On Tuesday 3rd November, the absolute horror show that is 2020 takes one final bow by threatening to inflict Donald Trump upon us for four more years.
For those interested enough to stay up and watch this momentous occasion unfold, here is a brief introduction to the state of play, what to expect on the night, and a summary of just how worried you should be.
The first point is about the election mechanics themselves in the US.
The Electoral College elects the President – the people elect the electoral college… kind of
The President is not elected by popular vote. The President is elected by the electoral college. Each state has a certain number of electoral college votes depending on its population – California being the biggest with 55. There are 538 electoral college votes to be won, so you get to be President if you win 270 – the ‘race to 270’.
Pretty much all states ‘award’ electoral college votes on a winner take all basis. So, if you win California by 1%, you get all 55 of its electoral college votes. There are some exceptions to this, but they are broadly irrelevant to the ultimate outcome. The key is that if you win a state by one vote, you get all the electoral college votes from that state.
So when people talk of a route to 270 (and thus victory), they mean winning enough states that the collective electoral college votes add up to 270. You can get a sense of the electoral votes in the map and links below.
You can play around with creating your own map and familiarise yourself with the numbers involved here (Biden and Democrats are Blue; Trump and Republicans are Red):
States to watch
Given heavy polling over the past 12 months, many of the results in these states are foregone conclusions and experts like 538.com, or the Cook Political Report use this info to give each state a ranking from ‘Solid’ Democrat/Republican to ‘Likely’ to ‘Lean’ to ‘Toss Up’.
The 538 ‘winding path to victory’ is a particularly ingenious way of presenting this info, showing the ‘tipping point states’ on the way to racking up 270 electoral college votes: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/?cid=rrpromo
Long story short, this means than a few days out from election day, when roughly 50% of likely voters have already voted and there is the most sophisticated and expensive polling industry in the world, everyone is now looking at a narrow group of ten states to determine who will reach ‘270’ and thus win the Presidential election.
Those states to watch are (in rough order of importance for Biden and the Democrats):
- Minnesota
- Nevada
- Wisconsin
- Michigan
- Pennsylvania
- Arizona
- Florida
- North Carolina
- Iowa
- Ohio
It is no exaggeration to say that the first 5 of those are virtually ‘must win’ states for Biden in order to become President.
Trump, in contrast needs to win the bottom 5 + one other, with Florida being absolutely critical for Republican chances.
There are a few others states which are less likely to determine the ultimate outcome but which will nevertheless be close and worth waiting up for: Georgia, New Hampshire, Texas (yes Texas!) and Montana.
Other former swing states like Virginia, Colorado, Maine, Indiana, Missouri, South Carolina are unlikely to cause an upset this year but early results there will be indicative of how other states are likely to go.
Election night – 3rd November 2020
The US is massive, straddling multiple time zones and each state has its own particular, peculiar (often shocking) electoral laws and counting approaches. Things have been slightly thrown up in the air by Covid too and masses of people are voting by mail and voting early but fundamentally it’s easy to predict which states will formally announce first given counting policies, polling opening hours and their place on the eastern seaboard.
The first round of states announcing results will come between 11pm and midnight (UK time).
We should expect the first ‘calls’ to come from non-competitive states and we should expect the following:
Kentucky (horses, bourbon, etc.) – predictably Republican
Vermont (home of Ben & Jerry) – predictably Democrat
West Virginia (coal country) – predictably Republican
After those we might get announcements from Indiana. This will be a Republican win ultimately, but if it’s dubbed ‘too close to call’ initially then that is a straw in the wind for a bad night for Trump.
There is also South Carolina where similar thinking applies. It is supposed to be close but Republican. If it is called quickly for the Republicans then it might be a bad night in the offing for Democrats.
The best site to track live vote counting is the New York Times whose live tracker with mapping functions are a thing of beauty: https://www.nytimes.com/
A few other indications from early reporting states can be gauged…
If Virginia is called for Biden quickly then that demonstrates Democrats are doing well in the South and bodes well for the key state of North Carolina, which is next door.
Ohio and Georgia are also early states to count but everyone is expecting these to be close and so won’t be called definitively until the small hours of the morning. If Ohio is called quickly for Trump then a lot of polls predicting a Biden win will suddenly start to look dodgy.
In the next hour (midnight to 1am) a whole host of states will start reporting and we will likely get confirmation of Republican victories in Indiana and South Carolina too.
Amongst this deluge you will want to look out for:
- Kansas – Republican
- Maine – Democrat
- Missouri – Republican
- New Mexico – Democrat
The expectation is for these to be ‘too close to call’ initially like Indiana and South Carolina. However, Kansas and Missouri will likely be Republican, whilst Maine and New Mexico are likely Democrat. The speed of the call here is important. If they are called quickly it is another bit of evidence of a good/bad night for Democrats/Republicans.
The big results from the swing states states in the East and across the mid-West will then start to trickle in after 1am…
Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Nevada, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Texas will all be counting furiously at this point. Due to some real shithousery by Republicans, no-one is expecting Pennsylvania (the central tipping point state) to count quickly, so eyes will be on Florida for the first firm indication of a clear winner. If Democrats win it, the election is basically over but they do need Michigan, Wisconsin and New Hampshire too. If Trump wins Florida, it’s going to be a long night, again.
Winding forward, as the above are counting, we may get a result from Ohio, Iowa or Georgia. If any of them go Democrat, the election is effectively over and Biden will be President.
If the counting really is an utter shit show across all the swing states by 2am and most of the above are ‘too close to call’ then the only remaining states of interest that might report before a final national result is more generally known are Alaska and Montana. Both should be Republican but if they are too close to call, then again, it’s likely Biden becomes President once all ballots are finally counted.
Of course, ‘once all ballots are finally counted’ comes with the caveat that Trump could engineer a coup d’etat or the Supreme Court could order counting to stop when it most favours Republicans (as they did in 2000 with Bush v Gore). It would be a typically 2020 end to things and so I for one would not want to rule it out.
A Prediction
If pressed, given the data and arguments out there, I predict a relatively comfortable Biden win for the following reasons:
- Biden is generally pretty well-liked (or at least not hated), whilst Trump is very much hated by 45-50% of American voters. Democratic voter blocks are absolutely desperate to beat Trump and Biden is their vehicle to do it. The gap in personal ratings between the two candidates reminds me of the split between Corbyn and Johnson before the UK election in December 2019 when Corbyn was absolutely hated and Johnson was just about tolerated and went on to win a landslide. Unlike 2016 there is no major third-party candidate hoovering up undecided voters either.
- Biden’s seen as a political moderate, with a hinterland in the mid-West and brings with him the best chance Democrats have of winning back key states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania (which Obama-Biden won in 2008 and 2012, but Trump won in 2016).
- The coronavirus is killing 1,000 people per day in the US and Trump is, rightly, blamed by many for that. The death toll is currently peaking in several key mid-West states that Trump needs to win. It’s not a good way to end a campaign.
- Republicans are being outspent across the board by Democratic campaigns everywhere. Money isn’t everything, but it is useful, otherwise politicians wouldn’t spend most of their time seeking it out.
- Turnout is up notably on 2016 and high turnout traditionally favours Democrats, especially as indications are that young people are voting in higher numbers than 2016 (Clinton lost largely by failing to get irregular Democratic-leaning voters to turn out and vote for her). Democratic turnout in the most recent national legislative elections of 2018 was huge and motivated thus setting a precedent and allowing Democrats to target their resources better.
- Some key voting blocs that went for Trump over Clinton in 2016 (retirees, ‘independents’, suburban white women, white Catholics) look much shakier in their support for Trump this time around. Nothing is guaranteed but his messaging to them has been piss poor, to put it mildly, compared to 2016 when his promises on infrastructure, social security, bringing troops home and foreign trade were quite astute.
- Alternatively Trump is doing incredibly well with white evangelicals and rural whites, and remains strongly favoured by white men and those without a college degree. Together this is a sizeable chunk of the traditional US electorate.
- Trump has also recruited new voters to the Republican Party since 2016. Some racists and out and out fascists who maybe adopted a wait and see approach with him in 2016 now very much like what they see of Trump. There is also debate about the progress Trump is making amongst Hispanics (Cubans in Florida especially) and amongst black males. Personally I think the former is more plausible than the latter as his anti-socialist messaging is well-targeted to win Cuban-Americans over. But being pictured with Kanye West and Lil’ Wayne is probably not going to win over many black male voters.
- It’s also a fact that US Presidents usually get re-elected no matter how little they deserve it and Trump still gets solid polling ratings on his handling of the economy and capacity to grow it in future (and many vote with their wallets in the US, as they do everywhere). However, the precedents of Hoover and Carter loom large as one-term Presidents who were judged to have completely made a mess of a crisis.
- It’s also a sad fact that Republicans control the levers of government and courts in several key states (notably Texas, Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, Florida and Pennsyvlania) and thus can suppress turnout and void ballots on a substantial scale in those places, impacting close races.
- And finally Trump’s ability to turn out a dedicated ‘base’ of fervent Republican Party support is undeniable. It’s his party now. So if Democrats do not likewise get their vote out, or fail to seal the deal with suburban women or ‘independents’ in the closing days and Republican efforts to cheat ‘within the rules’ are successful then Trump can win. It’s unlikely but certainly plausible.
- But all things considered, Biden has a much better chance than Clinton did in 2016 and goes into this as the strong favourite.
WJR
belle epoque … now 