TRUMP WILL LOSE, AND PROBABLY LOSE BIG, ON TUESDAY

 

10/27/20

 

Just as yours truly has thought since at least the Spring (PRESIDENT TRUMP WILL NOT BE RE-ELECTED, 4/22/20), President Trump will turn out to be a one-term president.   How did I reach the conclusion?   By a lot of tedious work is the short answer, but the long answer is a bit more involved and risks descending into tedium, but bear with me; I’ll do my best to keep it interesting.

 

First, let’s talk about what doesn’t matter…the overall vote total.   This will not be an election in which the electoral college (There is much for which to thank God…living in America is right up near the top, but not too far down the list is the electoral college, but I digress.) delivers the election to one candidate while the popular vote comes out in favor of the other candidate.   Former Vice-President Joe Biden should win big in the general election, nearly surely by more than he will win in the electoral college.   Some of my more enthusiastic liberal friends are talking about a 60/40 general election victory for Mr. Biden.   They should know better.  Such blowouts are extremely rare.  The last presidential candidate to win with more than 60% of the vote was Richard Nixon in 1972.   Not even Ronald Reagan, in his 1984 pummeling of Walter Mondale, achieved 60% of the vote.  That having been written, presidential votes that resemble the 1986 Super Bowl in their lopsidedness have occurred four times in the last century:

 

Nixon in 1972

LBJ in 1964

FDR in 1936 (and only in 1936), and

Harding in 1920.

 

Looking at that list, the percentages might argue that an aspiring president might not want to win with such a humongous margin, but, again, I digress.    So, while there is a chance of a Nixonesque blowout in 2020, I would take, say, the Iowa Hawkeyes to win the Big 10 this year before I’d take Biden give 20, especially since the race has been tightening over the last week or so.   55/45 remains a possibility, however, though perhaps a fading one.

 

Now let’s get onto the meat of the matter, the electoral vote.   In reaching my conclusion that Joe Biden has at least 275 electoral votes, five more than needed, I was perhaps too generous to Mr. Trump, giving him

 

Arizona,

Florida,

Georgia,

Ohio, and

Texas.

 

A strong argument can be made that Biden could win Arizona, Florida, and Ohio; in my opinion, not strong enough, but an argument nonetheless.   That serious people are even talking about Mr. Trump’s possibly losing Georgia and Texas tells you about all you need to know about this election.   If either state is not decided within an hour of the polls’ closing, Mr. Trump, and the whole Republican Party, is in for a long, long night and months or years of reflection on what not to do next time.

 

I did give Mr. Biden

 

Michigan,

Pennsylvania, and

Minnesota.

 

I have as the only undecided states

North Carolina and

Iowa.

 

While I gave Florida to Mr. Trump, an easy case can be made for a Biden victory in the Sunshine State.   But Mr. Biden does not need to win Florida to win the election; Mr. Trump MUST win Florida to win this election.

 

But what if Mr. Trump wins Pennsylvania, a not unrealistic possibility?   That puts him within eight electoral votes of the prize and necessitates his winning North Carolina; Iowa, with its six electoral votes, won’t be enough.   Winning both Pennsylvania and North Carolina is a possibility for Mr. Trump, and its probability, while small, is not as tiny as that of the proverbial insight straight.

 

How about a Trump victory in Michigan, a longer shot than Pennsylvania, but not at all outside the realm of possibilities?  That puts him within twelve of the prize and again necessitates a win in North Carolina.  

 

If Mr. Trump wins both Pennsylvania and Michigan, he looks more like a winner.   But to become the winner, he must hold onto

 

Arizona,

Florida,

Georgia,

Ohio, and

Texas,

 

which I have given to Mr. Trump.

 

So, playing these map game, it all boils down to Mr. Trump’s winning two of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina while holding onto four states that he could very well lose.  That’s a tall order for even the formidable Mr. Trump.   Respectable polls give Mr. Biden a decent chance of winning all three of that combination, while I give two to Mr. Biden while keeping North Carolina as one of my two “undecideds.”   And if the President loses Florida or Texas, it’s all over.   The latter will not happen, but the former is a possibility; most respectable polls give Mr. Biden a “within the margin of error” lead in Florida.   That these polls lack the insight of yours truly does not mean that they do not have a few keen insights.

 

 

Getting away from the jigsaw puzzle of the electoral map, what could happen in the next week to change things?

 

First, I don’t know the ramifications of what looks to be an historic turnout.   And when I say “I don’t know” in this case, as in all cases, I mean “I don’t know.”  I’m not using “I don’t know” as a passive/aggressive, cutesy-pie way of disingenuously saying “I think what you’ve just said is moronic,” as has become the custom over the last ten years or so.   Are all these people waiting in line to vote or requesting absentee ballots out to support the President or to send him into an early retirement so decisive that he will have no choice but to leave quietly, or at least quietly by Trumpian standards?  I don’t know and neither do the learned pundits who spew pap and pabulum on the propaganda arms of the two parties that call themselves networks.

 

Second, and possibly related to the first, these Trump rallies are amazing.  I’ve never seen anybody, depending on one’s perspective, rile up a crowd or generate enthusiasm like President Trump at one of his rallies.  Huey Long was long gone by the time I put on this mortal coil, but I have to imagine that even the Kingfish himself couldn’t get a crowd going like Mr. Trump.  By contrast, Mr. Biden’s public appearances are real snoozers with crowds that look like they were somehow dragooned or bribed into attending and counting the seconds until they can leave.  Mr. Biden and his handlers contend that he is merely looking out for the populace’s health by keeping his rallies small, and his accomplices in the media parrot this contention, but one strongly suspects that it didn’t take much effort on Mr. Biden’s part to engage in such prophylactic measures.    While even the largest rallies involve a miniscule percentage of the electorate, hence rendering this evidence anecdotal, maybe there is something to the excitement Mr. Trump generates that will have ramifications for the outcome of this contest.

 

Third, perhaps as a clue to the answer of the first, the demographic group that is most disproportionately represented among the non-voting is white males who do not possess a college degree.  If these guys show the same good judgment they showed in not being enticed by the schlock outfits trumpeting online college degrees to anybody capable of taking out a loan and do their patriotic duty by casting a vote in 2020, this would have very salubrious consequences for Mr. Trump’s re-election chances.   

 

Fourth, in the last week, two of my friends whom I consider astute in such matters have mentioned the possibility of Mr. Trump’s doing better among Black and, to a lesser extent, Latino voters than has historically been the case for Republicans.   There may very well be something to this argument.  Before COVID, Mr. Trump enjoyed a strong economy that saw historically low Black unemployment rates.   Mr. Trump’s  law and order message plays better in inner-city Black and Brown communities than the social justice warriors in the tonier suburbs suppose; people who live in neighborhoods plagued by crime can’t go home to Winnetka when the shooting starts and hence do not share as much enthusiasm as is assumed for such idiocy as “defunding the police” that seems to permeate the thinking of those desperate to virtue signal from a safe distance.  Further, nobody likes being taken for granted or told that they are not of their own race by somebody of another race.   While nobody is saying that Mr. Trump will put much more than a small dent in the historic overwhelming majorities Democrats have enjoyed with these two groups, it wouldn’t take much of shift to make a difference in such places as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and North Carolina.   While I haven’t seen any good polling on this issue, I would not be at all surprised to see a decent showing by Mr. Trump among Black and Brown voters, especially men.

 

Fifth, my instantly seminal, now classic, but then lonely prediction of a resounding Trump victory in 2016  (TRUMP WILL WIN, AND WIN BIG, ON TUESDAY, 11/4/16) was made four days before the election.  We are now a week away from the election and I sense this race is tightening.   But will it tighten enough to give us the kind of surprise it delivered in 2016 to those who don’t read yours truly’s posts?  Probably not, but don’t completely discount the possibility.

 

 

All those caveats having been written, there simply does not appear to be a chance for Mr. Trump to hold onto the White House.   Mr. Biden has run an excellent campaign, if only by following the advice of yours truly and several others to lie low, keep his head down, and keep the focus on Mr. Trump rather than on himself.  Mr. Biden has avoided glaring mistakes and let the media do his campaigning for him.   So Mr. Biden, barring something completely unforeseen, will be our president for the next four years.   If my prediction for a Democratic pick-up of the Senate comes true (SO YOU WANT A TIGHT ELECTION THIS YEAR?   YES SIR, SENATOR!, 10/19/20), the Supreme Court will be the only thing that stands between the Democrats and complete domination of the federal government…until the Dems eliminate that problem by packing the Court.

 

The GOP will have a lot of soul-searching to do.  Let’s hope they do it.  The Democrats surely didn’t, but it didn’t matter; the Republicans made it so easy for them they didn’t have to learn much of anything.