Michael Barone, writing for RealClearPolitics, looks at some alternate ways the next 5+ months may play out in the presidential race. He bases them on previous races that were not linear. Barone goes back as far as Goldwater vs. Johnson to find possible comparisons.
I won't try to summarize all of these earlier races for you. At the end of the day, Barone concludes this race looks like a straight-ahead slog between two dogged competitors but that other outcomes are certainly possible, if not especially likely.
