How to Predict the 2020 Presidential Election

People routinely attempt to predict the presidential election the wrong way.  They look at popular polls over the whole country.  Those are meaningless.  It also doesn't matter who all your friends are voting for.   Mainly because if all your friends are voting the same way, you live in a state that is already going 100% for one candidate, and all you have done is predicted how one single state will vote.

Nor is the economy the be all and end all.  Among other things it can turn on a dime.  And it isn't the best predictor.  Most importantly, President Trump is more divisive than most - some people want him impeached while others think he is god's gift to mankind.  


We use an electoral voting system.  As such, you need to look at polls by each state, except for the two states that split their vote.  For those two states, Maine and Nebraska, you need to look at polls by Congressional district.

Most states (and districts) are forgone conclusions.  Even if the the Democrats pick a dead horse, they are going to win New York, California, etc. etc.  Similarly, even if the Trump kills and eats a person on national TV, he will win Mississippi and every state that touches Mississippi.

There are only five states and one district that are "Swing States" - they are too hard to predict and could go either way.   There are also another six or seven states and one district that are "Long Shots".  The rest are already set in concrete and it will take a jackhammer to dislodge them.

The five real swing states are (in order of how many electoral votes they have):

1. Florida (29)
2. Pennsylvania (20)
3. Michigan (16)
4. Arizona (11)
5. Wisconsin (10)

If you win any 3 of them (even the bottom 3) you are almost certain to win the electoral election and take the Presidency.

The swing district is Omaha district 2 of Nebraska.  The Republicans are going to take the state of Nebraska, but either party can win that district for a single extra electoral vote.  Worth at least 1% of your total ad budget.  Probably 2% if it is close, and if it is not close, your ad budget doesn't matter.

The long shots are (some people think Ohio is set in stone, but I disagree):

1. Ohio (18) - most likely Republican
2. Georgia (16) - most likely Republican
3. North Carolina (15) - most likely Republican
4. Minnesota (10) - most likely Democrat
5. Iowa (6) - most likely Republican
6. Arizona (6) - most likely Democrat
7. New Hampshire (4) most likely Democrat

The long shot district is the rural district 2 of Maine.   The Democrats are going to take the state, but while the Republicans will likely win the rural district, it is not impossible for the Democrats to pull an upset and take all of Maine.

But the thing about the long shots is that usually they can not be won unless your candidate is strong enough to win the swing states.  In which case, they do not matter.  But not always.  The reasons the Democrats lost in 2016 was in part because they thought they had Michigan and Wisconsin in the bag.  They had them as Long shots, not swing states.  Granted, Donald Trump did win the 2016 swing states as well, but still.  The Democrats paid too much attention to national polls that correctly predicted Hillary winning the popular vote, and not enough to state polls.


For those reasons, if you want to predict the 2020 Presidential Election, you need to concentrate your data collection on the 5 swing states plus Omaha metropolitan area.

If you know what people in those areas are thinking, you know how the election will turn. Whoever wins three of the five swing states will almost certainly be the president. 


As a a side note, if I were running the a presidential election, I would spend more than 1/2 of my money and time in those five swing states (plus Omaha).  Probably less than a 1/4 of my money and time on the seven long shot states and rural Maine.  That leaves less than a 1/4 to be spent on the remaining 33 states (and territories) of the US.

Why spend any time or money on the foregone conclusions?  To help Congressman and Senators that have a chance of getting elected with your help.   You may lose a state but gain a seat in Congress.  Also, Puerto Ricans may not vote for the President, but they are citizens of the US (Citizens but no vote, is that not the vile?) and can move to the mainland US (Florida perhaps...), where they can vote.  Quite a few of them did that after the last horrible storm when President Trump failed to respond in sufficient force.  Those citizens will be voting, and I suspect few will vote Republican.

Quotes and the 2020 election.

There is a quote, which I don't quite remember the exact details or who first said it (Hard to be sure of any quote's authors in the age of the lying internet).  I will attempt to paraphrase it:

• Under normal circumstances, conservatives should outnumber liberals.

This is based on the real definition of political conservatism: "The inclination, especially in politics, to maintain the existing or traditional order."    If the government is not totally screwing up, then most people are complacent and will be more afraid of losing what they have than of gaining benefits.

(The rest of these bullet points are my statements, not paraphrased quotes.)

•   Liberal political parties will correctly identify a problem that needs fixing, that Conservative party is ignoring.  Their solution might not work, but they will identify the problem.

This is part of the definition of a liberal party - they are trying to fix things that a conservative party is willing to ignore because they are afraid a solution will mess up things that are working well.

• Conservative ideals of today are identical to liberal ideals 50 years ago.

This again is the result of the definitions.  Liberals try to solve problems, conservatives stick to tradition.  Once a liberal solves a problem, 50 years later their solution becomes a tradition.  The liberals may try to improve upon it, but the conservatives like their parent's solution.  Hence conservatives went from being for slavery to against it but in favor of separate but equal, etc. etc. etc.

Some people mistakenly think the first quote (conservatives outnumber liberals) means most Americans are Republicans. Not true.   

•  Under normal circumstances, a moderate political party will outnumber any extremist party.

That includes conservatives, liberals, greens, hawks, doves, libertarians, monarchists, communists, or authoritarian.   This is true because a moderate party has a greater pool of voters.  It can draw from all sides, and the independents in particular. Extremist party, can only draw from their own extreme and some of the independents.  How do the Extremists win?   enthusiasm.

Moderates tend toward apathy, extremists have enthusiasm.  The DNC has tried to be a moderate party since Bill Clinton, explaining why they lose the midterms (voter apathy) but do better in the presidential elections (Since 1992 there were seven  elections, and the Republicans won the popular vote only once - George Bush's 2004 re-election.   Democrats won the popular vote all six other times, despite losing the electoral college twice)

• The Republican party, while it was a conservative party with libertarian tendencies for most of the past 70 years , has moved to a rural party due to successful  gerrymandering policy pushed by Karl Rove.

They knew they could not win the popular vote against a moderate party, so they ignored it and concentrated on other methods - gerrymandering the vote to gain rural seats.

• The Democratic party, while it started as a liberal party, is being pushed into an urban party by gerrymandering.  

If you can't win the rural areas due to gerrymandering, the party leaders become all urban, pushing the party that direction.


Now back to the 2020 election.  Remember the Karl Rove Gerrymandering plan?

• Trump undermined the gerrymandering movement, first managing to steal a whole bunch of suburban voters via a social media plan, but new trends show him losing them.  (https://morningconsult.com/tracking-trump/)

What is going to happen next?  Will the GOP return to it's rural based gerrymandering policy?  The Supreme Court could end that - they may be conservative but they are mostly honest and see the real undemocratic effects of gerrymandering. 

Will Trump leave a lasting mark on the GOP, turning it into a Social Media Party?  I don't think that will last.  It might work for him, but no one else seems to be able to duplicate his style of ignoring facts. 
 
I see the DNC regaining most of the electoral votes in the Great Lake States  (Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan).  When you lie (show his taxes, Mexico will pay for the wall, save the dreamers, etc.) you make short term gains but suffer in the long term.  That will give the Presidency to the DNC candidate.

The GOP may keep the Senate - though it is not certain.  They have enough seats up for re-election in states that are leaning against Trump.  They will almost certainly lose Arizona and Colorado.  The Democrats need to pick off at least one of Maine, Iowa, or North Carolina - all of whom dislike Trump. If the right presidential candidate brings out the voters and the Democrats pick good Senate Candidates for those three states, the GOP loses it's majority.


If the DNC gains three total, it's a tie.  Four and the DNC controls both the Presidency and Congress.  Ginsburg and Breyer will almost certainly be replaced by the next president.   If the Democrat does not screw up and get's re-elected, that means Alito and/or Thomas are likely to be replaced as well, giving the liberals a majority unless the GOP pulls some evil maneuver like they did to get Gorsuch into office.   (Obama should have had the choice, and the GOP got lucky Hillary - who won the popular vote - did not win the electoral vote)