Four years ago I made a prediction as to the Presidential race which was on target. Eight years ago I made a prediction on the Presidential race that was not. Caveat emptor!
I think Trump starts with a base of 260 based on early voting, voting by mail and political conditions in those states. I have paid special attention to Florida where the Republicans have outregistered the Democrats and added 200000 voters to their roles. Florida will be close as it always is, but I view it as safely in the Trump camp. Same for North Carolina where a nasty sex scandal is dragging down the Democrat candidate for the Senate and is having a depressing impact on the Democrat ticket in the Tarheel State. Arizona looked iffy initially for Trump, but I now expect him to win by four or five in that state
This puts Trump just shy of the 10 votes needed to win.
The upper Midwest and Pennsylvania will be where the election will be decided. If Trump takes one of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania he will win. I expect Trump to take all of these states in this order of probability: Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Michigan has an attractive GOP Senate candidate in John James and I think he will help Trump replicate his victory in 2016. Trump almost took Minnesota in 2016. With the chaos in Minneapolis and endorsements from Democrat mayors in the Iron Range, I expect Trump to take a state which has not gone GOP in a Presidential election since 1972. Wisconsin can be a hard state to call, but based on early voting I expect Trump to prevail. Pennsylvania is sort of a gift to Trump due to Biden’s war on fracking and his pledge to transition from oil. The overnight riots in Philly also help.
Additional states which might fall to Trump in order of probability are New Hampshire, Nevada and New Mexico, although I am not counting on them. Here is what I expect the final electoral map to look like: 316 Trump-222 Biden. I expect Biden to win the popular vote but I expect it to be closer than in 2016.
Agree, Trump will win. I wonder how many of your readers think the same way? My guess is most of them will.
I hope you’re right but there is a strong “Anyone But Trump” block which didn’t exist in 2016 because he wasn’t supposed to win anyway. Biden’s popularity, or lack of it, is not a factor to those people.
Disagree George. Trump faced much more hostility within the Republican party that he does now where the party is almost entirely unified around him. I think Trump will draw more blue collar Democrats this time than he did in 2016. We will see soon enough.
I am hoping and praying; I do not like being in the mental place that the Left has been…pretty much every election in my adult life… in no small part because I’ve discovered they really, really do tend to accuse the Right of what the prog activists want to do, and…well. Just look at what they accuse Trump of wanting to do.
Prediction?
Pain!
Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota. (Although I could go, Minnesota ,Pennsylvania, too).
Minnesota is one of the easier states to commit fraud in.
I think Trump will carry New Hampshire too. Just because I’m trying to be optimistic.
Personally, I think Trump should be walking away with this. Every state he carried in ’16 plus, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, New Mexico, and Virginia (after the crap Northam and Co. pulled, VA ought to be in play). Plus the popular vote.
That he’s not walking away with it is deeply disturbing to me.
I expect Biden will win, although I think the result that you have laid out here is quite possible.
I do not trust the accuracy of polls, but I do put some faith in the trend of polls. And looking at trends, Biden seems to be the one in the enviable spot. However, if the pollsters start doing their usual save-face maneuver of tightening the polls during this last week, those trends could begin to favor the outcome you are predicting.
Sadly, I believe the outcome of this election is going to have been influenced by (1) Red China unleashing a pandemic upon the world for the purpose of effectuating the very outcome I expect — a Biden win; and (2) fatigue over the civil unrest by those who would make us another Red China happening on Trump’s watch.
I hope I’m wrong, but I doubt it.
I would recommend Jay that you take a look at the twitter feeds for both People’s Pundit and Robert Barnes for a different view of the polling in this race:
https://twitter.com/Peoples_Pundit
https://twitter.com/Barnes_Law
Continuing …
Absent Covid, Trump would have walked away with this election. The economy was going gangbusters, employment numbers (including among key minority constituents) was through the roof, and Trump’s numbers were at new highs fresh off the Democrats’ failed impeachment / coup attempt. Covid was the game changer the left had longed for, and I believe it will net them the result they longed for.
Finally, even if your prediction is correct, I fear the outcome. Another GOP win in the Electoral College (which is the only vote that matters) while the Democrat “wins” a greater share of the total number of votes cast WILL (and I can guarantee this) cause a significant anti-Constitution backlash. Not only on the far left among academia, the left-wing media, and the Twitterati, but among mainstream Democrats and a significant number of independents.
I have looked at those. Just don’t place much faith in them at the moment. If the numbers start moving in Trump’s direction this week (as they will if pollsters are truly off but want to save face), then I am open to reconsidering my dim view.
“Not only on the far left among academia, the left-wing media, and the Twitterati, but among mainstream Democrats and a significant number of independents.”
What will they do Jay? Act like lunatics with their hair on fire for the next four years? Sounds familiar. Burn our cities, riot, murder police, pull down statues? Been there done that. Start a Civil War? Seen that also in our history. If the Left is looking for a showdown fight, I think they will be accommodated, although I doubt it will come to that.
In any case if Trump is reelected and the crazies in this country decide to trust in bullets rather than ballots Trump can only say to them what Lincoln said:
In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the government, while I shall have the most solemn one to “preserve, protect, and defend it
If the Left should win the Presidency, Zombie Biden would quickly find himself shuffled aside and the Left will attempt to reshape this country in such a manner that they would never risk losing power again. The anti-Constitution movement that you rightly fear is already policy on the Left.
No, I think we’ll see the result of the anti-Constitution backlash in increasingly “popular” efforts to eliminate the Electoral College and other anti-majoritarian constitutional safeguards. (Thus my comment that the backlash will be more mainstream than the “resistance” of the last 4 years.)
Unless they have the strength to amend the constitution Jay I see that going no place.
Another good site is The Hedgehog Report. The back and forth between some of the regulars can be a bit wearying, but a good source for info on polls, early voting and on the ground info:
https://www.hedgehogreport.com/
Other than the polls, and the shameless cheerleading by the media, what reason is there to think Joe Biden is likely to win?
Fairly pessimistic myself about the presidency and Congress, for a variety of reasons.
It’s tough to call Wisconsin because we don’t have to register as Democrats or Republicans. It is possible to change your vote here, which might add to the post-election morass. (I think there are probably more Biden voters with regrets than Trump voters.) I do not expect WI to be called on Election night.
But I’m hoping Trump won’t need us. The riots in Philly – plus Biden’s fossil fuel and energy blunder – might drive the Keystone State firmly into the Trump column, even with cheating sure to happen in Philly.
I agree with Scott Adams that the sight of Trump doing 3 or 4 rallies in a day has an effect. Americans like energy. They admire hard workers. Biden hiding in the basement and emerging occasionally to warble a few words to 20 people or so – how will this guy answer the “3 am call?” He’s not awake at 3 pm. And people aren’t turning out in droves to hear Harris or Obama speak either.
A lot of the sand for fracking comes from Wisconsin (Minnesota too). That should help Trump as well.
Art, may I ask where you live? I live in a very liberal neighborhood and the sight of Biden (and BLM) signs all over the place got me very down a few weeks ago. I have to keep reminding myself that my neighborhood is not representative of the country.
SCOTUS decided yesterday that WI mail-in ballots received after election day will not count. That might significantly change things. I don’t get why that applies to WI and not to PA.
Roberts changed his mind is why.
“Personally, I think Trump should be walking away with this.”
If it wasn’t for covid and the lockdowns, he would be. It’s not fair to blame him for either, but life is not fair, as another president noted. The riots and the concern many people have about law and order and the demonization of LEOs may balance that out though.
Trump will win the electoral and popular vote, including New Hampshire.
NH’s Covid response is printed on their license plates.
“Live Free or Die”
I’ve accounted for covid and lockdowns in my estimate of what he should be walking away with. I think absent Covid and lockdowns, he’d win everything I listed, plus, CO IL and NM.
In a sane political culture, 2020 should look like 1984 or 1972. That it won’t, tells us something … not good about ourselves.
President Trump is the incumbent and with relative high approval ratings. (Averaging across polls put him somewhere in the neighborhood of 45-51%; both Bush Jr. and Obama varied in this range before their reelections). The economy absent COVID was amazing and is decent even with it (and great compared to most of the rest of the world).
In any other year this would all lead to the frame that President Trump would be more likely to win, and that Biden would have to work hard to take the presidency. Instead from the very beginning the mainstream narrative has been that a Trump victory was almost impossible. This is why I think a lot of people are pessimistic about his chances for victory, even with the recent indicators (such as early voting party registration being very favorable to him, or the strong reaction against the Hunter Biden scandal). They view this as a nearly impossible challenge that President Trump needs to act perfectly to overcome, when in reality he was the favored candidate from the beginning.
The only indicators on Biden’s side are the polls, which we know to be inaccurate (the only question is how much). And I guess voter fraud.
I agree with your predictions, Don. And I also agree that The People’s Pundit polling is the very best of the bunch. Of the major independents Trafalgar is the best. The media and college polls are generally awful, except for Marist which is respectable. Except for Rasmussen, the RCP polls are garbage. Nate Silver too.
P.S. While I think Trump will win the electoral college handily, I do not think he will win the national popular vote. But I do think it will be closer than 2016. Look for the Dems and their media allies to fabricate another garbage narrative — either that Trump somehow stole the election or that the electoral college is an evil anachronism that is also racist. Riots to follow.
Riots to follow.
I am afraid you are correct Mike.
Art, may I ask where you live? I live in a very liberal neighborhood and the sight of Biden (and BLM) signs all over the place got me very down a few weeks ago. I have to keep reminding myself that my neighborhood is not representative of the country.
Not my issue.
What hits me is the non-response of the general public to intense stimuli like the riots in Portland. That shouldn’t be happening. The polls trouble me, though I realize they are unreliable and some are fabricated. And of course, the complete absence of ballot security.
The problem, really, is that the intramural culture of the Democratic Party is so awful that Democratic institutions are running on fumes right now. You want a sustainable constitutional system, you need rules to be clear and enforced, you need referees with integrity, you need mundane courtesy, and you need both sides to understand that a competitive political order incorporates alternation in power. We have none of that now.
You should see the garbage which spills over our Fakebook wall. Partisan Democrats don’t do any thinking anymore. They just push inane memes. They don’t have any policy perspectives anymore. They just want to abuse the enemy and never mind why. They don’t suspend judgment about anything anymore. They just grab wacky dreck off the internet and push it without giving it 30 seconds of thought or even reading their linked articles. Keep in mind, these are friends, relations, and quondam co-workers about whom we’re talking, With one exception, the quantum of offensiveness is positively correlated with years of post-secondary education.
‘democratic institutions are running on fumes’. The Democrat’s apparat is all too vigorous.
My short Litany for Trump’s victory:
Our Lady of the Americas, Patron Saint of Wisconsin, pray for Donald Trump
Our Lady of La Leche, Patron Saint of Florida, pray for Donald Trump
Our Lady Gate of Heaven, Patron Saint of Arizona, pray for Donald Trump
Our Lady Mother of the Church, Patron Saint of Minnesota, pray for Donald Trump
Our Lady of the Highways, Patron Saint of Arizona, pray for Donald Trump
Saints Peter and Paul the Apostles, Patron Saints of Arizona, pray for Donald Trump
All the American Saints, Martyrs, Holy Men and Women pray for Donald Trump
Amen
Hopefully the imminent Biden landslide foreseen by major polls will take its place in history beside the landslide victories of Alf Landon in 1936 and Thomas E. Dewey in 1948…..
Oddest election I have seen Elaine for most polls saying one thing and my eyes telling me another. Even 2016 did not have so great a variance.
I think you need to believe your lyin’ eyes. The polls are telling us that sound you hear is a herd of stampeding zebras, and the media is ignoring the fact that this isn’t Africa, and when somebody tries to use social media to point out that there aren’t any zebra herds to stampede in North America, they get blocked or shadow banned.
All that effort to convince people that the stampeding sound they hear is a herd of zebras, doesn’t make them zebras. Because Occam still trumps Gramsci.
Somewhat off-topic: the Bureau of Economic Analysis has released the 3d quarter numbers and they’re consistent with the latest personal consumption data covering the month of August. It appears the economy is snapping back and the rate at which goods and services are being produced is now 4% below what you’d ordinarily expect given production levels in the 4th quarter of 2019, not 12% below as was the case during the 2d quarter of 2020. The unemployment rate is now 7.9% and the employment-to-population ratio is about 7.3% below where it was last December. For the time being, we’re not replicating 1931, and that’s something for which to give thanks.
Don’t know what to make of the polls. Nothing makes sense this year.
We and the Trumpers I speak with aren’t answering their phones for pollsters. There are more brave people than last time showing Trump/Pence/Gade signs. Haven’t seen 1 Trump/Pence bumper sticker. Guess the deductibles are just too high for body work.
I am pray for and worried about Ernst, Tillis, Collins (only because she has an R) and Lindsey Graham. The Left billionaires are really out for him because of his committee work. Dan Gade has more money than incumbent Warner who basically has no record in the Senate. Where are the conservative billionaires? Are they Lincoln Project types?
Where are the conservative billionaires? Are they Lincoln Project types?
Yes. Economic “libertarians”/ social liberals masquerading as libertarian leaning Republicans.
Scare quotes are because I doubt any of them have a principled objection to a little regulatory capture or public/private partnership when there’s money to be made.
If Trump carries Iowa, I expect Ernst will win reelection. Collins, I think is going to lose, but what do I know?
Other than I’m very interested in seeing whether see over performs or underperforms Trump’s Maine numbers.
Moar evidence for Don’s lyin’ eyes!
I agree with Jay that Coronavirus is probably going to cost Trump the election. I will add one other impact is that it allowed Biden to run a half-time retiree type campaign. Hillary’s fall last time hurt her. Without Covid Joe almost certainlty would have had similar or worse visuals.
The Youth Straw Poll usually tracks the results for Iowa, and:
https://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2020/10/trump-ernst-win-iowa-youth-straw-poll/
On the other hand, it’s been a really weird year.
In addition to Texas and Georgia, Trump will take Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa and Arizona. That will get him to 260 which means that he must take any of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota; or both Nevada and New Hampshire. He could fail, but I would not bet on that.
Agreed Mike. I find it hard to believe that any candidate who takes both Ohio and Florida would not win the election, those two states reflecting to a fair extent the makeup of the nation in miniature.