Mark McKinnon began his career working as a campaign and media strategist for Texas Democrats before befriending George W. Bush, switching sides, and helping “43” win two presidential races. Now he’s the co-creator, co-executive producer, and co-host of Showtime‘s The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth. After interviewing polling expert Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report for the latest episode of The Circus, McKinnon, with years of experience, “came away with the sense that Trump is not just toast, but burnt toast. To use a poker metaphor: In the last election, Trump won by pulling an inside straight. This time he’ll need nothing short of a royal flush—by pulling an ace from his sleeve.”
It’s possible McKinnon is wrong, but despite a lot of uncertainties, the preponderance of the evidence suggests that he’s right. Trump is burnt toast.
The biggest wildcard is the COVID-19 pandemic which has unsettled both election laws and voter behavior, with results that are hard to predict. Many states have greatly expanded early voting options, including excuse-free absentee voting. Democrats, more heedful of medical advice and social distancing, are voting early, particularly by mail, at a much higher rate than Republicans. This has built the Dems a healthy lead in the votes already cast which is a huge advantage. A vote already counted is one less you have to drag to the polls on Nov. 3
The Republicans comfort themselves with the pleasing notion that they’ll have a correspondingly higher share of in-person voters. Maybe. But the COVID-19 infection rate is growing to an all-time high, which may depress the Election Day vote and foil their hopes of catching up.
It’s not just early voting results that suggest that President Trump is way behind.. One week out from Election Day, FiveThirtyEight and JHKForecasts both give Joe Biden an 88 percent chance of winning the presidency, while The Economist puts the odds at 96 percent. It seems that the only thing that can save Trump now is a huge polling error.
Sure, one way the polls could be wrong is if a lot of Democratic votes simply aren’t counted because of various legal machinations. With the Supreme Court issuing a 5-3 ruling on Monday disallowing late-arriving mail ballots in Wisconsin, and 326,695 ballots still outstanding, Democrats have a legitimate concern that the Republicans could get an illegitimate victory in the Badger State. Yet, there aren’t many more states that have deadline extensions for the Supreme Court to adjudicate. While tossed Democratic ballots could confound the pollsters, so too could a pandemic-related drop-off in Election Day Republican votes.
What seems to be a very high turnout is good news for Democrats in a number of ways. Consider the turnout models the pollsters are using. Harry Enten of CNN, says that robust early voting patterns are consistent with the polls showing Biden with a solid lead.
High overall turnout is often thought to benefit the Democrats, and a FiveThirtyEight model estimates that a record 154 million Americans will cast a vote in 2020. Whether this helps Biden or not, it’s likely to make the polls more accurate. As Enten explains, “A lot of problems in polling can come from trying to figure out which voters are more likely to actually turn out and vote…If turnout is higher, the likely voter universe has a better chance of matching the registered voter universe.”
What about the youth vote?
If the pollster’s likely voter models are still off, it could be due to the youth vote. Young voters are underrepresented in the early vote, but that’s to be expected. U.S. Census Bureau data say only 43 percent of voters aged 18-24 turned out in 2016, even as overall participation was 61 percent. Polling models generally reflect this expectation, so lagging youth numbers are not an obvious reason to doubt the forecasts.
Yet, an Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School national survey of 18 to 29 year-olds released Monday found that young voters are just as enthused about voting in 2020 as they were during Barack Obama’s initial run for the presidency in 2008. This group prefers Biden to Trump by an eye-popping 63 to 25 percent margin, so if they turn out late at higher than expected numbers, the pollsters are underestimating Biden’s strength.
In looking for hidden factors that could help Trump exceed expectations, David Siders of Politico noted “Republican registration has ticked up in key states at the same time Democratic field operations were in hibernation” due to concerns about the pandemic. The result is a boost of white, non-college educated voters in the states that put Trump over the top in 2016: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Does the uptick in white working class voter registration spell doom for Democrats?
Sure there’s reason to worry. Non-college whites are essential to the GOP base. Republican registration drives naturally focus on demographics and regions where they have a big advantage. With Democrats largely shelving their door-knocking and other in-person efforts, and Republicans boosting their base, the new registrations skew toward white working class and rural voters.
Here’s the catch: New registrants are notoriously unreliable voters. They require a dedicated Get-Out-the-Vote effort to mobilize, so it’s possible that pollsters are underestimating the level of turnout Trump will get from these folks. It may take a lot of money (which the Trump campaign is short on) and effort (which is hard to gin up in the time of COVID).
Another factor that could help Trump and should concern Democrats is higher than expected support from black and Latino men, which has been detected in enough different polls now to be considered a real thing. It’s the key reason the latest New York Times/Siena poll of Texas projects Trump will win there. But, if the pollsters are already factoring this in, it’s not clear how it could help Trump do better than projected.
The Democrats’ understandably remain concerned. Voter suppression could cost them, either through long lines or delayed mail delivery that results in Supreme Court-supported trashing of legitimate ballots. There could be pressure from Trump and the Republicans to stop the counting before it is completed. But Democrats shouldn’t be too worried that the polls are off, at least as a measure of voter intentions.
If anything, it’s Trump who should worry. If the youth vote turns out at rate commensurate with their declared enthusiasm, this will swamp any benefit he gets out of Republican registration drives. The Democrats have a big advantage in votes already cast, so the uptick in COVID-19 cases is likely to dissuade more Republicans than Democrats from risking in-person voting on Election Day. And huge overall turnout usually benefits the Democrats and also makes it less probable that the likely voter universe is different from the actual voter universe.
If you’re still in doubt that Trump is burnt toast, consider where the candidates are spending the last week campaigning. Biden is visiting Georgia and Iowa, while his running mate Kamala Harris campaigns in Texas. Meanwhile, Trump is going to Nebraska and Arizona while Pence will visit North and South Carolina. In short, Democrats have a shot at painting the map blue and Republicans are defensively trying to preserve their red bastions.
I saw something about betting markets tending towards Trump. Any thoughts on why that would be? It seems like a strange bet to make.
Basically, betting markets are stupid. Read nate silvers tweets on how bad the markets are as a predictive tool for elections.
Odds/payout is one reason. Depending on the market, you can spend $20.00 on Yes(Trump wins) or No(Trump loses) shares, for cheap, (let’s say $0.25c each) because it is unlikely, and if it happens, you get $1.00 for every $0.25c you spent…so why not go out and make $60 on $20…we’re not talking hundreds or thousands of dollars or anything.
Another is that Trump has personally seated 1/3 of the Supreme Court as of yesterday. Remember 2000?
As I mentioned in another thread, the drop in D registration is not likely to be a factor this election but it should cause some introspection amongst the party proper. Young people do not want to be identified with the party and rather choose independent affiliation. It’s not just the pandemic as the cause. It’s because young people have wised up that the Democrats don’t deliver because they won’t do what is necessary to make real reform possible.
The real wildcard is what percentage of mail-in ballots get received “on time”, and what percentage of the ones received “on time” aren’t thrown away due to multiple reasons.
It doesn’t matter if the Biden wins 7 million more votes than Trump nationwide if Trump has 1 more counted ballot in FL, WI, MI, and PA than Biden.
My fear has always been that a ballot filled out in-person at a facility has a much higher chance of being counted than a mail-in ballot that has to travel two ways, and has different criteria that can be used to deem it invalid and thrown into a bonfire.
If we are going to put any stock in polls, and polls show Biden winning WI, MI, FL and PA and the actual tallied votes are 1-2% off, it’s probably almost totally related to the increase in mail-in, second-class ballots.
Holy fuck I hope it doesn’t just come down to mail-in ballots being thrown into a fire, but until the final tally is in, it’s a scenario people need to be ready for.
Exactly. Dems threw out the vote by mail/vote absentee option as a result of the first wave of Covid. It was the “good government in a pandemic” way to go, but only assuming that the OTHER major party agreed, and was willing to help turn an election system that is geared to 80% in person into one geared for 80% mail in. But Repubs, as the vote suppression party, immediately disagreed and instead starting viciously attacking mailed in ballots as “fraudulent”, even though a common part of elections for 50 years. And their anti-democratic partisan judges immediately got on board with the program. Basically EVERY Dem attempt to aid mail in votes, and even drop off votes, has been opposed and rejected by the Trumpified appellate courts. Thinking that the Trump courts would protect the right to vote was very naive on the part of Dem strategists.
A very large number of absentee ballots either will have technical deficiencies which the Repub-controlled election machinery in GA, FL and TX will reject, or they will arrive “too late” in places like WI and NC. The Amy Barrett Court is also obviously dying to get involved in the theft as well, and they will find their way into the mix. Dems will lose a large number of votes as a result. I’d place Trump’s likelihood of being granted (via truncated vote or decision by Roberts’ Repubs) the 271 electoral college votes needed for a second illegitimate term at about 50/50. The situation is very dire, whatever the polls may be indicating.
The trick is for the obvious desires of the voters to actually be transformed into certified results, when one major party and its anti-democratic courts will do everything they can to stop that.
In 2016 wikipedia says that only 1% of submitted mail-in ballots were rejected for various reasons, including lateness. If that percentage holds in 2020, I wouldn’t worry (too much) about the rejection rate changing the result unless the election is a real squeaker. Some of the close senate races could be affected but *if* the polls are right, I agree with Booman that Trump is toast independent of ballot rejection.
Right, but that 1% in 2016 was during a “normal” election.
Now, we have massive mail-in voting happening in states that are not used to counting ballots, and literally tens of millions of people who aren’t used to casting mail-in ballots casting them.
Given “secrecy” envelopes, signature matching, ballot due dates, etc., I see the percent of ballots being trashed as much higher than 1%. And if that happens in PA, FL, MI, WI, it could definitely affect the outcome of the election.
I hope not. But I’m very concerned about it.
That picture makes him look like a raging maniac, someone who should be locked up.
In other words, the picture is an accurate reflection of reality.
Somebody should remind Trump what the stock market is doing today on account of the virus. And how this affects everyone’s 401k, one of his favorite investments.
Well, he always looks like burnt toast, doesn’t he?