2020 election if held on different dates

[Chips]

January and April 2020: Trump wins.

The rest: Biden wins, by varying margins. If the election were held the week after the Pfizer announcement, Trump might've won but not certain.

[Chips]

There's another date of some interest I forgot to add: February 6, 2020. The day after Trump was impeached the first time, but before he had been acquitted by the Senate. I didn't mention this in the original post because I literally forgot about the first impeachment and when it occurred. That is how insane everything that's happened since has been, that the impeachment of a president (which took place less than a year before it happened again) seems like a minor footnote.

I guess you can also add January 14, 2021 (day after second impeachment) but I doubt that would be much different from January 7.

Trump wins on Feb 6th, 2020. COVID isn't a huge deal yet.

January 14th Biden landslides. I'll guess 388-150 with FL, NC and TX flipping.

[Chips]

Here's a timeline of when I believe each candidate was probably favored during Trump's presidency based on the results of the actual election.

January-May 2017. Trump would've won.

June 2017-April 2019: Biden would've won. (Maybe Trump would've won at a few points in mid-2018)

May 2019-April 2020: Trump would've won.

May 2020-present: Biden would've won with perhaps a few days in mid-late August where Trump would've won.

[Chips]

Here's a timeline of when I believe each candidate was probably favored during Trump's presidency based on the results.

January-May 2017. Trump would've won.

June 2017-April 2019: Biden would've won. (Maybe Trump would've won at a few points in mid-2018)

May 2019-April 2020: Trump would've won.

May 2020-present: Biden would've won with perhaps a few days in mid-late August where Trump would've won.

Why do you think odds would have flipped in Trump's favor in Spring 2019 until after COVID hit the next year? His approval ratings never really moved much. Also why is mid-late August 2020 the exception for Trump? His polling was abysmal throughout most of the summer. Is it just the convention? Because there wasn't really any bounce.

Personally I think Trump could have won pre-COVID (and maybe even after if he did things very differently), but by no means was it ever guaranteed or even was he necessarily favored. He was a VERY polarizing figure, with people very strongly divided into two camps about him, but always more against than for. The approval ratings were very consistent about that, with virtually nothing ever moving them significantly in one direction or the other. Because of this, I'm not honestly certain that at any point the outcome ever could have been drastically different. I think a state or two could have flipped one way or the other but that's about it. The polarization is just too strong right now.

Hell, in my view he deserved to lose in an epic landslide more than any other incumbent ever, Hoover included, but I'm not sure such a thing is possible under any circumstances at the moment. If you're even right about just FL/NC/TX at most flipping even after 1/6, which I suspect you are, that's a pretty telling sign of just how deeply entrenched we are as a nation into two diamatretically opposed realities right now.

You do raise some fair points. Personally, I do think given that in a pandemic the incumbent still almost won, I do believe if the president had done a few things differently, he would've done a lot better. I agree there was never a time he would've won in a blowout but I do think there would've been at least a few days during Trump's presidency where he would've pulled out a win had the election been held on that day. Maybe I should've said Summer or Fall 2019 instead.

[Chips]

You do raise some fair points. Personally, I do think given that in a pandemic the incumbent still almost won, I do believe if the president had done a few things differently, he would've done a lot better. I agree there was never a time he would've won in a blowout but I do think there would've been at least a few days during Trump's presidency where he would've pulled out a win had the election been held on that day. Maybe I should've said Summer or Fall 2019 instead.

Yeah. To be clear I’m not saying he never could have won, and indeed there probably were times when it was more likely than not, and at pretty much all times he at least had a chance. It’s just that I think it was pretty much always destined to be a close one within a very narrow range of outcomes, more narrow than many of us thought. Like I think real 2020+TX, NC, FL probably was indeed Biden’s ceiling, while his floor probably would have just been Hillary’s map, maybe minus NV.

I basically agree with this. Maybe Trump could've won MN or NH on his best day and Biden could've maybe won a state like OH on his best day but all of those would've been longshots no matter what day the election was held on.