Do you believe Trump will win the popular vote?

[BrotherFease]

If 2016 is the standard for them, where is his path to victory via *their own map* right now?

It’s all wishcasting.

The problem here is that traditional blue states are solidly in favor of Biden. In the traditional red states, we're seeing a bit of struggle. South Carolina and Montana are predicted to go toward Trump, but Trump's lead is very small.

If Biden wins by at least 4% in the popular vote, he's unlikely to lose. When the popular vote is within 3%, either side could win the college.

 

[Aunt Antifa]

The problem here is that traditional blue states are solidly in favor of Biden. In the traditional red states, we're seeing a bit of struggle. South Carolina and Montana are predicted to go toward Trump, but Trump's lead is very small.

If Biden wins by at least 4% in the popular vote, he's unlikely to lose. When the popular vote is within 3%, either side could win the college.

The thing is this: Trump has his base. What he needed to do was expand that just enough and depress the dem base, that’s 2016 in a nutshell in terms of EC strategy.

Where is the depression happening with Dems? How does Trump expand when he’s now a) defending previously solid territory and b) fighting back against one scandal after another?

And then there’s covid and the economy.

It’s not going to be close. Joe is gonna win by an incontestable margin.

 

[BrotherFease]

The thing is this: Trump has his base. What he needed to do was expand that just enough and depress the dem base, that’s 2016 in a nutshell in terms of EC strategy.

Where is the depression happening with Dems? How does Trump expand when he’s now a) defending previously solid territory and b) fighting back against one scandal after another?

And then there’s covid and the economy.

It’s not going to be close. Joe is gonna win by an incontestable margin.

At the moment, Biden is projected to win about 352 electoral college votes. At least 58 electoral college votes from the swing states shouldn't be a problem for him.

The debates will be crucial for Biden and there can't be any October surprises working against him.

I am about 55% confident Biden will win the electoral college.

 

[Aunt Antifa]

At the moment, Biden is projected to win about 352 electoral college votes. At least 58 electoral college votes from the swing states shouldn't be a problem for him.

The debates will be crucial for Biden and there can't be any October surprises working against him.

I am about 55% confident Biden will win the electoral college.

Debates won't matter. It's gonna be Trump sucking up all the oxygen.

 

[upsideguy]

It doesn't matter. The candidate has to prevail only by one more vote in enough swing states respectively-- to carry them to 270. 75,000 votes in those 3 states was a huge gap the way it works out.

Look at it this way: In a naval battle it isn't the side that sinks the most ships that wins, it is the side that that sinks the right ships that wins. Hillary didn't prevail in the right places she needed to, and Biden doesn't appear to be doing much better in enough swing states right now either. I'd say mostly due to a really poor VP pick in Kommisar Harris. Had Biden picked Whitmere or Klobachar, I think his task would have been much easier. Isn't like California, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Massachusetts would not have voted for Biden had he picked other than a Black female anyway, so why did he box himself in that way? Biden's VP choice make little sense at the top of the ticket, but maybe it is about the down ballot more than anything else? Biden ONLY came in to block Sanders as Sanders would have lost more down ballot elections than anyone else in running.

I believe the polls are way off the mark this time. I admit, they weren't too far off for Hillary in 2016 on a national basis; she was ahead by about 3 points and then won 2 million more popular votes. But I strongly believe that this year is different, people cannot be honest in polls---especially Democrats in swing states, and I believe there will be a "Tom Bradley affect" come November and Trump will win all the same swing states--maybe even pick up one or two more.

Bradley effect - Wikipedia

Harris is the absolute correct VP candidate. The idea that a Klobuchar or Whitmer would carry a state is a quaint and outdated idea. Its rare that a local VP candidate makes a difference with a specific state. Moreover, Biden is going to win those states anyway, Michigan running away. The key to winning as a democrat is black turnout. If Biden picked a white woman in 2020, he would have shot himself in the foot with the black vote, especially in the BLM year. That said, Harris is a bull-dog that gets to be more aggressive than Biden in prosecuting the case against Trump. She will drive Trump nuts and force mistakes on his part because he can't control himself.

The idea that the polls are "way off the mark" is nothing more than wishful thinking on your part. Though, its better to have wishful thinking than no thinking at all, you really have no basis for your claim. If you do, I would love to hear. This not 2016:

1. Trump is not the unknown insurgent here to break the Washington cycle of power between the Bushs and Clintons. In fact, Trump is a polarizing figure, with 40% that will vote for him not matter what and 45% that will not vote for him under any circumstances. Given that most polls have only 5-6% unaccounted for, there are about 9-10 that have generally made up their minds and could change, but not likely. Trump just doesn't have much to win over.
2. In 2016, people that liked neither Clinton nor Trump broke nearly 2 to 1 to Trump. This time, those that like neither have gone 4 to 1 to Biden
3. In 2016, we had a strong economy and healthy people. We had not lost nearly 200,000 people, most of which as a result of presidential negligence.
4. Just before election day, Comey's letter to US Senators letting them know that he had re-opened the Clinton investigation was leaked by Republican senators, which threw a wrench into the Clinton election machinery.
5. Trump won by depressing the democratic vote in WI and MI. Since 2016, Democrats have gone to the polls in numbers that are greater than the polling assumptions, so they have tended to win by bigger margins than forecast. No reason to think Democrats would be caught flat-footed again.
6. Biden's lead is much larger and stronger the Clinton's, with far less undecideds.

Why Biden’s Polling Lead Is Different From Clinton’s In 2016 | FiveThirtyEight

We have very few surprises of election results to polls, though we all get your wishful thinking for another Trump inside straight. Its not likely to happen. As of now, its a 71-28 proposition that Biden wins. Yes, that is almost exactly where it was when Trump won. Trump had an outside shot in 2016 and pulled it off. He could do it again, but not likely. But, like Russian roulette, you pull the trigger once , it goes, you re-load the gun, that chance of 1 in 6 is still 1 in 6.

2020 Election Forecast | FiveThirtyEight

 

[trixare4kids]

Debates won't matter. It's gonna be Trump sucking up all the oxygen.

The debates do matter. More this election than any other in history. The people need to see Biden speak off the teleprompter, and without the benefit of his handler's script like his most recent townhall where an honest reporter refused to ask him one of his prepared, softball questions that he already knew the answer to.

 

[upsideguy]

Republicans: “Trump only needs to win a few strategically important states to win the election!”
Also Republicans: “If the Presidency is determined by a popular vote, candidates will only be campaigning in a few states!”

"Trump only needs" implies that there isn't much work to do. The fact is, Trump needs to run the table on states he is currently behind in. He absolutely must win Florida. There is no path without Florida, which he is currently losing. If he gets Florida, he needs three out of five of North Carolina (the easiest of the group), Arizona, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Minnesota. That isn't exactly an "only needs" proposition; its a his back is to the wall proposition. Not an impossible task, just an improbable one.

 

[Aunt Antifa]

The debates do matter. More this election than any other in history. The people need to see Biden speak off the teleprompter, and without the benefit of his handler's script like his most recent townhall where an honest reporter refused to ask him one of his prepared, softball questions that he already knew the answer to.

Okay.

 

[upsideguy]

The debates do matter. More this election than any other in history. The people need to see Biden speak off the teleprompter, and without the benefit of his handler's script like his most recent townhall where an honest reporter refused to ask him one of his prepared, softball questions that he already knew the answer to.

Ah no, the debates this time round are window dressing. Just as Trump could shoot someone on 5th avenue (or kill 175,000 Americans through his negligence) and people would still vote for him; Biden could stumble on an answer and he won't lose a vote. Almost all minds are made up at this point. There is very little play in the numbers. I get that the losing team is hungry for a turnover, but you just have to handle the ball yourself. No more revelations of Trump's lack of character for a while and maybe he has shot.

This fantasy that Republicans have cooked up on Biden's cognitive ability are somewhere between cute and pathetic. If Biden had debilitating cognitive decline, he would have been unable to deliver two longer speeches almost flawlessly NOR handle the news conference he did last week with solid, thoughtful answers to the questions he was given. If you think the debates are some type of redemption for Trump you are desperate. Trump has zero command of the issues and is easily rattled. He is far more likely to look as if he cognitive issues that Biden who probably has forgotten more about the world (because he has been out of politics for six or so years) than Trump ever knew.

 

[CharisRose]

Pretty straight forward. Biden currently has a 7% lead in the popular vote. About four years ago, Clinton had a 3% lead over Trump. Obviously the popular vote doesn't matter when electing a President, seeing as how the smallest states have the most voting power.

Your options:

Trump will win the popular vote

Trump will not win the popular vote.

Trump/Pence ticket will beat Biden/Harris ticket via the Popular Vote by + 9 votes over the Biden/Harris ticket via California.

Trump/Pence ticket will easily secure The Electoral College.

Republican Ticket will keep the Senate.

Republican Ticket will take back the House.

imho Roseann):

 

[Cardinal]

The debates do matter. More this election than any other in history. The people need to see Biden speak off the teleprompter, and without the benefit of his handler's script like his most recent townhall where an honest reporter refused to ask him one of his prepared, softball questions that he already knew the answer to.

People haven't cared about gaffes since Dan Quayle misspelled potato in 1992.

You don't care when Trump can't seem to figure out how to pronounce a basic word and we don't care when Biden uses the wrong word or stutters.

Nobody. Cares. About. Gaffes.

 

[CharloTexan]

Those two things are mutually exclusive. Its maybe oddly possible that Biden could win the popular vote by maybe as much as 4 million (an incredible turnout in California and New York) and lose the election, but any more than that, Biden wins. A 2% lead by candidate might have them lose, but at 3 or 4% they win both the popular and electoral college. Its just math, assuming a reasonable normal distribution. Remember in 2016, Clinton won the popular vote by 2 points and barely lost the electoral college by 75,000 votes over 3 states. You raise that to 2.5 points and Clinton would have won.

Really, as long as Biden has a 3 point lead beyond the margin of error (or a 6 point lead), he is going to win.

Actually, what happened with Clinton in 2016, - as you detailed - in anecdotal at best. The math says that regardless of how many votes one wins by, you can win the EC by the slimmest or the largest majority, regardless of the popular vote. If for instance Trump campaigned that he was going to cut California off the coast with explosives, shove it into the Pacific, and build Trump Towers up and down the new coast lines, there might be an unusually high turnout voting against Trump in California. He might advocate for a Russian takeover of the State of New York. Or, more practically, maybe he wants to move the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange to Kansas. At the exact same time, Trump might only target coal miners in West Virginia, steel workers in Penn., Oilers and Cowboys in Texas, and snake oil sellers everywhere else, and barely eke out a EC win with 272 votes. There is no mathematical break point. Practically, it just depends. Again, in the 2016 vote, and even in the upcoming 2020, there could be a swell of Democratic and never Trumper voters voting against him in all the wrong places. Trump could cherry pick his campaign "trail" to target the minority special interest groups. Not that he's smart enough to figure that out, but his handlers are.

 

[trixare4kids]

People haven't cared about gaffes since Dan Quayle misspelled potato in 1992.

You don't care when Trump can't seem to figure out how to pronounce a basic word and we don't care when Biden uses the wrong word or stutters.

Nobody. Cares. About. Gaffes.

You care about gaffes. You can't stop talking about gaffes; the:lamo Trump gaffes.

Who are you kidding?

 

[Overitall]

Okay.

You should advise Biden on debating. That was good.

 

[Jay59]

This is an easy one, given the way the Democrats are alienating people.

Trump has a solid base of about 43%. If 75% of them show up and vote, then he wins with a clear majority. That's with zero of the late deciding voters. In 2016, exit polling showed Trump winning almost 2/3 of last minute deciders. I consider 50% a given and 55% a genuine possibility.

 

[Aunt Antifa]

Actually, what happened with Clinton in 2016, - as you detailed - in anecdotal at best. The math says that regardless of how many votes one wins by, you can win the EC by the slimmest or the largest majority, regardless of the popular vote. If for instance Trump campaigned that he was going to cut California off the coast with explosives, shove it into the Pacific, and build Trump Towers up and down the new coast lines, there might be an unusually high turnout voting against Trump in California. He might advocate for a Russian takeover of the State of New York. Or, more practically, maybe he wants to move the United Nations and the New York Stock Exchange to Kansas. At the exact same time, Trump might only target coal miners in West Virginia, steel workers in Penn., Oilers and Cowboys in Texas, and snake oil sellers everywhere else, and barely eke out a EC win with 272 votes. There is no mathematical break point. Practically, it just depends. Again, in the 2016 vote, and even in the upcoming 2020, there could be a swell of Democratic and never Trumper voters voting against him in all the wrong places. Trump could cherry pick his campaign "trail" to target the minority special interest groups. Not that he's smart enough to figure that out, but his handlers are.

This isn’t math. At a certain percentage, the pop merely mirrors what’s happening in the EC.

 

[CharloTexan]

This isn’t math. At a certain percentage, the pop merely mirrors what’s happening in the EC.

Aunt A., I love your posts! Thanks for being here.

The math is this: each Electoral College state won could theoretically be won by just one vote. Each one lost could theoretically be lost by one. Or, it could be lost by millions. Hence, there is no mathematical "cap" on the popular vote that would preclude an EC win, except the population of a state, and of all of the states combined. It can be proven. Now, practically speaking, the greater the popular vote difference, it could be a reliable indicator of the EC outcome. But it is by no means assured, mathematically.

 

[Aunt Antifa]

Aunt A., I love your posts! Thanks for being here.

The math is this: each Electoral College state won could theoretically be won by just one vote. Each one lost could theoretically be lost by one. Or, it could be lost by millions. Hence, there is no mathematical "cap" on the popular vote that would preclude an EC win, except the population of a state, and of all of the states combined. It can be proven. Now, practically speaking, the greater the popular vote difference, it could be a reliable indicator of the EC outcome. But it is by no means assured, mathematically.

Ain’t none of that math.

 

[Cardinal]

You care about gaffes. You can't stop talking about gaffes; the:lamo Trump gaffes.

Who are you kidding?

What gaffes have I pointed out?

 

[CharloTexan]

Ain’t none of that math.

Call it what you want dear, it's the truth.

 

[Chomsky]

For the last two months, I have been researching every single President and presidential election. I am up to JFK now. So I can probably give you more insight than the average Joe.

The biggest thing we have to understand that the constitution was put together out of compromise and trying to give everybody something they wanted. We had federalists vs. anti-federalists. Basically a struggle between big government and allowing the states to do their own thing. You had large colonies and small colonies. Alexander Hamilton, who was a federalist, believed that if the American people picked a President, they would pick a spy or a demagogue as their leader.

James Madison proposed the Virginia Plan. He wanted the house and senate to be based on the population of the state, and that included slaves and women. New Jersey wanted to give each state one vote a piece. The two plans ended up being combined together. The congress would be based on the number of districts, the senate would be based on the number of states. Women would be counted as a full human, even though they couldn't vote. Slaves would be counted as 3/5ths. Both sides won and lost.

When it came to voting, the Founders were evenly divided. The anti-federalists wanted to do the national popular vote. The Federalists wanted the congress to vote. Electors were essentially the middle-men.

My ideal system would be to look at both the national popular vote and the number of states won. If one candidates wins both, then the election is over. If there's a split, then congress picks between the top 2 finalists.

I think your post is a fair enough description of what took place creating the Constitution.

But as to your suggestion of Congress picking the President? Yish! Please, no! The politics would be horrendous!

 

[jamesrage]

I’m sure they also didn’t envisage just a handful of states almost always having the say and getting most of the focus every single election.

Don’t pretend that it’s some glorious invention when it clearly has drawbacks especially at the current time.

At the end of the day, at the current time, it is what it is.

But let’s not pretend then that the President has the approval of most people and that he represented most voting people.

There is a philosophical argument to be made that if we accept the premise that comes up in almost every Presidential Speech that it’s “of the people, by the people, for the people”.

That if most people have not consented to this madness, it is not morally right.

And that’s what the last 4 years has been.

Most people DID NOT want this.

The only people who dislike the electoral college are those upset Commie-fornia and a handful of other blue-states didn't get Hillary as their president. Our system was set up so that a handful of densely populated states don't get to be the ones solely to pick the president. There is no reason to change it.

 

[BrotherFease]

I think your post is a fair enough description of what took place creating the Constitution.

But as to your suggestion of Congress picking the President? Yish! Please, no! The politics would be horrendous!

Look at it this way: If no candidates gets the majority of electors, the congress picks the President. If the Vice President doesn't get the majority of electors, then the Senate picks the President.

In my view, the congress should ONLY pick the President, if the popular vote winner and the winner of the most states go to two different people. For example, Andrew Jackson would have won the 1824 election. He won the popular vote and the most states.

I am not sure how electors are better than congressmen and women. Most of the time, political parties pick the electors or the state legislative branch. At least with congress, the public actually chooses them.

So again, I don't really see the problem with the congress choosing between the popular vote winner and the winner of the most states. Unless you want to argue, that there should be run-offs in December or January, I do not see how you can create a balance for people who live in big states and small states. The EC was designed to protect the rights of both large and small colonies. California, Texas, New York and Florida have the lowest vote per capita, but those four states alone are worth 151 electors.

 

[Jetboogieman]

The only people who dislike the electoral college are those upset Commie-fornia and a handful of other blue-states didn't get Hillary as their president. Our system was set up so that a handful of densely populated states don't get to be the ones solely to pick the president. There is no reason to change it.

Why is it inherently better, that election after election, only a handful of states make the decision?

How is that objectively better.

Oh I know you can make lofty and long winded speeches about the “wise” founders and how just, amazing they were.

But I’ve always found the EC to be not good for this very reason.

Same with FPTP systems as well.

Proportional representation is what I actually think is best if we truly want the voice of the people heard.

But I don’t see how the tyranny of the cities is any different to the tyranny of Florida and Ohio, objectively speaking.

 

[Helix]

it's difficult to predict at this point. i will say that i'd be surprised if he did win the popular vote. he has trouble getting above fifty percent approval even with polls that are designed to lie for him.