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Larry Sabato Shares Election Predictions with Woodberry Community
Hillary Clinton is destined for the presidency, Larry J. Sabato told the audience at Woodberry Forest School on October 24, 2016. Mr. Sabato, a political guru and professor at the University of Virginia, gave a speech to the Woodberry community about his predictions for the 2016 presidential election. According to Mr. Sabato, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee, will defeat Republican nominee Donald Trump by a significant margin.
"At this point, it's Hillary's election to lose," Sabato told the crowd.
Mr. Sabato, the founder and director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, is a renowned political scientist known for his remarkably accurate predictions for all races for president, Senate, House, and governor. His website, Sabato's Crystal Ball, boasts an impressive 98 percent accuracy rating on all elections since 2000.
He is a New York Times best-selling author, has earned two Emmys for his PBS documentaries Out of Order and The Kennedy Half-Century, and appears weekly to share his political advice on major television networks such as FOX, MSNBC, and CNN. Mr. Sabato has earned the Thomas Jefferson Award, the University of Virginia's highest award for a professor.
Mr. Sabato predicted a Clinton victory in an electoral college landslide with the Democrat earning 352 electoral votes to Trump's 173. He believes there are only a few ways Trump can recover from his current deficit, and even if things fall his way, his chances are slim to none.
"It's just not there," Mr. Sabato said of Trump's path to victory.
In order for Trump to win, Mr.Sabato believes a legion of "shy Trump voters" — those who are afraid to publicly support Trump and don't indicate support vote for him in pre-election polls — will need to turn out.
"That could maybe be one to two percent. Maybe," Sabato said.
On top of the "shy" voters, Trump must pull out victories in important swing states Wisconsin and Florida, situations that Mr. Sabato has deemed highly unlikely.
"In a best-case scenario, we're predicting Trump wins 206 votes in the Electoral College, max," Sabato added.
In order for Clinton to capture the presidency, she must remain steady and expand upon her narrow leads in crucial swing states such as Nevada and Arizona.
"The big red-state prize for Clinton is Arizona," he said.
The only states Sabato considers to be toss-ups are Iowa and Utah. Independent candidate Evan McMullin has made a surprising surge in the polls in Utah, where Mr. Sabato calls the situation "fascinating."
"In a state where neither major-party candidate is spending much time or money, McMullin's cultivation of Utah could bear fruit, and he may have most room to grown in a state where Clinton and Trump are very unpopular," Mr. Sabato said of the situation.
Woodberry Forest School is an exceptional private school community for high school boys in grades nine through twelve. It is one of the top boarding schools in the United States and one of the only all-boys, all-boarding schools in the country.
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Woodberry Forest admits students of any race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, and national or ethnic origin to all of the rights, privileges, programs, and activities generally accorded or made available to students at the school. It does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sexual orientation, disability, religious belief, or national or ethnic origin in the administration of its educational policies, admissions policies, scholarship and loan programs, and athletic or other school-administered programs. The school is authorized under federal law to enroll nonimmigrant students.