Hotter, Badder, and Unpopularer Takes

[Bidenworth2020]

The 2020 presidential election is over. Best we can do now is show up and vote for downballot races in the hopes that we're not absolutely annihilated.

You realize Biden benefits downballot races and increases dems chances of winning, right?

Ohhhh, I forgot you are a Sanders supporter and you deny reality. Got it.

Oh what I would give for a candidate who fires up the base and grassroot fundraise like Bernie does but can gel as well with the down ballot candidates as Biden does

I am not trying to rub it in as I know you are a Bernie fan, but Super Tuesday utterly disproved the idea that Bernie fires up the base.

[Bidenworth2020]

The 2020 presidential election is over. Best we can do now is show up and vote for downballot races in the hopes that we're not absolutely annihilated.

You realize Biden benefits downballot races and increases dems chances of winning, right?

Ohhhh, I forgot you are a Sanders supporter and you deny reality. Got it.

Oh what I would give for a candidate who fires up the base and grassroot fundraise like Bernie does but can gel as well with the down ballot candidates as Biden does

I am not trying to rub it in as I know you are a Bernie fan, but Super Tuesday utterly disproved the idea that Bernie fires up the base.

Fine “has a loyal following like Bernie” better?

That is fair, though personally I am sick of politicians who have these fanatical supporters.

[Bidenworth2020]

The reason Trump is likely to win again is very simple. Although he lost the popular vote last time, he had a rather decisive victory in the electoral college. Presidents up for re-election in recent years typically win similar states their second time around. For example, Obama gave up the marginal wins of Indiana and North Carolina on his 2nd try, but otherwise the 2012 map was very similar to 2008. Similarly the 2004 map was almost the same as 2000.

It seems to me people against him are pinning their best first hopes on flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This is going to be tough because many working class white voters who were part of the core Democratic base (such as those in Luzurne, Co.) are gone for them. Trump has a new coalition in these states that even Ronald Reagan did not have.

But let's be generous and say that Trump has a 50% chance of losing each of these states, even though he won them all in 2016. If nothing else changes from 2016, he would still have to lose all three to go under 270. The compound probability of three events is:

50% x 50% x 50% => 0.5 * 0.5 * 0.5 = 0.125 or 12.5%. In other words, while Biden is likely to flip at least one of the states, the odds of him flipping all three states are very low. Trump's has at least an 87.5% chance to of retaining at least one states even if he is favored in none of them, thus being reelected.

Now let's be even more generous to Biden and say he's favored with 65% odds in all three states.

65% x 65% x 65% => 0.65 * 0.65 * 0.65 = 27.5%. In other words, even if Biden is twice as likely to win each of Pennsylvania, Michigan AND Wisconsin, Trump still had about a 73% chance to win at least one.

Now while the odds of winning a given state is by nature somewhat idiosyncratic and random, you could argue that I'm being too easy on Trump by not taking into account potential correlation between the odds. That is, if we know he loses Pennsylvania, then it likely means something bad about his overall popularity and thus his chances in Michigan. Fair enough. Let's say Biden has a 65% chance to win Pennsylvania, and if we know he wins Pennsylvania he has an 75% chance to win Michigan, and we know if he wins both Pennsylvania and Michigan he is a near lock of 90% to win Wisconsin too.

65% x 80% x 90% => 0.65 * 0.8 * 0.9 = 44%. Even in this case, Trump is still favored to win at least one.

What does this tell us? That Biden almost certainly needs another 2016 Trump state to win. And what will this state be? North Carolina, Georgia and Texas are trending D, but only North Carolina has recently gone Dem (once), in the Obama +9 landslide of 2008, and then only by a paper thin margin.

That leaves Arizona and Florida. Arizona has polls showing it competitive, but no Republican presidential nominee has lost there since 1996, and that was with Ross Perot acting as a spoiler. Yes, Kyrsten Sinema won, but only running as a Manchin-style centrist, and in a D +8 year she still only barely squeaked by against a horrible opponent.

Then there is Florida. I've never heard any Democrat having much hope about Florida.

In sum, it looks like the Democrats are overconfidently pinning their hopes on PA + MI + WI but their odds of denying Trump at least one win of the three are very low. (Yes I've made some simplifying assumptions here by keeping other states the same as 2016 but it gives a general picture.) They are saying stuff like Trump needs Florida (which he can lose and still win overall, if that's the only state that flips) more than Biden needs Arizona when the opposite is true.