“If a candidate has ever been inevitable—for the nomination—it is Mrs. Clinton today,” the New York Times’ Nate Cohn declared early this year. “Hillary is probable, but no longer inevitable,” the Los Angeles Times’ David Horsey inferred months later. Polling guru Nate Silver nodded along with that assessment, giving Clinton an 85 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination. “The general election is a whole different story,” he cautioned.

PredictWise, which synthesizes data from pollsters and various betting markets, currently gives Clinton a 69 percent chance of winning the Democratic nomination and a 42 percent chance of becoming president. She has a better chance of being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017, than anyone else in the race (Joe Biden and Jeb Bush are tied for second at 12 percent each). There’s no denying that Clinton has a good shot at becoming America’s 45th president. But her high probability of winning the White House begs the question: How could Clinton blow it?


As the Democrats prepare to debate in Las Vegas—the first real test of the candidates’ mettle—Politico Magazine put that question to the experts. With Vice President Biden playing footsie with a run and Bernie Sanders nipping at Hillary’s heels in the early states, we asked the sharpest political minds around to consider what it would take to derail Clinton’s campaign—both for the nomination and the general election. The threats they foresee for the “inevitable” nominee are collected below.

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‘She loses if enough Democrats conclude she can’t win.’

By Jeff Greenfield, five-time Emmy-winning network television analyst and author.

Could Hillary Clinton lose the nomination? Put aside “Black Swan” matters—illness, injury, family crisis, revelation of disqualifying scandals—and she loses if enough Democrats conclude she can’t win. If it’s still true that “The Party Decides,” doubts that grow among “the party” would give the one credible challenger, Biden, a compelling argument should he enter the race. (See my piece in The Daily Beast to this effect.) Remember, back in 2008, one of the less-remembered but critical factors in the primary was the willingness of prominent Democratic women—Gov. Napolitano, Gov. Sebelius, Sen. McCaskill, Caroline Kennedy—to back Obama over Clinton. If an “I love her but she can’t win” sentiment builds to the point that the gender card becomes less important, that could be fatal.

Could she lose in November? To borrow from Donald Rumsfeld, there are lots of “known unknowns” here—direction of the economy, Obama’s approval ratings, consumer confidence, international crises—and perhaps the biggest one: Who will turn out? The Democrats supposedly have a big advantage in presidential years because “their” voters—blacks, Hispanics, younger voters—turn out. But have the past eight years been kind to younger voters economically? (They voted for Obama in 2012 by reduced margins.) Will blacks turn out in higher percentages than whites, as they did in 2012, if an African-American is not on the ticket? And could Clinton lose whites by even bigger margins than Obama did? Current numbers say she could. Even marginal shifts could turn states red (Obama won Florida by less than 1 percent; Ohio by less than 3).

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‘Bernie Sanders has to be taken seriously, but not so seriously that he pushes [Clinton] to the left.’

By Stephanie Cutter, deputy campaign manager for Barack Obama’s 2012 campaign.

It’s hard to see how Hillary Clinton can lose the nomination. She’s got tremendous support in the party, discipline, the organization and the money to stand the test of the primary process. Bernie Sanders has to be taken seriously, but not so seriously that he pushes her to the left. She has to stand her ground on her record and her beliefs, and the debates will be a real test of that.

Elections are about choices, and as long as Hillary makes it a choice over our economic future, then she’ll win the general election. Republicans have to carry four states that Obama won twice. Those states are only getting more diverse each election cycle, and there’s not one Republican in the top tier that’s not on the wrong side of issues like immigration, gay marriage, climate change and middle-class prosperity. That will matter, if the election is about issues, and not emails and servers.

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‘Clinton appears to have wrapped up … the nomination months ago.’

By Jonathan Bernstein, political scientist and Bloomberg View columnist covering U.S. politics.

Hillary Clinton appears to have wrapped up the support of Democratic Party actors—and therefore the nomination—months ago. There’s no evidence so far of any change, and it would probably take something catastrophic for her to give back a nomination she’s already won. Yes, the enthusiasm among some Democrats for Bernie Sanders is real, but no more real than Howard Dean’s support in 2004, which wound up with him winning exactly one state. If something unexpected does happen to Clinton, Joe Biden has positioned himself well for the role of understudy.

As for the general election, candidates just aren’t as important as “fundamentals,” such as the condition of the economy, whether people think the president is doing a good job and (perhaps) the small disadvantage for a party after two terms in the White House. By next fall, we’ll probably have gone through three or more cycles of Hillary Clinton scandals that Republicans and some in the media will be sure to finish her off, but in reality, voters will be affected a lot more by whether their paychecks are steady and steadily larger—or not. As of now, the general election is probably either a toss-up or perhaps slightly favors Republicans.

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‘The failure modes are almost too numerous.’

By Rick Wilson, Republican message and media strategist.

If you listen to Hillary Clinton’s people, the only ways she loses are exotic flukes:

1. A meteor slams into her motorcade.

2. A Lovecraftian Elder God arises from the depths of the Hudson, moseys over to Chappaqua and renders all and sundry blind and stricken with madness. (Bill may get there yet for other reasons we’ll skip that for a family news outlet.)

3. Her secret “I Heart The Koch Brothers” Tumblr is revealed.

4. Her “Molon Labe” tramp stamp is seen when she bends down to pick something up at the debate.

In reality, the failure modes are almost too numerous:

1. She keeps edging more and more left, chasing the Bernie dragon. In doing so she reaps little reward, but raises even more doubts about her integrity, her ideological malleability and her trustworthiness.

2. Email, email, email. At this point, a junior federal prosecutor from an indifferent law school could make (at the minimum) a perjury case. And with the evidence piling higher and higher as the FBI plods along, there will be a pain level when even Obama’s captive and corrupt Justice Department lackeys have to indict her.

3. Biden times it right, and reminds Democrats he’s the vice president to the One. It’s a tricky course for both. But, in short, a “Dad loves me more!” campaign is advantage Biden.

4. She get locked in the bad-news-bad-polls spiral and ends with a whimper, not a bang. Last time, every Hillary firewall fell (remember the super delegate firewall?) and the self-reinforcing cycle devoured her.

5. She keeps making prove-you’re-not-a-robot gaffes that make her seem weird, clunky and in need of the next round of “It’s a whole new Hillary!” reboot spin that produces the same old Hillary, over and over.

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‘Joe Biden entering the race almost exclusively damages Hillary Clinton.’

By Carrie Sheffield, Forbes contributor and senior writer at Opportunity Lives.

Polls show that Joe Biden entering the race almost exclusively damages Hillary Clinton—Bernie Sanders remains almost untouched. Biden’s got many of the soft skills Clinton lacks in public: charisma, humor and approachability. He would also leverage the sympathetic media boost he’d get by jumping in to fulfill his dying son’s wish that his father run for president. Biden would also likely inherit much of the Obama organizing team, which provides him a turnkey, sophisticated campaign infrastructure. The Obama-Clinton party schism is well-known, a tussle between old vs. new guard, moderate left vs. further left. Clinton could very well lose if she cannot inspire her troops to successfully stave off a Biden challenge.

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‘Biden offers only a stylistic difference, not a substantive one.’

By Bill Scher, senior writer at the Campaign for America’s Future.

Hillary Clinton is essentially a lock for the Democratic nomination. She is way out in front in terms of campaign resources. Bernie Sanders’ uncompromising nature is fatal to the electability case (even “conviction” candidates like Barack Obama and Ronald Reagan shaded some rough edges in order to win). And Joe Biden offers only a stylistic difference, not a substantive one. That is a recipe for being pilloried as the embodiment of the glass ceiling.

Call me skeptical that there’s a shoe to drop in the Benghazi or email matters. Benghazi has already been thoroughly investigated. And the fact that the email server was not wiped indicates that there was no nefarious scheme to bury a scandal. (It may have been stupid to use a single private account, but that's not the same as scandalous.)

Our present view of the race—including the polling—is distorted because she is the only candidate on the receiving end of any sustained attacks at this early stage. That won't last.

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‘The idea that Clinton has ever been a significant general election favorite was and is off-base.’

By Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics, and Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

Anything can happen in politics. Heavy favorites lose—not often, but at least as frequently as a supermoon. Just on the Democratic side, we remember in 1972 when Ed Muskie was a lock for the presidential nomination, or, more recently, Hillary Clinton herself in 2008.

So we can all come up with anti-Hillary scenarios for 2016. She could face indictment or health problems, or the accumulated burden of two decades at the top of the heap might make her buckle. But this time Clinton’s advantages—her organization, her support from party leaders and her unique chance to make history—are towering. We still bet on her to become the standard-bearer, even if Joe Biden gets in and more so if he doesn’t. If despite all this, Clinton loses anyway, she will have squandered some of the biggest pluses any non-incumbent has had going into a modern nomination contest.

The general election is a different story: It’s anyone’s game, subject to the whims of the economy, world events and, of course, the choices of the two parties in the primaries. The idea that Clinton has ever been a significant general election favorite was and is off-base: While there are demographic trends moving in the Democrats’ favor, it’s not clear she can exploit them as well as Barack Obama did, and she has to combat a generic desire for change after eight years of a Democratic president in a political environment that may or may not be favorable to her.



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‘My bet: The Obamas right now want Biden to run.’

By Paul Goldman, former chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia.

Bernie Sanders has already won the Democratic race de facto since Hillary Clinton increasingly runs on his platform. Gone is Clinton’s Plan A, with Socialist Bernie as the perfect foil to position her as the moderate for the general election. Plan B has her taking ever wider left turns to stop Bernie’s drive in Iowa and New Hampshire. If Biden runs, this could prove a fatal mistake. Either way, look for Plan C: reinforcing her Southern firewall since the “experts” claim a 74-year-old white rural-state Jewish guy can’t play in Dixie. Having helped run Virginia Governor Doug Wilder’s historic campaigns, I say forget the gurus: A Sanders Iowa-New Hampshire victory two-fer, if leveraged correctly, will get a hearing on Southern Super Tuesday.

But after Super Tuesday, the race goes from winning primaries to amassing delegates. The party’s proportional delegate allocation formula makes a candidate with a solid delegate lead hard to catch. That’s Clinton’s Plan D. But this assumes Biden doesn’t run. If all three go the distance, no one will have a delegate majority after the primary season ends. Will Biden run? Never before has a sitting president, in either party, twice elected by a popular vote majority, been forced to sit in the Oval Office and listen to his party’s leading candidates break with him on so many key policies. The clear message: Biden, it ain’t Obama’s party no more. They are daring him to run as the most pro-Obama candidate. My bet: The Obamas right now want Biden to run. A case can be made that Biden owes it to the president, if not to the Delawarean’s own legacy.

General election history says Republicans win when they nominate a popular GOP Ohio governor for president. Several tickets—Kasich-Martinez, Kasich-Carson would be bold—right now could win 27 states with 259 electoral votes. This leaves 21 states, along with D.C., still solidly in the Democratic camp unless voting patterns significantly change. They total 257 electoral votes. Colorado is unallocated. But this means Virginia’s 13 electoral votes would decide the presidency. Could New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez flip her state or neighborly Nevada’s five electoral votes into the GOP camp? There is no reason to noodle it since the GOP seems determined to nominate the easiest possible ticket for Democrats to defeat.

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‘Her fate is in the hands of investigators and the resident of Number One Observatory Circle.’

By Sean Trende, senior elections analyst for RealClearPolitics.

Whether or not former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton becomes the Democratic nominee is largely out of her hands. This presents her with a good news/bad news situation. The good news is that her destiny is not in her current opponents’ hands either. As of this writing, she still seems on track to win Iowa, and even if Sen. Sanders were to pull off the unlikely upset there (and hold on in New Hampshire), she has something of a firewall with the heavily nonwhite Southern states that follow. Instead—and this is the bad news—her fate is in the hands of investigators and the resident of Number One Observatory Circle. This is what could derail her: additional unhelpful stories surfacing regarding her email server and a decision from Vice President Biden to enter the race. Even then, there would probably have to be additional shoes dropping, such as an indictment or a presidential endorsement of one of her opponents (a possibility that has been left open).

The general election is in many ways out of her hands as well. She has the necessary tools in place to run a winning campaign; she meets the basic threshold of credibility (this is untrue of some of her GOP opponents). But the president’s job approval and the state of the economy are not within her control, and both are critical data points for the general election. Right now both are mediocre, and point toward a close election. An uptick in these indicators would probably put the Clintons back in the White House. A downturn? She would probably have to root for Republican primary voters to give her a flawed opponent.

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‘What could knock her off would be were Biden to pledge serving only one term and announcing a ticket with Elizabeth Warren.’

By Mary Matalin, Republican political strategist.

Benghazi, Bernie nor the debates can stop Hillary Clinton from winning the nomination, given her lock on demographic cohorts in the states following Iowa and New Hampshire. What could knock her off would be were Biden to pledge serving only one term and announcing a ticket with Elizabeth Warren as vice president (with a stout portfolio, a la Dick Cheney). Though presumably, Clinton will be prepared for the debates and the hearings, if Biden announced with Warren immediately in their wake, all the dissatisfied Clinton Democrats could use either as their defector rationale.

Were the hand of providence to keep Bernie in and Biden out, we haven’t seen Clinton’s greatest weakness yet relative to what will be relevant, i.e., her GOP opponent.

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‘Two scenarios could take her down.’

By Douglas Schoen, founding partner and principal strategist for Penn, Schoen and Berland, and a former pollster for Bill Clinton.

There are two scenarios whereby Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House could be derailed—and the Republicans have control over only one of them.

Objectively, Clinton's favorability is down and her trust ratings are down further, but trust is only one dimension of how the American people pick a president. It follows that Clinton' s core support plus the Democrats’ demographic and Electoral College advantages are enough to make her the very real front-runner for both the nomination and election as the next president of the United States in the wake of Republican discord and disarray.

It follows that these two scenarios could take her down:

The first scenario, which the Republicans cannot control, is that there's some action in the email scandal by the Justice Department or FBI. For now, Clinton has managed to tread water on the issue and though she has lost support, it has not been enough to put her candidacy in jeopardy. She remains the front-runner, even when Joe Biden is thrown into the mix, and I don't foresee that changing.

The second scenario, which the Republicans have complete control over, is whether or not they unite behind a Rubio-Kasich ticket and develop a concerted and consistent message. The disarray that the Republicans find themselves in today is a product of their own doing. There is a clear path to the White House for a moderate ticket that upholds conservative values but accepts progress in social change and above all else touts a pro-growth agenda that will foster economic growth and a foreign policy vision that re-establishes American preeminence on the world stage.

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‘She won’t lose.’

Paul Begala, political analyst for CNN and counselor to former President Bill Clinton.

She won’t lose. Buy your dress for her inaugural ball.

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