Why I think Donald Trump will likely win in November.

Donald Trump. Gage Skidmore. 

I think that Donald Trump is going to win in November. To the point where I am confident enough to put money on it. Not a lot of money, mind you, but money nonetheless. I just think that Hillary Clinton's campaign has fallen apart spectacularly. And Trump's campaign is no longer screwing up. Of course, both of those things could change over time but here's the reasons why I think Trump's going to win:

1. People are less afraid to vote for Trump now after the convention. The media and the Democrats (and certain elements of the Republican Party) have claimed that Trump was a racist for almost a year now so people have been afraid to support him. But now that he has officially become the candidate for a major political party, people should be less afraid to do so. His actual positions haven't changed that much, but he's got a lot more credibility now. The idea is that if he is the candidate for a major political party, he can't possibly racist, which is admittedly poor logic. It's either that or people no longer think that accusations of racism are important

He's also shifted the Overton window of acceptable ideas. Right now criticism of immigration and disgust with terrorism have moved back into the spectrum of acceptable ideas. I think the knee jerk reaction that someone is racist if they dislike immigration or want to stop Muslims from entering the country is no longer there for much of the country. 

I also think that there a lot of people that are still Trump supporters. Many who live in liberal dominated areas, like the big cities, like Trump, but are still afraid being attacked for supporting him openly. You can see this when you see the discrepancy between phone polling, where a person has to answer questions directly, and anonymous online polling. The question is how much these voters will help Trump. What we don't know is where these people are and if they will actually vote. If they do vote they could obviously help Trump win.

2. Terrorism is insane right now. ISIS seems to be pulling off terrorist attacks in Europe almost daily now. Dozens of people are dying in Europe every couple of weeks and there have been attacks throughout the world, including the Pulse shooting in Florida. 

These attacks are likely to continue. And the chances of a spectacular assault seem to be greater everyday. Most of the attacks have been lone wolves attacking on their own, but some of these attacks have killed dozens in one strike, like the Nice truck attack. There will probably be at least one more attack of that scale before the November election, possibly more, and many more attacks where lone wolves kill or wound a few people as well. Even the Olympics are at risk. An ISIS terror plot there was just broken up by Brazilian authorities, but who knows if the risk has been reduced. 

This, of course, plays into Trump's narrative. With almost daily terror attacks his call to ban Muslims from countries with active terror networks from entering the country seems a lot more reasonable. As the attacks continue, and remember they are almost daily already, more and more people will be willing to admit they like the idea. 

And Hilary Clinton doesn't seem to have any response to ISIS at all. Her response is the same one that the left has been making for years now. We just need to be more tolerant to Muslims and then they won't attack us anymore. It's pretty obvious that they are wrong about that since they have been saying the same thing since 9/11, and it hasn't worked. With no credible alternative people will support Trump's plan.

3. Wikileaks. This was a curveball that nobody saw coming. Though everyone "knew" that the DNC wanted Clinton to win over Bernie Sanders, to see absolute proof of collaboration was shocking. It also showed obvious corruption and cooperation between the media and the DNC. It's obvious corruption and a huge scandal. 

The Bernie Sanders people are angry and with good reason. Not only did their party betray them in some cases they have essentially stolen their money. Money that they donated to Sanders, in some cases a significant part of their wealth, was handed over to the DNC after Sanders left the race. They were in it for a revolution but the revolution betrayed them. Many of them will not vote for Hillary Clinton in November, and I think many of them would have if it wasn't for this leak. 

And the Democrats have handled the scandal horribly. Very few heads have rolled for this scandal. Sure Debbie Wasserman Schultz was shown the door, but in an act of utter arrogance, she was hired by the Hillary Clinton campaign immediately. Surely the Clinton campaign understood the optics of the situation. The fact that they hired Schultz on even after the scandal shows that they simply don't care how bad things look. They are going to do whatever they want, whenever they want. That is not going to play well.

It's important to note that Wikileaks is not done leaking information. Just a little while ago Wikileaks posted leaked phone messages. I haven't had time to go through those but if you would like to do so, here it is: 

RELEASE: The DNC recordings https://t.co/OIv1xjpp6c #DNCLeak #DNCinPHL

Recordings: https://t.co/TTyre5UIOD

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 27, 2016

Who knows what else Wikileaks has? If they continue these leaks, and they continue to paint the DNC as a corrupt and biased organization, it will hurt Hillary Clinton. Even worse for her, they could post stuff about her directly. Julian Assange has said that he has information that will lead to Hillary Clinton's arrest. Though I doubt anything at this point would lead to a Hillary Clinton arrest, even if she out and out murdered sometone, anything very juicy will hurt her chances. Assange has kept his word in the past so depending on when this stuff drops it could be enough to cost Clinton the election alone.

4. The difference between the GOP convention and the Democrats one is stark. All it took was for Ted Cruz to not endorse Donald Trump for the GOP one to be declared a disaster. That seems almost quaint compared to what has happened so far at the Democrat's convention.  

The Bernie Sanders supporters made their case that they had been betrayed. They booed every mention of Hillary Clinton, demanded that she be locked up and even walked out when their needs weren't being addressed. There were skirmishes outside the convention and it's important to note that, as of this writing, the convention still has two day to go. Who knows what else will happen? Even if nothing does, it's clear that the damage has been done.

The choice of guests has been bad as well. Besides the vapid celebrities and musical guests, there hasn't really been any superstars that will connect with non-liberals. Some of those celebrity choices have been questionable at best. Comedian Sarah Silvermen insulted Sanders supporters to their face and Lena Dunham is a controversial person at best. After all she falsely accused someone of rape and also admitted to having inappropriate contact with her sister. These people are not going to connect with the average Americans.

Worst of all was the fact that the Democrats brought in a bunch of mothers of people that were killed by cops or others. Since people like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown caused their own deaths the people that shot them were vindicated in the end, this obviously looks like pandering to Black Lives Matter. It's important to note that most people don't like BLM and even those that did are less likely to support them after the shootings in Dallas and Baton Rouge. I can't imagine that anyone that cares about self defense or works as, or knows, a police officer is likely to vote for the Democrats this election.

I think these are four major factors as to why Hillary Clinton is likely doomed. There are others I am not covering but I also think that they don't play well for Clinton either. Things like race relations, crime, the e-mail scandal and Clinton's personality all combine to make her virtually un-electable. And I think Trump's ideas are more popular than people are willing to admit. I expect Trump to win this election by a decent margin.

What could change the outcome? Right now all I can think of is some kind of unforced error or scandal on Donald Trump's part. If he says something completely unambiguously racist that could hurt him. I think that's about it but Trump is smart enough to avoid doing so. Unless some complete curveball like the Wikileaks scandal happens, I think Trump has this in the bag.