Dispute erupts over who would have won

OBAMA VS. TRUMP:

HONOLULU—In an alternate universe in which President Barack Obama ran for a third term against Donald Trump, who would have won?

No surprise: The president and the president-elect disagree.

A fresh dispute erupted on Monday between Obama and his successor, spurred by Obama’s hypothetical musings that had he run again, he would have been victorious.

Interviewed for a podcast, Obama suggested he still holds enough sway over the coalition of voters that elected him twice to get them to vote for him once again.

Confidence

“I am confident in this vision because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Obama told his former White House adviser, David Axelrod, in a podcast released on Monday.

Trump, naturally, disagreed. He took to his preferred medium — Twitter — to offer his reaction.

“President Obama said that he thinks he would have won against me. He should say that but I say no way!” Trump wrote.

He suggested Obama’s record would have prevented him from securing a victory, citing jobs that have left the US, troubles with Obama’s Affordable Care Act and the ongoing threat posed by the Islamic State group as examples.

The White House declined to comment on Trump’s tweet.

In the podcast, Obama didn’t address whether he would have been able to surmount the obstacle that the Electoral College posed for Hillary Clinton.