My current projection of the swing and/or major states ‘in play’ (feel free to add your own):
Georgia - Trump (GOP voter suppression will get credit for the assist)
Texas - Trump (I just can’t see him losing TX)
Florida - Trump* (very hard to call, but going w/ Trump b/c it’s his ‘home’ state and GOP is gradually making this a ‘red’ state)
Ohio - Trump (another state that used to be a toss-up but is getting redder and redder)
Michigan - Biden (solid)
Wisconsin - Biden (pretty solid, despite the GOP dirty tricks)
Minnesota - Biden (solid)
Pennsylvania - Biden (solid)
Nevada - Biden (solid)
Colorado - Biden reverse windmill slam dunk (I’d like to see that, btw)
New Hampshire - Biden (but he’ll have to fight and earn this one)
Missouri - Trump (reverse windmill slam dunk)
Iowa - Trump (but this is his NH; he’ll have to fight for this prize)
As bad as Trump’s position is, and as hard is it may seem to believe, I don’t think Biden has a very strong EC position at all. My map is currently 276-262 Biden. That’s with Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Now if Florida, Ohio, and Georgia can somehow break for Biden, then we have a different contest. But Trump still has a very good chance - bad polls and all - to make this a close race, and I’ve already made known my concerns about what he and his party will attempt to do in a close race.
ETA: I think I must have made an error earlier; I ran my 270towin map again and it now says 280 for Biden (same states and projected results). A little more of an edge for Biden but still tight.
This also assumes that there are no weird delegate splits in Nebraska and Maine. I’m also only referring to the projected post-election results that are typically reported by local election officials and then disseminated by networks, so this doesn’t take into account lawsuits, etc.
If you include the former Blue Wall: PA, MI, WI, MN and also add in AZ, you have 289 EV (290 if you don’t split Maine, but I think ME-2 is probably redder than the states listed above).
The nightmare scenario is Trump grabbing WI and MN while keeping ME-2 but losing Arizona. That’s a 269-269 tie. Or you could flip AZ and MN for a 270-268 Trump win (or even make a tie again by also flipping NE-2 blue).
Christ, this is not the night for me to be posting on this thread, lol. I meant to put MN as a blue state, not red. MN isn’t a lock for Biden, but I’d still give him a 80-90% chance to win the state based on history and what polling we do have.
Biden
PA - % (of Clinton/Trump total) needed to flip vs 2016: 0.38%
MI - % needed to flip: 0.12%
WI - % needed to flip: 0.41%
If he does it, game over, he has 278.
If he loses MN or WI he’s not going to win AZ to make up for it.
AZ needed to flip: 2.34%
FL needed to flip: 0.62%. You contest there as a longshot hedge because it’s a jackpot.
After Jas09 politely corrected me, my projected map is now 290-248 in favor of Biden (sorry, unable to correct the original map that I linked without creating another). Biden carries MN, WI, MI, NV, NM, CO, NH, PA, and Arizona. Arizona is likely now solidly in the blue column. If the polls are any indication, Trump is no lock to keep the states that I’m now awarding him, which are NC, FL, OH, and IA.
Trump will probably focus a lot of energy on keeping FL, NC, and OH in his column. He will absolutely have to win these states for sure. He will then have to find a way to push Biden over in PA and WI, which may end up being the ultimate focus on election night and/or the days that follow the race.
I think that’s right. Maine, New Hampshire, and Minnesota could receive some attention from both sides, as well (Biden to “shore up,” Trump to “go for the gold”).
In other words, all this focus on the South and Southwest lately might not actually end up being a huge focus for either side (other than a bit of Biden “shoring up” in Arizona)…not even Florida (we’ll, Trump may make that a focus), just because Florida simply cannot be trusted to do anything “right.”
(Another reason Biden, especially, shouldn’t waste too much energy on the south and southwest: see today’s piece by Jamelle Bouie in 538 about how college-educated whites still have a lot of Trump voters in the south, and Hispanics still have a lot of Trump voters in Florida and the southwest.)
Biden has, in some ways, achieved what Trump did in 2016: getting a lot of bang for the buck. Remember how Biden crushed his primary opposition in some states without spending money or visiting in person. He’s doing the same to Trump now. When Trump was doing that back in 2016, it gave his handlers a focus: it gave them a chance to work at Clinton’s blue wall. Now Biden has the same advantage; he can retake that wall because he’s winning a lot of the “Trump is Satan” vote.
I suppose…but this is partly counterbalanced by how the “Trump is Satan” “bloc” has grown largest in the throwaway states like California. No time for complacency, as you know!
I agree with your primary point (I think) that the #1 emphasis has to be on the MI/WI/MN trio. But I absolutely think a backup plan of FL + AZ should be considered.
Both states have demographic (and polling) reasons to think that they are winnable even if MI/WI/MN are lost. Now, he can’t lose all 4 of PA/MI/MN/WI and win with FL/AZ, but if you have the two southern states you only need one of those 4. Or adding NC.
I could see the argument that it’s pretty likely that all 4 swing together, but I’m not sure that’s guaranteed.
I’m a bit wary about the upper Midwest states because of how off their polling was in 2016. Florida and Arizona (and even PA) were much closer to their polling averages that cycle. I would put OH in with the other upper Midwest states - polls were way off there too in 2016.
Some good news I’m seeing is that Biden’s numbers and those who actually say they’re going to vote for him is actually up near 50%, and he’s been much closer to that number on a consistent basis than Hillary Clinton. If that’s accurate, then it means that some of my own assumptions of Trump being able to win with an approval rating between 40 and 43% may be incorrect; he may need closer to 44-47% approval rating to have a chance at winning - 50% or higher would seem out of the question at this point.
I’m most concerned about Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I think Michigan is a favored but not safe for Biden state, and I’m not quite as concerned about it as the other three. I wouldn’t classify Arizona as “going for the gold” either. I predict that when the votes are counted, Arizona will end up being bluer than at least one of MN, WI, and PA. It’s not a go for the gold state, it’s an important backup in case one of the “blue wall” states go red again. Ohio is a lost cause. That leaves Florida and North Carolina as the other backups. Of those two I’d focus more on North Carolina. Florida is likely to be close but those last few percentage points will be very hard to peel off, and there are more likely to be shenanigans in Florida than in North Carolina, despite Trump advising his NC supporters to double vote.
In summary, I’m most worried about PA and MN, a little less but still some concern about WI, and that Biden needs to focus on AZ and NC as important backups (not a going for the gold) in case the “blue wall” crumbles again.
I strongly disagree that Ohio is a lost cause, FTB. Biden and Trump have both routinely been within the polling margin of error with each other here, when pitted head to head. Trump won the state by almost 9% in 2016 but has rarely been over 50% since. Bill Clinton carried the state twice by pluralities and Obama twice by outright majorities. Democrats also did very well here two years ago, including reelecting Sherrod Brown, one of the more liberal members of the U.S. Senate, and who is now working closely with Team Biden.
As our volunteer effort, my wife and I are hand-addressing postcards with a Get Out the Vote/how to vote early message. The mailing list we’re working from is Texas registered Democrats who have a history of not voting. So apparently someone thinks that Texas is worth some time and energy.
This is important because while I do understand that Texas is a bit of a long shot, the reality is that in the last 3 months or so Trump and Biden have been in an statistical tie in their poll averages.
I then get annoyed when I see pundits giving more chances to Trump when they see some polls that declared that Trump and Biden were in an statistical tie in Pennsylvania a few days back. When the average shows that Biden is on the lead by 4.2 points.
This batch includes a bunch from Morning Consult’s daily Wisconsin tracker. They’ve been running it since May but only started sharing it recently. Here’s the whole history of the poll at MC’s site.
I agree that Ohio’s still in play. If Obama was able to win it twice, including as recently as 2012, there’s still a chance to win there. However, it’s a longer shot and it’s harder than it was even 8 years ago. Still, Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, won a statewide race there in 2018 and he won it fairly handily.
When I look at odds of winning a state, I look at the strength of the party. Mike Dewine is a Republican, but he’s a Bush Republican. Rob Portman has sided with Trump, but even he is careful not to ride on the crazy train for too long. Brown is a Democrat. Taking all of this together, along with Obama’s success, and it’s clear that if you can get African American voters to vote, the chances of victory are still pretty even.
I’ll look at it closer, for my own education. I tend to assume that Ohio is the redder cousin of WI, MI, PA, and MN, but it seems I am wrong about that.