As we enter into the final three weeks of the election, I’m updating my first set of predictions and musings—updates are partly adding new information (for example, actual turnout so far and a lot more on the Senate seats) and some new thoughts.
Very little of the below, in its basics, has changed. I will probably do one more comprehensive update; for those who want more targeted, narrower musings along the way, check out my Facebook page.
BOTTOM LINE:
Biden will win. And chances are high it’s an Electoral College landslide.
My guess today: 413 EVs for Biden (yes, including TEXAS), 126 EVs for the madman—
[Digression to explain—Maine and Nebraska are the two states that assign their electoral votes differently: the winner of the overall popular vote in each of those two states gets 2 EVs—to equate to the 2 EVs every state gets because they each have two Senators— and, then, the other EVs go to the winner of each Congressional District. Since you asked…even though D.C. is not a state, it gets 3 Electoral Votes thanks to the 23rd Amendment which gives it the same number of electoral votes as that of the least populous state (which will always be 3…two Senators plus one House member for a lone statewide House seat=Montana, Vermont and the Dakotas, for example).]
Democrats will win the Senate—doing better than expected and reaching 52-54 seats (see below for the range explanation) and almost certainly expand their majority in the House (somewhere between 5-15 seats I’d guess, depending on how big the landslide).
Could Biden lose? Of course. And if he does, every single Democratic consultant should be fired.
Yes, I have caveats (of course…).
None of the below takes away from:
EVERY DAY COUNTS, AND EVERY OUNCE OF ENERGY HAS TO BE EXPENDED TO BRING IT HOME.
GENERAL THOUGHTS:
The landslide prediction is built on one overriding theory: I’ve felt from say May that only one factor—short of a shocking development—would matter in the election: COVID-19 and the economic collapse. Boiled down, it’s simple: “my [fill in the blank of a loved one] died, is dying or got sick, and I’m out of work, because Trump lied and fucked it up.”
Not the Supreme Court, or Trump’s taxes or, alas, BLM or anything on the list of policy issues have taken over as the key reason shaping the election and it’s now a baked in perception in enough voters’ minds—and, especially older voters (Florida) and suburban voters. Biden is lucky, in that respect, because he’d be far from a strong candidate in a normal time.
Fundamentals: aren’t a prediction but, if you look at them over time, they do say *something* about the contours of the race. So, let’s look at those.
FIRST BIG MYTH: you often hear people say, “national polls don’t tell you anything because we elect a president state-by-state through the Electoral College”.
That general statement is WRONG!!!!
If the national polls are close—meaning, on a consistent basis, the two candidates are within a 2-3 points—then, yes, it’s harder to read where the election will end up based on a national poll because of the state-by-state nature of the Electoral College (which, yes, should be abolished—along with the undemocratic U.S. Senate).
BUT, if one candidate has a clear, ***consistent*** lead in national polls in the mid-to-high single digits over the last 60-90 days, it’s almost impossible for the trailing candidate to win 270 electoral votes.
From the post-war election to 2016, in every election involving an incumbent (in other words, Trump as incumbent in 2020), the winning challenger was leading among a majority of voters after his convention.
That has been true in this contest in virtually every single credible national poll to date in this race (by “credible” I mean the 15 or so pollsters—see below—who consistently conduct polls grounded in as close-as-you-can-get to a picture of the makeup of the electorate—which includes, btw, FOX News polls!)
Pretty consistently, Biden has led in the mid- to high-single digits—right now, just shy of a 7 percent margin and an eye-lash below 50 percent support, which for a challenger is a pretty sweet spot to be at. If that stays as CONSISTENT as it has, national polls do have meaning—Biden is likely to win and, convincingly so, in the Electoral College:
2008: Obama won by about 7 points in the popular vote and got 365 EVs
2012: Obama won by about 5 points in the popular vote and got 332 EVs
2016: Clinton won the popular vote by on 2.1 points (basically rolling up the score in CA and NY) and…well, we know the story there.
The race has been remarkably stable, putting aside the huffing and puffing of people who want to inject some drama—that includes the “battleground states”, which are mostly statistically unchanged in 10 battleground states since early August.
Biden’s approval rating: within these polls, people are asked, generally, do you approve or disapprove of X candidate. Despite Trump’s attacks, Biden has now consistently been above 50 percent for the past month or so. That is huge for a challenger.
Another comparison: the final polling average in 2016 was Clinton 45.7%, Trump 41.8%. Today, it’s Biden 52.2%, Trump 41.9%.
Undecideds: In the close race in 2016, undecideds plus 3rd party candidates were 12.5 percent—which was the mother lode of the “hidden Trump” voter. This year? Very few voters say they are undecided, and very few voters who say they are for one of the candidates say that they are open to switching. It’s barely 6 percent. So there just aren’t a lot of voters sitting out there trying to make up their minds based on a late-moment breaking news/faux pas. I’m guessing the third-party candidates barely register.
Biden’s favorable/unfavorable rating has consistently gotten better—compared to 2016 when Clinton’s favorables were mostly stuck in the low 40s. If you look from this period right now, through Election Day 2016, with one or two outliers, she always had a majority unfavorable rating—in a sense, while there was no incumbent, you could certainly have given her a slight “incumbent” status in the minds of some voters because she’d been in peoples’ living rooms on TV for over a quarter of a century, compared to the “newcomer” Trump.
Right Track-Wrong Track: this is typically another good barometer for where an incumbent stands. Morning Consult’s October 12th measurement: 71 percent of the people say the country in on the wrong track. Perhaps the most interesting number: only 60 percent of Republicans say the country is on the right track—down from 78 percent in mid-February, which one assumes is COVID-related; that’s one small data point that could point to enough Republicans feeling disengaged who are unhappy with Trump’s COVID response, can’t bring themselves to vote for a Democrat and so won’t vote.
Random other points to throw in the mix to fill out some of the picture, not as things that stand on their own as a major influence but are little pieces of the bigger puzzle:
- Fundraising: who would have predicted that, after trailing Trump in a big way in money, Biden/Democrats are blowing it out of the water on money—raising $750 million since Aug. 1 ($364.5 million in August and $383 million in September), entering into the final stretch with $432 million in the bank.
- Money raising above is a sign of enthusiasm (and that doesn’t even count the gobs of cash Senate candidates are raising).
- Money allows you to expand the map, rather than shrink it, and to run millions of dollars of ads in places like Texas because, why not?
- Third-party voters will matter even less, as I said above. A very tiny number of people are opting for third party candidates. (as an aside: I don’t want to pick a fight with the Green Party but it is quite something that the Green Party wants to project a different profile and, yet, nominates and old white guy who runs for something every election cycle, loses every single election and barely is noticed, is a mediocre campaigner and the party relegates the woman of color to the VP spot)
- In a poll of MILITARY voters at the end of August, 43 percent said they would vote for Biden, 37 percent said they plan to vote to re-elect Trump. That’s pretty astounding, given the track record of general support over many decades for Republican among the military—though, in considering this, remember the growing percentage of people of color in the military over the past 2-3 decades, folks who are quite aware of racism in their communities and the way in which Trump embraces racism. That military voters are polling this way will tell you something about why some of the demographic data–white men, for example–and some states are showing better results for Biden–but it also shows you how military voters view Biden as an (ugh) pretty strong pro-Pentagon voice (um, yeah, he voted for the Iraq War e.g.).
- The whole slew of anti-Trump Republicans, the former national security Republican crew and others matter, again, as a data point—it’s not so much that they actually sway huge numbers of people to vote for Biden, IMHO. Rather, they can give pause to a passel of Republicans—especially older voters—about whether they want to actually go out to vote for Trump. It’s also possible this helps Democrats in a few Senate races—i.e., voters who won’t vote for the top of the Democratic ticket but might not find it too hard to vote for a conservative/moderate Democratic challenger (I was going to say like Cal Cunningham in NC but…whoops…or Hegar in Texas)
- The whole “maverick” McCain bullshit was a total media concoction over many years BUT…Cindy McCain’s endorsement of Biden in Arizona matters on the margins, especially in the important Maricopa County.
- John Kasich is a dolt, anti-union and full of himself but in Ohio he has some sway among independents, conservative Democrats and a smattering of suburban Republicans so his endorsement of Biden matters in Ohio in terms of the general noise there and, again, in a close race, it’s worth maybe a percentage point or two.
- Sports: I’m a sports fan and, wow, the activism among athletes has been nothing short of amazing in the past six months. We’ve gone from Michael Jordan not wanting to take a position on politics in the 1990s because “Republican buy sneakers, too” to Colin Kaepernick kneeling alone (and, then, being denied a job) to…baseball players (one of the least African-American sports in terms of athletes) standing in support of BLM, to the NBA where virtually every player (and coaches) has a BLM message on their jersey and LeBron James—maybe the most popular player in all major sports—leading BLM messaging, urging people to vote and, my god, NASCAR (!!!) removing the confederate flags from their races and marching in unison and support on a racetrack, gaining national TV coverage, with an African American driver targeted because of his race and BLM statements. Who do you think gets more positive attention from voters, LeBron James or…Jon Voight/Eric Trump, Jr.?
- West Virginia! Trump will surely win the state and he’s up by between 14-18 points BUT…that’s a state he won with the biggest margin over Clinton, 68-26.
- Utah: Trump is winning by 10 in a state he won by 18. That’s largely the Romney-Trump feud/Mormon effect. Still…
The “hidden” Trump voter: ah, yes, the idea that polling doesn’t capture this big group of voters who are too shy to admit they will vote for Trump has been a lingering topic of cable news speculation and Republican wet dreams.
I don’t buy it in 2020 for two basic reasons.
First, that “hidden” voter in 2016 was driven, IMHO, by two factors—racism and sexism. Most of those “hidden” Trump voters (read: older white MEN without college degrees) either hated Obama because he was black (and Trump amped that up with the “birther” meme because he’s a hard-core racist) or are deeply sexist/misogynists (you don’t have to be a fan of Hillary Clinton to recognize that sexism was a factor in her defeat). Obviously, with Biden as the opponent, it’s hard to gin up *persuadable* voters on those two factors.
Second, to the extent there is still some group of “hidden” Trump supporters, it’s quite a bit smaller since people have had the experience of Trump as president.
The other “hidden Trump” voter: my own small gut theory (“Gut” meaning I can’t prove it with data) also considers that there are plenty of “hidden Trump” voters…who won’t answer pollsters questions because they voted for Trump in 2016 but are not going to vote for him in 2020 and are too embarrassed by the 2016 vote to say anything. Crazy? I point to those substantially lower numbers in West Virginia, Montana and Texas as examples.
Ok, you’ve still got 2016 PTSD: you think the polling could be off again. Let’s assume it’s off by the same factor as 2016—that happened largely because pollsters under-sampled white people without degrees…a mistake that has been rectified in most legitimate polls. Courtesy of the New York Times, consider the table below—even if it’s off by a 2106 factor, Trump still loses (data is as of October 13th).
So-called “Battleground” states:
I would argue that they are not all created equal. Here’s what I mean: don’t look just at the presidential race but look in unison with other top ballot races. For example, some folks have worried about the changing nature of Minnesota; it is true that in the so-called Iron Range, which used to be heavily unionized and strongly Democratic, Republicans have shifted the balance there.
Yet, Biden has run consistently with a relatively comfortable polling lead…which is no surprise because Sen. Tina Smith is running for a full-term (she won the special election after replacing Al Franken) and she has been in the high single digits consistently. I don’t buy that MN is close in the presidential if Smith is running consistently in front—people do not, for the most part, split their ballots in modern politics, and virtually no one is going to cast a ballot FOR Smith and NOT for Biden (and to be consistent, the reason I am very skeptical that Lindsey Graham will lose in SC, despite a tight polling picture and a massive fundraising haul by Jamie Harrison, and, certainly, there is virtually no chance McConnell loses in KY, the reason I’ve been aghast at the millions of Democratic money wasted on the KY race)
My point is: look at top-tier Senate or Governor races, or even House races (taking the House races as a group) to get a better feel for how the presidential race will unfold.
Look at the “Battlegrounds” as linked: meaning, if Ohio is close and remains close—and it’s now a toss-up in some polls—then, because of demographics, you can probably view that as a barometer of the reliability of what you hear about Michigan and Wisconsin. Similarly, if Texas stays relatively close, even if Trump is ahead by say 4-5 points, you can probably view that as a reliable barometer of Arizona and a bit about Florida (in terms of reading enthusiasm or not among *some* Latino voters—i.e., not Cuban community voters).
Debates UPDATED. So, the first “debate” happened (if you want to call it a “debate”); it’s possible there won’t be another one. Most debates have not shifted the race from its contours. I still believe that:
- The huge mail-in balloting that was already underway, and Biden did not ask, “where am I and what am I doing here”? and, despite his answers being mediocre and dull, people had already factored in, “he’s a bit inarticulate, bumbling”… This is totally separate and aside from him getting lucky because the entire debate was overshadowed by the unhinged behavior of his opponent.
- There is a very small slice of voters who are undecideds. Most people watching that debate—or any other debate—were like partisans at a sporting event—rooting for their “team”, not trying to figure out what team to root for.
- I am adding this slight caveat here to the “debates don’t matter”. That’s true with normal people—Trump’s unhinged performance simply hardened peoples’ positions, which aligns with my point above that debates don’t shift the basic contours of the race i.e., Trump heading for a shellacking but… it is likely that a small slice of his marginal supporters (the small slice that voted for him in 2016 and were holding out hope they could convince themselves he is something different than what they had expected) might be depressed by his antics and will simply stay home—which will just amplify the scale of the beat-down in terms of popular vote, maybe 2-3 states on a knife’s-edge and, thus, perhaps a Senate seat or two.
About pollsters: so, I take any individual poll with a healthy amount of skepticism. There are a handful of pollsters that are highly rated (A+ to A-) that I try to look at, over time, and comparing apples to apples (same state, likely voter poll). Here they are with, in parenthesis, their perceived “house bias” (i.e., they tend to skew one way or the other—meaning, the way they decide the makeup of their poll tends to favor one party or the other but not hugely): Marist College (R+0.3), Monmouth University (D+1.3), ABC News/The Washington Post (D+0.5), Siena College/The New York Times Upshot (R+0.3), Selzer & Co. (D+01); Muhlenberg College (R+0.2); SurveyUSA (D+0.1); Suffolk University (D+0.6); CBS News/The New York Times (D+0.4); Emerson College (D+0.3); Siena College (R+0.7); Fox News/Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research (D+1.4); RKM Research and Communications Inc./NBC News/The Wall Street Journal (R+0.1)
Early voting/new registrations/Vote by mail (VBM):
The first RED BIG LIGHT CAUTION: it is almost a certainty that Democrats will build a huge lead in votes in early voting AND that Republicans will turn out in big numbers on Election Day. We are, based on the voting so far, looking at a possible record turnout, the highest in almost a century.
With that in mind: the early voting is a good sign because the voting share has tended to be voters more demographically aligned with Democrats: women, college-educated white voters, African Americans and Hispanic voters. Be clear: non-college educated whites are also voting in big numbers—Trump’s base—but they are a smaller share of the overall electorate compared to 2016–49 percent now, 58 percent in 2016. Per The Hill: “The college-educated white vote has grown to nearly 35 percent of the electorate, up from 30.3 percent four years ago, while the share of Black voters in the electorate has nearly doubled, to 9.2 percent.”
Other nuggets:
Florida: in 2016, registered Democrats had a slim lead in early voting to date by a tiny 37 to 35 gap. Today? 53 percent of votes cast in Florida have come from registered Democrats, just 28 percent from Republicans.
North Carolina: Democrats have cast 52 percent of all ballots so far, which is a big jump from 36 in 2016—and Republican voting has dropped from 37 percent in 2016 to just 17 percent to date.
Pennsylvania: registered Democrats have cast more than three-quarters of all ballots, Republicans 15 percent to date.
REPEATING THE WARNING: all above is good BUT Election Day will have a strong Republican tilt.
Target Smart tells us these factoids as of October 14th—this is based on modeling from states where you can know party affiliations of voters:
Democrats are leading in VBM requests in every state except four (AR, ID, IN, MI) that have begun early voting. This includes the battleground states of FL, NC, OH, PA, VA, and WI; This count does include automatic or permanent VBM requests, which may explain Michigan, where Democrats have tangentially experienced a surge in voter registration this summer;
Among 2016 non-voters (meaning, people who did not bother to vote in 2016) Democrats are leading Republicans in key states, including FL, ME, MI, PA, and WI.
The early vote electorate in 2020 is so far much more favorable than the 2016 electorate was for Democrats:
Dems have a lead of 15% among early votes cast thus far, almost doubling the 8% lead they had in those same states at this same point in ’16.
In the battleground states, 328,389 first-time voters have already cast a ballot. Compare that to 114,852 at this point in ’16. Dems have a 7% lead with these voters, while they only led by 1% with new voters at this point in ’16.
Another 1.2M sporadic voters have already cast a ballot across the battleground states. That’s almost 600% the 220k vote from sporadic voters at this point in ’16. Dems lead among these voters by a 19% margin, improving upon the 13% margin at this point in ’16. This is especially important, IMHO: something is driving “sporadic voters” (i.e., people who don’t go to the polls for every election) to get off their asses and vote.
Black voters and college educated white voters have seen the biggest surge in turnout, relative to 2016, while non-college white voters have seen a plummeting early vote share.
THIS IS YUGE: Women are turning out in massive numbers in the battleground states. The electorate is +12 women right now, while at this point in ’16 women outnumbered men by 6 pts. YUGE because we know there is a canyon-sized gender gap between Democrats and Republicans.
Voters under the age of 30 are accounting for a larger share of early votes cast among sporadic voters in every single battleground state but one at this point, with a 4 point increase over ’16 in aggregate.
North Carolina: the number of registered Democrats who have already requested absentee ballots for this year’s election is 18 times what it was at the same point in the 2016 race; registered Republicans have made such requests at only five times the 2016 levels. Black voters who have already requested absentee ballots is nearly 30 times what it was at the same point in 2016.
The above is not determinative of what will happen in the next few weeks BUT BUT BUT…it’s where you want to be.
The Senate–Like 1980…in Reverse:
At this point, given the dynamic in the presidential race, I am far more focused on the Senate races—and progressives should be as well because any hope we have of pushing the Biden centrist wing for more progressive policies is dead in the water if Bernie Sanders, for example, is not the chair of a major committee and is still in the minority.
I still am relatively bullish on the Senate results for the same reasons I’ve stated for a number of months: I think that the presidential results could mirror the 1980 presidential-Senate results and result in up to 54 Democrats in the Senate (reminder: Bernie Sanders and Angus King are technically “independents” but caucus with the Democrats and are considered in the Democratic count). I don’t see a lot of ticket splitting going in the Senate races (i.e., voting for different parties in the presidential and Senate contests in the same states) with two caveats: Montana and perhaps Alaska. Trump will win Montana (if he doesn’t, then, toss out the above and it’s more likely he barely reaches 75 EVs…wipeout) and maybe Alaska (see below) but I think Bullock’s personal popularity lets him squeeze through over Daines and it’s a weird one in Alaska.
In short, in the final 1980 stretch, the bottom fell out for Jimmy Carter and, aside from the electoral landslide for Reagan, Republicans gained a net of 12 seats, taking control of the Senate for the first time since 1954 with 53 seats—this was a breath-taking reversal at the time and entirely unexpected. That election knocked out long-time incumbents like Culver from Iowa, Talmadge in Georgia, Frank Church in Idaho, Birch Bayh in Indiana (who, egads, lost to the leading light, Dan Quayle) and, yes, George McGovern in SD who just 8 years prior was the Democratic Party’s candidate for president.
You can say, with the knowledge of today about the politics, oh, it’s obvious McGovern would lose in SD. But, six years later, Tom Daschle won the Senate seat back from James Abdnor and went on to serve through 2005, including stints as minority and majority leader of the Senate. A number of those races where incumbents lost were quite tight—e.g., Talmadge lost by less than two points to a nobody.
It was the top of the ticket imploding that drove a majority of those loses, many of which were surprises at the time…
….which is possible in 2020—you might end up with surprises like Cornyn losing Texas, where the polls are so-so for him. I’m not saying, today, that I think Cornyn will absolutely lose with the same certainty I have about say AZ or CO—but I would not be surprised if it happens.
The best indicator, which I predicted a while ago, that the Senate is tilting towards Democrats is when Republicans, and donors, start talking up the Senate as the bulwark against Biden “socialism” and, voila, Thom Tillis (Republican—NC), just a few days ago, talked openly about a Trump defeat: “The best check on a Biden presidency is for Republicans to have a majority in the Senate.”
Almost A Lock:
Colorado, Maine, Arizona. I would take CO and AZ to the bank at this point. Maine is almost as certain a bet because incumbent Susan Collins has never led in any poll over Sarah Gideon going back to February and Biden is polling at between 12-17 points up in the state—the fact that Collins is keeping the race to low single digits is just a reality of her incumbency over 4 terms but, in this hyper-partisan world, I don’t see how she survives the wave.
The In-Reach Seats:
North Carolina, Iowa
North Carolina: horray! Another old white man who can’t keep it in his pants or…hasn’t learned that phone text messages are forever. And yet…Cal Cunningham still seems to be holding on to his 4-5 point lead over Tillis even after Cunningham’s “extra-curricular” activity went public. Which is another “horray”: voters seem not to care about sex between consenting adults, no matter the circumstances.
Iowa: Theresa Greenfield has led in just about every poll since June, with a lead averaging a shade under 5 points over incumbent Republican Joni Ernst. Ernst is sort of in the opposite bind that Susan Collins is in— a first-term Senator (Collins has held her seat since 1996) who has made very little of a positive impression on voters in a very competitive state (Collins has some good will in Maine but is in a state which Biden will win by double digits). Biden is a tiny bit in the lead—a point or two.
The Wildcards: these are the seats that have unusual circumstances but are gettable in a landslide at the top.
Montana, Georgia (2 seats), Texas, Alaska.
Montana: one of the few places where I think Trump could win but Democratic challenger Steve Bullock, a fairly popular Governor, could unseat the Republican Daines. Trump is up by mid-single digits—in a state he won by 20 points in 2016; Biden is getting 8 percent of the voters who say they voted for Trump in 2016, in the most recent poll. That leakage of support is the reason the Senate race is somewhere between a tie and a 2-3 point lead for Daines. One of the very few places where ticket-splitting in enough numbers could be meaningful.
Texas: I went out on a limb—or, so some have said—allocating Texas to Biden, and I did so largely because of this: Since 2016, Texas has added 1.5 million voters to the registration rolls, which is nearly two times Trump’s 2016 margin of victory of 800,000 votes; turnout in Texas in early voting, to date, has been massive. We saw a whisper of the potential in 2018 when Beto O-Rourke came within three points of defeating Ted Cruz—but, in fairness, there are a substantial number of Republicans who hate Cruz who is another level higher of despicable (as an aside: as this picture I took in Florida in 2016 accurately reports…).
If it turns out Biden wins Texas, Cornyn will probably lose as well. But, this is certainly on the outer reaches of seats to count on.
Alaska: this is a weird one. Alaska, yes, is Republican in one sense but it has a bit of an NH-type independent streak—recall, after she lost her primary, Lisa Murkowski won her re-election in 2010 with a write-in campaign, which is almost impossible to pull off anywhere and was the first in something like 50 years in a Senate election.
The race is actually a relatively unremarkable Republican incumbent against an independent. There is very little public polling there to look at over say six months (a new poll is set to hit October 16th). But, what has been polled shows a virtual tie: Back in August, a pollster with a B rating found 43% for the incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan and 43% for the independent Al Gross, who actually has Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee backing. Fourteen percent of respondents said they were unsure. And Biden and Trump were virtually tied. A more recent poll from a slightly less valued pollster (B/C rating) last week showed roughly the same result—Sullivan and Trump leading by just a point…essentially a tie (within the margin of error).
So, do not be surprised if the independent wins that one—and that would be a Democratic-counted seat.
Georgia: Warnock is now leading the field in the special election (the son of Iraq-War-Cheerleader-turned-Big-Pharma-lobbyist scar Joe Lieberman seems to have fallen far behind as people realized he was hurting the party’s chances); there will almost certainly be a run-off in this race and, possibly, in the other GA Senate seat race (if no one gets 50 percent, the runoff is January 5th)—though I suppose there is a tiny chance (very tiny, and unlikely) that if Biden wins Georgia (where he is ahead slightly) he could pull Warnock (most unlikely) and Ossoff (slightly more likely because it’s mostly a one-on-one race) to victory above 50 percent.
Warnock most recently leads in head-to-head matchups against the two Republicans most likely to make the runoff, either Loeffler or Collins. In the other race, Perdue (Republican incumbent) versus Ossoff, Perdue has a tiny lead (2-3 points) within the margin of error; this race will probably end up in a run-off as well since neither candidate seems to be above 50 percent because of a minor party candidate pulling votes.
If Democrats already have gained control of the U.S. Senate on Election Day, I think Warnock and Osoff could win the runoffs because Republicans will be deflated and won’t turn out (special elections are notoriously low turnout). If the Senate is still in play and would be decided by one or both of these races, it’s a toss-up in the run-off because there will be tens of millions of dollars pouring into the run-off. It’s very hard to judge a run-off where both sides are competing aggressively.
I’m not even listing South Carolina. Yes, there’s all sorts of excitement about beating Lindsey Graham (it would be glorious!) but the underlying demographics in SC just are far more favorable to Graham than for Cornyn in Texas. A presidential election year is likely to drive higher turnout of Trump-leaning Republicans who vote for Graham; in a mid-term election, lower-turnout election, I could totally see Graham losing his seat.
The Stupid, Silly Ones:
Kentucky: weeks ago, I posted the easiest political observation on the planet—every dollar spent on the Kentucky Senate race on behalf of the Democratic candidate (McGrath) is a waste of time (that would have been true had the more progressive candidate had won the primary). Oh, the howls from the progressive “experts” that, roughly, “we can’t win if we don’t try”. Let me phrase it a different way: “we lose because we live in a world of fantasy and suspension of belief in the real world”. All the money thrown at defeating Mitch McConnell has been a *wasted* dollar potentially winning other seats to actually take power away from McConnell and make him the minority leader next year. Trump will win the state by a margin of between 10 and 20 points. Put another way, if lightning strikes and McConnell loses, it won’t matter in terms of power in the Senate because it would mean that Trump collapses and you are looking at a wave like 1980. Yes, I will join the celebration if McConnell loses but a part of me thinks the *worst* outcome for McConnell, and a delicious serving of karma, is for him to be the Senate *minority* leader, with no power, and watch everything be done to undo the damage he has caused.
CAVEATS: what a bummer, huh?
The above could be wrong. [Inside-the-head-voice] “You chicken, you.”
Usually, each election, I talk to various people who are out there in various states doing voter outreach, canvassing, etc. to get a feel…(e.g., someone I spoke to in 2016 who knew the South very well was ranted to me about the incompetence of the Democratic Party in Florida…)
But, COVID feels like groping in the dark. There is nothing to base it on historically—I don’t know how to weigh the lack of door knocking and in-the-street mobilizing that won’t happen versus the massive phoning/texting/social media that has taken its place. It’s the most unsettling part of the whole picture.
And: no one knows what the pandemic will look like on Election Day, which, by all accounts, will be a larger Republican-leaning vote—will it be raging everywhere, or just in specific states (e.g., right now, there is a surge in the Midwest and West)? You might consider whether Ron DeSantis is actually a Democratic Party plant by throwing open the doors in Florida to all activity, pandemic-be-damned—and just around Election Day, a few weeks from now, would be about the time a wild new infection surge would hit the state hard, a state in which a large number of Democratic voters will have already cast their ballots in early voting.
I do not underestimate the ballot shenanigans Republicans will attempt—and are attempting every single day. That’s a real threat. Which we have to be prepared to shut down the country for.
I do not underestimate the incompetence of the same-old Democratic election consultants and “strategists” who, time after time, blow elections… Aside: Tom Perez has got to go after the election—he’s beyond incompetent as a party chair.
I had some concern that the “October Surprise” might be the madman claiming we had a COVID vaccine. I now think that that is unlikely and, more important, there is too much disbelief that it is possible and any claim of a safe vaccine magically appearing will be rapidly discounted—and, worse for Trump, a large majority believe he’s dishonest. Lastly, it’s almost karmic: the October non-surprise turns out to be Trump getting COVID, along with a bunch of his visible aides which JUST REINFORCED to people the underlying issue in the election—see my opening remarks.
LASTLY: none of the above, in any way, lessens my view that should Biden win, all of us progressives are going to have a battle royal against Biden. His appointments will be deficit hawks, anti-Medicare For All and foreign policy “moderates” (“moderates” meaning very happy with big military spending, war, American Exceptionalism etc.). It might require a general strike against the Democrats. I’m ready for all of that. But, we have to obliterate Trump first.
Bonus thought: thinking already about 2022… Lots of folks want to, in advance, give a potential Biden Administration grief about expected policy shortcomings likely to come on health care, taxes, etc. Understandably…
BUT…if you want to look at another block of people who will stand in the way of Medicare For All, a wealth tax on the richest, expanding Social Security, stronger union organizing rights: add these to your list–all of whom are endorsed by the CHAMBER OF COMMERCE (the serious enemy of the people) and have 70 percent or higher ratings on the CoC scorecard:
Elaine Luria (Va.), Lizzie Fletcher (Texas), Haley Stevens (Mich.), David Trone (Md.), Cindy Axne (Iowa), Angie Craig (Minn.), Dean Phillips (Minn.), Greg Stanton (Ariz.), Josh Harder (Calif.), TJ Cox (Calif.), Harley Rouda (Calif.), Susie Lee (Nev.), Ben McAdams (Utah) and Anthony Brindisi (N.Y.). Joe Cunningham (S.C.), Abigail Spanberger (Va.), Sharice Davids (Kan.), Xochitl Torres Small (N.M.), Kendra Horn (Okla.), Colin Allred (Texas), Andy Kim (N.J.), Antonio Delgado (N.Y.), and Abby Finkenauer (Iowa).
This list should already be a hot one to use to consider SMART, EFFECTIVE primary challenges in 2022 (meaning, people who can raise money, and are good candidates–not simply those who wake up one morning, look in the mirror and see a potential Member of Congress)
