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China has bad human rights
Human rights watch 14
change in China has been accompanied by relaxation of some restrictions
on basic rights, but the government remains an authoritarian one-party state. It
places arbitrary curbs on expression, association, assembly, and religion; prohibits
independent labor unions and human rights organizations; and maintains Party
control over all judicial institutions. The government censors the press, the Internet,
print publications, and academic research, and justifies human rights abuses as
necessary to preserve social stability. It carries out involuntary population
relocation and rehousing on a massive scale, and enforces highly repressive policies
in ethnic minority areas in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia. Though primary school enrollment and basic
literacy rates are high, Chinas education system discriminates against children and young
people with disabilities. The government obstructs domestic and international
scrutiny of its human rights record, insisting it is an attempt to destabilize the
country. At the same time, citizens are increasingly prepared to challenge authorities over
volatile livelihood issues, such as land seizures, forced evictions, environmental
degradation, miscarriages of justice, abuse of power by corrupt cadres,
discrimination, and economic inequality. Official and scholarly statistics, based on law enforcement reports, suggest there
are 300-500 protests each day, with anywhere from ten to tens of
thousands of participants. Despite the risks, Internet users and reform-oriented
media are aggressively pushing censorship boundaries by advocating for the rule of
law and transparency, exposing official wrongdoing, and calling for political reforms.
Rapid socio-economic

Civil society groups and advocates continue to slowly expand their work despite their precarious status, and an informal but resilient network of activists monitors and documents human
rights cases as a loose national weiquan (rights defense) movement. These activists endure police monitoring, detention, arrest, enforced disappearance, and torture.

TPP will help the economy

Congressional Research Service in 2015:
The Trans-pacific Partnership, a central part of the Presidents Pivot strategy,
would reduce barriers to trade for a large slice of the world economy , including
China, Japan, [and] South Korea, and the US. Brock Williams of the Congressional Research Service reports that [T]he countries
involved in the TPP represent about 40% of the worlds population and
60% of global GDP, showing that a majority of the worlds economy including the United States. The OECD found that,
From an economic perspective, non-discriminatory tariff reduction is a win-win scenario
for both developed and developing countries.
).
For developing countries, improved resource allocation and higher export
revenue contribute to national income and increase the pool of resources
Improved market access extends consumer choice, with more products and a wider price range. It also

encourages improved allocative efficiency with respect to resources both in developing and developed countries (i.e. price distortions are reduced, so a countrys use of resources across sectors shifts to be more in line with areas of comparative advantage

available for development related investment.

annual [and ] welfare gains
[can reach up] to $173.5
billion
An earlier OECD report found that, Across the scenarios, the estimated global

range from US$117 billion under a proportional tariff reduction of 50%

US

under a scenario with full removal of merchandise tariffs. According to the Office of the United States Trade Representative, in the TPP

The Peterson Institute for International Economics concludes,

Overall, the TPP should boost the GDP of member countries by $285 billion
(in 2007 dollars) over baseline projections, or by 0.9 percent. Japan and the United States would
account[ing[ for $181 billion of that total or 63 percent of the combined
gains of the 12 participating countries. Japan would be the largest gainer in dollar terms, with income gains of about $105 billion or 2
percent of GDP. Of course, to generate those gains, Japan has to undertake substantial economic reforms pursuant to TPP obligations on trade and
investment in goods and services, including agriculture.

China can strike now

RT news,16,6-19-2016,RT International,China tests ICBM capable of striking US
within half an hour,https://www.rt.com/news/340359-china-test-ballistic-missile/
Beijing has successfully tested a new long-range ballistic missile capable of
engaging any potential target worldwide. The rocket takes just 30 minutes
and can deliver multiple strikes on any nuclear-capable state.
. The
launch was made from a new road-mobile platform, and is reportedly the
seventh test-firing of the DF-41.
experts estimate the DF-41 to be an
80-ton, three-stage solid-fuel missile capable of carrying between six and
10 nuclear warheads.
to cover its maximum

12,000km range

The launch of Chinas

Dongfeng-41 (East Wind, DF-41) missile was registered by the US satellite tracking system in real time, the Washington Free Beacon reports, although the location of the launch was not immediately revealed

American

The test was made with a DF-41 missile armed with two independently targetable reentry vehicles. As with previous MIRV tests, the PLA has used a small number

of reentry vehicles to mask the real capability of the DF-41, which is estimated to be able to loft up to 10 warheads, the WFB cited China military affairs analyst Rick Fisher as saying. China allegedly tested its deadliest nuclear
missile on April 13 about the time when the Peoples Liberation Army's high-ranking Gen. Fan Changlong headed a group of military commanders to inspect construction work at a man-made island in the Spratly Islands group. The
exact date of the visit was not officially announced. The test reportedly took place three days before US Defense Secretary Ash Carter visited the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, operating in the South China Sea close to the
disputed Spratly Islands claimed by Beijing. The first information about the third generation Chinese ballistic missile which according to the WFB is capable of reaching any location within the US emerged in the American media in
July 2014. According to the Washington Free Beacon, the Chinese military staged its previous DF-41 ballistic missile test launch on December 5, 2015, when a missile was launched from a container mounted on a special railroad car.
China is re-engineering its long-range ballistic missiles to carry multiple nuclear warheads, the WFB cited Adm. Cecil Haney of the US Strategic Command as saying on January 22 of this year. In 2015, Kanwa Asian Defence
magazine claimed that Beijing might add the DF-41 to its nuclear inventory as early as 2016.

Chinese Economy slowing

BBC March 1 2016
Two major official and private indexes used to gauge the country's manufacturing activity
indicate a worsening contraction in the sector. The bad news comes just after the central
bank's latest stimulus measure to boost liquidity. China's slowing growth has been dragging
the global economy as Beijing hopes for a shift towards services and consumption in
its domestic market. Tuesday's government data shows that activity in China's manufacturing
sector shrank for the seventh straight month in February. Coming in below market
expectations, the Purchasing Manager's Index (PMI) fell to 49.0, down from 49.4 the
previous month. The index is used as an indicator of factory activity, and any reading below the 50 mark points at a
contraction in the sector. Aside from the government data, the private Caixinsponsored PMI, which focuses on smaller companies, came in even worse at 48.0 for
February, marking the lowest reading in five months

Asteroid mining soon possible

Mike Wall, Space,15,8-11-2015,Space,Asteroid Mining May Be a Reality by
2025,http://www.space.com/30213-asteroid-mining-planetary-resources-2025.html
Asteroid mining could shift from sci-fi dream to world-changing reality a lot faster
than you think. Planetary Resources deployed its first spacecraft
and the Washington-based asteroid-mining company aims to launch a series of
increasingly ambitious and capable probes over the next few years The goal is to
begin transforming asteroid water into rocket fuel within a decade, and eventually
to harvest valuable and useful platinum-group metals from space rocks.
delivering water from asteroids and creating an in-space refueling economy is
something that we'll see in the next 10 years even in the first half of the 2020s
from the International Space Station last month,

"We have every expectation that

," said

Chris Lewicki, Planetary Resources president and chief engineer Chris Lewicki. "After that, I think it's going to be how the market develops," Lewicki told Space.com, referring to the timeline for going after asteroid metals. "If there's
one thing that we've seen repeat throughout history, it's, you tend to overpredict what'll happen in the next year, but you tend to vastly underpredict what will happen in the next 10 years," he added. "We're moving very fast, and

things will come to us sooner than we might think

another company, Deep Space Industries, aim to help humanity extend its footprint
out into the solar system by tapping asteroid resources.
the world is changing very quickly around us, so I think those

." Planetary Resources and

Would help earths econ

John Aziz (author for the week) June 25, 2013
Resources on Earth are limited.
we're
collecting, processing, and
throwing out those resources at an alarming rate: A
U N report on resource depletion says that between 1980 and 2008 natural
resources per capita declined by 20 percent in the United States, 33 percent in
South Africa, 25 percent in Brazil, and 17 percent in China.
As we burn through Earth's resources, a wealth of physical resources like
metals, water, and hydrocarbons are floating around in asteroids, moons, and other
planets, ready to be harvested. If
ivilization is to continue to grow
over the
centuries and millennia to come, hunger for resources is likely to drive us to explore
and mine what's way, way out there.
asteroids in particular could be
highly profitable.
a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of
0.99 miles contains more than $20 trillion worth of industrial and precious metals.
Our planet was born with a fixed amount of water, hydrocarbons, nitrogen, and industrial and precious metals. And

eventually

nited

ations

For now, only protection and better resource management can

safeguard the planet.

human c

and expand

And as wild as it may sound,

In 1997 scientists speculated that

Yet,

space mining is still in its infancy, and exploring it is costly. A NASA mission to an asteroid to bring back 2 kg (about 4.5 pounds) of material in 2021 is expected to cost the space agency $1 billion. But two companies are exploring
asteroid mining, as well: Deep Space Industries, and Planetary Resources, which has the backing of several billionaire investors, including Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, software executive Charles Simonyi, and filmmaker
James Cameron.

US economic decline causes global war- emboldens rogue

regimes- economic growth improves international stability and
cooperation over threats
Green 09 [Michael J., Senior Advisor and Japan Chair at the Center for Strategic
and International Studies (CSIS) and Associate Professor at Georgetown University,
Asia Times Online, 3.26.9,
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Asian_Economy/KC26Dk01.html AD 6/30/09]
Facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, analysts at the World Bank and the
US Central Intelligence Agency are just beginning to contemplate the ramifications for
international stability if there is not a recovery in the next year . For the most part, the focus
has been on fragile states such as some in Eastern Europe . However, the Great
Depression taught us that a downward global economic spiral can even have jarring
impacts on great powers. It is no mere coincidence that the last great global

economic downturn was followed by the most destructive war in human history. In
the 1930s, economic desperation helped fuel autocratic regim es and protectionism
in a downward economic-security death spiral that engulfed the world in conflict . This
spiral was aided by the preoccupation of the United States and other leading nations with economic troubles at home and insufficient attention to working
with other powers to maintain stability abroad. Today's challenges are different, yet 1933's London Economic Conference, which failed to stop the drift

There
is no question the US must urgently act to address banking issues and to restart its
economy. But the lessons of the past suggest that we will also have to keep an eye
on those fragile threads in the international system that could begin to unravel if
the financial crisis is not reversed early in the Barack Obama administration and realize
that economics and security are intertwined in most of the critical challenges we
face. A disillusioned rising power? Four areas in Asia merit particular attention, although so far the current financial crisis has not changed Asia's
toward deeper depression and world war, should be a cautionary tale for leaders heading to next month's London Group of 20 (G-20) meeting.

fundamental strategic picture. China is not replacing the US as regional hegemon, since the leadership in Beijing is too nervous about the political
implications of the financial crisis at home to actually play a leading role in solving it internationally. Predictions that the US will be brought to its knees
because China is the leading holder of US debt often miss key points. China's currency controls and full employment/export-oriented growth strategy give
Beijing few choices other than buying US Treasury bills or harming its own economy. Rather than creating new rules or institutions in international finance,
or reorienting the Chinese economy to generate greater long-term consumer demand at home, Chinese leaders are desperately clinging to the status quo
(though Beijing deserves credit for short-term efforts to stimulate economic growth). The greater danger with China is not an eclipsing of US leadership,
but instead the kind of shift in strategic orientation that happened to Japan after the Great Depression. Japan was arguably not a revisionist power before

The worldwide
depression and protectionism of the 1930s devastated the newly exposed Japanese
economy and contributed directly to militaristic and autarkic policies in Asia as the
Japanese people reacted against what counted for globalization at the time. China
today is similarly converging with the global economy , and many experts believe China needs at least 8%
1932 and sought instead to converge with the global economy through open trade and adoption of the gold standard.

annual growth to sustain social stability. Realistic growth predictions for 2009 are closer to 5%. Veteran China hands were watching closely when millions
of migrant workers returned to work after the Lunar New Year holiday last month to find factories closed and jobs gone. There were pockets of protests,
but nationwide unrest seems unlikely this year, and Chinese leaders are working around the clock to ensure that it does not happen next year either.
However, the economic slowdown has only just begun and nobody is certain how it will impact the social contract in China between the ruling communist
party and the 1.3 billion Chinese who have come to see President Hu Jintao's call for "harmonious society" as inextricably linked to his promise of "peaceful
development". If the Japanese example is any precedent, a sustained economic slowdown has the potential to open a dangerous path from economic

It is noteworthy that North Korea, Myanmar and

Iran have all intensified their defiance in the wake of the financial crisis , which has
distracted the world's leading nations, limited their moral authority and sown
potential discord. With Beijing worried about the potential impact of North Korean
belligerence or instability on Chinese internal stability, and leaders in Japan and
South Korea under siege in parliament because of the collapse of their stock
markets, leaders in the North Korean capital of Pyongyang have grown increasingly
boisterous about their country's claims to great power status as a nuclear weapons
state. The junta in Myanmar has chosen this moment to arrest hundreds of political dissidents and thumb its nose at fellow members of the 10-country
nationalism to strategic revisionism in China too. Dangerous states

Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Iran continues its nuclear program while exploiting differences between the US, UK and France (or the P-3 group)
and China and Russia - differences that could become more pronounced if economic friction with Beijing or Russia crowds out cooperation or if Western

It is possible that the economic downturn

will make these dangerous states more pliable because of falling fuel prices (Iran)
and greater need for foreign aid (North Korea and Myanmar), but that may depend
on the extent that authoritarian leaders care about the well-being of their people or
face internal political pressures linked to the economy . So far, there is little evidence to suggest either
and much evidence to suggest these dangerous states see an opportunity to advance
their asymmetrical advantages against the international system .
European governments grow nervous about sanctions as a tool of policy.

Blocks

Roc and prc relations

Taiwan and China need stability
Ezra N. H. Chen Fellow, Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Harvard
University July 2003
A stable Taiwan Strait is exactly what both sides

need.
Taiwan needs stability because
mainland Chinas huge markets have provided Taiwanese businesspeople with
opportunities to stay competitive in the globalization process. China needs stability
because it is conducive to using the economic means to accomplish the sacred
mission of reuniting Taiwan with the mainland.
an economically robust Taiwan would not only enhance its economic development,
but would also be a golden goose that China would not want to kill
Chinas
military buildup and the deployment of 400 missiles along the coast opposite Taiwan
as well as Chinas insistence on the right to use force against Taiwan are
strategically designed to act as a last resort to deter Taiwan from becoming a de
jure independent and sovereign state.
),
the low politics economic and cultural exchanges between the two have gained a
lot of momentum since the late 1980s. Trade
has grown so rapidly that as
of the year 2002 China has become Taiwans leading trade partner. The level of
Taiwanese investment in mainland China, first in traditional labor -intensive
manufacturing industries and then in high-tech semiconductor industries is
enormous.
of the strait

It is also desired by the United States, which has consistently stressed

its interest in the stability and security of the Taiwan Strait as well as in a peaceful resolution of the disputes between Taiwan and the PRC.

Besides, as modernization and economic development are at the top of the PRC reform agenda,

. At the same time,

Although intractable obstacles still exist at the level of high politics (e.g., the sovereignty issue, one China issue

between Taiwan and China

This reflects the magnetic effect of the Chinese mainland market, which is characterized by the cheaper cost of land and labor, as well as numerous incentives taken by the government. The following

discussion will first look at the economic integration between Taiwan and China that has occurred over the past sixteen years, and then to see what implications it might have for cross-strait relations. The author also endeavors to
look into its policy implications for the Taiwan government.

HOW TO SOLVE TAIWAN

Stephen Harner, 6-17-2015, "How To Solve The 'Taiwan Problem' In U.S.-China
Relations," Forbes, http://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenharner/2015/06/17/how-tosolve-the-worsening-taiwan-problem-in-u-s-china-relations/#3b7eafe2fb5
Beijings move #1: China should agree to initiate military confidence-building
measures without political conditions.
Washingtons move #2: The United States should reveal the full extent of its
defense ties with Taiwan and should close the office of its military representative at
the American Institute in Taiwan.
Beijings move #2: China should remove its short-range ballistic and cruise missiles
from within a radius of 1,000 kilometers from Taiwan.
Washingtons move #3: The United States should endorse and actively push for
final status negotiations.
Beijings move #3: China should institutionalize a system for developing an
expanded international presence for Taiwan.
Washingtons move #4: The United States should halt the sale of new types of
weapons systems.

Beijings move #4: China should restrict the building of its amphibious fleet.
Washingtons move #5: The United States should cease all arms transfers for
Taiwan.
Washingtons move #5: China should renounce the use of force as part of the peace
treaty process that joins Taiwan and the Mainland in a confederation.

Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity up, hacking from china is falling with treaty
talks
Joseph Menn and Jim Finkle, 6-21-2016, "Chinese economic cyber-espionage
plummets in U.S.: experts," Reuters, http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cyber-spyingchina-idUSKCN0Z700D
The Chinese government appears to be abiding by its
pledge to stop
the
hacking of American trade secrets
breaches attributed to China-based
groups had plunged by 90 percent in the past two years.
FireEye's Mandiant unit in 2013 famously blamed a specific unit of
China's Peoples Liberation Army for a major campaign of economic espionage. Kevin
Mandia, the Mandiant founder who took over last week as FireEye chief executive,
said in an interview that several factors seemed to be behind the shift. He cited
embarrassment from Mandiant's 2013 report and the following year's indictment of
five PLA officers from the same unit Mandiant uncovered.
September

supporting

to help companies there compete, private U.S. security executives and government advisors said on Monday. FireEye Inc, the U.S.

network security company best known for fighting sophisticated Chinese hacking, said in a report released late Monday that

The most dramatic drop came during last summer's run-up to the

bilateral agreement, it added.

Prosecutors said the victims included U.S. Steel, Alcoa Inc and

Westinghouse Electric. Mandia also cited the threat just before the agreement that the United States could impose sanctions on Chinese officials and companies. "They all contributed to a positive result," Mandia said. A senior
Obama administration official said the government was not yet ready to proclaim that China was fully complying with the agreement but said the new report would factor into its monitoring. "We are still doing an assessment," said
the official, speaking on condition he not be named. The official added that a just-concluded second round of talks with China on the finer points of the agreement had gone well. He noted that China had sent senior leaders even
after the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security pulled out because of the Orlando shootings. China's Foreign Ministry, the only government department to regularly answer questions from foreign reporters on the hacking issue, said
China aimed to maintain dialogue on preventing and combating cyber-spying. "We've expressed our principled position on many occasions," ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a daily news briefing on Tuesday. "We oppose
and crack down on commercial cyber-espionage activities in all forms." FireEye said that Chinese intrusions into some U.S. firms have continued, with at least two hacked in 2016. But while the hackers installed "back doors" to
enable future spying, FireEye said it had seen no evidence that data was stolen. Both hacked companies had government contracts, said FireEye analyst Laura Galante, noting that it was plausible that the intrusions were stepping
stones toward gathering information on government or military people or projects, which remain fair game under the September accord. FireEye and other security companies said that as the Chinese government-backed hackers
dropped wholesale theft of U.S. intellectual property, they increased spying on political and military targets in other countries and regions, including Russia, the Middle East, Japan and South Korea. Another security firm, CrowdStrike,
has observed more Chinese state-supported hackers spying outside of the United States over the past year, company Vice President Adam Meyers said in an interview. Targets include Russian and Ukrainian military targets, Indian
political groups and the Mongolian mining industry, Meyers said. FireEye and CrowdStrike said they were confident that the attacks are being carried out either directly by the Chinese government or on its behalf by hired contractors.
Since late last year there has been a flurry of new espionage activity against Russian government agencies and technology firms, as well as other targets in India, Japan and South Korea, said Kurt Baumgartner, a researcher with
Russian security software maker Kaspersky Lab. He said those groups use tools and infrastructure that depend on Chinese-language characters.One of those groups, known as Mirage or APT 15, appears to have ended a spree of
attacks on the U.S. energy sector and is now focusing on government and diplomatic targets in Russia and former Soviet republics, Baumgartner said.

Election

Trump
Trump will be elected in the sqo, no uniqueness/ trump could
be good
Emily Stewart , 5-4-2016, "If Donald Trump was president, here's what would
happen to the U.S. economy," TheStreet,
https://www.thestreet.com/story/13335121/1/if-donald-trump-was-president-here-swhat-would-happen-to-the-u-s-economy.html Emily Stewart is staff writer for
TheStreet based in New York. She has previously reported for PulsoSocial and
Nearshore Americas. Stewart covers politics and leading investors like Warren
Buffett and Carl Icahn. She graduated from Columbia University with a Bachelor of
Arts degree in Comparative Literature & Society in 2008. You can follow her on
Twitter @EmilyStewartM.
There's no denying Trump has done a good job of making himself rich
In a January interview with
"Good Morning America," Trump offered up a bleak assessment of the U.S. economy
but added that, in terms of fixing it, it's a task he'd rather skip. "We're in a bubble,"
he said. "And, frankly, if there's going to be a bubble popping, I hope they pop
before I become president because I don't want to inherit all this stuff. I'd rather it
be the day before rather than the day after, I will tell you that." In an April
interview
Trump reiterated his doomsday view of the economy,
suggesting we might be headed for recession. But this time around, he appeared
more open to the idea of
finding remedies
Americans rate Trump and
Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton evenly on key economic issues. in a January
Zogby poll, Trump rated better than [Clinton] the former secretary of state. Trump
has certainly been this election cycle's most riveting figure.
. He has since rolled out other
policies and positions: a major tax code overhaul; repeal and replace
Obamacare; renegotiate or "break" NAFTA; stop hedge funds from "getting away
with murder" on taxes; reforming the Veteran's Administration; and impose import
tariffs as high as 35%. All while keeping the deficit in check, growing the economy
and leaving entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security untouched .
Immigration remains a major pillar of his campaign, and he has now moved on to
the question of Muslim immigration as well. He has finally laid out a plan to make
Mexico pay for the wall, too.
-- he's worth somewhere between $4.5

billion and $10 billion, depending who you ask. Can he make the rest of America rich, too? The economy isn't something Trump looks forward to tackling.

with the Washington Post,

his being in charge of

. "I can fix it. I can fix it pretty quickly," he said. Many Americans appear to believe that is the

case and that, more broadly, a Trump presidency would be good for the economy. According to a recent CNBC All-America Survey,

And

He initially focused his attention on immigration reform, calling for a

wall to be built between Mexico and the United States and demanding the deportation of 11 million undocumented immigrants

Trump has made plenty of enemies along the way as well, including but limited to fellow GOP contenders Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush, New York Mayor Bill de

Blasio, Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly, the media in general and even the Pope. Those who fear Trump's plans should find common cause with those who love them: "I'm not sure how much of what he actually says today will be his
positions a year from now," said Michael Busler, professor of finance at Stockton University. Trump's own campaign has suggested he is playing "a part" to garner votes. While Trump certainly has some grandiose ideas -- and equally
lofty rhetoric to accompany them -- deciphering the exact nature of his economic policies is a complex task, according to John Hudak, a fellow in governance studies at Washington, D.C.-based think tank theBrookings Institution. Not
to mention the fact that if he does make it to the Oval Office, Trump won't have a free pass from Congress, even if it remains under the control of the Republican Party (as you'll see, many of his positions don't exactly hew closely to
GOP policies). Taking legislative hurdles out of the equation, what will the U.S. economy and markets look like if Trump becomes No. 45. Trump's Expensive Immigration Plan Trump's immigration plans cost him a handful of business
deals, but they might cost the United States much more. The American Action Forum, a right-leaning policy institute based in Washington D.C.,estimates that immediately and fully enforcing current immigration law, as Trump has
suggested, would cost the federal government from $400 billion to $600 billion. It would shrink the labor force by 11 million workers, reduce the real GDP by $1.6 trillion and take 20 years to complete (Trump has said he could do it in
18 months). "It will harm the U.S. economy," said Doug Holtz-Eakin, president of the American Action Forum and chief economic policy adviser to Sen. John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "Immigration is an enormous source
of economic vitality." The impact would be felt on both supply and demand.

Yes Clinton Polls

Newest polls.
Times of Israel 6-4-16. ["Clinton regains double-digit lead over Trump in new poll" -www.timesofisrael.com/clinton-renews-double-digit-lead-over-trump-in-new-poll/]

A new poll once again gives Hillary Clinton a double-digit lead over Donald Trump in a
likely general election contest between the two , after weeks in which the
presumptive Republican nominee appeared to have closed the gap entirely . A
Reuters/Ipsos survey of 1,421 people on Friday showed 46 percent of voters planned to support
Clinton, while 35% said they would back Trump in a presidential vote. Nineteen percent said they
would not vote for either candidate. Polls published in mid-May had shown the two candidates to be virtually tied
among registered voters. One Fox News poll even had Trump leading the likely Democratic nominee by 3 points.

The renewed gap between the candidates comes as Clinton has stepped up her
attacks on Trump, questioning his temperament, stability and responsibility . Trump,
meanwhile, has battled growing criticism over his business dealings particularly Trump
University as well as his supporters often-violent behavior , including anti-Semitic rhetoric by
certain fans.

Clinton will win newest polls and laundry list of advantages.

Dann 5-28-16. [Carrie, Political editor at NBC News, "Six Numbers That Show Why Clinton Is Still the
Favorite in 2016" NBC News -- www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/six-numbers-show-why-clinton-still-favorite2016-n581691]

The 2016 general election race is now a virtual tie . Hillary Clinton is reeling from more negative
headlines about her use of a private email server, while Donald Trump careens from news cycle to news cycle as
fact-checkers scramble to sift through his claims. And the big question on everyone's lips for the next 160-some

The most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows Clinton
clinging to a narrow lead. But a deep analysis of data from the poll shows that
Clinton is still currently the more likely of the two candidates to emerge as the winner when the
days will be: So, who's gonna win?

voting's all over on Nov. 8, 2016. First, the requisite caveats: Clinton is deeply unpopular, she has a persistent and
severe problem on issues of trustworthiness, she faces possible defections from Bernie Sanders supporters, she's
getting absolutely demolished in the white male vote and she's (self-admittedly) a less intuitive politician than her
husband, which means that an onslaught of Trump attacks are likely to change some of the dynamics of the race

here are six numbers that show why right now

Clinton is better positioned to win the presidency than her GOP rival. The advantage
for a generic Democratic candidate over a generic Republican is 4 percentage
points One of the most basic questions we ask in every NBC/WSJ poll is whether or not
voters want to see a Republican or a Democrat elected president , no matter who the
going forward. But with all that on the table,
Hillary

nominees of each party may be. And as recently as last fall, the generic Republican option edged out the

47 percent of voters favoring a Democratic president

and 43 percent choosing a Republican one . If the advantage holds, it would defy the notion that
Democratic one. Not so anymore, with

Americans are reluctant to grant a party the presidency after it's held the White House for eight years. (The last
time that happened? George H.W. Bush in 1988.) Nothing about the unpopular Clinton or the even-less-popular

The
Democratic Party is nearly breaking even on favorability, while the GOP is under
water. Let's be real: It isn't a fun time to be a party establishment type, no matter what side of the aisle you're
Trump is "generic," but Dems have the advantage on this fundamental measure of party strength.

on. Both parties are pretty unpopular, but Democrats are doing a lot better than their GOP rivals. On the popularity
scale, Democrats are just barely underwater, at a net negative three point favorability rating. Republicans? They

can at least say they're doing better than their nominee (who's at a net negative 29 point rating) but they're not far
behind, with only 24 percent of voters giving the party a thumbs up, compared to 49 percent giving it a thumbs

Obama's approval rating is 51 percent. Hillary Clinton is adamant that she's running for
her own first term, not Barack Obama's third term. But as the Democratic Party nominee, a key
part of her message is building on Obama's vision and the "progress" his
administration has promoted. Even as majority of the electorate 53 percent say they're interested
in a change candidate, the man currently steering the ship has hit his highest approval rating
since his second inauguration. Obama's high rating which includes support from a majority of
independents and women as well as 82 percent of Sanders voters means that he'll be a powerful
surrogate for Clinton once the Democratic primary is in the history books. Trump is underperforming with white women by 10 points. It's no secret that Trump has a problem with female
down. Barack

voters. But he *does* enjoy a slight advantage over Hillary Clinton when it comes to only white women, leading with
46 percent to Clinton's 42 percent. That might look like a boon for Trump until you compare his share of the white
female vote by the margin won by Mitt Romney four years ago. Romney beat Barack Obama by 14 points with white

Trump is under-performing badly with a part of

the electorate that makes up almost four in 10 voters, and it's definitely no
certainty that there are enough white men out there to cut his losses . Trump's
showing a nine-point drop in the suburbs . Plenty of experts argue that the rural-urban cultural divide
women, winning them 56 percent to 42 percent.

is so deeply entrenched that the suburbs are where the election will be won and lost. And, as he is with white
women, Donald Trump is showing significant weakness with this slice of electorate. In 2012, Obama won urban
suburbs 57 percent to 41 percent, according to NBC's Dante Chinni. Clinton is matching Obama's performance at 57

Swing suburban areas of the battleground states

places like Fairfax County, Virginia or Bucks County, Pennsylvania are almost sure to help determine
the general election winner. Right now, Clinton is enjoying a big head start .
percent now, but Trump has slid to 32 percent.

Yes Clinton Models

Hillary will win Moodys
Long 5-26-16. [Heather, CNNMoney's senior markets and economy writer, "Clinton predicted to beat
Trump...due to economics" CNN Money -- money.cnn.com/2016/05/26/news/economy/hillary-clinton-beat-donaldtrump-moodys/]

Trump is in trouble, according to a model that has correctly predicted the

winner of every presidential race since Ronald Reagan in 1980. This time around the model -- run
by Moody's Analytics -- says a Democrat will win the White House . Hillary Clinton is widely
expected to be the Democratic nominee. It's a bad sign for Trump . Moody's has been predicting a
Democratic triumph since last August, but the margin of victory is getting bigger for the left as
the economy has stayed relatively strong and President Obama's approval rating has
risen.
Donald

Prefer our model.

White 16. [Dan, senior economist at MOody's Analytics, Ryan Sweet, "Democrats to Win in a Landslide in
2016, According to Moody's Election Model" The Street August 31 -www.thestreet.com/story/13271435/1/democrats-to-win-in-a-landslide-in-2016-according-to-moody-s-electionmodel.html]

The Moody's Analytics Presidential Election model forecasts whether or not the incumbent party
will maintain control over the White House using a mixture of economic, demographic and political data. The model

successfully predicts every election back to 1980, including a perfect electoral vote
prediction in the 2012 election. Read More: Moody's on Volatility.

Iowa Electronic Market predicts Clinton win its the most

accurate
Versace 5/25/16 (Chris, Contributor @ InvestorPlace, "President Donald Trump:
The U.S. Economys Winners and Losers,"
http://investorplace.com/investorpolitics/president-donald-trump-useconomy/#.V0w5ZPkrLIV)
the prospects of a President Donald
Trump are very much on the table. One of the most accurate predictors of
presidential elections over the years has been the University of Iowas Presidential
Election Electronic Market, which is currently predicting a win for the democratic
nominee, Hillary Clinton, by a significant margin. Between now and then however, theres high
potential for game-changing events between Clintons email server to Benghazi woes and Donald
As improbable as it might have seemed even a few months ago,

Trumps occasional foot-in-mouth/thats-not-what-I-meant moments. Others polls suggest a tighter race, which
means the election as well as the will they or wont they boost rates? question at the Federal Reserve will no
doubt make us all feel like we are in a drawn-out tennis match during a long, hot summer, begging for it to be over.

Moody's predicts Clinton will win - historically the MOST

accurate
Long 5/26/16 (Heather, Columnist @ CNN Money, "Clinton predicted to beat
Trump...due to economics,"

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/26/news/economy/hillary-clinton-beat-donald-trumpmoodys/)
Trump is in trouble, according to a model that has correctly predicted the
winner of every presidential race since Ronald Reagan in 1980. This time around the model -- run
by Moody's Analytics -- says a Democrat will win the White House . Hillary Clinton is widely
expected to be the Democratic nominee. It's a bad sign for Trump. Moody's has been predicting a
Democratic triumph since last August, but the margin of victory is getting bigger for the left as
the economy has stayed relatively strong and President Obama's approval rating has risen. The
Donald

reason a Democrat will win isn't about polling or personalities, it's about economics, says Moody's. The economy is

When the economy is doing well, the party currently

in office usually wins again. When the economy is tanking, Americans vote for change. So far, the
U.S. economy is chugging along. It's growing . Millions of people are getting jobs, home prices are
rising and gas is cheap. All of this favors Democrats.
the top issue in just about every election.

Yes Clinton Prediction Markets

Prediction markets favor Clinton they should be preferred
over fundamentals or polls
Bernstein 5/27/16 (Jonathan, Political Commentator @ Bloomberg News,
"Presidential race gets harder to predict,"
http://www.myajc.com/news/news/presidential-race-gets-harder-predict/nrTnT/)
A different way of forecasting election results is to follow the wisdom of crowds,
found in election betting markets (such as those aggregated by PredictWise). Some critics of these
tools believe they only quantify conventional wisdom, which is as likely to be wrong as right. But prediction
markets have the advantage that the participants, and therefore the results, can
take into consideration any relevant information -- as opposed to the "fundamentals"
analysis, which excludes anything specific to this election cycle, and polling, which
only looks at current public opinion and therefore ignores predictable changes . So far
this year, Clinton has been the solid favorite . Predictwise currently gives the
Democrats a 67 percent chance of winning in November.

Yes Clinton Demographics

Hillary will win demographics and electoral college.
Cassidy 5-25-16. [John, staff writer, "THE CHALLENGES FACING HILLARY CLINTON" The New Yorker -www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/the-challenges-facing-hillary-clinton]

With some people I know in panic mode about the latest opinion polls showing Donald Trump
performing well in a prospective fall campaign against Hillary Clinton, I thought it might be
worth stepping back a bit and looking at the prospects for s uch a race in November. For
Democrats and others alarmed by Trumps advance, the outlook is reassuring, but not entirely so. Assuming that

Clinton wraps up the Democratic nomination pretty soon, she will be the firm favorite to win
the general election. But she faces some significant challenges, not least of which is confronting a
demagogue who daily traduces her and her husband. Arguably, the biggest factor in Clintons
favor is demography. The Obama coalition of minority voters, young people,
single women, and highly educated white voters of both sexes, which has seen the Democrats to
victories in 2008 and 2012, remains intact. Indeed, it is growing. Meanwhile, the Republican base of
older, whiter, and less educated voters continues to shrink. Back in March, I spoke with the political scientist
Ruy Teixeira, who has written widely on the Obama coalition, and he pointed out that the minority share of
the electorate will likely increase by another two percentage points this year , to
twenty-eight per cent. Clinton, as she has demonstrated during the Democratic primary campaign, has
strong support among minority voters, and she also scores well with other elements of the Obama
coalition, such as working women and the highly educated. Unless Trump can attract more minority
voters, which seems unlikely, he will need to rack up huge majorities among white
voters. To carry Ohio, for example, Teixeira reckons that Trump would have to win the white working-class vote by
Hillary

twenty-two or twenty-three percentage points, and hold on to, or even expand, Mitt Romneys double-digit margin

The political
map should also be friendly to Clinton. In every election since 1992, the Democrats
have carried eighteen states that have a combined total of two hundred and fortytwo votes in the Electoral Collegejust twenty-eight short of the two hundred and seventy
needed to assure victory. The Republicans base in the Electoral College is smaller: twenty-three states with a
of victory among college-educated white voters, who might be put off by Trumps extremism.

hundred and ninety-one electoral votes. As usual, this years contest is likely to come down to a dozen or so

Clinton, if she holds onto the core Democratic states, will have many more
ways to get to two hundred and seventy. Figures like these together with the fact that
Democratic candidates have won the popular vote in five out of the past six Presidential elections help to
explain why Clinton remains the bettors choice to win . At the British online bookmakers, the
battleground states. But

odds of her being the next President are about 1:2, which means that you have to wager a hundred dollars to win

the probability
of Clinton winning is 66.7 per cent, and the probability of Trump winning is 33.3 per
cent.
fifty. Trumps odds are about 2:1. (You bet fifty dollars to win a hundred.) These odds imply that

Gender gap.
Kondik and Skelley 5-8-16. [Kyle, managing editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political
newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-things-you-shouldknow-213875#ixzz4AeVp8Bsw Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook, Geoffrey, associate editor @
Sabato's Crystal Ball, "5 Things You Need to Know About the Coming Trump vs. Clinton Showdown" Politico --

www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-things-you-should-know213875]
2. In a Clinton vs. Trump race, Clinton begins as the favorite . One would not expect a
candidate with a -12 net favorability rating to enter a general election campaign as the favored competitor. But

Clinton will indeed begin the long march toward November as the favorite .
What Clinton needed is an opponent who is even more disliked by the public than
she is, and Donald Trump is just what her doctor ordered: Trumps net favorability is currently -24
Hillary

according to HuffPost Pollsters polling average. We appear to be headed for a matchup between perhaps the two
most loathed general election candidates in modern U.S. political history. Yes, its true that Trump is an
unprecedented political figure who has been consistently underestimated, only to remarkably end up in his current

Trump has also

alienated large swaths of key constituencies , including many Republicans. His
unprecedented unpopularity will likely have serious, negative consequences for his
electoral chances. The worst number for Trump may be his rating among women . At
the start of April, Gallup found that 70 percent of women held an unfavorable view of the real
estate mogul, compared to 58 percent of men. While more women vote Democratic than Republicana
partisan gender gap that has existed in every presidential election dating back to 1980 women will likely
form a slight majority of the electorate in November , just as they have for decades, so they
are still a constituency that Trump should worry abouta lot. And, considering
Trumps hits on Clinton for playing the womans card which Clinton happily embraced in a
fundraising appealhis gendered language and attacks probably arent going away . While
position as the presumptive GOP presidential nominee. But, in reaching that elevated standing

Trumps campaign believes this will help him improve his support among white women, who have backed all GOP
nominees since 1996, that strategy is a bit of a gamble, and could well backfire.

Hispanic voters and party unity.

Kondik and Skelley 5-8-16. [Kyle, managing editor of Sabatos Crystal Ball, a nonpartisan political
newsletter produced by the University of Virginia Center for Politics Read more:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-things-you-shouldknow-213875#ixzz4AeVp8Bsw Follow us: @politico on Twitter | Politico on Facebook, Geoffrey, associate editor @
Sabato's Crystal Ball, "5 Things You Need to Know About the Coming Trump vs. Clinton Showdown" Politico -www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/2016-donald-trump-hillary-clinton-election-things-you-should-know213875]
And then there are Hispanic voters, who appear to abhor Trump. The research firm Latino Decisions
recently found Trumps net favorability among Latinos to be -78 percent, while Hillary Clintons is +29 percent. To
put Trumps numbers into perspective within his party, Ted Cruzs net favorability was -16 percent, and John

Hispanic voters will be heavily concentrated in uncompetitive California

will be very important in at least three swing states: Colorado (where
Hispanics made up 14 percent of the states 2012 electorate), Florida (17 percent) and Nevada (19 percent).
In light of how Trump is viewed by this demographic group , its not difficult to
imagine Clinton winning 80 percent of Latinos after Obama won 71 percent in 2012 .
Kasichs was -10 percent. Although
and Texas, they

And, most projections expect Latinos to make up more of the electorate than they did in 2012, when they
comprised 10 percent of all voters. That assumption is based partly on the growing Latino population, but also on
the fact that hatred of Trump may motivate more Hispanics to register to vote and turn out to the polls. Lastly,

party unity is likely to be a bigger problem for Trump than Clinton . Theres little
question that #NeverTrump is a larger force within the GOP than the anti-Clinton
contingent is within the Democratic Party . Take the April 26 Pennsylvania primary as an example.
Based on the exit poll, 84 percent of Democrats said they would definitely or probably vote for Clinton if she won
the Democratic nomination, and 11 percent said they would be scared if Clinton became president. Overall, 69
percent of Democrats felt the Clinton-Sanders contest had energized the party while 26 percent felt it had divided
Democrats. Contrast those numbers to views of Republicans in the Keystone State: Only 39 percent felt the GOP

campaign had energized the party while 58 percent felt it had divided Republicans. In total, 77 percent said they
would definitely or probably vote for Trump in the general election, and 22 percent said they would be scared if he
became president. Of course, there is ample time for Trump to bring anti-Trump Republicans back into the fold, and
his favorability numbers among party members have improved in recent weeks. Still, via Gallup, his net favorable

These factors,
coupled with Clintons healthy lead over Trump in early horserace polling, led the
Crystal Ball to make Clinton a large favorite in our first Clinton-Trump Electoral
College map, in which we give Clinton a 347 to 191 edge in the electoral vote. (Many people, including some
rating among Republicans was +29 as of May 5 versus +44 for Clinton among Democrats.

Republicans, have told us they believe this projection is actually too kind to Trump.)