Election Electoral College predictions

[Richard]

To get our minds off of the virus, debates and campaign theatrics for a moment, I thought it might be an interesting exercise to post our predictions of the final Electoral College margin. Of course, any prediction made would be a moment-in-time snapshot of what we think will happen given the current circumstances. Any number of factors could influence the vote over the final month of the campaign.

There are sites that can help you arrive at your prediction. Real Clear Politics and 538 have polling data that can help you come up with a number. I use RCP mostly because they have a good interactive national map that's easy to use and they don't include polls conducted by companies like SurveyMonkey. They do, however include partisan polling, like Trafalgar and Change Research.

My prediction started with looking at a best case scenario for a Trump reelection. I started by putting all of the states shown to lean in one direction in that camp. RCP shows states like Indiana and Missouri leaning Trump and Oregon and Virginia leaning Biden when those states and others like them are certainly going to end up in those columns. That leaves 11 "battleground" states (and two one-vote congressional districts) that theoretically could go either way and gives a picture of a 226-125 Biden lead before assigning a winner in those states. In looking at Trump's best case scenario, I gave him every state in which he is marginally ahead and those he is behind by less less than five points, as well as the two congressional districts. That would provide Biden with a slim 278-260 win. To come out with a better scenario for Trump, you would need to assign one or more of Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin or New Hampshire to Trump and he is trailing in all of those states by more than five points.

However, I don't believe that Trump will achieve his best case numbers and Biden could win several more states, like Arizona, Ohio, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Texas. I still think Trump will likely keep Texas, Iowa and Georgia, so my prediction as of today is 353-185 in favor of Biden.

If you choose to participate in this exercise, you are welcome to give different predictions over the course of the next month. I intend to post a final prediction on Nov. 2/3 and may even post a weekly prediction, depending on the level of participation.

 

[zztop]

Anyone concerned about if there is a tie? Or something else called faithless electors? Or if Trump loses but refuses to leave office?

(in regards to a tie)
The Constitution is pretty clear on how this plays out. If there is no winner in the Electoral College, Article 2, Section 1, Clause 3 states that the decision goes to the House of Representatives while the Senate picks the vice president. But the voting in the House is different from the Senate. In the vote for vice president, each Senator has one vote. But in the House each state has only one vote for president—regardless of its size—and a presidential candidate needs 26 states to win.

As it stands Republicans are in the majority, with control of 26 states

 

[bdb13]

@superchuck500 or whoever else that wants to chime in.. how realistic of a concern do you think this is? Obviously angling for it and 6-3 SCOTUS now..



(I've got to get the fork off Twitter man.. concerned again lol..

But seriously, if it were to go down like that it would be the end of the country.. it'd burn for a long time)

 

[DaveXA]

@superchuck500 or whoever else that wants to chime in.. how realistic of a concern do you think this is? Obviously angling for it and 6-3 SCOTUS now..



(I've got to get the fork off Twitter man.. concerned again lol..

But seriously, if it were to go down like that it would be the end of the country.. it'd burn for a long time)

I get the concern, but I think that's just putting the cart before the horse. It might get to that, but I'd say the odds of that happening are well under 10%.

 

[efil4]

While at gym saw Fox News. (on main TV). They mailed out 500 PRETEND ballots to "test".

I didn't hear but saw some numbers up like 2.2% never made it to voter. Or something to that effect. When I saw that, I already knew they ( Trump and Co) changed tack. This is now going to be the talking point up to Nov 4.

There is no way what some think may happen will. Just can't. Not here. That's why dems need to run this ball into endzone (get out and vote early /Nov 3) and cross the goal line Beastmode style (11 pm)

Dont even give the court a single chance to decide.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

It’s been abundantly clear for a long time that his plan is to win this in the courts. Yes, it will set the country on fire, and he wouldn’t care one iota.

 

[Sandman]

It’s been abundantly clear for a long time that his plan is to win this in the courts. Yes, it will set the country on fire, and he wouldn’t care one iota.

True. He isn't trying to win the election. He knows he can't. He just wants to keep it close enough to have the courts hand him the election. It is disturbing that he believes that the courts will hand him an election that he has lost, but not as disturbing as having courts willing to actually do it.

 

[DaveXA]

It’s been abundantly clear for a long time that his plan is to win this in the courts. Yes, it will set the country on fire, and he wouldn’t care one iota.

I'm sure he'll try, but it's going to have to be a legitimate case that can actually be litigated through the courts. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I don't think the judges and courts want to see the country burn, so hopefully they'll make the right decisions.

 

[DaveXA]

True. He isn't trying to win the election. He knows he can't. He just wants to keep it close enough to have the courts hand him the election. It is disturbing that he believes that the courts will hand him an election that he has lost, but not as disturbing as having courts willing to actually do it.

Yeah, I will completely lose faith in the justice system if they hand him a legitimately lost election.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Yeah, I will completely lose faith in the justice system if they hand him a legitimately lost election.

Then you better get one of those GPS clips for your faith in the justice system, because if this thing is even remotely close...

 

[DaveXA]

Then you better get one of those GPS clips for your faith in the justice system, because if this thing is even remotely close...

Yeah, whatever happens, I hope there's an absolutely clear winner so we don't have to go through all that. I think we might get it. But no telling until we get there.

 

[SaulGoodmanEsq]

I'm sure he'll try, but it's going to have to be a legitimate case that can actually be litigated through the courts. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I don't think the judges and courts want to see the country burn, so hopefully they'll make the right decisions.

Judges like Kavanaugh and Barrett wouldn't think of it as letting the country burn. They would think of it as following the vision of the Framers or some other claptrap. There is a significant sect of conservatives that want to turn this country into a borderline authoritarian theocracy -- a callback to the 1950's or whatever. They would rubber stamp any bizarre Trumpian/MAGA policy. Gorsuch has basically inherited the Roberts swing vote. And Roberts, as an older school Republican, would most likely side with the more liberal wing of the Court.

 

[Saint by the Bay]

Judges like Kavanaugh and Barrett wouldn't think of it as letting the country burn. They would think of it as following the vision of the Framers or some other claptrap. There is a significant sect of conservatives that want to turn this country into a borderline authoritarian theocracy -- a callback to the 1950's or whatever. They would rubber stamp any bizarre Trumpian/MAGA policy. Gorsuch has basically inherited the Roberts swing vote. And Roberts, as an older school Republican, would most likely side with the more liberal wing of the Court.

Grosuch and Roberts are my hope should this go to the court.

 

[DaveXA]

Judges like Kavanaugh and Barrett wouldn't think of it as letting the country burn. They would think of it as following the vision of the Framers or some other claptrap. There is a significant sect of conservatives that want to turn this country into a borderline authoritarian theocracy -- a callback to the 1950's or whatever. They would rubber stamp any bizarre Trumpian/MAGA policy. Gorsuch has basically inherited the Roberts swing vote. And Roberts, as an older school Republican, would most likely side with the more liberal wing of the Court.

Well, that's sort of what I'm hoping for. If Roberts can be a potential voice of reason and try to pull together a fractured court, maybe cooler heads would prevail. But I don't know of that's realistic. What I do hope is that the court will deliberate and agree that they need to present a unified front on an issue that potentially decides the election.

I think it's coming regardless. Whoever loses is likely to take some aspect of this election and litigate it. I think we all know who that probably will be, but until it happens, it's hard to say how it shakes out.

 

[DaveXA]

Grosuch and Roberts are my hope should this go to the court.

Me too.

 

[wardorican]

My prediction.

 

[superchuck500]

@superchuck500 or whoever else that wants to chime in.. how realistic of a concern do you think this is? Obviously angling for it and 6-3 SCOTUS now..



(I've got to get the fork off Twitter man.. concerned again lol..

But seriously, if it were to go down like that it would be the end of the country.. it'd burn for a long time)

I think the basic premise is express in the election clause of the Constitution. And I have read the Rehnquist concurrence several times over the past few months - and it makes sense to me as presented. The election clause is an unusual provision to be sure. Federal elections are held in the manner as the state legislature provides, and the concurrence supposes that where a state court interpretation of the state legislature’s expression serves to change that expression, it becomes a federal question because the election clause bestows that power solely to the state legislature.

I haven’t read an artful refutation of this idea, nor have a i spent the hours in case law and secondary writing it would take to come to my own conviction. But on its face, I get it. And I don’t think it means that the Court can arbitrarily overturn state court election process decisions solely to achieve a result - the idea comes with implicit standards (e.g. “a significant departure” or an interpretation that frustrates the legislative intent).

Of course, what constitutes a “significant departure”? Perhaps there are analogies to other areas of law with the same concerns that could flesh that out, but it’s hard to see how a group of conservative jurists would come to a result that contorted the state statute more so than the problematic state court ruling did. I just don’t see them being willing to be activist in this orientation.

 

[superchuck500]

Apparently some of the concern from Kavanaugh today is that he said that absentee ballots received after the election are inherently suspicious.

Just to be clear I wasn’t commenting on that or anything other than the Rehnquist concurrence in Bush v Gore.

 

[MT15]

Yeah, I think that statement from Kavanaugh is disturbing. He seems to be saying that he’s willing to disenfranchise voters because the state is taking too long to count their votes.

That just cannot be a valid view, and it’s a straight up Trumpist talking point. I worry about Kavanaugh’s integrity. I’m just not sure he can be trusted to decide on the merits rather than along party lines.