Gatorhater
All-American
- Joined
- May 17, 2013
- Messages
- 17,210
Nicely stated. The Poly si major shows. I majored in Finance so my approach is different. Being a no party affiliation I have no love of the Republicans especially Mitch. Keeping in mind that Trump left the Republicans in pieces during the primary I would not count a direct relationship between other Republicans and Trump. Lots of Trump voters are and have been very unhappy with Republican. He represents something different with several "crossover" attitudes. I get the issues you touch, like I do the contrary ones of illegal voters, and various methods of defrauding the election raised by the Republicans - JFK probably did win election from the reliable "dead" vote in Chicago.This year will be insanity when it comes to the electoral college, I think the truer indicator will be states that allow absentee ballots vs. those that do not.
Again, some guys on the board don't know how to DISCUSS politics without making things political. I was a Political Science major, so I can swing it.
To take just an example, when Wisconsin decided NOT to allow the mail-in ballots for the primary, the number of in-person polling places in Milwaukee dropped from over 100 to 5. When you layer in (a) lack of funding for an "unusual" election cycle, (b) the cost of new machinery, (c) the likelihood that many poll-workers (who are largely volunteer and/or elderly) might not show up, (d) the disincentive to vote in person when anyone sees/expects long lines at polling locations, and (e) the relative differentiation between more "Democrat-leaning" city voters and more "Republican-leaning" rural voters, then you might get "electoral college" outcomes that are very different from "opinion-polling" numbers.
Thus, you might be able to look at, again, say Wisconsin, and for the next 5 months, the polls may be showing that the state will flip to Biden. However, if people cannot vote by mail, and if the practicalities of in-person voting results in a greater "non-vote" in urban areas, then you could have a result which skews the outcome (vs. the overall support for the candidates). For instance, pretend that Wisconsin is polling 55-45 Biden over Trump. That type of a margin would be beyond error, from a statistical sense. One would begin to project that Biden will win the state and take all of the electoral votes. But if the availability of polling places/machines/workers/tabulations causes a decreased actual vote count in urban areas, but not as big of an impact on rural areas, then you could get an actual outcome of, say, 51-49 Trump over Biden, which then awards all of the electoral votes to Trump.
What is interesting is that most of the states that (so far) are not allowing mail-in ballots, or require a reason, or give a state the ability to reject a mail-in request, tend to be in the South. And if you expect the South to go for Trump, then one could make the argument that this really shouldn't make much of a difference, that Trump would "carry Alabama" whether Alabama allows mail-in ballots or not.
Therefore, the true differential comes down to swing states, particularly "purple" southern states (such as Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina) and rust belt states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin).
The bottom line is this. Right now, in statewide races, the polling numbers for Lindsey Graham (SC) and Mitch McConnell (TN) are not great. Those guys may actually lose. And maybe they lose by 1 vote, but that is all it takes. But when a presidential candidate wins those states, he gets ALL of the electoral votes, so the "close wins" count a lot more than the runaway wins. Hillary got 3 million more votes than Trump, but her biggest margin was in California, and she didn't get any extra electoral college votes for "winning big". Meanwhile, the combined number of voters by which she lost 3 rust belt states (which would have given her the win) was less than 100,000. Thus, if 50,000 people had changed their votes in three rust belt states, Hillary would have won both the popular vote AND the electoral college vote.
So, yeah, there are only a few states that are, ultimately, going to make the difference. And while Biden is ahead in most of those places (purely from a polling standpoint, and I know it is still early), and even if Biden continues to lead in the polls up until election day, the ACTUAL vote count outcome will be more dependent upon voting methodology this year than at any time ever before.
Keep in mind, we have allowed mail-in voting since the Civil War. Mail-in voting and absentee voting are not new. But, Covid-19 is new, and how that impacts the process of voting will be the biggest wild card.
No projections yet. Too many variables, still. The key to EVERYTHING this year will be voter turnout/voter participation, and especially the rules that constrain voter turnout.
2016 was a very different election. It was about the humans not the parties. The Republican establishment hated and still hates Trump almost as much as the Dems. He won the election by almost personal will and a plane. Those votes in the blue wall states, narrow as you say, were mostly flipped Obama voters. 2008 was a "change" election but Obama had complete support of the Democratic party at all levels. He was an internal "change" candidate. Trump was more invading horde taking down both establishments in back to back games.
I suspect that party methodology efforts on both sides will not change this election's outcome, although I respect and appreciate your input on them. If voters remember pre virus economy, or do not blame him for the virus or the economic impact, he wins again. To my mind the current unrest can cut two ways. Trump was making headway with black vote, especially with black males, because of the real impact of people having jobs who had not had one. The current events and the loss of jobs could easily crush that progress. If it does, the election gets closer and possible increase turnout could make the difference. However, remember the "security" moms? The burning and destruction going on nightly could impact that suburban female Republican vote that democrats need.
Baby Bush won by a few hundred votes(I am Florida voter but hate the Bush family so I abstained that year). As your point out, Trump won by 50.000 in the three "blue wall" states. Certainly close but hardly in the class of Bush. Trump won FL by 130,000; a landslide in today's world. I am balance sheet type so while I respect the political science things, I look to the people. Trump did or tried to do everything he promise -- huge plus for anyone who has voted at least once. He had the profound impact on jobs, and it was jobs on the bottom end of scale, that he promised. Now, many might not like what he did to help make those jobs but those people would never vote for him anyway.
On the other side, almost 40 million unemployed is a horrible fact. The civil unrest is another. Those are things that can end re-election hope of any President and are my keys. I put cash down on the 2016 election. This time I am hesitate for those two reasons. In Trump favor are two things: Donald J Trump, or "Trumpzilla" and Joe Biden. That keeps my cash ready but in my hands. I am avoiding Fox news to stay out of the Republican echo chamber. I want clarity when i decide. My gut is Trump by a bigger electoral vote with another popularity vote loss. In the words of FDR: He is a ******* but he is our *******"
Hey did you have Alloway for Con Law? He was some character. Stay safe.