We got a decent response to yesterday’s question about who will win the Presidential election in November. Here are the results as of 5 a.m. today.
By a more than three-to-one margin, readers thought that Biden would take it, although 19% thought Trump would win.
There was a good discussion, with some readers even suggesting (inaccurately, I think) that, should he lose, Trump would refuse to relinquish the Presidency. Juvenile though he is, I don’t think even he would pull that boneheaded move. Others thought that Trump would withdraw his candidacy if he saw imminent defeat. I think that would count as a Biden victory, for I see no replacement Republican who could beat Biden.
Of course things will change, but I suspect they’ll change in ways amenable to a Biden victory. Some thought that even the Senate would go Democratic, giving us a Democratic President and both houses of Congress. Of course, I would have preferred a candidate other than Biden (Warren and Buttigieg were early favorites for me), but so long as the Democratic prez surrounds himself with a good staff, and I’m pretty sure he will (Obama can help advise here), we’ll do a lot better than we’re doing now.
It is discouraging that less than 600 people voted when there are 70,000+ subscribers.
Given this site, I expect they are pessimists rather than tRumpistas. I voted no prognostication, but I fear tRump and the Republican Senate will manufacture some October surprise, or crisis, that could swing voters. No lead is big enough to stop me from worrying until November 3.
Ooops wrong place. Again! Meant to be a reply to Saul@8.
If Trump lost the presidential election and refused to leave the White House, I’m sure that after Biden’s inauguration, the military would obey on order from the new CiC to remove him by force.
It would be Park Police, Secret Service, or some such civilian force that would do the job. The military would not be involved, especially after tRump’s recent Lafayette Park fiasco.
I agree it would most likely be the Secret Service who would do their duty to protect the real President and enable him to do his job.
I would guess that Trump losing would cause him to skulk out of DC days before the inauguration being the true coward that he is.
After the election of 1800, when John Adams ran for reelection but lost to Thomas Jefferson, there were fears that Adams would try to hold power. This was the first time that a sitting president had lost a reelection bid; who knew what would happen?
As it turned out, Adams did give up the office but he did not attend Jefferson’s inauguration. He quietly left Washington at 4 am on Inauguration Day. Maybe the Donald would do the same.
Seems likely.
Stop the McDonald’s deliveries to the White House and Trump will leave of his own accord, getting rid of him and demonstrating a new, kinder attitude toward law enforcement.
And a new kinder attitude toward food. 🥴
What they sell at McDonald’s isn’t food.
McDonald’s used to be so much better back when they actually grilled the burgers. I also think they were way more successful. I remember that they had some huge portion of the fast food market and that their restaurants were always packed at meal times. I always imagine that some stupid bean counter decided that they could make a little more money by getting rid of the grills and that one decision ruined their business. McDonald’s is still a huge power but I suspect their fraction of the fast food market now is much less than in the good old days.
And don’t get me started on how acquisition by Marriott destroyed the Bob’s Big Boy chain.
Yes it is. It’s just not very good or healthy food.
I never patronized McDs until I had kids. Then, sometimes, it’s the only realistic option. But only rarely. I mainly make vegetables at home.
No need. After noon on 20-Jan-21, (assuming Biden wins) Trump will cease to be POTUS. Doesn’t matter what his physical location is.
I would not be surprised if he made a fool of himself in the White House. Fu@k him.
I know media polls are showing a strong Biden lead, but didn’t they show Clinton would win in 2016? I suspect the pollsters have learned from that error and that their methods are better now, but still, it’s worrying. I voted Trump in this poll, mostly because I’m pessimistic about the near future and I imagine it would feel better to have no hope than to have dashed hopes!
BTW, there’s an interesting new movement called Articles of Unity which wants to challenge the ossified two party system while reinvigorating the republic: https://link.medium.com/oJNzMVzhS7. Again, I’m sceptical but it looks like a serious attempt to redress some problems in contemporary US politics and at least worth keeping an eye on.
I realise I say all this as a non-citizen (or resident, not to mention someone who’s never visited the US…) but I’ve hopes one day of travelling to America, and maybe even living there. Of course, that rather depends on whether the world is still standing by the end of the year!
Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg believes he has learned from his mistakes of 2016. His polling algorithm has been updated. He believes the Biden lead is real, but warns that things can change in the next four months.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/isnt-hillary-clintons-polling/613690/
Some national polls had Clinton up by a margin greater than the error, but most did not. Most showed Clinton up by an average of 3.8% from the summer of 2016 right up until the election. That difference was within the margin of error. That point seems to be lost on most. It means that, statistically speaking, there was no difference in the likelihood of who would win. It was NEVER a done deal for Clinton. It was the failure of the Democrats in understanding regional polls, which were showing that Clinton’s support was weak in many places, a fact that the Democrats then dutifully ignored. Add to that the arrogance of certainty (it was Clinton after all) and the open disdain for working class white people.
Historian links to an article by a Democratic pollster who outlines the failures of the Democrats to recognize and act on the very things the polls were telling them; they had weak support among white working class people. The article also points to some methodological changes that might help improve the accuracy of polls, which, if it were anyone other than the Democrats, I’d take comfort in. But the alleged failures of polling in 2016 are mostly (though not entirely) a diversion of the real failures in recognizing that their candidate was a poor choice.
And 2016 was an historic squeaker election.
I (and David Frum) don’t think tRump can pull another rabbit out of a hat.
The polls weren’t wrong in 2016. National polls showed Clinton winning by small margins, and she did in fact win the national popular vote by a small margin. National opinion polls just aren’t that relevant in predicting the Electoral College results, even if they make easier sound bites and get reported on more often.
Polling of individual states showed Clinton as the more likely winner, but with too many voters still “undecided” in key states. Too many states were also statistically tied.
Here’s a good site with breakdowns by state in an attempt to forecast the Electoral College: electoral-vote.com
None of that is to say today’s polls are bankable. A lot can happen between now and November, and Trump has shown he’s not afraid to play dirty, even illegally, to win.
First of all the polls predicted that Clinton would win the popular vote and she did. The margin of defeat was the distribution of votes across a few states.
Secondly, they have Biden 10% ahead nationally at the moment which is huge. I don’t think she ever had that kind of lead. Also, the key states that helped Trump to win last time look like voting for Biden at the moment. He’s even ahead in Arizona.
Obviously things can change for the worse before the election, but on current information, Biden will win this easily.
Don’t forget that the pandemic is currently out of control in the US. There will either be another lock down leading to further economic hardship or millions of deaths. Neither is going to be helpful to the man presiding over the mess.
Yes, tRump is having to spend his time and money defending previously solidly “red” states as you note, such as AZ.
So the next question is – who will be Biden’s running mate. I know who I would pick so I’ll let you all know – Susan Rice
The odds were that he would pick a Black woman and this would do the trick.
Rice would be a good choice. As would Duckworth.
I also think Biden will select a Black woman as his running mate for several reasons: since it’s about goddam time; since Black voters pulled Biden’s chestnuts out of the fire in the South Carolina primary; and since there are so many qualified Black women to choose from.
But part of me would like to see him pick Illinois’s junior US senator Tammy Duckworth (who would become the first Asian-American major-party candidate for national office and who I think would do a bang-up job). I have to admit that this is due in part to an intrusive fantasy I have (especially since news broke that Trump has done nothing to retaliate for Vladimir Putin’s putting bounties on the heads of US GIs in Afghanistan) that the first duty Biden would assign VP Duckworth would be to use one of her artificial legs — one of the two that replaced those she lost in Iraq when the Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was shot down in combat — to beat Donald Trump to within an inch of his life.
I know it’s an ugly fantasy, and I’m doing my best to deal with it, but there you have it.
You forgot the most important item in the list in your first paragraph; it a forgone conclusion that people with testicles and pale skin need not apply.
That description fits every one of this country’s preceding 48 vice-presidents. Notwithstanding this apparent monopoly on all the relevant qualifications, I think the nation can at long last get by for four years without another.
I agree, Ken and, whether you believe it or not, for a candidate for VP I don’t care a fig what organs are inside whatever color skin. But don’t let’s pretend it isn’t what it is.
The Veep spot on the ticket has never about who’s the best-qualified candidate anyway. It’s always about diversity — geographic, religious, ideological (to appeal to some segment of the base), what-have-you.
Why should Biden’s pick be any different? He needs to turn out the black vote come election day — same way Barack chose Biden to balance the ticket and to quiet white folks’ qualms, same way JFK put Lyndon Johnson on the bottom half of the 1960 ticket because he needed to carry Texas and to assure the turn out of the old boll weevil Democrats across the South.
Whichever Sister Biden puts on the ticket is fine by me — so long as she’s got a shot at being able to handle the reins if need be, given that old Uncle Joe is pushing 78.
While practically any black women VP candidate will check the desired ideological boxes, I would hope that Biden is thinking beyond that. This is why I hope he picks Susan Rice. Not only is she black, female, and young enough, she is experienced, smart, and level-headed. She won’t be revolutionary enough for some but that’s fine by me and gives Trump one less target. Any swipes Trump might make at Rice would hurt him more than her.
I’ve nothing against Susan Rice, who would be a fine pick. But I don’t buy the “gives Trump one less target” argument. tRump manufactures targets out of everyone and everything. Any VP choice will be called a far-left socialist, etc., just after he tosses off a hand-picked slur for a nickname. It couldn’t be otherwise with that man.
While it’s certainly true that Trump will lash out at whoever is Biden’s VP candidate, some present a better target than others. For example, he could call Bernie Sanders a socialist and probably make it stick. Much less so with Biden. Hillary Clinton had a lot of people that disliked her so it wasn’t hard for Trump to light her up. On the other hand, “Sleepy Joe” isn’t particularly effective and Trump’s attempts to draw attention to Biden’s age have fallen flat for good reason: he’s only a couple of years older than Trump and, I assume, in far better physical shape.
I haven’t heard about any baggage Susan Rice might be carrying. She also strikes me as someone who could send some would-be zingers right back to their sender, something Hillary was not very good at, IMHO.
“Make it stick” to Sanders is a weird thought since Sanders is an avowed Democratic Socialist. It would have been an interesting “teachable moment”.
Other than matters of which pick better enhances Dem voter turnout I don’t think it matters at all who it is relative to provoking tRump. This election is entirely to be decided as a judgement on the last 3.5 years. “Sticking” with regard to tRump comments about anyone else is meaningless. Everything he says is a lie and everyone, except his racist evangelical base supporters, knows it.
I don’t disagree with any of this Ken. I too think we could benefit from different voices and experiences in these offices, and it’s about damn time.
But as I said, it is what it is. Excluding people from consideration for public office *SOLELY* because they they have the wrong genitals or skin color, even for laudable reasons, is no different in effect -though vastly different in intent- than those olde tymey signs.
Precedents are things we need to think about very carefully. I feel our society is in dangerous waters, willing to trade one kind of tyranny for another. Someday the goal of skin color and genital blindness may arrive, but we are making no progress; the often blithe enthusiasm for this kind of open racial and sexual preference in such an important office (a heart attack away) is worrisome.
I’m sure that won’t stop them from applying anyway.
Tammy Duckworth is the real Superwoman! I’d love to see her as VP.
Susan Rice would be an excellent pick.
I had forgotten about her! Stupid me!
Susan Rice is also my pick. She was asked about it on CNN a couple of days ago and she said she would stand ready to serve in a Biden administration in any capacity, or something to that effect.
Might be interesting to run a further two polls. 1) to forecast the Electoral College votes and 2) the difference in the popular vote.
Signed copies of WEIT perhaps for the member{s) who come closest to the actual results.
Unfortunately you held that poll before Kane West threw his hat into the ring.
And Elon Musk endorsed him. Things happen very fast. That is why I voted no prognostication
This nation still hews closely enough to its founding principles that Donald Trump stands no chance of success in any attempt to refuse to relinquish office.
He will, however, put this country through hell during the lame-duck period between election day on November 3rd and inauguration day 2021. It will likely start on election night itself, especially if a winner cannot be declared due to the large number of as-yet
uncounted mail-in ballots. (And even if Biden is declared the decisive winner, Trump will likely forego the traditional private concession phone call and public speech.)
After the election, Trump will also likely abandon the duties of his office — to the extent he can be said actually to be performing those duties even now — to concentrate all of his efforts on upsetting the election results, probably through multiple court challenges and by fomenting wide-scale protests by his dead-end supporters. He will also likely try to issue blanket pardons, at least for himself and his family (thereby thrusting the nation into an unresolved constitutional dilemma).
I also think there is little likelihood that Trump will attend Biden’s inauguration (the traditional demonstration of continuity of government in our democracy) as all other outgoing presidents have — as George H.W. Bush did after his defeat by Bill Clinton, and as Jimmy Carter did after his defeat by Ronald Reagan.
I have an even harder time imagining that Trump and Melania will graciously and magnanimously greet and welcome Joe and Jill Biden to the White House on inauguration-day morning, as Barack and Michelle Obama did him and Melania, the courtesy outgoing presidents and first ladies traditionally extend their successors.
Nit pick alert. Andrew Johnson did not attend Grant’s inauguration.
Well, there you go: Donald Trump has a great predecessor to emulate.
What the hell, both were impeached, too. (The third impeachee, Bill Clinton, attended the inauguration of his successor, George W. Bush — as did Clinton’s VP Al Gore, who had been defeated by Bush, sort of, in the 2000 presidential race.)
And Adams did not attend Jefferson’s first inauguration. (I recently finished John Adams by Ron Chernow, excellent.)
Would any of the people who think Trump’s going to win like to explain their reasoning? No snark intended, I’m genuinely intrigued.
People have witnessed tRump get away with—with impunity—lying, cover-up, misappropriating funds, attacks on the press, sexual abuse, race-baiting, turning the DOJ into his personal defense team, pardoning cronies convicted of crimes, not to mention outright treason, and you wonder why they think he might get away with it again?
That perspective confuses the American electorate with Republicans in the Senate.
And with the basket of
deplorablesother patriotic Americans who just happen to disagree with me on politics. Polling suggests that about 20% of Americans support Donald Trump “very strongly.” Another 20% are along for the ride ’cause they dig the way Trump pwns the Libs.Any way you add ’em up, there’s no way Trump supporters have ever come close to constituting a majority of Americans.
How do you think the Republicans in the Senate got there?
With staggered six year terms, the answer to that is a bit complex and takes many years to account for. A significant cause was the Tea Party surge of 2010. No need to review that here and now, but my point stands, I think. tRump has gotten away with impunity because the Republican Party holds the senate. Period. The House has become more Democratic since tRump was inaugurated. He was impeached as a result. Only sycophants in the Senate account for the continuing horror show.
What you say is true, but the Republicans in the senate perceive (or perceived until recently) that they must stick with Trump because it would destroy their own election chances not to.
A Republican senator who goes against Trump faces the possibility of a primary challenge (well, that threat might be going away now since a lot of the primaries are done) and then in the general election, if the Trumpists choose to stay at home instead of vote Republican, they are finished.
Yes the Senate is keeping Trump in power, but they are doing it because of fears of what the electorate would otherwise do to them.
Cowardice is no excuse, IMO, for the inability of Republican senators to stand against the Constitution they all swore to support. We’re going to see how it works out for them. My prediction is that the Senate will be in Democrat hands in six months.
GBJames: From your lips, straight to Hank’s ear.
I get the fear of some monumental slip up by the Dems, or president super-weasel summoning up an unforeseen, last-gasp special move. But surely those aren’t tangible reasons to believe he’ll actually win in November. What you’re basically saying is ‘I have a bad feeling about this’, which I understand, being a huge pessimist, but that’s not a reason why he’ll suddenly overturn his enormous unpopularity and get re-elected.
I wonder if the split between those who said Trump will win and those who said Trump will lose has less to do with political tribalism and more to do with the default level of pessimism of the respondent.
What you say is true, of course, but voter complacency is still something we have to fight. Dems are notoriously bad at voter turnout. Thinking Biden is a shoe-in may prevent the Dems from taking the Senate for example.
True. It’s not as terrifyingly fraught for me since I’m not American. I can afford to be a little more optimistic. But yes, go full steam ahead and don’t let up until you’re certain the corpse isn’t going to spring back to life, Friday 13th style.
👍👍👍
My current thinking is that Trump could go down in flames in the popular vote, but that the electoral vote will be decided by just 2 or 3 states. Current state polls by realclearpolitics show that several battleground states could easily go to Trump.
Which states are those? Because I haven’t seen anything that suggests any of them could easily go Trump. Everything points the opposite way with otherwise “safe” Republican states up for grabs. (Like Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa)
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/latest_polls/state_president/
That page is not good support for your case. It is awfully blue, for one thing. Also, it just lists recent random polls. You need to look at poll averages to get a more realistic view. Which shows nothing close to “Trump could easily win”. Wisconsin: Biden up 6.5%, Florida: Biden up 6%. 7.5 in Michigan, 6.5 in Pennsylvania. It is tied in Ohio, but with those other battleground states being so blue, it is hard to see tRump pulling off a win.
Yes, not awfully blue but wonderfully blue. And of course some of the pollsters are biased. But with nearly 40 of the populous approving of Trump, I worry about the spreads that are in the margin of error. I will likely not be over my worries until Trump is defeated along with his suck ups like our Senator Gardner
We’re all poll-shy after 2016. But this isn’t 2016 and I see no way the anger resulting from years of Republican mismanagement (to use a polite word) is not likely to abate. Indeed I can only see it growing stronger. For once I’m not worried about complacency. (Although I am worried about Republican-induced voting restrictions reducing the size of the coming wave.
Sam Harris’s recent podcast with David Frum talks about this.
In Frum’s opinion, tRump won’t pull a rabbit out of a hat again.
– tRump lost the popular vote in 2016 by >2%
– He won in 2016 on 77,000 votes spread through MI, PA, and WI.
– His approval rating has tanked in 2020 (COVID anyone?)
– His recent comments on masking, his priorities for a second term, and on his staffer testing positive for COVID demonstrate that he deranged.
– Even with the booming economy (pre-COVID), he did not make 50% approval rating. This is unprecedented. And now we have >10% unemployment (and a deranged fool at the helm).
– He has certainly alienated every independent who voted for him in 2016 (unless they are insane).
– The Russian bounty scandal and tRump’s silence on it.
– Look at all the Republicans who are firmly anti-Trump.* E.g. The Lincoln Project. There are Republicans with integrity.
(* A good friend of mine, a life-long Republican, has publicly quit the GOP over tRump and his enablers.)
My worries are: He will cheat, in every way possible. With help from Putin.
And if (I can’t say “when”) he loses, he will do everything he can to delegitimize the election and our democracy.
My worries if I were an American Biden supporter would be limited to:
– possibility of miraculous(and it really would have to be miraculous) economic turnaround
– the general auto-immolatory tendencies of the far-left; ie. their unerring gift for homing in on policies or talking points that terrify voters
– a worry some people have is to do with the debates, and how Biden would perform in them(although if I were part of the Trump campaign I’d be much, much more worried about Trump’s performances.). I think he’ll do well vs Trump, but I can understand the concerns.
…But set against that you have Trump and the apocalyptic horse he rode in on. You have his response to Covid19, which should be enough to make him unelectable on its own, a parlous economy, etc., and an exhausted and embarrassed American population who just want this to end.
Weight that against the paltry worries I mentioned at the top, most of which are based on hope of a Democratic mistake rather than expectation of anything tangible between now and November, and I find it hard to see where 19% of the respondents are coming from.
I think your second bullet point is where the greatest peril lies. It is very likely Biden’s chances will be hurt by that but, in the end, I think it won’t be enough to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Fortunately for us the Democrats, I think, will not achieve their objective of losing another race they should win.
I don’t agree with people who are worried about Biden’s performance at a debate. He may stumble a bit and he is a bit goofy, but holy crap does he have a lot of ammo against Trump. He will mop the floor with the cheeto-in-chief.
Uncle Joe should stay in his basement unless and until Trump draws within five points in the polling in the key swing states. People already know all there is to know about Biden. He should hang back, stay healthy, and let Trump keep digging the hole he’s in deeper.
As for debates, Biden is no great shakes on a debate stage, but he should be able to hold his own against Trump, who knows nothing of public policy or the functioning of the US government — he came into office pig-ignorant of these subjects, and he’s bound to leave office pig-ignorant of them too — and he has no coherent vision for a second term. Trump’s only debating strategy is to stalk around the stage hurling insults at his opponent. I don’t think that’ll work against Uncle Joe.
I’d be surprised if the three scheduled presidential debates have a major impact on the outcome of the election.
I don’t think there will be any debates. The Trump campaign would be well advised not to put their man up there, because he’ll get shat on. He can’t string together a coherent sentence.
I think the biggest danger to Biden is economic recovery. If Trump continues to ignore the pandemic and the country stays open, there may be some economic recovery, which Trump will spin to great effect whilst blaming the bodies on the Chinese. Last quarter when there was an increase in jobs, Trump paraded it as a great triumph, even though it in no way made up for all the jobs lost previously.
I think only the hard-core tRumpers will fall for that s#!t (they’ll fall for anything by tRump. This continues to astound me.).
Everyone else will not be fooled again.
When you asked a few months ago, I thought Trump might win. He would use the pandemic to stage himself as the strongman leader Americans love, especially in a time of crisis. That did not happen. Trump was hampered not only by his own incompetence, but also by the unpredictable inanity of his core followers. When the right politicised the pandemic and called it a “hoax”, they summoned forces of idiocy they could not control or benefit from later on. They stole Trump’s thunder by drawing all attention to themselves, turning Trump, king of headlines, into a mere footnote for weeks. Then the George Floyd murder drew all attention to the heating civil war between the two Americas.
Trump could win when he could somehow put himself above the deep trenches and play the role of a leader who fights to unseen enemy that was killing tenthousands of Americans. But his inane base and the early “hoax” rhetoric was ultimately a critical flaw. It would have been relatively easy otherwise to stick to protocol, amplify what the experts say, and announcing each day what they do to combat the virus. He would have looked presidental, and likely sailed to victory.
Interestingly, Biden plays no role whatsoever. When he’s elected, that might turn out the worst case scenario. Biden will be a brief interim president busy dealing with the aftermath of Trump’s presidency and pandemic. He will not run a second term, where the presidency will go to the Republicans again. The disenfranchised and alienated voters of the Bernie era make it possible, who will not vote lesser evils any longer for the Wall Str masters. That’s used up.
That time the crypto-fascist theocratic GOP might have a smart supervillain ready, who will finally push humankind over the cliff into oblivion. He’ll conclude the Republican project of destroying the planet for corporate greed and calling the trumpets that hail the return of Jesus.
I hope I am wrong.
I didn’t vote in this poll because I was so very wrong in the 2016 election. And, it was not the first time I had been wrong. The point made about the popular vote vs. the electoral college is right on.
Our elections take way too much time. The party campaign strategists et al now use media and especially the internet to bombard us to the point of exhaustion with demands for funds (in many cases for purported causes that aren’t what the funds will be used for) and asking too many inane questions about who and what you’re for. We haven’t won the number of electoral votes yet needed in November so we should be judicious about our prognostications and/or celebrations in July.
I definitely prefer Biden to tRump. Biden has far more experience and seems to be the more honorable man. Other than age and foot-in-mouth disease, what’s not to like?!! We currently have a surplus of talented, knowledgeable women of whatever colors all of whom would make wonderful VPs. Same with numerous men. It should be up to Biden with the input of his advisors to determine who he can best work with. But, don’t let the advisors do to Biden what was done to McCain when he was saddled with Palin (talk about foot-in-mouth disease!)
I’m certain that Biden, all his advisors and we voters are well aware of the age issue and the need to have a strong, knowledgeable VP in the wings.
I hope your last two paragraphs are wrong.
I don’t think Trump would attempt to overstay in the White House after losing a fair election. What I fear most is that he and his enablers have a bunch of tricks they are going to play. We already know about the GOP’s attempts to suppress minority voting but what other tricks do they have planned? The GOP have power now in so many segments of government: state governors, state houses, the Senate, etc. Trump has shown us that our laws have gaps which can be gamed to advantage. They have also shown that they have no shame in making use of them. This is what I fear most.
That all said, I look forward to dancing around the Washington Monument on Inauguration Day in order to make sure it’s the biggest crowd ever, COVID notwithstanding.
Trump won last time in spite of contrary poll forecasts. Hopefully, this time he loses.
And it was one of the closest contests in US history. After his trail of inanity (where it wasn’t stuporous destruction), I think he can’t do it again.