And the Winner Is
Democrat Hillary Clinton won the Presidential Election of 2016 with 48.2% of the vote. Donald Trump came in second almost three million votes behind Clinton, with 46.1% of the vote. Just like Algebra 2 class back in high school, at least for me, the math of United States Presidential elections sometimes doesn’t make sense. Why: because as we all are very much aware, Hillary Clinton has not been the President of the United States for the past three and a half years.
Donald Trump did not win the popular vote, but he was able to amass a majority of the Electoral vote, winning 304 Electoral votes to Clinton’s 227. (For those government geeks like me, who recognize that those numbers are seven short of the 538 total Electoral votes, seven electors were “faithless” and didn’t vote for either one). Without starting an “Electoral College” debate, this is how we elect the President now. So like it or not, this isn’t a national election. The Presidential Election of 2020 is actually fifty-one separate state elections for the number of Electors that state is allotted.
Electoral College
Each state is allocated one Elector (vote) for each Member of the House of Representatives of the state, and one for each Senator (two for each state). The minimum a state could have would be three electoral votes (that is what the District of Columbia is also given). The largest is fifty-five, California. It all totals to 538 Electoral votes, so a tie would be 269. It takes 270 wins the Presidency.
Donald Trump didn’t need to win the popular vote. He needed to win 270 Electoral Votes, and he did that and more. To win the Presidency then, Joe Biden needs to win 270 or more Electoral votes, not just more popular votes.
By the way, that’s why you don’t see Biden campaigning in California or New York. Both of those states are going to go to the Democrat, no matter what. “Running up” the vote in a state does the Presidential candidate no direct good, though it might help elect other state candidates there. The Presidential candidate just has to win the popular vote by the slimmest margin, to get “all” the Electoral votes.
And since it’s like Algebra, there are two exceptions. Maine and Nebraska allow their Congressional Districts to individually choose electors. So if the Omaha Congressional District votes for Biden, he will get that one electoral vote. The rest of Nebraska is likely to be overwhelmingly for Trump, so he would win the other two Congressional Districts, and by winning the entire state count, the two “Senate” electors.
So “endeth” the Electoral College 101 lesson. Thanks for coming to class.
Sure Things
As noted above, there are some states that are going to go “Red” or “Blue” for sure. Those are the states where you won’t see a lot of Presidential TV commercials, and the candidates aren’t dropping in for visits and speeches. They are “in the bag”. President Trump has a total of twenty states with 125 Electoral votes locked in, Joe Biden twenty states and the District of Columbia, totaling 232.
So all Biden has to do is win thirty-eight more Electoral votes and he’s the next President. That’s exactly what Hillary Clinton needed to do as well. She didn’t win a single one beyond the “locked in” states.
181 Electoral votes are up for grabs, along with the Presidency of the United States and, not to get overly dramatic, the fate of the American experiment and the free world.
Degrees of Blueness
If you were alive on November 8th of 2016, you remember the term “the Blue Wall”. This was the “impregnable” Democratic bastion of Pennsylvania and the Northern Tier: Michigan and Wisconsin. That’s a total of forty-six votes, more than enough to win. And Democrats watched as each of those states, one by one, went to Donald Trump. Each was by the narrowest margin, a total of 77744 votes out of over 13 million cast. (Want to delve into that more – here’s a Trump World post from March of 2017 about the count – 77744).
Joe Biden is in the same position. And he’s also at the same point in polling that Clinton was about three weeks out from the election. She had a commanding lead in the polls in each of those states, though she never broke fifty percent, and nationally as well. So what happened?
Bringing Clinton Down
Three factors took Hillary Clinton down. The first was over twenty years of calling both of the Clinton’s criminals even before Bill was impeached is 1998. Hillary had the highest “unfavorable” ratings of any Presidential candidate, ever. Six Benghazi investigations by a Republican House of Representatives just made it worse. So she was already “softened up”. Joe Biden is running ten points ahead of Hillary’s “unfavorables” were of 2016.
The second factor was the Comey letter to Congress, re-opening the Clinton email investigation. Whether you like Director Comey or not, his action created a whole new view of Hillary as a criminal, and also managed to tie her to the laptop of her senior aide’s husband, “serial sexter” Anthony Weiner. It just made things a whole lot worse, and the undecided almost unanimously turned to Trump.
The third factor was the Clinton campaign didn’t recognize the shift caused by the Comey Letter, and failed to commit to defending in the “Blue Wall” states. Trump campaigned there, and it made a difference. So Clinton lost.
Today
(All polling from Real Clear Politics averages as of 10/18/20)
Today Joe Biden is leading the polling in each of the “blue wall” states by more than six points over Trump. And in all three he is close to fifty-percent, meaning that near half the voters are Biden voters. The “undecided” would have to completely go for Trump to change the outcome.
But Biden also is running well in “second tier” states, states that weren’t really in play in 2016. In North Carolina, Iowa and Arizona, Biden is carrying a two percent lead. That’s close to the “margin of error”, but has been trending Biden all year. All three of those states were Trump states in 2016.
And then, for those with long political memories, there’s Florida, Florida, Florida. Biden is leading by 4% in Florida. Florida has 29 Electoral votes. If Florida goes to Biden, it’s game over.
And, as they say on the TV ad – there’s more. Hillary Clinton was never competitive in Georgia, or Ohio or Texas. But Biden is polling well in those states, up by a percent in Georgia, tied in Ohio, and down by four percent in Texas. If those states are competitive, that tells a whole different story than the 2016 election. And if Biden wins Ohio, a state that will likely have an unofficial final vote count on election night, it would be another “game over” moment.
So if we give all the ties and “close calls” to Trump, currently Biden would earn 346 Electoral Votes to Trump’s 192. Again, it’s “game over”.
Two Weeks
But, there’s two weeks to go, and as we learned in 2016, a lot can happen. National polls show Biden at 51% and Trump at 42%. That poll will tighten as we get closer to Election Day, though it’s likely a third of the nation will have voted before November 3rd. Anything can happen – and the Trump campaign has already tried to create three “October Surprises” (the Durham investigation, the Unmasking investigation, and the Hunter Biden computer dis-information nonsense). None have worked so far.
Democrats have to show up because Trump Republicans absolutely will. There will be arguments about voter suppression, mail-in ballot counts, and who knows what else. The only way to assure a “clear” victory is to gain a definitive one. And it’s not just possible, it can really happen.
Get to work – and get to the polls.
Here are the numbers:
