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[Reelya]

Nancy has avoided further financial help for the people who need it, because it's too hard to make sure that most of the money gets to billionaires without the public noticing.

Wow. That's an impressively dumb hot take.

It's a decent take, if you like the concept of the Republicans running the nation forever, because the "they're all as evil as each other" thing definitely hurts the Democrats a lot more than the Republicans.

[Doomblade187]

Reelya, the corporate allied-democrats need to be called out. They've been at the reins far too long, and we are least need a *new* set of lobbyists if we're going to have lobbyists.

ANYWAYS, ICE IS DOING THE EUGENICS GENOCIDE THING.

Spoiler: Law and Crime article linked here (click to show/hide)

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/like-an-experimental-concentration-camp-whistleblower-complaint-alleges-mass-hysterectomies-at-ice-detention-center/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Edit: to give context, this is a ICE paid private immigrant detention camp

Edit2: that has previously been in the news for not testing prisoners for covid.

[dragdeler]

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[RedKing]

Nancy has avoided further financial help for the people who need it, because it's too hard to make sure that most of the money gets to billionaires without the public noticing.

Wow. That's an impressively dumb hot take.

It's a decent take, if you like the concept of the Republicans running the nation forever, because the "they're all as evil as each other" thing definitely hurts the Democrats a lot more than the Republicans.

No, I mean in the sense of "Pelosi is funnelling money to the uber-rich through PPP" when it's the Dems who have been holding hearings and trying to claw back some of that money taken by big corporations. That's pants-on-head stupid.

[Dostoevsky]

Not just that, but I take objection to the "avoided further financial help to the people who need it" - are you talking about Dems not taking up the latest Republican COVID package? The House Dems had a big pile of money in a bill several months ago that would have provided broad financial help, while the Republican bill was comparatively small in what it added to, gutted provisions in a way that would disproportionately benefit the rich over the poor, and add some really terrible liability language that would even just about waive OSHA labor standard laws during the pandemic.

Really though, the liability waiver bill in the Republican package includes some awful awful stuff.

(All that said, the Dem bill had its own problems, but it's a hell of a lot better than where we are now.)

[RedKing]

So let's talk numbers shall we? There's a lot of fretting and nailbiting about the potential for Trump to win a second term. I've been guilty of it myself, so I decided to run the numbers and see just how much ammo I need to stock and/or which border crossings are the closest. Turns out...it's not that bad.

It's no secret that many (the majority, even) of state elections for President are non-competitive. New York hasn't voted for a Republican since 1984, when Reagan annhilated Mondale. Oklahoma hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1964. So most Presidential elections come down to the handful of states that are in fact competitive. This is why it seems like the fate of the country always winds up depending on Florida or Ohio. The question then becomes, how many "in-play" states are there, and how many does Biden need to win?

The answer is that there are actually more than usual this cycle, and not that many. For all of Trump's braggadocio about his victory, it was pretty damn weak in the grand scheme of things. Out of 58 elections, Trump's ranks 46th in terms of Electoral College margin of victory. 304-227 is a 77 point margin, meaning that Biden only needs to flip 39 electoral votes (and defend Clinton's wins from 2016) to win. Almost all the competitive states this cycle were red states in 2016 and have double-digit electoral votes. So he only has to flip 2-3 of them to squeak out a win.

Let's start with the non-competitive states and see where each side starts at. To determine non-competitive, I'm looking at aggregate polling totals, as determined from RealClearPolitics and 538. Anything where one candidate leads the other by 7 or more points is deemed non-competitive. In cases where no polling has been done, past history is enough to determine the likely winner (aforementioned examples of New York and Oklahoma, for examples).

Safe Trump Wins (and their electoral vote value, and if available the current polling margin):

Alabama (+18.6, 9 EV)
Idaho (4 EV)
Indiana (+14, 11 EV)
Kansas (+7, 6 EV)
Kentucky (+9, 8 EV)
Louisiana (+16, 8 EV)
Mississippi (+15, 6 EV)
Missouri (+7.7, 10 EV)
Montana (+11, 3 EV)
Nebraska (5 EV*)
North Dakota (3 EV)
Oklahoma (7 EV)
South Dakota (3 EV)
Tennessee (11 EV)
Utah (6 EV)
West Virginia (5 EV)
Wyoming (3 EV)
TOTAL: 17 states, 108 electoral votes

Safe Biden Wins:
California (+30.3, 55 EV)
Colorado (+10, 9 EV)
Connecticut (+23, 7 EV)
Delaware (+21, 3 EV)
District of Columbia (3 EV)
Hawaii (4 EV)
Illinois (20 EV)
Maine (+11.5, 4 EV*)
Maryland (10 EV)
Massachusetts (+35.7, 11 EV)
New Hampshire (+9.7, 4 EV)
New Jersey (+18.8, 14 EV)
New Mexico (+14.5, 5 EV)
New York (+26.3, 29 EV)
Oregon (+12, 7 EV)
Rhode Island (4 EV)
Vermont (3 EV)
Virginia (D+12.5, 13 EV)
Washington (+34, 12 EV)

TOTAL: 19 states, 217 electoral votes

*Nebraska and Maine both have a proportional allocation system where a single electoral vote is awarded to the winner in each congressional district and the remaining votes are awarded to the statewide popular vote winner, but ultimately it's not worth the effort to fiddle about determining -- Biden might pick up a vote in Nebraska, Trump might pick up a vote in Maine. Ultimately, it's highly unlikely to come down to a 1-2 vote margin.

So we see here two big advantages the Democrats have:
1) Big safe states. It only took the Dems 4 states to surpass the "safe" Trump votes: California, Illinois, New York and New Jersey (118 EVs). And as you can see from the polling numbers and historical voting record, those are very safe states for them. MOST of their safe states are very safe (20+ point margin). Whereas even the deepest red states don't crack 20+.

And before someone complains about the tyranny of the popular vote, please note that those four states together are roughly 80.4 million people, whereas the entirely of Trump's 17 "safe" states total 55.6 million. Republican states typically always have a lower population-to-EV ratio because 3 is the minimum number. If the 538 EVs were strictly proportional (~600k per EV), Wyoming would get less than 1 vote.

2) Better than a 2-to-1 advantage off the starting blocks. They only have to pick up 53 votes, Trump has to get 162.

There's also a third advantage, which is that they're "defending" very little territory. Let's look at the "in-play" states (a number of which I will shortly remove and hand to Trump for reasons which we'll discuss)


These I'll list with the current polling margin, EVs and who won it in 2016.

Alaska (R+3, 3 EV, Trump)
Arizona (D+5.7, 11 EV, Trump)
Arkansas (R+2, 6 EV, Trump)
Florida (D+1.2, 29 EV, Trump)
Georgia (R+1.3, 16 EV, Trump
Iowa (R+1.7, 6 EV, Trump)
Michigan (D+4.2, 16 EV, Trump)
Minnesota (D+5, 10 EV, Clinton)
Nevada (D+4, 6 EV, Clinton)
North Carolina (D+0.8, 15 EV, Trump)
Ohio (D+2.4, 18 EV, Trump)
Pennsylvania (D+4.3, 20 EV, Trump)
South Carolina (R+5, 9 EV, Trump)
Texas (R+3.5, 38 EV, Trump)
Wisconsin (D+6.4, 10 EV, Trump)

TOTAL: 15 states, 213 EVs

Observations:
1) That's a lot of votes still "in-play", but they're almost entirely votes Trump needs to retain. The only states Dems are defending from 2016 are Minnesota and Nevada, and they're doing well there. The most recent polls have Biden up 9 in Minnesota (and yet RCP downgraded it from "Leans Biden" to Toss-up, because... ) and up 4 in Nevada.

2) The fact that states like Alaska, Texas and South Carolina are even on this list should scare the beejezus out of Trump's campaign.

South Carolina has not voted for a Democrat since 1976, when Jimmy Carter was able to capitalize on his Southerner status. Carter remains the only Democrat to win South Carolina since the Great Realignment of 1964/68. The closest any other candidate has come was Obama in 2008, with 44.9% of the vote. Biden's pulling 46% right now, +/- 4%. Part of this may have to do with the Dems running a fairly popular African-American candidate (Jaime Harrison) against Lindsey Graham, who has managed to piss off both the Trump crowd and the Democrats by opposing Trump enough to irk the MAGAts, but caving when it's important. I still don't think Biden will win South Carolina, but it's breathtaking that Trump even has to defend it.

Alaska goes one better than South Carolina, and hasn't voted for a Democrat since 1964. Alaska told Jimmy Carter what he could do with his nuts and only gave him 35.6% of the vote. Likewise, during Obama's historic 2008 wave, he only got 37.89% of the Alaska vote, no doubt due to the presence of Alaska's own Caribou Barbie on the Republican ticket. The fact that Biden is within 3 of Trump here is remarkable. But again, I expect Alaska to go to Trump.

Texas -- everyone keeps hoping for a tectonic shift in the Lone Star state, driven by changing demographics. Trump only got 52.1% of the vote in 2016, the lowest percentage of any Republican candidate since Bob Dole in 1996, when Ross Perot played spoiler for a second time.  But I think we're still one more electoral cycle and/or a Hispanic President/VP candidate away from seeing Texas go blue. But polls on this one are all over the place, with many results being within margin-of-error. This could go either way, but given the numbers game, if Texas goes for Biden, it's likely a blowout anyways and Texas is just letting Biden hit 400+ EVs.

So let's take those three off the board and give them to Trump, and let's give Minnesota to Biden. Nevada is still close enough that it stays in play. The total is now 227-158.

Now, let's just be conservative as hell as give Trump any states where he's currently polling ahead. That takes Arkansas, Iowa and Georgia off the board as well. The one poll in Arkansas is 3 months old, Biden is losing ground in Iowa, and while I think Georgia will be very close, it also has a proven history of voter disenfranchisement and assorted shenanigans. If Georgia does go for Biden, that's a likely sign that Texas and Arkansas might actually be much closer. So now it's 227-186.

Arizona and Wisconsin are both over +5 for Biden. The polling data in Wisconsin has stayed quite stable since June. So let's be mildly optimistic and give those to Biden. The total is now 248-186. Biden only needs to pick up 22 electoral votes to win, Trump needs 84.

The remaining contests:
Florida (D+1.2, 29 EV, Trump)
Michigan (D+4.2, 16 EV, Trump)
Nevada (D+4, 6 EV, Clinton)
North Carolina (D+0.8, 15 EV, Trump)
Ohio (D+2.4, 18 EV, Trump)
Pennsylvania (D+4.3, 20 EV, Trump)

Biden only needs to win 2 out of these 6 (or just Florida). Trump needs to win 5 of 6, and Florida absolutely has to be one of them. (There is an extremely rare chance that Biden wins Nevada and North Carolina but loses the rest, which would make for a 269-269 tie and likely spell the death of the Republic as we know it). Mind you, Biden is currently leading in all of them, and he is widening the gap in Michigan and Pennsylvania.

If Biden were to win all of them, it would be a 352-186 win, somewhere in between Obama’s two win margins. If he were manage to outperform and take Georgia and Texas, it would be a 406-132 shellacking, on par with George H. W. Bush’s takedown of Dukakis in 1988.
If Trump were to actually win all six, it would still only be a 290-248 win, weaker than his 2016 win. And it may give him tremendous cause to regret all the noise about voter fraud, as any close state results would undoubtedly be hotly contested, and it would only take a pair of them being questionable (and/or Florida or Texas on their own) to invalidate the result.

TL;DR – There’s really only six “battleground” states, Biden is ahead in all of them at the moment, and only needs to win 2 of them (or Florida) to win.

[Rolan7]

Not just that, but I take objection to the "avoided further financial help to the people who need it" - are you talking about Dems not taking up the latest Republican COVID package? The House Dems had a big pile of money in a bill several months ago that would have provided broad financial help, while the Republican bill was comparatively small in what it added to, gutted provisions in a way that would disproportionately benefit the rich over the poor, and add some really terrible liability language that would even just about waive OSHA labor standard laws during the pandemic.

Really though, the liability waiver bill in the Republican package includes some awful awful stuff.

(All that said, the Dem bill had its own problems, but it's a hell of a lot better than where we are now.)

That's been a talking point in my state, I caught most of a senate debate last night as I was returning to town.  I haven't researched it myself, but the Dem point was that it didn't go far enough.  The Rep point was that his opponent voted down beneficial spending.

Like, I know I'm biased as heck, but I think it's dishonest to attack someone for demanding more aid as "voting against aid".

But I haven't done the research.

Fakedit:  Oh hey Redking really is back!  That's good.

Actual edit:  The NC incumbent I meant is Republican, the Dem challenger only said he *would* have voted against the bill as it stood.

[RedKing]

That's been a talking point in my state, I caught most of a senate debate last night as I was returning to town.  I haven't researched it myself, but the Dem point was that it didn't go far enough.  The Rep point was that his opponent voted down beneficial spending.

Like, I know I'm biased as heck, but I think it's dishonest to attack someone for demanding more aid as "voting against aid".

That's a pretty standard political tactic. Like, insert something about saving a puppy orphanage into a bill that would give your party leaders prima noctis rights (or something similarly hideous) and then when your opponent votes against it, focus on how "My opponent voted against saving a puppy orphange! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER IS HE?"

And if they vote to even keep the amendment out of the bill, you can still frame it as "John Jackson voted against an amendment to save a puppy orphanage! Vote Jack Johnson: He doesn't hate puppies!"

The best defense against this kind of crap is an informed public actually reading the text of the bills and amendments. Which means we're essentially defenseless.

[Rolan7]

Or some sort of unenforceable rule against this sort of riders.  It's just how things are done - negotiation, literally buying votes by winning the support of states with lucrative contracts.  That's somehow the almost altruistic option, compared to the completely legal lobbying industry of literally paying representatives off.

I guess it's unrealistic to only have simple votes on specific issues, though.  This contraption only works by trading favors.  You can have a measure for "Should the American people all die?" and both sides would still attach riders.  I think the Dems have attached *less* riders to climate change legislation, and still gotten denied at every meaningful turn, but that's just how things are I guess.

[Enemy post]

(Snip)

Thanks for writing this out! That'll be helpful for watching 538 going forward.

[RedKing]

The better solution would be a return *to* the horse trading. Poison pill amendments were a rare thing back in the day, because you needed votes from across the aisle to pass legislation, and you couldn't afford to habitually burn bridges. That all changed starting in 1994 when Newt Gingrich and his band of "take no prisoners, burn everything to the ground and shut down the government" mooks got voted in. Poison pill legislation became more and more common, and bipartisanship harder to come by. And because of the decades of bullshit, neither party base has much interest in compromise or electing candidates who will compromise.

And honestly, I can't blame them. I'm not a Democrat nor have I ever been one, but I'd prefer to see Democrats elected who will knife the Republicans in the gut (politically speaking) and then go for the kill move when they're down. The GOP has been pulling this shit pretty much my whole adult life (1994 was my first election), and I'm ready to see them join the Whigs and the Know-Nothings in the scrap pile of history.

[Dostoevsky]

I mean, it is true that the R bill is a hefty chunk of change in absolute terms - 400-500 billion dollars, depending on how one counts it. And it would continue increased unemployment, albeit at a lower level than the D bill (and potentially even less than the Trump memorandum...) and in a more awkward/painful-for-the-unemployed way. Also has a form of PPP (the small business loans), albeit in a much more crummy way.

Dem bill has a lot more aid, including a lot more state-and-local government aid which is really needed and aid for existing aid programs that are getting stretched thin (well, even more thin) by the pandemic.

It also has the liability waiver stuff I mentioned, some bad and unrelated anti-environmental riders (bad changes to mining and environmental analysis laws, go figure).

I'll admit I only carefully read about 20% of the R bill, skimming the rest (and reading some other professional analysis). As RedKing notes, ideally one reads the whole thing but for these megabills it can be a hopeless exercise with hundreds or even thousands of pages dropping a day or two before a vote. I've got a leg up in that I'm going through these bills as part of my job...

Or some sort of unenforceable rule against this sort of riders.  It's just how things are done - negotiation, literally buying votes by winning the support of states with lucrative contracts.  That's somehow the almost altruistic option, compared to the completely legal lobbying industry of literally paying representatives off.

I guess it's unrealistic to only have simple votes on specific issues, though.  This contraption only works by trading favors.  You can have a measure for "Should the American people all die?" and both sides would still attach riders.  I think the Dems have attached *less* riders to climate change legislation, and still gotten denied at every meaningful turn, but that's just how things are I guess.

This is a really tricky issue, yeah. There's long been 'one issue per bill' proponents, largely from the more libertarian lawmakers, but to me it's one of those situations where idealism smacks into practical realities. Not just for favor-trading, but for the limitations of lawmakers (many being non-expert, vain, and/or just not good people) and the limitations of physical time. Congressional procedure can take a while, especially in the Senate.

(Snip)

Thanks for writing this out! That'll be helpful for watching 538 going forward.

Thanks from me as well. I've not been skipping this analysis for the past couple of months, and this was good catch-up.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Yeah, I'm not interested in increased bipartisanship between neolibs and fascists.

[Dostoevsky]

America just isn't that liberal / 'far left' a place, unfortunately. Maybe if we had more than two parties there'd be a proper 'left' party, but multiparty systems have their own issues.

[RedKing]

Yeah, I'm not interested in increased bipartisanship between neolibs and fascists.

Which reminds me...how are the flying death squid coming along? Given that NC is quite likely going to be the closest race in the country, I might need a few of those soon.


Bear in mind, that my write-up is based on a moment in time and if key polls begin shifting, the math could change. I think a lot of the nailbiting on the Left is because of what happened in 2016. The polls and the election results were considerably out of alignment, and I have many friends who handwave off what I've just posted because they no longer trust any polls. But 2016 was a much closer race. Nationally, Clinton only lead by 2.1 points on Election Day. A full 14 states were deemed too close to call. Currently, Biden has a 7-point lead nationally, and as I pointed out, only six states are truly within margin of error (and Michigan and Pennsylvania are on track to pass into safer waters before long, which would effectively seal the deal).

I just don't think the math is subject to a lot of wiggle back and forth at this point. In 2016, both candidates were essentially unknown quantities and there wasn't a lot of enthusiasm for either. I'd say there still isn't a lot of enthusiasm for either, but there is a LOT of enthusiasm against Trump, who is very much a known quantity at this point.

I think the other thing rattling the nerves of many on this side of the yawning gulf that is America, is just 2020 in general. This year has been a continuous series of disasters, so there's a temptation to say "Well of course Trump will win, that would be 2020 in a nutshell." Or the fear that I'm hearing now is "Trump will lose but won't leave, and nobody will do anything about it" which is so very not true. If this whole summer has shown us anything, it's that people will go out and do something about it.