2020 Election Predictions

[ideologyhunter]

I'm dizzy with all this. Future historians will need to have a full command of language to portray the deranged quality of life in the US since 2017. We are a Hieronymus Bosch painting at this point. Christ in Limbo, perhaps.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Prediction: If Texas somehow, inexplicably, goes to Biden...

It will be Texas' last "winner-take-all" style election, and faithless electors will be several in this election.

I remember several years back GOP led blue states were pondering the idea of proportional EVs, but not GA, TX, and any solidly red state.

As far as Texas, the Democrats are actually making a run for it for the legislature!

 

[Politesse]

Prediction: If Texas somehow, inexplicably, goes to Biden...

It will be Texas' last "winner-take-all" style election, and faithless electors will be several in this election.

I remember several years back GOP led blue states were pondering the idea of proportional EVs, but not GA, TX, and any solidly red state.

As far as Texas, the Democrats are actually making a run for it for the legislature!

Well, of course not. But if they lose Texas, they'll lose the nation. So I think they'll be reconsidering that position in a hurry.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The Republicans have a lot of structural advantages: gerrymandering, electoral college takeover, higher frequency of disqualified Democrat votes, higher frequency of purging Democrat voters, an amazing propaganda machine that hasn't peaked yet, foreign intervention, hypocrites willing to cheat, conservative justice courts at all levels, an electoral federal map that is biased toward low population states, a sensationalist for-profit media willing to call states for Trump first but urban voting takes longer and people leave after media declarations, and we don't even know yet all the changes that are afoot...

So Trump 272.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Prediction: If Texas somehow, inexplicably, goes to Biden...

It will be Texas' last "winner-take-all" style election, and faithless electors will be several in this election.

I remember several years back GOP led blue states were pondering the idea of proportional EVs, but not GA, TX, and any solidly red state.

As far as Texas, the Democrats are actually making a run for it for the legislature!

Well, of course not. But if they lose Texas, they'll lose the nation. So I think they'll be reconsidering that position in a hurry.

They need every EV from Texas. So it'd need to be a gerrymandered Texas EV in of itself.

The Republicans have a lot of structural advantages: gerrymandering, electoral college takeover, higher frequency of disqualified Democrat votes, higher frequency of purging Democrat voters, an amazing propaganda machine that hasn't peaked yet, foreign intervention, hypocrites willing to cheat, conservative justice courts at all levels, an electoral federal map that is biased toward low population states, a sensationalist for-profit media willing to call states for Trump first but urban voting takes longer and people leave after media declarations, and we don't even know yet all the changes that are afoot...

So Trump 272.

Hadn't thought about Fox News calling it early. That'd definitely fuck things up. This is why we need Florida and/or Ohio to go Biden. By 9 PM would be even better.

 

[Gospel]

Fox will call the Election early over Arnon Mishkin's dead body. In other words, they won't.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

As I continue to mindfuck the stats to death... I stumbled on this.

UofTexas had a poll released yesterday that puts Biden 3 points ahead in Texas. Yeah... that sounds crazy. So I dove into the numbers.

In 2016, the Exit polls indicated Trump won just under 90% of the Republican vote. Which seems small. Clinton won 93% to Trumps 88% of Dem/GOP, respectively (in 2008 it was 89/93 for Obama/McCain). With numbers like that, how did Trump win, well other than Texas having a lot of Republicans? Trump won independents 52 to 38, which seems good... and got him Texas, but McCain won Independents in Texas 62 to 36.

The UofTexas poll? Biden leads independents 52 to 29! Yeah, if that is accurate, it deserves another . Now I know what you are thinking... how the fuck can Biden be only 3 pts up if he has Indys by that much? Well, it is still Texas. So we need to dive down a little deeper. Is it possible that that is the case?

NY Times/Siena released a poll back in September. The numbers aren't as rosy as the UofTexas (some branch) poll, but it indicates that Biden had a 40 to 39 lead with 6% going to the Lib and 14% unknown. The result of that poll was a tie. However, within their own party, it was 94% for each candidate. Does this mean Texas might go for Biden? It seems so unlikely, but if a poll indicates high voting percentage from his own party (which reduces an under representation), and an indication that Independents are swinging in Biden's favor, it makes the math get quite interesting. Indeed, it seems impossible, but this is 2020!

NY Times/Siena back out with a Texas Poll. Biden is losing support from under 30s, Trump is losing support among 65+. Trump leads by 3 points.

Biden is behind on Independents by 1 point as the undecideds start to decide. Hispanic vote is 57 to 34 for Biden, which is kind of small. Polls in Biden's favor have better numbers there. So this poll continues to show Trump has a comfortable lead in Texas that'd expand to upper single digits as the undecideds stop pretending they aren't voting for a sexual assaulting con-man who failed to even try to manage a pandemic.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fox will call the Election early over Arnon Mishkin's dead body. In other words, they won't.

Technically, they don't need to call the election early, just a critical state or two to set up the narrative.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Info about the SC decision on Wisconsin:
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news...es-change-wisconsins-voting-rules/3670662001/

Let's suppose you live in Wisconsin and you get your ballot postmarked three days before Election Day, sending it in. That's probably not going to be good enough for it to count because it has to be "in the hands" of election officials by Election Day. How many days before Election Day can you send in your ballot safely so you know for a fact it gets in their hands...and don't forget slow mail....? 10 days? Aren't we already past the mark of safely getting it counted? Well, anyway, you can expect a lot of similar shenanigans by the Supremes in swing state rulings.

 

[Elixir]

Aren't we already past the mark of safely getting it counted?

Yes. That was adviso #1 when I signed up for phone bank duty yesterday. Not just in WI, but pretty much everywhere - especially everywhere that it could possibly tip the scale.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

It seems that SCOTUS is letting the states have it out right now.

Then they'll vote 5-4 on equal protection violations and give Trump the Presidency. Joking... kind of.

Info about the SC decision on Wisconsin:
https://www.jsonline.com/story/news...es-change-wisconsins-voting-rules/3670662001/

Let's suppose you live in Wisconsin and you get your ballot postmarked three days before Election Day, sending it in. That's probably not going to be good enough for it to count because it has to be "in the hands" of election officials by Election Day. How many days before Election Day can you send in your ballot safely so you know for a fact it gets in their hands...and don't forget slow mail....? 10 days? Aren't we already past the mark of safely getting it counted? Well, anyway, you can expect a lot of similar shenanigans by the Supremes in swing state rulings.

This is utter BS.

But Republicans urged the court to stick with the state's existing deadline. "Wisconsin law gives voters who may experience some mailing delays multiple avenues to cast their ballots — including two weeks of in-person absentee voting — more avenues than are available in most other states," they said in court filings.

There is no established cutoff for when a mail-in ballot is obviously not going to make it in time. The idea that there can be a legal delay of ballots arriving at the house is should be a crime.

If a person requested a ballot and it wasn't provided in a timely manner, that should be considered voter suppression. It seems the number of votes effected are unknown, but it seems like it'll be a small percentage.

 

[ZiprHead]

Brett Kavanaugh Lays Out a Plan to Help Trump Steal the Election

Minutes before the US Senate confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Monday evening, the court issued a 5-3 decision to throw out mail ballots in Wisconsin that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive afterward. The ruling by the court’s conservative majority is a sharp reversal from April, when the Supreme Court allowed 80,000 late-arriving votes to be counted in Wisconsin’s primary.

Wisconsin voters can request a mail ballot until October 29, but it takes an average of 10 days to deliver a letter in Wisconsin because of Postal Service delays. The ruling could put tens of thousands of ballots at risk of being thrown out, given that 700,000 requested mail ballots have yet to returned. Trump won Wisconsin by 23,000 votes in 2016.

“The Court’s decision will disenfranchise large numbers of responsible voters in the midst of hazardous pandemic conditions,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her dissent.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Biden's got bling. Are the Dems running ads in WI telling every mail-in voter to make that vote count by driving it to the drop box?

 

[ZiprHead]

Video of Piles of Mail at Miami-Dade Post Office Brings Up Concerns of Ballot Backup

United States Postal Service officials are looking into a video shared by the Florida House Democratic Leader showing what he says are piles of unsorted mail sitting in a Miami-Dade post office, sparking concerns that valid ballots won't be counted.

House Democratic Leader Kionne McGhee tweeted Friday a video from a "concerned postal worker," his office said in a statement. The video shows mail sitting in numerous bins at the Princeton post office on Southwest 250th Street in Homestead. NBC 6 has not verified the validity of the video.

McGhee said the person who sent him the video said mail-in ballots are within the bins and that the mail has been sitting in the post office for over a week.

 

[ZiprHead]

Berlin’s Madame Tussauds Wax Museum Dumps Trump Before US Election

BERLIN, Oct 30 (Reuters) - The waxwork museum Madame Tussauds in Berlin loaded its effigy of TV star-turned Republican president Donald Trump into a dumpster on Friday, a move apparently intended to reflect its expectations of next Tuesday’s presidential election.

 

[lpetrich]

Election Night Trump Biden 12th Amendment Scenarios

The 2020 presidential election could be so tight, and the result so hotly contested, that the losing party refuses to concede, triggering a chaotic free-for-all in which Congress, the courts, and, in the most extreme case, the military could determine the winner.

It may sound far-fetched, but the Constitution has major gaps when it comes to deciding a contested presidential race.

...
So what happens if Trump claims he was robbed? Discussions with constitutional experts reveal how a single governor’s decision could spiral into each side blocking the other from seizing the White House. It’s a scenario made possible by the Constitution’s 12th Amendment.

What could happen is states sending rival slates of electors to Congress.

The election could go to the House, where it will be one vote for each state delegation.

Democrats would have a rarely used tool to fight back. Pelosi could use her majority, and Section 5 of Article 1 of the Constitution, to flip the situation around and ensure that the Democrats control more state delegations than Republicans do.

Here’s how that might work: Each chamber of Congress — the House and the Senate — has the power to decide contested elections of its own members. In modern times, these fights are mostly settled by the courts, but Pelosi could reclaim that power.

Democratic candidates who lost close races could contest the results. Their challenges would ultimately be put to a vote on the House floor, where Democrats are likely to have control. By challenging a few key races in states like Pennsylvania, Florida, or Montana, and then ruling in their own favor, Democrats could cement their majority of the state delegations and ensure they control the keys to the White House.

The Supreme Court might overrule such a maneuver, but NP might stand firm on it. Who will then decide? The military?

In the past, such issues have been decided by one side backing down. Richard Nixon in 1960 and Al Gore in 2000.

Trump has refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and is openly laying the groundwork for contesting the election. But he cannot do it on his own. Trump would need the Republican establishment at the state and federal levels behind him to have any chance of success. Republicans in the Senate have insisted there will be a peaceful transfer of power. Senate Majority Whip John Thune, a Republican, even said his party would stand up to Trump if the president tried to violate the Constitution to stay in power.

This may provide cold comfort given that Republicans have a long and colorful history of reversing their stances and capitulating to Trump, with only a few mostly symbolic exceptions. Extreme polarization means Republicans will also face pressure from the MAGA base that equates losing this election with the possible end of democracy.

But this may be a good way for Republicans to rid themselves of Trump.

 

[lpetrich]

Foreign Observers Fear For US Democracy Over Trump

In recent years, international election observers have monitored tumultuous votes in countries like Afghanistan, Ukraine, and Russia. This year, they're turning their attention back again to the US, a place not normally considered a democracy in danger but looking increasingly chaotic.

Members of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began flying into Washington, DC, last week to prepare for Election Day. But just hours after roughly a dozen OSCE experts officially began working on Sept. 29, the US witnessed one of the ugliest debates in its history — peppered with claims from the sitting president that the election results will be fraudulent unless he wins.

...
“I’m urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that’s what has to happen,” Trump said, declining once again to commit to a peaceful transfer of power.

...
“That’s a dictator,” said one American who previously monitored elections across three continents but who asked not to be named because she didn’t want to be seen to be speaking for her current employer.

“That’s what we see in African countries consistently,” she said, going on to talk specifically about Zimbabwe.

“I’ve never thought in my eight years of working in this industry, that I would be worried about election violence in the US in this day and age,” she added, “but now I wouldn’t put it past us.”

...
A week before that, supporters of the president disrupted early voting at a site in Virginia, chanting slogans. Some voters and election workers felt intimidated by the group and had to be provided escorts, according to officials.

“You can have voter intimidation without guns,” said John Campbell, who lives in nearby Alexandria and who, as US ambassador to Nigeria, oversaw the team of American diplomats who monitored that country’s 2007 election.

Campbell noted that in Nigeria it is not uncommon for gangs of political supporters to try to intimidate one another. “It’s one of the reasons why elections are very often so violent,” he said, “particularly in the run-up.”

Eric Bjornlund— the board chair of the Election Reformers Network and president of Democracy International, which consults internationally on issues of governance and politics — told BuzzFeed News that “armed politically affiliated gangs” were a feature in some South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

“There’s a huge tradition of these armed thugs that are affiliated with parties that go around and try to prevent people from voting,” he said. “They would say they’re providing security.”

...
Even if those self-described militias don’t actually materialize on Election Day, if many voters fear that they could, that is a form of voter suppression, Kelley said.

Trump and his supporters aren't even trying to back off from such rhetoric. Like claim that they were joking.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump Pressures Supreme Court For No Votes After Election Day

President Donald Trump, in his last sprint of rallies before Election Day, is aggressively accelerating his campaign to spread distrust in the US election and legal systems, laying the groundwork for a potential effort to stop counting votes after Nov. 3.

“The whole world, and our nation, is going to be waiting, and waiting, and waiting to hear who won? You’re going to be waiting for weeks?,” Trump asked a crowd of supporters Saturday morning in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

He seems to think that he can win that way.

The 2020 Election May Be The Worst Yet For Third Parties

The 2016 election cycle was an unusually strong one for third parties: The Libertarian Party ticket featured two former governors, New Mexico’s Gary Johnson and Massachusetts’ Bill Weld; the Green Party’s candidate, Stein, had already built a profile from her previous presidential run in 2012.

Four years later, those two parties find themselves squeezed to the very margins during an election where undecided voters are few and far between, and media attention is fully consumed by the chaotic Trump administration and the contentious race between the president and former vice president Joe Biden.

Good riddance. What a pointless self-indulgence.

 

[lpetrich]

Coronavirus Deaths Might Doom Trump’s Reelection
noting
Fatalities from COVID-19 are reducing Americans’ support for Republicans at every level of federal office | Science Advances -

Between early March and 1 August 2020, COVID-19 took the lives of more than 150,000 Americans. Here, we examine the political consequences of the COVID-19 epidemic using granular data on COVID-19 fatalities and the attitudes of the American public. We find that COVID-19 has led to substantial damage for President Trump and other Republican candidates. States and local areas with higher levels of COVID-19 fatalities are less likely to support President Trump and Republican candidates for House and Senate. Our results show that President Trump and other Republican candidates would benefit electorally from a reduction in COVID-19 fatalities. This implies that a greater emphasis on social distancing, masks, and other mitigation strategies would benefit the president and his allies.

It's datelined 30 Oct 2020, so it's too late to do much. But from the looks of it, it's likely to give the Republicans a crushing defeat.

Back to Buzzfeed.

A new study has found that, in states with rising COVID-19 deaths, voter support for Trump and Republican senators has dropped by margins big enough to swing some tight races.

...
Across states, every monthly doubling of coronavirus death rates caused a 0.37% drop in the number of people who said they planned to vote for Trump, the study found. The drop in support for Republican senators was even steeper, at 0.79%.

...
These small margins could be big enough to shift close races. In 2016, the election result difference in swing states such as Michigan was just 0.23% — and some swing states in 2020, such as Iowa, appear to be just as tight. The new analysis found that the trend was particularly visible in swing states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Florida, with the potential to sway both the presidential election and US Senate races.

Why The Worst Coronavirus Outbreaks Are Now in the Rural U.S. - The New York Times

COVID-19 is now disproportionately hitting rural areas that Trump and Republicans rely on for support. The worst virus outbreaks have shifted from cities to rural counties in the current surge of cases, overwhelming small hospitals, according to a New York Times report last week. And new weekly coronavirus deaths are now higher in counties that voted for Trump in 2016, compared to ones that went for Hillary Clinton, according to an Economic Innovation Group report released Thursday.

From a political science standpoint, Warshaw said, the Trump administration seems to have bet too many political chips on the economy, rather than on trying to limit the casualties of a deadly virus.

Getting sick with COVID-19 does not seem to have changed Trump's mind. So if he gets defeated, then good riddance.

 

[lpetrich]

Trump Falsely Claims The Rise Of COVID-19 Is A Conspiracy - "Down in the polls with COVID-19 cases surging, Trump is desperately searching for a message that absolves him of responsibility and will resonate with voters."

As the US death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 225,000 people, President Donald Trump, down in the polls and lacking a coherent message as Election Day looms, has taken to calling COVID-19 a “Fake News Media Conspiracy” even as cases and hospitalizations surge around the US.

“COVID, COVID, COVID,” Trump has said both at rallies and on Twitter in the past few days, showing frustration with the pandemic that his administration openly refuses to contain and that spread through Vice President Mike Pence’s office this weekend. Trump has been searching for a strong message to propel him through the final week of campaigning, especially after his convoluted and false attacks trying to paint Joe Biden as corrupt have failed to land outside far-right circles.

Trump tweeted Monday morning: “We have made tremendous progress with the China Virus, but the Fake News refuses to talk about it this close to the Election.” (On Friday, the US hit its highest-ever cases of COVID-19 in a single day, over 80,000, with huge increases in the Midwest and Sun Belt states. Hospitalizations jumped in at least 38 states last week, reported the Washington Post. Hospitalizations across the US are up 40% in the last month, and many rural hospitals in states like Wisconsin and Idaho are already at capacity.)

He added, “COVID, COVID, COVID is being used by them, in total coordination, in order to change our great early election numbers.” (Trump has been down in the polls for months.)

He concluded, “Should be an election law violation!” (No election law is being violated by reporters asking the president about a lethal virus, and the First Amendment protects freedom of the press.)

What a bad loser.

Trump continues to claim that the virus will soon go away, despite having recently been sick with it.

“There was a spike in Florida, and it’s now gone,” the president said, despite Florida cases being up at least 25% in the last two weeks. “There was a very big spike in Texas; it’s now gone. There was a very big spike in Arizona; it’s now gone. And there were some spikes and surges and other places; they will soon be gone.”

Cases in Texas and Arizona are both up at least 25% in the last two weeks. Some areas in Texas are preparing refrigerated trucks in case of an overflow in deaths.

“It will go away, and as I say, we’re rounding the turn,” he continued, “we’re rounding the corner, it’s going away.”