baked into the cake
アメリカ大統領選は，ヒラリー・クリントン氏が勝利するだろうと筆者は，予想しています。またどのような大統領になっていくのかが述べられています。
Hillary Clinton will win. But what kind of president will she be?
Scarred by the 2015 general election and humbled by the Brexit vote, it’s hardly surprising that many in the British political and media class continue to hedge their bets on the 2016 US presidential election, even as the climax of the contest draws near. The instinct for caution is understandable. These have been chastening times in British politics. No one wants to make three wrong calls in a row.
Even in an election as bitter as this one, the claim that lots of states are “up for grabs” is less true than ever. Since 1992, 31 of America’s 50 states have voted consistently in every presidential contest. In most modern US elections, people who consider themselves Democrats vote Democratic, while an equally large proportion of people who consider themselves Republicans vote Republican. A lot is always written at this stage in the campaign about the importance of self-described independents, but these voters tend to lean either Democratic or Republican, and to vote the way they lean too. One estimate puts the proportion of pure independents at only 5%. The veteran poll analyst Charlie Cook says that most voters are already “baked into the cake”.
今回取り上げる表現は，“baked into the cake”です。そのまま直訳すると，「焼かれてケーキになる」となりますが，どのような意味があるのでしょうか。手持ちの辞書には載っていなかったので，ほかを当たってみました。Oxford Dictionaryには，"Inevitable or unchangeable as a result of previous actions or events."と定義されていました。元々は投資用語で、baked in the cake（"almost a certainty"）がその意味で、「〜はほとんど決まっている」という意味で、「ほぼすでに結果は決まっている」という意味になります。(Nao)
