In my last post, I went over ten reasons why Joe Biden will most likely defeat Pres. Trump to become the 46th President of the United States. There are arguably even more reasons that I could have listed, as the President’s reelection hopes at this point are fairly slim. But nothing is impossible in politics. Most Americans entered Election Night 2016 fully expecting the winner to be Hillary Clinton. Trump pulled off an astonishing upset four years ago, so why can’t he do the same now? He is in a much worse position this year than he was in 2016, but there are perfectly plausible ways that he could clutch victory from the jaws of defeat. Here are a few paths to another Trump upset victory.
This is the reason that is most frequently trumpeted by hardcore Trump supporters (and even the Trump campaign itself). The polls were wrong in 2016, they say, and the polls could be wrong again. Now, a pet peeve of mine is how overblown the polling errors were made out to be in 2016. In terms of national polling, pollsters were fairly accurate, predicting Clinton to have a lead of around 2 to 3 percent in the popular vote. As it turns out, Hillary Clinton’s popular vote margin was 2.1%. The polling errors actually came in a handful of key states, namely Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Polling suggested that these states were safely in the Clinton column. In the end, however, Trump barely won each of them by less than 1% (can’t get tighter than that!). Trump also performed better in red states than polls suggested. The reason for this was an unusually high number of undecided voters left at the end of the campaign, of which the vast majority swung to Trump at the last second (hence, the Shy Trump Voter theory). This year, there are way less undecided voters at this stage, but the margins are close enough in key states like Pennsylvania, Florida, and North Carolina where Trump is currently trailing, that similar polling errors could mean that they all go red on Tuesday.
The Trump campaign has been making not insignificant inroads with Latino men, particularly targeting the demographic in Florida and Nevada. While Nevada seems like a longshot for Trump this year, gains with Latino men could mean political life or death in Florida, the swingiest of swing states. Meanwhile, Biden has also been knocked by Democratic Latino groups for having a lackluster outreach program to Latino voters. This confluence could allow Trump to win Florida, a state he really needs to take in order to secure reelection.
The Republican National Convention was notable for a number of reasons, but one was how overtly the GOP used the event to reach out to Black voters while also laying out a law and order message evocative of Wallace-esque warnings of a suburban invasion by minorities. Throughout this campaign, Trump has made it clear that he hopes to eat into the Democrats’ traditional advantage with African American voters, particularly with Black men (similar to his appeals to Latino men). While his messaging towards that end has involved mentions of the criminal justice reform he signed into law as well as opportunity zones and increased funding for HBCUs, the narrative has leaned more heavily on attacking Joe Biden for his work in passing the infamous 1994 crime bill that resulted in higher incarceration rates for African Americans. Trump’s disapproval amongst African Americans nationwide is ridiculously high, with some surveys placing it at almost 90%. I suspect the Trump campaign must see this and realize how difficult it will be for them to convince more Black voters to support them. Instead, this rhetoric seems aimed at convincing African Americans to at least not vote for Biden either. A big part of Trump’s win in 2016 was depressed Black turnout compared to 2008 and 2012. If African Americans turn out in similarly low numbers this time around, Trump has a better shot at winning.
In this last week and a half of the race since the second presidential debate, the Trump campaign has been seizing on comments by Biden that he would transition the country away from the oil industry. Along with previous comments suggesting that Biden opposes fracking, Trump has been eagerly highlighting the seeming flubs in Pennsylvania, a state with a sizable fracking and oil industry. Biden, recognizing the danger in his remarks, has since walked back his comments on fracking and oil, or at least tweaked them somewhat. It is awfully late in the campaign for a major swing in either direction, but Biden’s fracking gaffe might be just enough to tilt the Keystone State to Trump. I still believe that whoever wins Pennsylvania will win the Presidency this year, and the Trump and Biden campaigns appear to be thinking the same.
A myriad of court cases are still being decided regarding voting rights and ballot rules even as there are mere days before Election Day. Republicans are generally suing against new rules allowing for mail ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day even if they are received a couple days later, renewing voting rights for felons on parole, or allowing election workers to begin processing ballots (that is ensuring they are legitimate) before the official count begins on Election Day. Democrats have been fighting in court to support these measures. At this late date, if rules allowing for ballots to be counted with an Election Day postmark are overturned, then thousands of ballots could be invalidated even if they were mailed out before the election. Studies show that low-propensity voters such as youth and Latinos that tend to vote Democratic, are more likely to return mail ballots late in the race. This likely means that such invalidated ballots would be mostly Democratic votes. Without a doubt, this is why Republicans oppose the rules changes (they want less Democratic votes counted) and why Democrats support the rule changes (they want more Democratic votes counted). If votes in states like Wisconsin or Pennsylvania, where these issues are being litigated, are close, then late Democratic ballots being tossed could give the states to Trump.
Finally, this is 2020. If we have learned anything from this year, it is that this year is ridiculously unpredictable. The pandemic in particular makes it hard for pollsters to gauge what turnout will be like this year. While the expansion of mail voting likely means that turnout will be high (with some suggesting it could hit 70% for the first time since William McKinley won reelection in 1900), the reality is that we just do not know for sure. The coronavirus adds uncertainty to turnout in specific demographics, whether they be along racial lines or the urban-rural divide. Maybe urban turnout will be low because of few polling stations and crowded lines to vote, allowing for a disproportionate share of rural voters this year. Maybe seniors won’t turn out at their usually high levels for fear of getting sick, allowing the young vote to become more decisive. Different turnout scenarios could mean very different election results, and we won’t have the full picture for turnout until Election Day.
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