SCHWEIKART: Democrats Are in Worse Shape than Even They Think

Warnings — or, in some cases, celebrations — that the Democrats are on the verge of a disastrous collapse have been growing more frequent recently.

Since the election, Rush Limbaugh has been hammering the point that the campaign has only continued — and extended the trend set in 2010, when Democrats lost the House.

Since then, Democrats have lost 1200 national and statewide seats. And earlier this week, Stewart Lawrence, writing in the Daily Caller, and picking up on a study by the centrist “Third Way” think tank, noted that the Democrats are now almost exclusively a coastal party, with a couple of lone interior outposts such as Chicago and Minneapolis.

According to the study, while Hillary Clinton beat Trump in California, New York and Massachusetts by 30%, Trump won the rest of the states by 52-48%.

Some 32 state legislatures are in Republican hands, but in only five states do Democrats control both houses of the legislature and the governor’s mansion. And, as many (including Lawrence) note, in 2018 the Democrats must defend 10 U.S. Senate seats in states that Trump won.

Meanwhile, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, once thought dead in the water, won re-election in 2016, as did John McCain in Arizona, despite the fact that many conservatives, sick of his antics, voted for the Democrat. If the left can’t win these seats — the most low-hanging of fruit — where can they win?

The fact is, although we now know the polls were horribly wrong, Trump’s victory was quite small compared to what it might have been. Consider:

• Maine (4 electoral votes) went to Clinton 3-1 (with CD 2 going to Trump) by just under 22,200 votes. Libertarian Gary Johnson took 38,000. Most analysts agree that he disproportionately took from Trump.
• New Hampshire (4 electoral votes) was carried by Clinton by a mere 2,800 votes. Johnson took 30,000.
• Minnesota (10 electoral votes) saw Trump make a very strong surge. Richard Baris, of People’s Pundit Daily polling — the most accurate poll in the election — told me that on Election Day itself, outside of Minneapolis Trump won the state 2-to-1. But early voting, much of it coming during the Access Hollywood tape, gave Clinton the state by 44,000 votes.
• Virginia (13 electoral votes) was Clinton’s by 212,000, but 200,000 criminals were allowed to vote. Johnson and independent candidate Evan McMullen siphoned off 172,000 votes.
• New Mexico (5 electoral votes) fell to Clinton by 65,600 votes, with Johnson taking 74,000. This was a state where Johnson’s presence very easily could have cost Trump the win.
• Nevada (6 electoral votes): Clinton won by 27,000, and Johnson took 37,000.
• Colorado (9 electoral votes):Trump lost by 136,000 and Johnson took 144,000 with McMullen another 28,000.

Trump lost these seven states by a total of 510,000 votes — shifting 51 electoral votes and narrowly denying him a massive landslide territory. The “flip factor” — what is needed to reverse the decision — was a mere 260,000 votes. Trump gained 290,000 votes more than Romney in Pennsylvania alone between 2012 and 2016.

In short, the fake news media is missing a much larger story: that the Democrats are teetering on the edge of an abyss that could see them utterly wiped out in 2018 and 2020.

Larry Schweikart is the c<o-author, with Breitbart News’ Joel Pollak, of the new book, How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery.