run the table" & win each & every one of them. Many in the media have called this scenario for Trump (which by the way the poker aficionados will love) is "drawing to a  straight".

SLIGHT LEAN RED OR BLUE

Iowa: Obama twice won Iowa by healthy margins but this time around the Trump is ahead both in the polls & early voting. With Iowa having one of the highest % of Whites in the country, plus the % of Whites with college degrees being one of the lowest this seemed like a natural pickup for Trump who is resonating with the non college educated white folk in Iowa.

New Hampshire: New Hampshire is one of the most quirkiest swing states out there which usually has a mind of it's own. They don't follow any pattern or trend that other states follow nationally every election cycle. Polling has consistently shown Clinton up by a big margin. However with the polls now showing a closer race I wouldn't call it a tossup just yet & expect to see a narrow Clinton victory here.

Ohio: Ohio has been called the "bellwether" state of US presidential elections with it not voting for a winner just once in 1960 over the past 68 years. With the closing down of factories in the Rust Belt & shipping of jobs overseas Trump's strong anti trade & anti immigration message has resonated very well not only among core Republicans but also among life long union blue collar Democrats. Many Ohioans are looking for jobs to revitalize their towns devastated by globalization & Great Recession. They are ready to vote for Trump while putting aside many of Trump's personal failings & scandals. Hillary & her surrogates have been pushing hard to steer it towards her but it might well a lost cause right now as the early voting trends show here Trump to be ahead. Since this is the prototypical state where Trump should be favored to win if on election day it starts to trend towards Hillary then you can call the election as done for Trump.

Nevada: Nevada is another classic "bellwether" state of US presidential elections with it not voting for a winner just once in 1976 over the past 100 years. (Yes you read it right One Hundred years ). Election in Nevada is decided by the difference of votes in Clark County which has Las Vegas & rest of rural Nevada. Many times this tie is so small that the outcome depends on the swing county of Washoe county (which houses Reno). According to Jon Ralston the guru of polling in Nevada the Democrats have built up huge 70K+ lead in early voting in Nevada matching the leads seen in 2012 when Obama won the state comfortably. He has said that with leads in both Clark & Washoe counties it could game over for GOP in Nevada.

With Clinton now over the 270 the question now remains as the margin of victory in Electoral college. This leaves me with the 2 truly tossup states that are very hard for me to call.

VIRTUAL TOSSUPS

NORTH CAROLINA: North Carolina used to be a solid Republican state since the South tuned over to Republicans around 50 years ago. Exceptions were Jimmy Carter in 1976 who was a Southerner & in 2008 when Obama with his coalition was able to breach the Republican wall in this state. Obama won the state by extremely small margin in 2008 & lost of Romney in 2012. With the changing demographics & influx of young population in Raleigh Durham & Charlotte this has turned into the quintessential purple swing state. State could break either way on Nov 8 but due to the early voting numbers favoring Republicans + lower early voting numbers among African Americans (who form a significant % of the population out there ) & recent polls showing Trump in slight lead we can give the state to Trump with a narrow victory.

FLORIDA : This is the most classic & famous of them all swing states. There are so many factors & swings in vote both ways that this make predicting this state usually hard as always. A larger share of older population of retirees should vastly favor Trump but the anti Mexican rants by Trump make the Latino vote interesting as many solidly Cuban Americans who in earlier generation were life long Republicans their kids might just not be voting for Trump. Northern part of state is Republican while southern part of the state is Democratic with the swing I-4 corridor (Tampa to Orlando) in between which usually decides the outcome of the election. Based on the reporting from the ground in Florida & early voting trends which are favoring Republicans right now. However this could easily end as nail biter like in 2000 but at least for Clinton who has other paths to victory presidency doesn't totally depend on winning Florida.

Finally I did give the 3rd district in Maine to Trump who has a good shot there due to demographics.

This bring us to final count of 278 for Hillary & 260 for Trump.
It looks like Clinton right now on track to win the election by 3-4% nationally in the popular vote.

Giving Florida & North Carolina to Trump will make the final map look more close in terms of electoral college but if Florida & North Carolina break other way for Hillary it would make it an easy win for Hillary (323 electoral votes) somewhat similar to the Obama 2012 margin (332 electoral votes). If we have a sort of repeat of 2012 it might just be a a big letdown for some after all that has happened in last 4 years & promises of change in electoral map in this cycle,

Trump has to not only win the regular red states but also all of the swing states like North Carolina, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Iowa, New Hampshire & one more large blue state. His margin of error right now is non-existent. Clinton on other hand can either simply play defense in all places where she is ahead or go on offense & by simply winning any one of the swing states that I mentioned above make it virtually impossible for Trump to win.
Trump is polling within margin of error in many of the swing states. Even If Trump can close the gap in these swing states he won't automatically be on track for a win as most people forget in the all the hoopla about polls & trends that you also need to have the voter go out to the poll booth & cast his vote. In a tied race Hillary's vastly superior ground game (to Trump's non existent one) might just  make the difference. These precious additional votes could make the difference in swing states which could be won by razor thin margins. Trump absence of a ground game will hurt him to "close the deal" in the states where enthusiasm simply won't carry him over the finish line.

BJP needs more “Chai pe charka” not “Gai per charcha”

So Bihar did manage to throw a huge surprise this past Sunday. The surprise wasn’t the victory of Nitish & Lalu’s “Mahagathbandhan “ but rather the huge margin of victory over BJP led NDA coalition. They achieved a staggering 2/3 majority with an astronomical 8 % difference in vote share.  More on the BJP drubbing later but my first words will be spent on the victors.

Nitish probably took the gamble of his life by breaking away from BJP when it installed Modi as its prime ministerial candidate around 2 years ago. He did manage to survive a wipeout in the national elections of 2014 when BJP rode to power on backs of Modi’s sheer persona & smart alliances with Ram Vilas Paswan’s LJP & Upendra Kushwaha’s RLSP. A three cornered fight (with Lalu & Congress) meant that NDA captured 32 of 41 Lok Sabha seats. Battling for political survival he did the unthinkable, joined hands with his arch enemy Lalu Prasad Yadav to remain in power. Joining hands with Congress the 3 parties assuming their votes transferred had a numerical strength greater than NDA. This ensured that the anti-BJP vote which had highly splintered during the Lok Sabha elections had coalesced around a single “Mahagathbandhan “ candidate ensuring a numerical superiority for them. A lot of Muslim majority seats during Lok Sabha elections had gone to BJP as the voters didn’t know which Muslim candidate was the best one to support. This issue also disappeared with this Grand Alliance being formed.  This massive vote for the alliance is thumps up from Bihar’s electorate to the development which has occurred under Nitish’s rule in past 10 years despite the BJP’s constant reminders to people that Bihar will return to “Jungle Raj” with Lalu in tow. This is in stark contrast to the so called “lost decade” of Bihar under Lalu & his wife Rabri Devi where the state basically stagnated. The only downside for Nitish in this verdict is that Lalu RJD now has won more seats than Nitish’s JD (U). Biggest priority for Nitish is to keep Lalu’s family at arm’s length from all affairs of state. Already there are rumors of Lalu preparing his son to be installed as heir apparent with a demand for deputy chief minister’s position. Lalu having gained majority of seats by delivering his Muslim-Yadav vote is going to surely demand his so called “pound of flesh”.  He has gone on record saying that he won’t interfere but there can be no guarantees with Lalu. His party members having returned to power after so long will want to have a say in day to day affairs of the government.   The bigger challenge for Nitish is not how to take Bihar forward but rather how to prevent RJD from messing up the huge mandate given to them. In today’s modern age India’s electorate has become not only aspirational & well informed but also restless as seen from several elections over last few years. There is absolute no benefit of doubt given & the new mantra is “perform or perish”. You can argue all you want about castes & alliances but with the young population (median age of 27) that is going to slowly become less important over time with increasing % of youth voters being eligible to vote in every new election cycle. The question on everyone’s mind is that how long this marriage of necessity between two polar opposites can continue before ego & ambitions get in the way & a divorce. The government’ success will depend more on the whims & demands on Lalu more than the man in power Nitish Kumar.

Now taking up the same point of “perform or perish” Modi has to realize that if he is not able to do any reforms & deliver growth he is will be on the chopping block in 2019 if people don’t feel that they are not better off than what they were in 2014. The smart alliances he & Amit Shah formed in 2014 were highly successful in multi-cornered fights in several states benefitting from the “first past the post” system. But they would to do well to remember that even with the massive 330+ majority in Lok Sabha as my earlier blog had pointed out that they only received 38% of the vote. This is essential means that if the remaining 60% can put aside their differences & get tighter they can in essence turn the tables & rout BJP. For e.g. if Mulayam (SP), Congress & Mayawati (BSP) join forces in UP they can ensure that BJP has no way to form the next government in 2017. Bigger question is that if arch enemies Mayawati & Mulayam can see eye to eye. But in politics as it happened with Lalu & Nitish you never say never. Many other states with elections upcoming the non-BJP parties are kicking the tires of teaming up like they did in Bihar which would be very bad news for BJP led NDA. BJP can’t the pin he loss completely on “wrongly counting the social arithmetic of Mahagathbandhan”. This can’t account for the 8% vote share gulf between both the alliances which was just 5% in Lok Sabha & that too was with counting Jita Ram Manjhi supporters in the Mahagathbandhan alliance versus NDA today.  Sure the BJP led NDA alliance did start with a 5% deficit/disadvantage but they themselves scored “ so many own goals”. One of the major ones was not projecting a well-recognized leader like Sushil Kumar Modi to counteract Nitish Kumar. Modi’s promise of progress & development didn’t strike a chord with the hearts & minds of Biharis who already have seen progress in their state under Nitish. So with Modi’s USP of development not seem to be working in the first couple of phases BJP turned to older policy of Hindutva to consolidate the Hindu vote to BJP’s side. Talk of beef ban, advertisements of a woman hugging a cow & firecrackers being burst in Pakistan if BJP lost probably ended up hurting BJP more with some fence sitters & minorities flocking to Mahagathbandhan thus ensuring that rout was on. Mohan Bhagwat’s comments about rethink on reservation would have spooked some of the OBC’s & EBC’s from supporting any of the Paswan & Manjhi’s candidates which would explain their drubbing in these polls. Nitsh also taking a page from Modi’s book turned the battle vs. Modi into a Bihar vs “Bahari” battle for Bihar’s pride. Anymore remembers Modi’s “ Gujarati asmita” jibe at “Bahari” Sonia Gandhi when she came to rallies in Gujarat during assembly elections?

This massacre in Bihar has put a kobosh on any hopes that Modi had of capturing majority in the Rajya Sabha. The next few assembly elections in Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Punjab & UP cant’ swing the arithmetic in favor of BJP a lot as BJP has very little presence in many of those states. Even if it can score victories in some of them the makeup of Rajya Sabha won’t change till the very end of his term. I am not sure if he wanted the campaign to go negative to this extent in the first place but now is the time for course correction. He doesn’t see eye to eye with opposition over several bills & issues. To move forward he will require their assistance on passing anything in Rajya Sabha. There could be common ground formed on bills such as GST Bill (Goods & Services Bill) with Congress who introduced it when they were in power. He will have to forget about more controversial reforms like Land Acquisition Bill which looks absolutely dead in the water.  Until now he has used the massive 2014 mandate for him as a sort of “my way or highway” blank check to push through his vision of reform agenda. He needs to now compromise & get consensus to move forward. After all governance is also about getting along with opposition to find a way to pass legislation. He still has 3.5 years left on his clock before next election & if things don’t improve the electorate will throw him out of power as easily as they elected him. Ministers like Mahesh Sharma, VK Singh, Giriraj Kishore and others have embarrassed the government with their remarks on the Dadri killing, the killing of Dalits in Haryana and the beef controversy - which has deflected attention away from all the positives that the government has done until now. All the oxygen in the media is being consumed by these daily controversies generated by just a few individuals who are giving free talking points to the opposition to relentlessly attack the government.  Modi has uptil now refrained from calling out these individuals publicly but he needs to send a strong message by dropping these MP’s from the cabinet. This will send out an unambiguous message to all party members especially all the hotheads that no rabble rousing or diversion of the growth agenda with irresponsible statements will be tolerated any longer.

Modi shepherded the NDA coalition to huge majority in the 2014 general election on his promise of growth & development & making the life of common man better who suffered under massive price rise, corruption & lack of opportunities under UPA-II. He was able to tap into the aspirations of millions of youth & swing voters with his image of being a reformer & skilled administrator which lead to prosperity in Gujarat. Even several minority voters who had never voted for BJP gave him a chance to help improve their lives. However the fringe element in the BJP has completely taken over airwaves with their illogical & insensitive statements. This is alienating the same voters who propelled Modi’s to victory in 2014. This along with the closing of ranks among opposition parties as seen in Bihar will wipe out all of the gains from 2014. Modi has to take charge & regain control of the message that has gone completely sideways since May 2014 or he risks being a one-time PM. After all what drove the masses to vote for BJP was development & not beef. On a lighter note the joke doing the rounds on social media after Bihar results were that people not cows vote. What Modi & BJP desperately needs more is “Chai pe charka” & not “Gai per charcha”.

Who will win the Republican nomination for 2016 election & who is the best bet for Republicans in 2016

Let me begin by saying that I am not a Republican supporter. Putting on my psephologists/analyst’s hat I shall try to predict the Republican nominee for 2016 presidential election. The job of predicting who will win is difficult based on 2 factors.  One is that today the Republican stage is more crowded that the 405 freeway in LA in rush hour on a Friday. Out the 17 original candidates, 15 brave ones are still left standing with 2 of them: Rick Perry & Scott Walker having bitten the dust. 2nd factor is that in the last round in 2012 all the major candidates from Newt Gingrich to Herman Cain to Rick Perry to Rick Santorum lead at one point making the final outcome not know until well into the primary season.

To analyze this field which is as large as the Duggar family we have to begin with the elephant in the room, current front runner Donald Trump. He has successfully managed to tap into the anger & paranoia of the right wing Tea party members with his with constant stream of xenophobic & racist statements. He might win over the fringe elements of Republican Party blaming all the ills of this country on Mexico or China. But it is not going to win him any independent or Democratic support come November 2016. He has been very short on policy & vague on specifics. His popularity numbers were what I felt like the seasonality temperature variations, rising as the summer wore on peaking in July & August & now starting to cool down as fall sets in. Opponents have constantly attacked him for his past history & statements regarding his belief in conservatism. As more skeletons fall out of the closet it will start to chip away in his poll numbers which have declined recently. He will simply be an entertaining sideshow by the time primaries are in full swing next year. Question is not when goes down but does he go down kicking & screaming sinking the Republican boat with him or not.

Ben Carson is neck & neck with Trump in the polls as of today. He doesn’t seem to have the aura of a candidate who appears presidential. Even though has raised a lot of money recently he hasn’t been able to articulate any policy point well. He appears too laid back to make it through the tough grind of the primary. After 8 years of presidential rule by an African American in the White House not sure if the white base of the party want another one for 4 more years.

Carly Fiorina has surged in the polls back of 2 excellent debate performances. But she is constantly hampered by her record at H-P where she was the boss from 1999 till she was fired by board in 2005. The issue of 30K people being let go at H-P during her during her tenure at H-P is like the 800 pound gorilla she can’t get off her back. According to recent Yahoo article she has even failed to get the tech crowd in Silicon Valley with the possibility of a technocrat in the White House who can help them on a myriad of issues. She has opposed net neutrality, came out against patent reform & comprehensive immigration reform, ideas dear to many in Silicon Valley. It is no wonder that she has found very little support from Valley crowd defending her record at H-P. Her most memorable line at the Reagan library debate which won her a lot of plaudits about a Planned Parenthood fetus video at the debate was later found out to be non-existent. She was grilled about this on the Sunday talk shows & I believe that this fib is going to hurt her more as this & more of what she has said gets scrutinized with her profile being more elevated now.

Ted Cruz was supposed to have been the flag bearer for the Tea Party in this election cycle. His best bet was to corner the Tea Party vote & hope that the remaining vote would be divided among the establishment Republicans driving him to the candidacy. His thunder as so many others has been completely stolen by loud mouth Donald Trump. His positions have been deemed too extreme not only by Democrats but also by establishment Republicans like shutting down government in 2013 which did rather than good to the Republican Party. He has jointly appeared with Trump in the rally against the Iran deal as he knows that his only shot right now is for Trump to win the nomination & put him on the ticket along him for vice president.

Jeb Bush is simply weighed down by the family name. There is certain fatigue to having a 3^rd Bush in the White House in the last 3 decades. He has a solid lead in raising money due to his family name & lack of any other well-known establishment candidates. The longer the campaign goes it is to his advantage that other candidates drop out due to money issues so that he coalesce the Republican establishment vote around him. But his campaign seems to be stuck in perpetual 2nd gear with his lack of being able to beat of attacks from Trump & being unable to push back at other candidates. His vacillating on some major questions many of which frankly he should have been better prepared to answer like for e.g. the obvious question of his support for Iraq war which his brother started. Despite these challenges he is still the odds on favorite to win due to the huge fund raising & establishment support advantage. Whether he can drive all of this to conclusion however remains to be seen.

Chris Christie was thought as being the bully in this race who was going to take on every one of his Republican & Democratic opponents with his no holds barred approach. This was all before Trump entered the race. Like Ted Cruz he also has been overshadowed by Trump. Thus with his USP/distinguishable point being taken away he is just another middle of the pack candidate. If he ever manages to rise in the polls his opponents will be sure to dig up “Bridgegate” case which hasn’t implicated him in any wrongdoing but refuses to die.

Mike Huckabee & Rick Santorum are still stuck in the Bush era years where they think that pandering to the evangelical vote is going to help them cruise to the candidacy.  Social issues are a much smaller issues than 10 – 15 years ago which is seen from the complete reversal in position for issues like support for gay marriage. Even this dwindling evangelical vote is going to be split amongst both of them leaving both of these guys with no hope.

John Kasich has been touting that he has a track record of being in power in both Congress & a governor in an important swing state. But with such a crowded field unless he has an amazing persona or says something ridiculous he is never going to stand out & gain any traction in the polls.

Rand Paul with his libertarian agenda including legalizing marijuana & wanting less involvement overseas militarily makes him persona non grata with half of the Republican voters making him a longshot to clinch the nomination.

Bobby Jindal, Lindsey Graham, John Gilmore & George Pataki are polling <1% which makes one wonder why they are even in the race as they border on being nonexistent. They are simply burning their supporter’s hard earned money on worthless cause. The best they can do right now is get on the secondary debate stage. No one evens looks remotely likely to be in consideration for even the vice president position.

This leaves us with the last choice which some of you might have guessed by now.

Before we go to that here let’s delve into some of the demographic numbers from past elections. The % of white vote in elections peaked at 89% in 1976 (Ford – Carter) & remained around 85% till 1992 (Bush – Clinton). However from 1996 election onwards it has declined by 3-4% every election cycle reaching a historic low of 72% in 2012. 2016 election will see it dip below 70% for the first time ever in history. This makes the Republican strategy of only pandering to white voters not the winning formula. Republicans are alienating a big portion of the expected 30% nonwhite vote with their anti-immigrant rhetoric. George Bush did manage to win 44 % of the Hispanic vote in 2004 while Mitt Romney only won 27%. This election cycle one can safely assume that longer Trump stays in the race that it will go more lower. With these expected headwinds on the non-white vote side, the Republican nominee has to win around 70% of the white vote to win the presidency. These are staggering numbers which are really hard to reach considering history. Even the Republican demi-god Ronald Raegan could only win 66% of the white vote. That’s why after the last election cycle the mantra of Republican strategists was to expand the Republican base among Hispanics & African Americans & other races. Nonwhite voters are so solidly with Democrats that the Democratic nominee would probably get away with just winning 40% of the white vote. 

Talking of party affiliation, around 45% of voters lean Republican while another 45% lean Democrat. The remaining 10% who are truly independent is where elections are lost or won. Last few elections the margin of victory is 2-4%. The true battle come November 2016 is for this 10%. So the Republican candidate can’t lean so far right to turn off this constituency which is very crucial to winning the election. He has to be neither too much to the center to alienate the Tea Party.

Coming to the last of these 15 candidates is Marco Rubio bests fits with the above criteria to win. He is neither as extreme as some of the Tea party backed candidates like Ted Cruz or Donald Trump while definitely not being a moderate establishment Republican like Jeb Bush. He can walk this fine line leading him to appeal to both sides of the Republican Party.  His Hispanic roots can appeal to the Hispanic voter base to vote for him. I am not saying that he needs to advocate amnesty for illegal immigrants but if he can put forward some sort of immigration policy that Hispanics & other immigrant communities can be ok with he will make huge inroads into this vote bank. He was after all a member of the “Gang of Eight” senators who tried unsuccessfully to reform immigration in 2013. George Bush fought with members in Congress & Senate unsuccessfully trying to reform the immigration policy. It didn’t help him win many plaudits from the right but it certainly helped him win two elections. His biggest challenge will however be fighting a compatriot from his own state of Florida: Jeb Bush. Since he is up for reelection in 2016 in the Senate he is by default giving up his Senate seat. He might be very well fighting for his political survival as if he loses he might be pushed into political wilderness. Just ask John Edwards who no one remembers today but he essentially gave up his senate seat to be the ticket as the vice presidential candidate. His relative young age of 44 can help him appeal to the youth voters who are mostly with the Democrats. Assuming Hillary is the most likely Democratic candidate a dream Republican ticket would be Rubio & Carly. This would help them check off all the boxes that a Republican needs to be successful in the general election: appeal to Hispanics, young voters & women (with Carly acting as a counterweight against Hillary). This might not help them score wins over the Democrats these categories but chip away enough votes in these categories to neutralize the Democrats solid advantage in these categories.

Looking at the betting odds Jeb Bush would seem the presumptive Republican nominee right now. However polling wise top 3 candidates are non-establishment candidates: Trump, Carly & Carson who I believe will slowly fade out over time leaving the door open for others. Rubio is very close behind them in the polls for now quietly lurking to surge forward when others fall to the wayside. Don’t discount also the extreme possibility of no one getting enough votes heading into the Republican convention to clinch the nomination thus setting up the stage for a brokered convention. That could work to Rubio’s advantage as he could easily appeal to both sides of the party as a compromise candidate whom they could get behind. He doesn’t get the publicity like other candidates but to be fair most of the oxygen in terms of media coverage is being sucked up by Trump. To conclude I strongly believe now that Rubio would be the winner of the Republican nomination & also the best bet for Republicans come November 2016.