01-11-2018, 03:51 AM
Lightest shades are for a raw total of votes that allows for a win with a margin of 5% or less; middle shades are for totals with allow for wins with 6 to 10% margins; deepest shades are for vote percentages that allow wins of 10% or more. Numbers are for the projected vote for Trump.
100-DIS gives a reasonable ceiling for Trump in 2020 -- at least the most suitable one that I can think of. He may have won Iowa by nearly ten points, but he would be crushed there if an election were to be held there today. The recent poll suggests that the President has disappointed Iowa voters very much.
An assumption of a close race for President depends upon most states being close to their Cook PVI ratings. So how is that going?
Use green for a poll that diverges in favor of Trump's likely opponent, and orange for polls that that diverge to the favor of Trump. Use light shades for divergence of 4% or less, medium for 5% to 8%, and dark shades for 9% or more. For example, I show a ceiling of 48% for Trump in Alabama in a state that usually gives the average Republican a 14% edge in a 50-50 election. Trump would be reasonably expected to win Alabama by about 14% in a normal electon, but my estimate (100-DIS) suggests that Trump would fare worse by about 12% for the average Republican in a 50-50 election nationwide.
Eighteen states with recent polls... slightly more than one third of all states, If you can see a 50-50 election for the Presidency in 2020, then you see something that I don't see. I cannot predict that the President's biggest losses of support are in the Midwest or South.
The 2020 election will not be a 50-50 contest or even close. Even the historically 'average' opponent will defeat President Trump decisively.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.