Am I jinxing things by writing this post? Nope. I’m not that powerful. But don’t think I haven’t knocked on wood!
To be clear, this isn’t what I hope will happen. I hope we win everything in the biggest historical landslide since Ronald Reagan in 1980. Rather, it’s what I’m guessing, based on publicly available data and internal numbers that I’ve seen. In the end, no one really knows what this record turnout means for our candidates. And I will undoubtedly get a lot of this wrong, hopefully by being too conservative.
Take a look at my predictions below.
PRESIDENT
My predicted map:
Yes, I have Joe Biden being elected president, and rather comfortably at that. I trust the statewide polling composites, as they are confirmed by internal polling I’m privy to, as well as district-level data we’re seeing in House and state legislative races. Here’s a chart of The Economist’s final modeled aggregate battleground numbers, as well as my own predicted margin:
| STATE |
ELECTORAL
VOTES |
ECONOMIST
POLL AGGREGATE
|
Aggregate
TOTAL
|
Markos’
Prediction
|
| BASELINE |
- |
- |
232-125 |
|
| MICHIGAN |
16 |
Biden +8.0 |
248-125 |
Biden +9 |
| WISCONSIN |
10 |
Biden +7.4 |
258-125 |
Biden +6 |
| NEBRASKA-02 |
1 |
Biden +6.5 |
259-125 |
Biden +6 |
| PENNSYLVANIA |
20 |
Biden +6.2 |
279-125 |
Biden +6 |
| Maine-02 |
1 |
Biden +3.0 |
280-125 |
Biden +3 |
| FLORIDA |
29 |
Biden +2.8 |
309-125 |
Biden +3 |
| ARIZONA |
11 |
Biden +2.4 |
320-125 |
Biden +4 |
| NORTH CAROLINA |
15 |
Biden +1.8 |
335-125 |
Biden +3 |
| GEORGIA |
16 |
Biden +0.4 |
351-125 |
Biden +2 |
| IOWA |
6 |
Trump +1.0 |
357-125 |
Biden +1 |
| OHIO |
18 |
Trump +1.0 |
357-143 |
Trump +2 |
| TEXAS |
38 |
Trump +2.6 |
357-181 |
Trump +3 |
What does this all tell us? What we already knew: Biden has a pretty solid path to 279 electoral votes and the presidency. However, the tipping-point state is Pennsylvania, and we know that Republicans are doing their dastardly best to muck up the Pennsylvania vote count to create the uncertainty and chaos Trump needs to steal the election.
Florida is Florida. We only win Florida if we don’t need it, and given the totality of this map, I’m going to say we win it. On the other hand, maybe we do need It—the state counts its votes early. And if we get that election night call for Biden in the state, it would signal that Trump really has no path to reelection. That would allow us to breathe easier that night as election results stream in from other states, and also deflate conservative attempts to sow chaos and violence.
So we don’t need Florida to win the presidency, but we need Florida to prevent chaos and violence. Ugh. I still say Biden pulls through, but it’ll obviously be close.
Notice that if Pennsylvania hasn’t been called Tuesday night, and odds are that it won’t since some counties won’t even start counting mail ballots until Wednesday, that Biden’s path to 270 gets a little tighter. There’s a lot of 3-point states there. My educated guess is that they all fall in our direction, but there’s a very real chance that the opposite happens. You don’t need to have a massive polling fail to see the possibility of that happening.
That said, polling fails aren’t always uniformly in the GOP’s favor. We could see Dems outperform the polls. We could see Republicans suppress their own vote—they’ve put all their eggs on Election Day turnout, but what happens if their core elderly base is too afraid to vote because of the pandemic now raging in rural red counties? What if weather gets in the way? What if the vaunted Trump turnout machine doesn’t exist? It was supposedly built by former campaign manager Brad Parscale, and everything he’s done turned out to be a grift. (See this and this for evidence that this could be the case.) We can’t count on it! But a good ground game can boost turnout about 3 points. Subtract 3 points from the numbers on that chart, and Biden is in 400 EVs territory.
I do hope I’m wrong about Texas, and there’s plenty of evidence that I could be. Turnout is out of this world, and district-level polling in the state suggests a statewide shift to the left that’s larger than what the statewide polls are showing. I also wouldn’t be surprised to be wrong about Iowa and, to a lesser extent, North Carolina. And Florida, of course. Getting any of those wrong wouldn’t change the final result, we just want as big a margin as possible for all the obvious reasons.
SENATE
My predicted map:
(270towin.com)
This isn’t a best-case scenario map. I don’t dare dream that big. But it is a defensible and conservative prediction, and it gives us a net +6 pickup and an okay 53-47 majority. I’d take this. This chart shows the aggregate polling averages for the battleground Senate races and my prediction:
Texas is the least likely flip, not just because the Democratic candidate is polling the worst of this lot, but because she has consistently trailed Joe Biden’s numbers in the state. Her name ID is woefully lagging, and given the expensive nature of the state, the investment wasn’t made to pull her up. I’m convinced Beto O’Rourke would be headed to victory tomorrow, but regardless, the future looks great for Democrats in the Lone Star State.
South Carolina would be among the most satisfying victories in the Senate, but it’s just a tough state. It’s amazing that Democrat Jamie Harrison has gotten close to parity in the state, but the undecideds are almost all Trumpy Republicans. If they hold their nose and vote for him, Democrats have no chance. If they decide to hate on incumbent Sen. Lindsey Graham, then this could be the upset of the night.
The best bets of the night are losing the seat in Alabama (it was always a rental), and then picking up Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina. That would get us to 50-50. In Iowa, polling has consistently showing Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield doing a few points better than Biden. So I like our chances—if Biden ekes out the victory, then fantastic, Greenfield wins. But even if he loses narrowly, the Senate race is the real prize in the state.
After that, Georgia’s two senate seats loom large. I was bullish on Georgia at both the Senate and presidential levels long before most people, in large part because Civiqs has always shown those races were competitive. Our last poll of that state was no exception, giving Democrats some of the best numbers of any pollster. The catch? If neither Democrats reaches 50% of the vote, there will be a January runoff. I’m predicting that Jon Ossoff, in the race for the regular seat, hits 50%. (I’m trusting our Civiqs numbers.) The special election, with rising Democratic superstar Raphael Warnock and combined field of over 20 candidates all on the same ballot, will likely head to that runoff. But I like our chances regardless.
After that, we have some great chances to pad what will hopefully be a 53-47 lead at that point. The Montana race is virtually tied in the polls, and Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock is outperforming Biden’s results at the top of the ballot. Montana turnout is already officially larger than that of 2016, so voter interest is sky high. I’m slightly pessimistic on the race merely because Bullock needs ticket splitting at a level that is less and less common these days in our highly polarized partisan environment. But it’s certainly doable.
HOUSE
Here’s where I’m going to be more bullish than a lot of the conventional wisdom. Given that the battlegrounds are mostly in suburban districts that have trended hard in our direction in the past four years, and given the huge financial advantages our candidates have enjoyed, I’m going to say that Democrats will pick up at least a net 18 seats.
I suspect that the rural MN-07 district finally falls to the GOP, finishing that realignment. And I predict Democrats will pick up: AR-02, AZ-06, CA-25, GA-07, IL-13, IN-05, MI-3, MO-02, NE-02, NJ-02, NC-02, NC-06, OH-01, PA-01, TX-10, TX-21, TX-22, TX-23, and TX-24.
Much of this election hangs on a knife’s edge: A few points redder, and that’s a Democratic bet pickup of +5. A couple of points bluer, and we’re in the mid-20s—or higher.
Texas is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, as its suburbs continue their dramatic shift to Team Democracy. Beyond the four seats above, up to five other seats could fall depending on the existence and size of any wave. It’s exciting stuff!
A net 18-seat gain would give Nancy Pelosi a 250-180 majority, and that's with the GOP’s post-2010 gerrymander. Democrats will have a greater say in the map-drawing process this time around, helping lock in many of these gains. The House looks to be in good shape this coming decade. The Senate will remain our biggest problem, and one that will need to be addressed next year if Democrats realize these victories.
One final note: None of this is possible without the hard work so many of you have put into GOTV this cycle. Now’s not the time to stop. Find one piece of GOTV you can do at this link, and finish strong. This is it. Leave nothing on the road.
