Most likely, a Trump loss at the hands of Hillary Clinton would simply reaffirm the status quo of an unstable equilibrium, as Republicans, chastened by their defeat, move to the center. With Congress predictably deadlocked, the White House embattled and turnout low, the Republicans could regain their momentum in the 2018 midterms.
It’s also possible that Trump’s candidacy could revive and strengthen the trends of 2006 by invigorating and expanding the support Democrats have enjoyed from Hispanics and women. The party could maintain and enlarge its coalition while the Republicans remain deeply divided. Something like that happened in California after Republicans alienated Latino voters in 1994. The GOP might still temporarily control the House but would be shut out of the presidency and the Senate for years to come.
A Trump victory in November, made possible by a sweep of the industrial Midwest, would probably lead to a reversal of the first scenario: As Republicans feud, Democrats would be able in 2018 to recoup their losses.
But Trump’s success among economically disadvantaged whites and Sanders’s popularity with a new generation of debt-laden college students could foreshadow the kind of left-right realignment that took place in the 1930s, when the great preponderance of working- and middle-class voters became concentrated in one party.
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