Every year, I like to make predictions as to how the year will go. At the end of the year, I like to grade myself. You can see my 2019 predictions here and my scoring on my 2019 predictions here. Below, then, are my 2020 predictions.
- Joe Biden will be the 2020 nominee and will win the the general election. I want to start this by saying that I have decided to stay out of the primaries to focus on other progressive efforts (safe storage and permit-to-purchase laws, LGBT and SW advocacy, STAR voting, unaffiliated voter outreach, general County and State Party work) in 2020. That said: while I would personally prefer someone more progressive, Biden has the Black vote and the Midwestern vote all but sewn up. Meanwhile, the leftie vote seems to be divided among about five candidates. It’s possible that Sanders or Warren could make a real race of it by winning both Iowa and New Hampshire, and then keeping it close in South Carolina. This is a long shot, and as much as I personally love to make long shots, I tend not to bet my house on them. As for the general election, that comes down to polling, and for all his problems, Joe consistently beats Trump both in the national face-to-face polling and in swing state face-to-face polling. It’s going to be a really brutal campaign (see below) but I think the good guys will win it after all.
- 2020 will be the most negative campaign season of most of our lifetimes. If I’m right about Biden getting the nomination then he is going to go hard negative on Trump — as we have seen from one of his first campaign ads. Trump, of course, has also gone hard negative on Biden, as evidenced by the attempted Ukraine quid-pro-quo. Additionally, would expect the 8chan trolls to come out swinging against Biden, painting him as a handsy pedophile. All in all, candidates have a VERY tough general election ahead of them. However, one polling outcome gives me hope, albeit grim hope: among voters who hate both Trump and Biden, Biden wins by sixty points.
- Democrats will score huge wins in state-level and local-level races. This might not seem like as big a deal as the White House or the Senate, except that it sets the stage for more favorable redistricting and future Democratic control of the US House and State governments. Both parties are going to make a huge play for control, and we can count on the negative campaigning at the national level to have its impact on the state level too. Local races will probably be the exception to this — nobody really cares if their county board members are weird or different as long as their trash gets picked up. If you’re a progressive wanting to make a difference, strongly consider running for a local office, especially if it’s as tiny as water board. I’m mulling it myself right now.
- Oregon will elect a Democratic Secretary of State. The religious right got their revenge on Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian after he went after Sweet Cakes for discriminating against, and then starting a hate-filled dog-pile in the right wing media upon, a gay couple that wanted a wedding cake. In 2016 Avakian ran for Secretary of State and lost, putting Republican Dennis Richardson in control of that agency. Richardson died earlier this year, and Governor Kate Brown appointed Bev Clarno, a Republican, to be a caretaker SOS. The Democratic field is crowded, and while I have my favorites, I’m not going to take a guess as to who the D candidate will be. However, the GOP is on their heels right now, and that suggests that they will lose this race.
- There will be political violence in America this year, particularly after the election. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone — we saw plenty of this in 2016 and 2018 and 2020 will be a very negative year. We also have Russian bots magnifying the message that if Trump loses, the far right should go to war. And I indeed believe some of them will try to go to war. It’s going to look more like a bunch of Brady-style occupations, or a minor insurgency, than any kind of guerilla war, let alone a revolution.
- Virginia will pass the Equal Rights Amendment, re-igniting the movement to ratify the ERA. While this theoretically will give the ERA the 38 states it needs to pass, there is still the matter of whether the clock has run out on the Amendment, and that will have to be decided by the courts. Theoretically Congress could decide to re-extend the Amendment, and I think that would require a two-thirds vote. We’ll have to see whether the Republicans feel that blocking the ERA is still in their best interests.
- The UK economy will experience a recession as Brexit hits. Brexit is pretty much inevitable now, with Johnson in nearly total control of the UK’s future. Trade won’t come to a screeching halt with Brexit, but it will be a while before the UK finalizes new trade agreements with the US and others. Until then, tariffs and brain drain will take their toll, and the British GDP will shrink.
- The US will re-escalate the war in Iraq and attack Iran in response to the New Years Eve riot that caused the US Embassy to be evacuated. 4000 troops are already about to be sent, and air strikes are almost certainly on their way. It’s quite possible that the President will bomb Iranian targets, such as oil platforms, before Super Tuesday. Conventional wisdom might say that this will inflate his poll numbers, but that’s going to depend on how Democrats handle it.
- Taiwan’s center-left Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) will win big in the upcoming election. Earlier polling had shown that the center-right, anti-Communist Kaomintang Party was headed for victory, in part due to dissatisfaction with Taiwan’s gay marriage law. Then Hong Kong happened. KMT had been arguing for closer relations with Beijing, and DPP’s core principles include Taiwanese independence. Polling now shows DPP with a steady lead, and if Beijing settles matters in HK the way I think we all fear they will, that will only strengthen DPP’s hand. This will mark the end of the beginning of China’s honeymoon with the rest of the world.
- The Kansas City Chiefs will win the Super Bowl. Simply put, they’re the best team in the NFL right now, and the Patriots have lost a lot of their luster this year.
What are your predictions for 2020?
EDIT: more predictions here: