2020 Election Predictions

Jan 7

Original post November 2, 2020 at www.twobitpundit.wordpress.com

Introduction

2020 Presidential electoral map based on fivethirtyeight.com polling averages found at 270towin.com.

*Both Nebraska and Maine award electors based on percentage of the vote rather than winner take all. Thus, those states have stripes to indicate that the vote may be split.

For reference:
-Dark Blue: Safe Democrat
-Medium Blue: Likely Democrat
-Light Blue: Leans Democrat
-Brown: Toss-up
-Light Red: Leans Republican
-Medium Red: Likely Republican
-Dark Red: Safe Republican

As the name of the website 270towin.com suggests, a candidate must receive at least 270 electoral votes to win the general election. As was the case in 2016, a candidate can win the popular vote without winning the electoral college. Thus, the electoral map can be a bit of a puzzle for a campaign as they to ascertain which states may be within reach and, therefore, worth their money and attention; which states are already in the bag, so to speak; and which states are bound to be won by the opponent - all while in pursuit of at least 270 votes.

Below is the map I created on the same website, 270towin.com, followed by an analysis of my predictions with regard to toss-ups/battleground states.

The Rust Belt

In recent elections, many of the most coveted electoral votes have come from Rust Belt States like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.

The Rust Belt has become an interesting region politically. As in my home state of Pennsylvania, there has been significant exodus from the Democratic Party across these states. In my esteem, this shift has been due to two significant factors: 1) the weakening of unions and disappearance of traditional union jobs in the steel mills, coal mines, etc. and 2) the leftward socio-cultural drift of the Democratic Party has pushed some traditional (now former) Rust Belt Democrats to a more comfortable home in the brasher, less politically-correct Republican Party. This shift has been occurring certainly over the past three decades, but has been most noticeable in through the past three election cycles: 2008, 2012, 2016.

In 2008, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all went blue. Obama lost Indiana in 2012 and, while still holding the other states, hemorrhaged support among traditional Rust Belt Democrats, for whom the excitement of electing the first Black president had worn off and the Party itself was continuing to lose its appeal. By 2016, Illinois was the only state from this list that remained blue, in large part due to Chicago and its suburbs. The maps below offer a direct comparison of the 2008, 2012, and 2016 electoral results. Notice the shift along the Rust Belt (below the Great Lakes) from blue to red.

Rust Belt Predictions

INDIANA will remain red for a third election in a row. In aggregate polling, Trump has led Biden by close to ten points for a majority of the election cycle. There will have been an egregious polling error if we see a Biden upset. Biden has not invested much in this state, indicating that his team has written it off as a loss.

MICHIGAN will flip blue. Biden currently leads Trump 51.1% to 43%, a margin that has widened by about 6 points since May 2020. Both candidates have invested heavily in this state. Michigan is a state with a Democratic governor and Republican majority legislature, which has resulted in a great deal of political turmoil over the past year and heightened the tensions going into this election. I think this will be an extremely close race, and we may not know by the end of the day who has won, but we will likely know by Wednesday.

OHIO will remain red. FiveThirtyEight ranks Ohio as a toss-up based on polling. On the eve of the election, Biden and Trump's average poll numbers are within a point of each other, Trump with a marginal advantage. In a race this close, my instinct is that the state does not have the momentum to flip. My estimation is that Biden's campaign feels similarly, as they have not invested into the state the way they have some other Rust Belt States.

PENNSYLVANIA will...flip blue. As someone living in the thick of Trump country here in PA, I don't reach this prediction easily. The situation in Pennsylvania is extremely similar to that of Michigan, with a smaller Biden lead: 50.3% to 45.4%. Again, like Michigan, there is a Democratic governor with a Republican-led legislature that have been intensely at odds in the past several months. In a 5-point race, it wouldn't take an enormous polling error to witness a Trump upset, which could potentially determine the outcome of the entire election. And again, like Michigan, I doubt we will know the outcome by the end of Election Day. I wouldn't be surprised if Pennsylvania is the last state to provide returns, and the entire results of the election may end up hinging on this state.

WISCONSIN will flip blue. In March 2020, Trump had a narrow lead in the polls. However, by late April, Biden had taken the lead and has continued to widen his margin to up to 8+ points at present. Despite being another state in which there is a Democratic governor and Republican legislature, Wisconsin hasn't faced quite the same degree of agitation as in Michigan and Pennsylvania. However, if the race is much closer than it currently appears, things could heat up pretty quickly. The Supreme Court ruled last week in favor of the Wisconsin state legislature, determining that mail-in votes postmarked before Election Day but received after could not be counted, and groups on both sides are on high alert for voter suppression and voter fraud.

The Sun Belt

The Rust Belt is primarily a question of whether former blue states will settle into new voting patterns that leave them reliably red or continue to shift from one election to the next. In the Sun Belt, the question is whether traditionally red states will begin to go blue. Arizona's polling leans blue for the first time since 1996. Texas and Georgia are both currently considered toss-ups for the first time in modern history. North Carolina is also a toss-up after going red in four out of the last five elections. And of course, there's the perennial question mark: Florida.

Sun Belt Predictions

ARIZONA will go blue. This might be the prediction I'm most enthusiastic about. The state's two most recently elected Republican senators are John McCain, who, while battling terminal brain cancer, voted against his party to keep the Affordable Care Act intact; and Jeff Flake, who retired rather than attempt to conform to the new direction the Republican Party had taken. Arizonans then elected Democrat Kyrsten Sinema to fill Flake's former seat, rejecting Trump-ally Martha McSally. After McCain's death, Republican governor Doug Ducey appointed McSally to serve the remainder of McCain's term. That term ends this year, and McSally is in an extremely tight race with Democrat Mark Kelly. All that is to say, Arizonans are a bunch of mavericks and I love it. Biden has a very narrow 2-point lead over Trump going into the election, well within the margin of error; but based on the state's trends and particular brand of politics, I think the polls will hold true and Arizona will go in favor of Biden.

TEXAS will remain red. Though the final polling averages show a narrow 1-point Trump lead, there has been a lot of discussion that this might be the year that Texas goes blue. The state has witnessed a gradual shift from the deepest red, the change becoming more pronounced through the ultimately unsuccessful senate campaign of Beto O'Rourke in 2018. The groundwork laid by the O'Rourke campaign and other grassroots movements throughout the state have moved the needle substantially, so that Democrats running for statewide office are no longer laughed off stage. Between that mobilization, the young Latinx population that is aging into the electorate, and the shift in voting patterns in the suburbs of Texas, an outcome favoring Biden isn't out of the question. However, I don't think it's in the cards this year.

FLORIDA will go red. I won't even call it "remaining red," because Florida changes colors every few years without a clear narrative. I'm going against the polls in this prediction, as they show a Biden lead of 2+ points. Something tells me, however, that this lead will not hold through the election. There was more space between the candidates in July and August, but it has narrowed throughout the fall, and the Trump campaign has hit Florida hard in the homestretch. Between the reliable turnout among Florida's conservative elderly population and the concern about Socialism from Cuban expats, my gut says it'll be a tight race, but that Florida is Trump country.

GEORGIA will remain red. It's not a given, but I would be surprised to see the state flip this year. In a Herculean effort similar to that of Beto O'Rourke in Texas, Stacey Abrams and her Fair Fight voting rights group has tremendously boosted turnout among young people, minorities, and rural voters. Abrams, believing a win is within reach, has convinced Biden to campaign harder in Georgia than any recent Democratic contender, but I don't think it will be enough to overcome the mechanisms and muscle memory that have until recently kept Georgia deep red.

NORTH CAROLINA will...gosh, I really don't even know on this one. I've kept it red on my map, but based on my other predictions it wouldn't make much difference to the outcome anyway. Similarly to Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, North Carolina has had some interesting state-level political drama over the past few years. It has deep blue veins, but I feel like ultimately to will go red by 2 or 3 point margin, despite a nearly 2-point Biden lead in the final polling averages. But I'm just making this up at this point. Who knows.

Conclusions

Ultimately my map shakes out to Biden victory, 289 to 249. In national polling, Biden has held a pretty steady 8 point lead since July. However, as was discussed in the opening of this article, the president is not elected by national popular vote. The president is elected by playing the game well enough to reach the 270 vote threshold in the electoral college, and ultimately that means that each election cycle the candidates zero-in on a handful of battleground states. The polling in these battleground states is obviously much closer than in safe states, meaning that a small polling error or a minor bump can be the difference between the predictions and the outcomes.

As an afterthought, for those of you concerned with when the election results will be finalized...it's hard to say. A few things to keep in mind:

No state finishes counting their votes on election night. The official certified results don't come out for days or even weeks.

The media projects the winner of the election at the earliest possible time based on exit polls, early reporting from key precincts, and electoral math. Often they do this responsibly. Sometimes they do this irresponsibly. For example, in 2000 the election hinged on Florida. The media called Florida in favor of Gore, only to flip hours later and announce a Bush victory. Ultimately the election was too close to call that night, the margin so slight that it triggered a recount in several counties.
Speaking of the 2000 election, the results were not finalized for over a month after the election.
This is an unprecedented election with an unprecedented number of absentee and mail-in ballots that need to be processed. Some states have already begun to process these votes. Others, like Michigan and Pennsylvania, will not begin to process until Election Day. On the ground in Pennsylvania, I can tell you that the decision of when to begin processing these ballots is a county-by-county decision. Most counties will begin on Election Day; however, a handful of counties, including a few crucial swing counties, have decided not to process absentee ballots until after in-person voting has concluded on election night or even the day after.
I haven't heard a good argument as to why the absentee and mail-in ballots received on or before Election Day should not be counted. Impatience is not a reason to call an election. If I'm running for class president and 7 out of the first 10 votes to come in are in my favor, that doesn't mean I've won, and in a just world I can't successfully demand that the election be called and the other hundreds of the votes be tossed out. And if the voting continues and I end up losing, that doesn't mean that the winner of the election changed. The outcome was going to be the same regardless of where the voting stood early in the race. If you feel that you have an argument to take me down a few pegs on this, let me know.
I'll concede that an argument can be made with regard to counting ballots postmarked before but received after election day. My feeling is that a pre-election day postmark indicates that a person cast their ballot on time and it should be counted upon receipt. However, there has to be a deadline by which to certify the results, because at some point the state cannot know how many ballots are still out there and they can't wait indefinitely for a handful of ballots that may not have been mailed to begin with. Therefore, in my opinion, the debate to be had is really over what the last date should be to wait for any stragglers. Hard-liners will say Election Day. For the reason I gave above, I believe it should be after Election Day. I'm satisfied with the PA Supreme Court's decision to set a deadline for Friday, November 5.
Ultimately, how to count votes, cast ballots, and determine electors are decisions made by the states. That's why these procedures vary from state to state, and why we'll likely receive results from some states quickly and others will take a while.
Sit tight. I don't think that results received after Election Day will be so substantial that they'll sway the outcome of a state, but even so: sit tight. Don't listen to early media projections, even if you agree with them. Don't listen to candidates declaring early victory, even if you agree with them. Stay the course and wait until we can be confident the votes have been counted. If one or both candidates jump the gun and we let ourselves be dragged along with them, it could be extremely destructive to our democracy and to our personal relationships. So sit tight, no matter which side you're on.

Alexa Dotson https://www.twobitpundit.com