title:  RNC’s Hilariously Delusional Election Model Predicts Obama Might Vote Trump
text: The Republican Party is not well   we know it and they know it.After getting roasted in the last general election, the Republican Party conducted a fittingly named  autopsy  on what would need to change before 2016 in order for the party to successfully compete with Democrats. The overall conclusion was that the party needed to do a much better job of reaching out to young people and minorities. Instead, they nominated Donald Trump   a man who launched his campaign by accusing Mexicans of being rapists and who has been endorsed by several factions of the Ku Klux Klan.But rather than mourn the loss of their party, Republicans are just fudging the numbers just so they can get out of bed in the morning. Like Karl Rove screaming that the election wasn t over long past the time when the election was over, the party is trying to  unskew  the numbers that give Democrats a massive advantage going into November.And just how grim does it look for Republicans? Here s the latest projection for how the election might play out if Clinton does get the nomination.But you wouldn t know it if you worked in the Republican National Committee. Their  independent  database has some laughably optimistic assumptions about voters.One prominent example: the current President of the United States, Barack Obama, has been a staunch Democrat for his entire political career. Recently, he has repeatedly said he would vote for the Democratic nominee in November and he s lashed out against Trump, calling him both hateful and ignorant. It s hard to imagine another human being whose vote is more predictable. And yet There s a 95 percent likelihood Obama will vote in the 2016 general election, the database predicts, based on computer modeling. It also shows an 83 percent chance Obama will side with his party s nominee, while suggesting a 10 percent shot he ll back the Republican candidate. By the RNC s metrics, Obama has a 10 percent chance of voting for Donald Trump, and an additionally, there s roughly another 10 percent chance of voting for an Independent candidate It s baffling to think about how the RNC arrived at those numbers. One humorous conclusion is that while Republican politicians try to score cheap political points by labeling President Obama a radical leftist, their own calculations acknowledge he lies well within the current political spectrum. In other words, when they tell their supporters that Obama is a socialist, they know it s a lie.This is how the RNC fudges the numbers slightly so they can turn around and say they have a chance. The model doesn t go overboard. It simply puts its thumb on the scales a little. However, this  slight  lie will have big implications in how the actual election plays out. Obama, along with millions of voters, will, in fact, vote for Democratic candidates whether the RNC wants them to or not. As such, these white lies are merely an exercise in wishful thinking.It s becoming increasingly clear that the Republican Party is what happens when your brain has been exposed to dangerous levels of Fox News for years. The delusions get grander and more incredible, and the defense of those delusions gets more aggressive. The right-wing media has convinced even its own politicians that Obama is deeply unpopular, a failed statesman and a radical. He is none of those things and so the Republicans are perpetually stunned by his success.By way of one example, let s consider the fact that Mitt Romney actually believed right up until election night that he was going to win. This flew directly in the face of all the known data (including Nate Silver s career-making predictions). He and his team rejected any of the information that didn t adhere to their ideological belief that everyone hated Obama as much as Fox News had told them they did.And he got walloped.Featured image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images