2020 Predictions

[pbrower2a]

(11-02-2020, 03:20 PM)JDG 66 Wrote: I see that the thread is mostly given over to how much certain people hate Trump and his supporters. Whatever.

Modifications to my model:


I'm going to keep the 1.059 multiplier over 2016 (modeled on the 2004 election), even though it doesn't seem to be the conventional wisdom ?:


538:https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-election-forecast/ 

Sabato 2020:https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/2020-president/ 

Cook 2020:https://cookpolitical.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/EC%20Ratings.102820.pdf

Realclearpolitics: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2020/president/2020_elections_electoral_college_map_no_toss_ups.html


With the 3rd party/write-in/"none of the above"/etc. getting 1.60% of the vote, a 1.059 modifier shakes out to Trump getting 48.63%(vs. 45.93%) and Biden getting 49.77%. 

On a state by state (or district by district) basis, the minimum deviation (i.e., the worst result for Trump out of 45) for each state of district would be adivisorof 1.049 vote for one state, a maximum multiplier of 1.211 for Trump's best performing state, and a median multiplier of 1.045 (i.e., 50-50). Example: In 2016, Trump got 48.18% of the vote in PA. If the national vote improves x 1.059, then there is a 1/45 chance that he only gets 45.93% of the vote in PA, a 1/45 chance that he gets as much as 58.35%, and the median gain would be 50.35%. In all cases, if the miscellaneous vote were larger than 1.6%, then Trumps chances would improve a little (since the percentage needed to win PA by a plurality would decline), and if it were smaller, then the percentage needed to win a plurality would increase, and Trump's chances would decline.

I'd like to integrate the idea of elasticity into my model:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ele...onal-mood/

...but I haven't done it yet. Maybe another day. It's largely covered within the standard deviation anyway, with teh more elastic entities having the wider swings and the less elastic ones being closer to the median.

My guess is that the chance I give Trump of winning UT is a bit low (36/45 i.e., 80%). This is an artifact of McMullen's 2020 run, where he got 21.54% of the vote, and Trump got 45.54%. To some extent, my model takes that into account (in my model, a candidate can win UT with a 46.41% plurality), but I suspect it underestimates his chances. Oh well. Que Sera Sera for now. It's only six EVs anyway. 

The modifications to the model: I assume (partly based on his performance in 2008 as a VP candidate) that Biden puts at least a 1.030 divisor to Trump's chance of reelection in DE, knocking Trump's chances of winning DE from 2/45 to 0/45. Without modifications, my model gives Trump a 0/45 chance of winning CA. With Harris as Biden's running mate, well, I assume it's still 0/45. I really don't know about how to handle Trump's shift of home state to FL. I gave him a 1.010 modifier for FL, which increases his chance of winning FL from 42/45 to 43/45. Pence is still Trump's running mate, but taking the precedence of Cheney and Biden, VP's don't have the same effect on their home states the second time around as they do the first time, but Trump still probably has a 45/45 chance of winning IN. Result: Electoral Vote count: "R" about 293; "D" about 245.

Extrapolating, I calculate that Trump needs to improve his 2016 popular vote by a 1.045 modifier (from 45.93% to at least 48.00% of the national vote) for a likely win (about 278 EVs). This would assume that Biden gets 50.40% of the popular vote, and that the miscellaneous vote is still 1.6%. 

If Trump does no better than he did in 2016 (45.93%), then Biden gets 52.47% of the popular vote, with the miscellaneous vote at 1.6%. Result: About 217 EVs for Trump.

I guess we'll see how everyone's predictions went in less than 36 hours.

538: Nate Silver shows President Trump as having possibilities in 100 as ten outright wins, one nominal tie (269-269, which would be decided in the House and that would go for him), and 89 losses. The range of electoral votes for Trump ranges from 55 to 328 electoral votes. The 55 would be a defeat in the Electoral College somewhere between Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Herbert Hoover in 1932, and that suggests that Trump would lose everything east of the Mississippi except for Kentucky and West Virginia, among other oddities. If the 100th-worst result for Trump is to be seen as absurd as him winning 328 electoral votes, then it is about as absurd as Trump faring 3% better in an even shift of 3-4% of the popular vote that would net him all of his wins of 2016 and any 2016 loss closer than 4% and give him Maine at large, Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire. Such would be far closer to his median possibility if he were a reasonably-effective President who could bring over some new voters who voted against him the first time. It is hard to see anyone suggesting this as the 2020 result. People who did not vote for Trump have gotten no reason to vote for him on the whole. 

Results within fifteen electoral votes (basically a similar electoral result) are his second, third, and fourth best results. In the second he adds Minnesota to his 2016 victories and wins 315 electoral votes, which just isn't going to happen. In his third-best he loses Michigan only to pick up Minnesota, which is a net loss of six electoral votes for him. In his fourth-best performance he simply loses Wisconsin, which is a less-likely loss for him than some other states that he lost in 2016.  Oddly no winning scenario for Trump has him losing Pennsylvania. Not so oddly, no winning scenario for Trump has him losing Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, or (ha! ha!) Texas.

Average 55 electoral votes and 328 electoral votes, and the average between them is just over 191.5 electoral votes for Trump (347.5 electoral votes for Biden).

Note that in the last three Presidential elections involving a re-election bid,  the incumbent won with a map of victories fairly similar to those of the incumbent's original win. Five states (Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, and Montana) changed sides in 1992; three states (Iowa, New Hampshire, and New Mexico) changed sides in 2004  -- only fifteen electoral votes); in 2012, two states (Indiana and North Carolina) and one wayward district (NE-02) shifted away for Obama. Those elections involve three very different Presidents. Usually patterns have cause for repeating, but in view of how badly Trump is doing in all states that he lost except perhaps Nevada (which usually over-performs polling for Democrats and gives Biden a lead, then Trump will lose something from 2016 while gaining nothing. Biden would have to pick up Texas (not likely without a bunch of other states other than Texas) or

1. Florida and any other state with at least seven electoral votes (FL + IA puts Biden at a 269-269 tie) or Iowa and the second Congressional District of Maine or Nebraska. That is 270 for Biden.

2. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and either both ME-02 and NE-02 or any other state.   That is at least 270 for Biden (Biden is not winning Ohio without also winning both Michigan and Pennsylvania, so I do not have Ohio as a key)

3. Two of Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina and any other state. 

4. One of Georgia, Michigan, and North Carolina, and two of Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin. Each case involves no more than three states switching -- and if any states shift then they will go from Trump to Biden. Trump has little room for losses because he isn't picking anything up. 

Nate Silver has a wide range of possible results, but his analysis might be going outmoded. As the election becomes nigh, some possibilities fade. For example, I can see no reasonable way in which Biden gets more than 413 electoral votes. He's not campaigning at the last minute in South Carolina, Montana, Alaska, or Missouri, which he would have to do to win those states. He did try to make a campaign appearance in Austin, Texas but failed to show up because a caravan of Trump supporters blocked his approach to the venue. 

(By the way -- blocking access to a campaign site is disgusting and loathsome behavior, electoral misconduct of the worst kind: physical interference with a campaign.  That is the sort of thing that happens in dictatorships pretending to have a democracy but scrupulously falling short of democracy by making sure to win close elections instead of the ludicrous sorts in which, as in Commie and Ba'athist states, 99% of the people vote and 99% or so vote for the approved list. This is what I would expect of someone like the late Robert Mugabe. 

I hate the Trump campaign almost as much as I despise Donald Trump himself. I find it unlikely that I could largely choose a Presidential nominee for some of the usual attributes that Republican nominees play up (devout Christianity, a conservative family life, and more respect for veterans and active-duty members of the Armed Services, but this time that means the Democrat). Donald Trump is something that I would never have accused either Mitt Romney, John McCain, George W. Bush, Bob Dole, George H W Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, or Richard Nixon of being: a demagogue. After so callow a demagogue as Trump the cure is someone from the Establishment. Biden is as Establishment as one gets. At some point we are going to need a conservative to halt and reverse the destructive radicalism of some left-wing demagogue.

Don't tell me that this is spontaneous behavior of over-zealous supporters. This sort of behavior is well-planned and carefully choreographed. Such behavior can only emerge from the Trump campaign with the approval of none other than you-know-who). This conduct gives me more cause to despise Donald Trump, and may we never see anything like this again! 

.....

Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball:



I might disagree on one or two states (and I am not saying which), and never by more than one category.  At this point (the day before the election) even a 3% lead is nearly impossible to shake. The question is on the whole how accurate the polls are. 

....................

The Cook report doesn't contain a spiffy map, but it does show 188 electoral votes solid for Biden (all states that Trump lost by at least 8% in 2016), 24 likely for Biden, and 78 'leaning' toward Biden (Trump lost among these Minnesota, Nevada, and New Hampshire but won the rest of them in 2016). Although a bare lean may have seemed within reach for Trump a couple months ago... well, it isn't summer anymore. With these Biden has 290 electoral votes nearly locked up, and Trump would have to pick off at least two of these states to win the election. 

Politics is a timed contest, even if the timer is a calendar instead of the clock used in basketball, football, or hockey. I have seen 20-point leads dribble away in NBA games, and I have seen NFL teams (especially the Detroit Kittens) fumble away 20-point leads... but those were early leads. There are ball-control strategies that can force the team behind to get no fast breaks while the team ahead abandons the fast break to eat the clock  in basketball; in pro football, a team with an early 20-point lead early in the game can often enforce a slow ground game for the offense with Tom Landry's "nickel defense" (five defensive backs in the zones in which passes might be thrown) that makes long passes suicidal due to a high chance of an interception that the defensive team can run back for a quick score that makes things worse for the team behind or puts the defensive team in good field position. With such a lead, the team ahead typically chooses to do low-risk running plays that devour time.

Trump had plenty of time in which to erode Biden leads and apparently failed to do so. Give credit to Biden for some excellent strategy and making feew mistakes.

......

Real Clear Politics has something close to my minimal expectation of a Biden win. That is all that I need say because I have said much the same before in this post.


JDG, I recognize and salute your ability to treat the likely defeat of President Trump with a calmness that I did not show when Trump won. Although I must await the results of the electoral results tomorrow to make any definitive predictions on how the defeat of Donald Trump will shape the generational pattern of American history, I can easily say that President Trump will be a one-of-a-kind President. A defeat of him will show that his style is a poor match for patterns of American history.