The Battle of Ohio: TWTW's Bengals vs. Browns Preview

Danville, Kentucky -- As of this Sunday, it will have been 364 days since the lowly Cleveland Browns prevailed in a game of football. The 0-12 Browns are on a 15 game losing streak dating back to week 15 of last season. Although the Indians and Cavaliers have improbably brought a winning mentality back to that city on the burning river, the Browns remain hapless. To those loyal fans faithfully rooting for the Browns during this winter of discontent, the mere thought of a Cleveland Browns victory seems as distant as the warmth of spring, the touch of sunlight in May, or the scent of freshly-bloomed flowers in the Hocking Hills forest.

The Browns have had their share of close, nail-biter losses this season. Four of their losses have been by less than a touchdown: a 28-26 loss to the Tennessee Titans and a 31-28 loss to the New York Jets stand out as particularly heart-breaking. Yet, telling a Browns fan that his team has been just a few lucky breaks away from a win or two this season is cold comfort; like offering a pair of hole-ridden mittens to a man about to plunge into the chilly depths of frozen Lake Erie.

But small flickering embers of hope can be found even amidst the deepest, darkest winter. The beauty of football is that on any given Sunday, no matter how unthinkable or improbable, any team can win if its players are willing to dig deep enough and put their bodies on the line for their city. This weekend the Browns of Northeast Ohio will square off against their rivals from the South: the Cincinnati Bengals.

Neither team is very scary. I'd bet my big green John Deere tractor that Ohio State's football team could beat both the Bengals and the Browns handily. Ohio State would probably beat the Browns 42-15. Ohio State's margin of victory against Cincinnati would be narrower, perhaps requiring over-time and some crooked officiators like Ohio State's win against the University of Michigan.

Cincinnati has a few more victories than Cleveland, but football fandom is only marginally less depressing down south. The Bengals are having a disappointing season of their own. They are the owners of a 4-7-1 record thanks to the NFL's unwillingness to take a stand against European nonsense like "ties." The Bengals have their own dubious streak, as they have not won back-to-back games in more than a year. On Sunday, these mostly inept teams will battle for dominance over the great state of Ohio.

Many pundits, including yours truly, have written that the 2016 election was decided by the Forgotten Man. According to this narrative Donald J. Trump won because he improbably inspired millions of weary, downtrodden, ignored folks across this country to cast their vote in favor of change. If the 2016 election was about the Forgotten Man, then Sunday's Bengals vs. Browns match-up is primarily a football game about the Forgotten Rivalry. All the biased national media ever wants to talk about is the Dallas Cowboys and whoever they are playing that week, but wise football fans know the intensity of the Battle of Ohio, a tradition that dates back to the Nixon Administration.

You won't hear Skip Bayless or the talking heads at ESPN discuss the Forgotten Rivalry much. But the passion is real, as is the cultural divide between urban Cleveland and "practically-in-Kentucky" Cincinnati. The Bengals have more talent, but the winless Browns are hankering for a W like I hanker for spaghetti lovingly topped with magisterial cinnamon-chili sauce.

These teams are more evenly matched than they look. I predict a narrow Bengals victory over the win-starved Browns. Cleveland's athletic quarterback-turned-wide-receiver (and former Ohio State Buckeye) Terrelle Pryor will continue to impress, burning the Bengals defense. The Browns will have the element of surprise on their side, as they keep the Bengals off-guard by liberally rotating their four different quarterbacks in and out of the game. However, when push comes to shove the red-headed menace Andy Dalton will lead Cincinnati to victory. The pale-skinned ginger is at his best when the sun is obscured by grey wintry clouds and flurries of snow.

The Browns will play better than you'd expect a winless team to play, but will ultimately fall to 0-13 and inch another game closer towards solidifying their place in the NFL history books alongside the 0-16 2008 Detroit Lions. The bitter winter of Cleveland's discontent may end someday, but not this Sunday.

The TWTW Election Model: Trump's Path to 270

Danville, Kentucky -- Folks, I know a winner when I see one. Since I started this little old blog a few years ago, I've demonstrated my prowess at predicting the outcomes of political and sporting events alike. Here's a quick recap of correct predictions I've made:

• I correctly predicted the Kansas City Royals would make the playoffs in 2015
• I correctly predicted that Donald Trump would be the Republican nominee for president
• I correctly predicted the Toronto Blue Jays would win the American League East division in 2015
• I correctly predicted that the Kansas City Royals would win the 2015 American League Championship Series in 6 games
• I correctly predicted that the Kansas City Royals would win the 2015 World Series in 5 games
• I correctly predicted TPP would destroy jobs
• I corrected predicted that the Denver Broncos would win the 2016 Super Bowl
• I correctly predicted that Donald Trump would win the 2016 New Hampshire primary 
• I correctly predicted that the 2016 Chicago White Sox would suck
• I correctly predicted that Steph Curry would choke and cost the Golden State Warriors

Folks, that's a better track record of successful predictions than any nerd like Nate Silver, and I did it all without putting you to sleep with graphs, forecasts, and disclaimers about the "margin of error." I don't have a crystal ball, just impeccable intuition.

Now, I'm ready to make a new prediction. Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States. It took digging into the data, some un-skewing, and a hard look at the fundamentals of this volatile race, but my conclusions are iron-clad, as iron-clad as the industrial metal factories that once littered the Rust Belt before the dark days of NAFTA and Hillarycare.

Pictured below is how the electoral map will more or less shake out. The key "tipping point" states: Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Trump will lose some electoral votes out on the amoral secular East and West coasts of our country, but perform solidly in the states that Hillary's corporate donors condescendingly refer to as "fly-over country." The Rust Belt states that have been left behind by globalization and the continued atrophy of Blockbuster Video jobs will propel Trump to a decisive victory.

In what follows, I will break the map down state-by-state to show you how Trump will pull off the greatest upset in political history.

Nevada (6) -- Hillary

My projection system is willing to concede Nevada to Hillary while still confidently predicting an overall Trump win. Why? Nevada is populated mostly by godless heathens who enjoy gambling, prostitution, and illicit drug use. Nevada is a state full of two kinds of people: voyeuristic thrill-seekers with addiction-prone personalities, and hard-working folks employed at casinos and brothels so that these thrills are possible in the first place. The latter category of people will overwhelmingly vote for Trump but won't be able to make it to the polls, as they will be too busy cleaning up the messes and bodily fluids of Hillary's supporters in Nevada. Because of this, I anticipate low turnout from the Trump crowd, flipping Nevada to Clinton.

Colorado (9) -- Hillary

Colorado will go to Clinton for similar reasons. It is hard to see a state that legalized marijuana voting for Trump, a man that has promised to bring work-ethic back to America after 8 years of democratic malaise and indolence. Meanwhile, a recent poll of registered voters shows 61% of Colorado residents believe pot legalization has had a positive impact on their state. There's no hope for these people, folks.

Arizona (11) -- Trump

Trump is a lock in Arizona. The folks of Arizona witness the chaos of America's broken borders firsthand on a day-to-day basis. They know we need the wall, and they want Trump on that wall. They know about the massive Keynesian economic stimulus that building the wall will bring to their state. Arizona is tired of politically-correct losers like John McCain who can't get Obamacare repealed and are afraid of launching a full Congressional investigation into Hillary's body double. They're ready for Trump.

Iowa (6) -- Trump

Expect Trump to eke out Iowa in a nail-biter. Expect Crooked Hillary to perform well with the spoiled college students of Iowa City and Ames. Expect Donald to perform better with the beautiful state's forgotten rural areas, where the hard-working folks who farm our nation's corn, soybeans and pork make their living off the land. Iowa's humble farmers want to bring agriculture jobs back to their home state, and they know Trump is the man to do it. The polls show it. A completely representative and not cherry-picked poll from Dubuque, Iowa's Loras College found that:

A clear majority (57 percent) of likely voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, with less than a third of respondents (28 percent) indicating they believe the country is on the right track.[source]

Iowans who hail from quiet towns like Aplington, Malvern, and Mount Sterling are furious. They're pessimistic about the direction of the country under President Obama and his cronies Clinton and Kaine. Why? Because the continued automation of agriculture jobs is hurting their pocketbooks and their job prospects. Iowans have no love for robots, or for robot-loving politicians like Hillary Clinton. Iowan farmhands who fear losing their jobs to automation will never trust a woman who used computers to email on the job and supported Obama's unconstitutional drone war. Put your money on Trump to come up big in the Hawkeye State.

Wisconsin (10) -- Trump

Wisconsin is a perfect fit for Trump. I've written about that here. Wisconsin is overwhelmingly preoccupied on a single issue: the future of their public educational system, with polls showing that education is at the forefront of every Wisconsin voter's mind [source].

Thanks to Scott Walker and Paul Ryan's austerity agenda, Wisconsin's public schools have been devastated. Teacher strikes and protests are a constant fixture in Wisconsin these days, due to the failure of Walker and Ryan's brand of conservatism. Wisconsin wants a man with a strong background in education, who can turn the decline of the state's schools around. Fortunately, Trump is a man with strong credentials on education. Folks of Wisconsin will be aware of the wild success of Trump University. They know that an outsider's perspective is needed to Make Our Public Schools Great Again. Wisconsin leans firmly in Trump's favor.

Michigan (16) -- Trump

This prediction is going to make the nerds laugh out loud. As of writing this article, Nate Silver's math machine overwhelmingly predicts that Clinton will carry Michigan.

However, let's not forget the last time Nate Silver made a prediction about Michigan.

That's right: old Nate gave Hillary a 99% chance of winning the Michigan Democratic primary, which turned out to be an epic Bernie Sanders victory.

Folks, Nate Silver is about to be wrong about Michigan all over again. You couldn't build a state more favorable to Trump than Michigan. Folks want their auto jobs back. They have born witness to the dangers of illegal Canadian immigration and love Trump's hard-nosed deportation policies.

More importantly, two factors lead me to place Michigan comfortably in Trump's column.

First, Michigan is experiencing an influx of Chic-fil-A restaurants. That bodes well for Trump. Liberals despise Chic-fil-A for not adhering to the globalist, politically-correct, anti-Christian consensus of the modern left. The fact that this beloved chicken franchise is taking root in a formerly blue state shows that Hillary can't get overconfident here.

Second, Trump has received some key endorsements from important figures in Michigan culture. Tom Brady, Michigan Man and Wolverine legend, said "it would be great" if Trump became president. Jim Harbaugh, by far the most popular man in the entire state, praised Trump for not being afraid "to fight the establishment" [source]. Here's a chart that visualizes my own proprietary polling data on the favorability of Brady and Harbaugh relative to Hillary:

As you can see, Trump is poised to benefit from a huge polling bounce in Michigan thanks to his popular surrogates, Brady and Harbaugh. Take it to the bank: Trump will win the Mitten State.

Ohio (18) -- Trump

As a Danville native, I'm familiar with the cultural climate of neighboring Ohio. Now that Cleveland's Cavaliers and Indians have gotten a taste of winning, the state of Ohio is ready move on to the main course by hopping aboard the Trump Train. Yet, all is not well in the state of LeBron. Ohio-area Big Boy restaurants have taken a beating over the years since the departure of jobs from NAFTA. You can't even order a Swiss Miss without a tear falling onto the rye bun these days.

Fortunately for Ohioans, a centerpiece of Trump's economic plan is to revitalize our nation's family-friendly dining experience. Trump has proposed a wave of Trump tariffs to be imposed on foreign competitors like Mexico and China. This plan would ensure that Big Boy will once again be protected from cheap foreign competitors like Chipotle. Trump will ride this economic plan to a crucial victory in Ohio.

Pennsylvania (20) -- Trump

Multiple indicators point to a Trump win in Pennsylvania, a pivotal state that Clinton needs to win. Pennsylvania is a state that is down on it's luck: the Philadelphia Phillies and Philadelphia 76ers were both bottom-dwelling last-place teams this season, with the Eagles and Flyers not giving much reason for optimism either. The city has hit rock bottom. The hard-working people of Philly know that America needs a new direction. They'll go for Trump.

Florida (29) -- Trump

For many years, the good folks in sunny Florida have been cursed with Rick Scott, a sickly looking RINO governor that resembles Michael Stipe. The last thing they want is a sickly and diseased President Hillary Clinton, who is very secretive about her numerous grave medical conditions. Florida wants a man who embodies vitality, vigor, energy, and dynamism. They want Trump.

CONCLUSION

The TWTW Election Model draws upon a robust selection of anecdotes spanning across a number of fields. The 538 model doesn't give you the whole picture, folks. Most mainstream election forecasts rely on telephone polls, which are notoriously unreliable insofar as they over-sample Americans who own government-subsidized Obamaphones. The TWTW model on the other hand, utilizes contextual factors unique to each state (like the favorability of athletes or the presence of certain fried chicken franchises). The broad array of indicators surveyed here lead me to predict a Trump victory with the utmost confidence. Come November, the TWTW model will be vindicated while Nate Silver's incompetence is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, once and for all.

Trump's groundgame isn't in a computer, it's in our hearts.

— Bill Mitchell (@mitchellvii) October 7, 2016

The TWTW Election Model is based on anecdotes and interviews with 0 or more randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the direction of Will Hart.  The survey includes results among roughly 3-6 likely voters from Danville, Kentucky.