Let’s divide voters into 8 categories and debate which group(s) is/are the key to the election. Here are the 8 groups, which are based upon how they voted in 2016 and how they will vote this year. DNV = did not vote, whether for 2016 or 2020.
Clinton - Biden
Clinton - DNV
Clinton - Trump
Trump - Trump
Trump - DNV
Trump - Biden
DNV - Biden
DNV - Trump
I didn’t include those who didn’t vote last time and won’t vote this time. For purposes of this discussion, a 3rd party vote also counts as DNV. Some questions to discuss include how large will the two base groups, 1 and 4, be? Which of the other categories will increase in importance the most at the expense of the two bases? Will there be a significant number of new voters in categories 7 and 8?
Currently the narrative seems to be that groups 5 and 6 will determine the election, and that Republicans that are not diehard Trump supporters will likely defect in enough numbers to swing the election to Biden. I have some doubt that these will be major categories, but I cuold be wrong. On the other hand, I think the number of Clinton - Trump voters will be so small as to be negligible. How do you all think it will work out, using these groups as the categories for discussion?
Don’t take this the wrong way, but here’s why I don’t know how to answer: I don’t know what “decide the election” means. Rather than go into the various groups you took the effort to put together, let me explain using a different example, the 2004 election where as I hear tell, Ohio decided the election for Bush. As I recall, the vote came down to Ohio rather late in the night, and when Bush barely won this hotly contested state, the decision was made. But what if Texas had not gone for Bush, does that mean that Texas would have decided the election for Kerry? Conversely, why wasn’t it Texas that decided it for Bush? Just because its votes were counted before Ohio’s? Same as for Supreme Court decisions. Kennedy evidently “decided” a number of 5-4 cases, but the other votes count the same. Why wasn’t Rehnquist the decider?
Now though, to give your OP the courtesy it deserves, I don’t have any great analysis, just that the larger the group, the more important it will be in the election, and it will all come down to turnout. The smaller the group, the less likely of it being the “decider”. Not groundbreaking stuff from me, I admit, but it’s the best I got.
The best way to look at this is the “tipping point” states. Basically the closest state that give the electoral college win to one candidate. In 2016, that was PA, WI, and MI. In 2004, that was Ohio. You could say “Well Kerry, could’ve won Texas”, but that was a 22 point loss vs. a 2 point loss in Ohio.
Well, yeah, I get the concept. I guess I just don’t like the term “decider”. It makes the so-called decider look more important. But in a close election, ALL votes are equally important.
Nate Silver’s “snake” model demonstrates the tipping point state clearly. The 2000 and 2004 elections were both very close WRT the electoral college. This might make it seem like flipping any other state might make a difference. But in reality the outcomes are not independent events. In a world where Biden wins Texas, for example, he probably also won the upper Midwest, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida. Similarly if Trump wins Virginia, he probably already won the upper Midwest, Nevada, Colorado, and New Hampshire as well.
That being said, the individual voters will determine who wins tipping point state and all the “safer” states further down the snake. It seems to me the main issue this time will be 1) how motivated each base will be and 2) whether or not the “moderate” Republicans stick with Trump, don’t vote at all, or vote Biden. What I’m asking is what you all guess / predict in terms of these questions.
Of those who voted Clinton I expect most will reliably vote Biden. They won’t stay home and they certainly won’t flip to Trump.
More in flux is those who voted Trump. The numbers of those who will be Trump-DNV and of biggest impact Trump-Biden is more of an open question.
The DNVs? Most will stay reliably DNV. But a key few who had voted Obama and stayed home in 2016 will vote this time. Maybe a few who never vote bothering due to dislike of Trump, or pull of a VP who shares some of their South Asian heritage. I don’t see many Trump or GOP leaning DNVs voting Trump this time if they were DNV last time.
I think the biggest impact on the outcome will be the Trump-Biden voters even numerically there are more DNV-Biden ones. I also see them located in tipping point locations.
A lot of the people in group 7 didn’t vote in 2016 because they thought a Clinton victory was a foregone conclusion. As 2018 proved, a lot of those people have learned their lesson.
In my mind the big question lies within that group.
How many of those 2012 Obama - 2016 DNV voters were folks like Elmer just mentioned who failed to vote for Clinton out of laziness / complacency, versus how many of them were/are the Hard Left folks (“Bernie Bros” in 2016 parlance) who believed abstaining in 2016 was the only morally defensible choice.
Biden still has the problem that the real Hard Lefties still consider him a PINO / DINO at best and a traitor to the cause at worst.
Extremist folks are funny and many would rather live under a tyranny they didn’t vote for than a moderate administration they did. In a real sense, what matters to their psychological comfort is whether or not they compromised their precious principles, not whether they made the least bad choice on offer.
My bottom line: The former complacents certainly aren’t complacent today; they’ll show up as 2018 suggests. The former Bernie Bros are another matter. How many have learned to be realists and how many have doubled down on the importance of purity? I hope lots of the former and few of the latter.
I think these two are the real wild-cards. I’m not sure where the split will be, but in my extended circle, there are a LOT of people who are griping/grousing about Trump and his bullshit who I thought were reliably GOP voters. Lots of ex-military types who can’t stand his dishonesty and bullshit. Lots of people who can’t stand the corruption. And so on… \
The question is how many will flip to Biden vs. not vote at all. Based on the level of griping I’m seeing, I’d guess more will flip instead of just not vote. They seem actively mad at Trump, not merely unmotivated to help him.
Assuming an honest count (silly me!) it would be VERY interesting to see how the vote for various other federal offices works out in red districts and by extension red states.
E.g. In a normally heavily R district we see the local R candidate for congressman wins election 10,000 votes to 2,000 for the D candidate. So far so ordinary.
Meanwhile that same district voted for Trump vs Biden at 4,000 to 2,000 or in another scenario 4,000 to 8,000.
IOW, the vote for the Congressman can identify the level of party loyalties. Then the vote for Pres can tell us how many abstentions or crossers Trump caused. In the 4000-2000 case we see 6000 Rs who turned in a ballot who abstained on the presidential race. Whereas in the 4,000 to 8000 case that implies 6000 Rs split their ballot: R for Congress + Biden for prez.
Overall it would be yuge if the national total number of votes for R congresscritters (win or lose) was vastly larger than the national total number of votes for Trump (win or lose). That would be the real evidence of whether the R-leaning electorate has had enough of this wannabe tyrant.
Of course the opposite is also possible. Yikes!!
For sure the raw numbers would have to be adjusted a bit for historical norms to generate valid comparisons. I have no idea how the total national vote for congresscritters compares with that for presidents. I’d assume congresscritters lags presidents. Of course the Senate, with one 1/3rd of seats up for election is a separate situation with separate adjustments needed. But could still prove informative
I’d break it down a little differently. The people who decide this election will be the ones who say “But I don’t like either of them.” In 2016, they went for trump by about 80/20 if I remember correctly.
But that’s assuming that groups have a margin with which you can rank by percentage margin of victory so you know which determined the winner (running under the simplistic assumption that anything that would have changed the margins would change them equally everywhere.)
But there are no margins to be able to determine which is the most important block. Everyone in the block voted for the same person.
I think 7 and 8 would be bigger than 5 or 6, I do not know anyone that voted for Trump that will not vote or vote for Biden. I do know several people that did not vote (based on 3rd party votes being considered a no vote) that will be voting for Trump this year. Granted that is based on a very small sample size.
Of course I am wasting my time saying this, but voting 3rd party is not a waste of a vote, if the main two want mine and others then they need to earn it.
Sort of. Of those who actually voted they may have gone 80/20 to use your numbers.
But it’s always a 3-way race between vote R, vote D, or abstain/vote 3rd party. If the “I don’t like either” cohort was really more like 48/12/40, then what matters isn’t so much the 48 or the 12. What’ll matter at the margin is who motivates the abstaining 40 and in which direction. That’s IMO where the real leverage is.
I don’t think there will be a tipping point this time around as most state tallies will likely not be available for several days after Election Day due to the number of mail-in absentee votes that will obviously impact the counts. Even exit polling will likely be useless at determining trends.