Now multiply that by a dozen-ish questions and you have tomorrow’s debate. Memes will be made that Biden was sleeping because he lowered his eyes at some point to look at his notes. Afterwards Trump will simultaneously, and paradoxically, declare victory, accuse Biden of being on drugs (while the powder of fresh Adderall is still on his nose), attack the moderators for asking unfair questions, and call Joe Biden “sleepy” and “senile”.
Okay, back to the maps. I’m doing this today because we haven’t seen either the tax story or the debates sink into the zeitgeist yet. So this is where we stand heading into the home stretch.
Okay this is my preferred scenario. Because it would show the rest of the world that we’re not completely off our rockers.
The perfect map 538-0.
A 538-0 map is gonna happen one day. But it’ll happen because enough blue states will pass the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact and a Republican will win the popular vote…and I’ll be sad.
Okay what’s the next scenario? It’s the FDR Map. I’ll cede Trump 8 whole electoral votes in the two Trumpiest states.
FDR only won 523-8 because Alaska and Hawaii weren’t states yet
Okay, I’m still in dream world. Let’s just move to overly optimistic. Here’s the Ultimate map. Everything breaks Biden’s way. He carries every state Trump hasn’t reached 50% in and all the Obama and Clinton states.
Total devastation. And too damned optimistic
This seems to good to be true, but this is close to what happened in 1980 after the media drummed “Iranian hostages” into the head of every voter.
This is our more realistic best case. What if Joe Biden swept every undecided voter and took all the states where Trump isn’t polling over 50% in the averages?
Utah? Arkansas? Okay, okay.
All my conservative friends tell me Trump is doing a great job. What happens if Trump’s job approval is the only proxy we use?
Maybe Trump isn’t so popular.
One of the things I learned from the 2019 United Kingdom general election was how head-to-head favorability amongst the leading contenders matters. So I’ve been tracking Joe Biden’s personal favorability since he tied up the nomination. 4 months ago there was no way he’d win a general election. Democrats had yet to come home for Joe. That’s not true today. This map will only get better over the next month as Bernie Sander’s stumping, the debates, and Trump’s taxes chip away at the differences between the two nominees.
If every undecided voter decided they liked Biden better
The polls aren’t much different than the favorables breaking for Joe. I’m still hoping that in the end undecideds break for Joe and bring Georgia, Iowa, South Carolina, and Texas along with the Senate seats in those states into the blue column.
Polls are looking good, but frankly I’d like to flip a few more.
On the straight head-to-head favorables Biden still has a nice map.
If we average out all the numbers used to make all the maps, including the Trump friendlier ones below, this is is what we see.
Even average isn’t bad.
David Wasserman, Sophie Andrews and Leo Saenger over at Cook Political took the results of the 2016 election and adjusted them for the demographic changes since 2016. They noted:
As America becomes more diverse and college-educated, Trump's core demographic is steadily declining. In 2020, non-college whites are on track to make up about 43 percent of the nation's adult citizens, down from 46 percent in 2016.
Meanwhile, whites with four-year degrees — who are trending blue and increasingly behave like a different ethnic group from non-college whites — will make up 25 percent of adult citizens, up from 24 percent in 2016. And Blacks, Latinos, Asians, and other non-whites — historically Democrats' most reliable supporters — will make up 32 percent, up from 30 percent four years ago.
A new interactive collaboration by NBC News and the Cook Political Report finds that if 2016's turnout and support rates were applied to 2020's new demographic realities, Trump would narrowly lose Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — more than enough to swing the presidency to Joe Biden. And, Trump would lose the popular vote by about four points, roughly double his 2016 deficit.
Natural population change alone would give us this map, which is probably closer to what we would have seen without a pandemic dragging Trump down.
Demographics alone flip back FL, MI, PA, and WI
Now, not every scenario is good. If the undecideds break for Trump instead of Biden, then Trump gains the narrowest possible victory possible. No, I don’t trust polls for Wisconsin. Clinton had a 6.5% lead in 2016, yet Trump still won by 0.7%. It’s the one state where the polls were off by more than the margin of error. Biden’s 6.8% lead today (or 5.5% lead) is still much too close for me to be comfortable with.
No, please no, let’s not repeat 2016.
This map was sad enough 47 months ago, let’s not do it again
And there is the true epic disaster scenario, in which Trump figures out the way to cheat his way to victory in every state where Joe Biden isn’t polling over 50%. Let’s work to ensure that this doesn’t happen.
And Trump still doesn’t take Minnesota
I think North Carolina will be the tipping point state that gets Joe Biden to 270 electoral votes. And Ohio the gravy that gets Joe to 400.
