It’s happening ! We just need to keep it up and I believe we will ! Anything we can do to keep turning out the vote like Yosef does so well at is huge now ! We are now at 75 million votes ! There were 137 million votes total that were cast in 2016. Only 47 million votes were early in 2016. 90 million people voted in person in 2016. If we get to 82 million votes cast early, then 72 million will get us to 154 million votes total cast. In my previous diary on this topic, I pointed out that 538 was now projecting 154 million votes to be cast this election. In another diary (with lots of data about the election polls) , I pointed out why I have a hard time seeing Trump win more than 65 million votes this time around. I wrote:
If the margin was very narrow, then Trump and republicans might be able to find a way to retain power. However, when Biden wins by eight or more points, then they can’t. We are looking at 154 million votes being cast . Trump won a little more than 62 million votes in 2016. In 2016, 52% of seniors voted for Donald Trump .
Last time, it worked. In 2016, exit polls showed that 52 percent of voters ages 65 and older supported Trump. This year, polling suggests they’ve lurched heavily against him. A CNN poll this week showed Trump winning over just 39 percent of the same age group, compared to 60 percent who support Joe Biden — the latest in a series of polls showing seniors breaking in favor of Joe Biden.
Now, seniors vote at a greater rate than any other age group. The republican party started shrinking after Trump’s election. This trend has continued. As a result, registered Democrats outnumber registered republicans by 12 million voters. There are now more registered independents than there are registered republicans. Donald Trump is the first president in the 70 year history of modern polling to never earn majority approval. Trump is the most unpopular president to run for re-election since Gerald Ford.
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.On Jan. 1, 42.6 percent of Americans approved of President Trump’s job performance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker (52.9 percent disapproved). That’s a pretty typical number for Trump.
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.Right now, 538 shows Trump’s disapproval rating at 53.5% to 42.7% approval, a negative 10.8% approval rating. That’s horrific. It’s also consistent. Year over year in general, mortality rates of health conditions are very stable. So, when we see a huge increase in deaths due to a certain health condition during a pandemic which relates to that condition, then it is very likely that the pandemic is responsible for the increase. That’s why we are looking at over 300,000 Americans dead due to the novel coronavirus. Now, the novel coronavirus is the dominant issue in this election . Trump deservedly has been given horrible marks for his handling of the novel coronavirus.
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.The CNN poll shows that 63 percent of people say Trump acted irresponsibly in handling the coronavirus risk to those around him, a posture which has included largely business-as-usual in the White House and largely maskless events and rallies. One of those events, the announcement of Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court last week, appears to have become something of a superspreader event, with more than a dozen infections connected to it. Just 33 percent polled said Trump had been acting responsibly. Arguably the more stunning result from the CNN poll, though, was this: Just 12 percent of people said they trusted almost all of what they heard from the White House about Trump’s condition. Another 18 percent said they trusted most of it, but fully 69 percent said they trusted only some of it or none of it. This echoes other polls that have repeatedly shown even many Republicans don’t completely trust what the White House says more broadly about the virus
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Both the CNN and the NBC/WSJ polls reinforce that: Biden leads 52 to 35 in the NBC/WSJ poll and 59 to 38 in the CNN poll — slightly bigger even than Trump’s overall deficit.Trump’s posture toward masks also continues to be particularly dumbfounding.A recent Wisconsin poll showed something similar: 7 in 10 people supported a mandate, including 43 percent of Republicans
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Let’s review. The republican party has shrunk since 2016. They have turned suburban voters, especially suburban women, against him. Trump has lost millions of older voters, both due to death and flipping to supporting Biden at least in large part due to his mishandling of the novel coronavirus. His approval rating has been horrible and has not improved. He only won a little over 62 million votes last time. Clinton lost double haters by 17 points whereas Biden is winning them by 50 points. Biden has a positive favorability and Trump has a negative twenty two ( -22 ! ) point approval rating.
Due to the factors mentioned above, it is not likely that Trump gets more votes than he did last time. However, supposing somehow against all the data, that he added a couple of million more, then he would be at 65 million. Trump is not going to get more than 65 million votes. Still suppose that Trump exceeds his original vote total by 5 million votes and gets to 68 million votes and third party and write in votes are a little over 4 million votes and we get to 154 million votes. Then, Biden gets 82 million votes. Biden’s percentage, thus, would be 82 million over 154 million, about 53.25 % of the vote. Trump’s percentage, hence, would be 68 million over 154 million , about 44.16% of the vote. Biden would win by 9 percent. A huge turnout is a nightmare for Trump because there is a relatively low hard limit on how many Trump voters there are ; Trump’s ceiling is much lower than Biden’s . Truthfully, Biden’s floor is almost certainly greater than Trump’s ceiling. This is likely the worst case scenario IF we have the 154 million vote turnout predicted. If Biden wins the popular vote by 9 percent, then he wins the electoral college. A 9 point win with that kind of turnout means Biden is more likely to win Texas than Trump and Biden does win Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida, Iowa, and Ohio (in addition to Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania).
Otherwise, let’s look at a more realistic scenario with 154 million votes cast, one where Biden wins 85 million votes and Trump wins 65 million votes (frankly, I don’t see more than 65 million votes for Trump) and the rest go to third party and write in. Then, Biden wins 55.2% of the vote and Trump wins 42.2% of the vote. That’s a thirteen percentage point win, the biggest since Reagan’s 1984 shellacking of Walter Mondale.
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.For those reasons, I have a hard time seeing Trump winning more than 65 million votes. If we can get to 82 million votes cast before 11/3 , then we would only need 72 million votes to get to 154 million votes cast. 72 million votes on 11/3 would be only 80% of the amount of votes cast on election day in 2016 which was 90 million votes. So, even if we saw a dramatic drop of 20% of votes cast on election day proper itself, we would still get to 154 million votes cast. Since we are already at 75 million votes that have been cast already, then it seems very likely to me that we will get to 82 million votes cast prior to election day and it is hard for me to imagine that in this election which is at a fever pitch in terms of intensity and passion because this is truly a vote or die election, we will see more than a 20% drop on election day voting. While it is not certain, it seems very likely that we will get to that 154 million votes as 538 is projecting.
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Now, 538 is not taking this into account in their model and they are accepting (by their own admission on the podcast linked in this very diary) a lot of partisan junk republican pollsters which are producing outliers (e.g. in the state of Pennsylvania , pollster Insider Advantage, a republican firm , gives Trump a 3 point lead when every other pollster shows a 5 point lead for Biden or better and the ranges of the other polls range from Biden +5 to Biden +10 ; thus, their Trump + 3 poll is clearly an outlier, and it makes Biden’s margin in Pennsylvania shrink from what would be a better than 6 point lead to only a 5 point lead)) and yet, they still have Biden’s probability of winning the electoral college at 88% and the economist has it at 95%. Again as I wrote above, I don’t see any way Trump exceeds 65 million votes this time around. So, that has to affect Biden’s probability of winning the electoral college when only 4 million votes for third party will be cast, leaving the rest, the lion’s share, of the votes, some 85 million votes, to Biden. In what rational universe does a 13% popular vote win not translate to an electoral college win ? How does that not affect the probability of an electoral college vote win ?
Trump is looking at 42% to 43% approval, a shrinking republican party, large scale defections among seniors, deaths of seniors who voted for Trump, the loss of suburban women, and the results of Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic make it very hard to understand how Trump will add more than 2 million more votes to his 2016 vote total, giving him a new hard cap limit of 65 million votes in 2020. Other than Kanye who isn’t even on the ballot and has next to zero support, can you name the third party candidates ? How about 2016 ? Gary Johnson and Jill Stein. We all remember. There are far fewer third party voters this time around. So, only 4 million votes is a likely cap for the third party vote. That leaves 85 million votes and those go to Biden. That’s a 13 percent win. 85 million votes cast for Biden and a 13% popular vote win seems incredibly likely to mean that Biden wins Texas, Ohio, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Iowa, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. I think that this bodes awfully well for our senate candidates across the board. I think that means Theresa Greenfield beats Joni Ernst, Jon Ossoff defeats David Purdue, Captain Mark Kelly defeats Martha McSally, Governor John Hickenlooper defeats Cory Gardner, Lt Col Cal Cunningham defeats Thom Tillis, Speaker Sara Gideon defeats Susan Collins . A Biden win in Texas means that Major MJ Hegar has a real chance at beating John Cornyn. Then, we have senate candidates who will have to get there on their own steam: I think Harrison wins in South Carolina because he is just that outstanding a candidate. I think Dr. Bollier and hydroxychloroquine freak Marshall is very close, Rev Warnock might be able to get to 50 but it seems tough , Dr. Gross has a good chance of defeating Sullivan, Gov Bullock will be an underdog against Daines but it is conceivable. We start at 47 . Senator Doug Jones is so much more qualified and Tommy Tuberville isn’t at all qualified, but we lose there. 46. Now, we count up : I think we get to at least 53 and we could get more.
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Getting out the vote is huge in this election because we can all see what this means to both Biden and shutting down Trump’s whining and to winning back the US Senate.