Bold Predictions for November

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- Biden's lead slowly shrinks, due to increased gaffes, until August when Trump pulls even after the RNC. Biden then has a fantastic first debate performance shocking the political world and is up 5 pts after the first debate. Trump then has a comeback debate performance like Obama did in 2012 and shortly after the 2nd debate is an October surprise that greatly benefits Trump and in the second debate Biden has a moment where it appears he doesn't know where he is. Trump is tied or slightly ahead in October and polls show a virtual tie on election day (some polls have Biden ahead 1-2 pts , some polls have Trump ahead 1-2 pts)
- Trump does better in California than 2016 by 3-4%.
- Trump wins the popular vote by 200,000 votes and receives 67.5 million votes to Biden's 67.3 million. The election is not all that close in the end due to the EC where Trump picks up 3 states.
- Trump destroys Biden with WWC voters by an even larger margin than 2016 while Biden does better among college educated whites than Hillary leading to him coming incredibly close to winning Arizona but loses by 1%. Biden pulls a big upset in GA based on doing even better with suburban Atlanta voters and wins GA by .5%.
- Trump dominates the Midwest winning MI, PA, WI, OH, IA and picking up MN from 2016 on the strength of huge margins with WWC voters.
- Trump wins Macomb County MI by 15%. Trump loses Oakland County MI by 8%.
- On strength of increased WWC vote Trump wins ME-2 by close to 20 pts and wins ME at large.
- FL votes to the right of GA by 2.5%
- MI votes to the right of PA by 1%.
- Trump wins Iowa by 17% and Ohio by 10%.
- Trump wins Florida by 2.5% and does better with Hispanics in FL than 2016.
- Republicans under perform in Senate races losing in Colorado, Arizona and North Carolina while John James scores an upset by just 1% over Gary Peters on the backs of WWC voters and over performing with African-Americans. Trump has a campaign rally in Macomb County weeks before the election with John James that draws 100,000 people.
- Trump outperforms James by about 1.5%. Trump wins MI by 2.5% to James 1%
- Trump does slightly worse than in TX than 2016 winning it by around 6%.
- Biden wins Nevada by just .3%. Biden under performs with Hispanics.

Trump 302

Biden 236

[SN2903]

After all the concerns about a 2016 redux and "underestimating Trump"; four years of bedwetting, overanalysis, and "learning lessons"; and excessive focus on/obsession over the "WWC" Obama/Trump voter, Donald Trump's presidency is ended by the "silent" suburban voter who couldn’t stomach voting for Hillary Clinton and considered Trump the lesser of two evils in 2016, record Democratic turnout across the country (but especially in metropolitan America, where we see unprecedented numbers for a Democratic presidential candidate in cities like Atlanta, Austin, and Bozeman ), and Biden's inroads among voters 65 and older. Biden flips MI, PA, AZ, NE-02, and two other states. States with the strongest D swings include MT, KS, TX, and AZ (which votes to the left of most, if not all, other battleground states). Everyone says that they saw it coming all along, that Biden was always far better-positioned than Hillary Clinton, that an incumbent like Trump never had a chance, that 2018 was an obvious sign of things to come, that Democrats did not hit a ceiling in Sun Belt urban/suburban areas in 2016 and 2018, and that they never doubted that Trump only won in 2016 because of the historic unpopularity of his opponent.

Biden doesn’t gain that much ground in most areas which trended strongly Republican in 2016 (with some exceptions like counties with a large number of Native American and "anti-incumbent" voters, especially in MT), but he manages to either make small inroads or at least hold his own in those states (e.g., only losing IA by 6-7 points, and losing OH by 4-5 points), which is more than enough to win the election. Democrats finally give up on Iowa as it turns out to be Trump's best swing state and Ernst wins reelection despite the Democratic onslaught, not least due to her #retailpolitics.

The Senate is incredibly close and not called on election night, with the closest races (decided by less than five percentage points) being MT (which is one of the last races to be called, as Daines does worse than Gianforte and Rosendale and the race is nip and tuck throughout the night until the wee hours), NC, GA-R, MI, TX, KS, and ME. MI and TX in particular are more competitive than initially expected, as Cornyn barely outperforms Trump and Peters actually runs behind Biden. Both GA seats go to a runoff, and Perdue just barely receives fewer votes than Ossoff in the first round as his Gwinnett GOTV Gang falls asleep at the wheel and his Cobb County Connections abandon him. There’s more split-ticket voting in smaller states (MT/AK/KS/ME) than expected. McSally and Gardner lose pretty badly (Gardner by more than Jones), and Tommy Tuberville picks up AL by an embarrassing margin after national Republican groups + Trump come to his rescue (he barely outperforms Roy Moore in urban AL and even slightly underperforms him in a few suburban counties, but is pulled across the finish line by presidential year turnout among Republicans/Republican-leaning independents, the absence of a lopsided enthusiasm gap, and Trump's 22-point margin in the presidential race in AL).

LOL That is a pipe dream.  You are basically saying 2016 was a fluke.

Yes it was.

Right all those WWC voters will magically flip to dems. The truth is both things are happening. GOP is continuing to lose more college educated whites while democrats continue to lose more WWC. Biden def does worse with WWC than Hillary which is why MN will flip and Trump keeps all the midwest states. He will lose GA or AZ before he loses the Midwest.

[SN2903]

After all the concerns about a 2016 redux and "underestimating Trump"; four years of bedwetting, overanalysis, and "learning lessons"; and excessive focus on/obsession over the "WWC" Obama/Trump voter, Donald Trump's presidency is ended by the "silent" suburban voter who couldn’t stomach voting for Hillary Clinton and considered Trump the lesser of two evils in 2016, record Democratic turnout across the country (but especially in metropolitan America, where we see unprecedented numbers for a Democratic presidential candidate in cities like Atlanta, Austin, and Bozeman ), and Biden's inroads among voters 65 and older. Biden flips MI, PA, AZ, NE-02, and two other states. States with the strongest D swings include MT, KS, TX, and AZ (which votes to the left of most, if not all, other battleground states). Everyone says that they saw it coming all along, that Biden was always far better-positioned than Hillary Clinton, that an incumbent like Trump never had a chance, that 2018 was an obvious sign of things to come, that Democrats did not hit a ceiling in Sun Belt urban/suburban areas in 2016 and 2018, and that they never doubted that Trump only won in 2016 because of the historic unpopularity of his opponent.

Biden doesn’t gain that much ground in most areas which trended strongly Republican in 2016 (with some exceptions like counties with a large number of Native American and "anti-incumbent" voters, especially in MT), but he manages to either make small inroads or at least hold his own in those states (e.g., only losing IA by 6-7 points, and losing OH by 4-5 points), which is more than enough to win the election. Democrats finally give up on Iowa as it turns out to be Trump's best swing state and Ernst wins reelection despite the Democratic onslaught, not least due to her #retailpolitics.

The Senate is incredibly close and not called on election night, with the closest races (decided by less than five percentage points) being MT (which is one of the last races to be called, as Daines does worse than Gianforte and Rosendale and the race is nip and tuck throughout the night until the wee hours), NC, GA-R, MI, TX, KS, and ME. MI and TX in particular are more competitive than initially expected, as Cornyn barely outperforms Trump and Peters actually runs behind Biden. Both GA seats go to a runoff, and Perdue just barely receives fewer votes than Ossoff in the first round as his Gwinnett GOTV Gang falls asleep at the wheel and his Cobb County Connections abandon him. There’s more split-ticket voting in smaller states (MT/AK/KS/ME) than expected. McSally and Gardner lose pretty badly (Gardner by more than Jones), and Tommy Tuberville picks up AL by an embarrassing margin after national Republican groups + Trump come to his rescue (he barely outperforms Roy Moore in urban AL and even slightly underperforms him in a few suburban counties, but is pulled across the finish line by presidential year turnout among Republicans/Republican-leaning independents, the absence of a lopsided enthusiasm gap, and Trump's 22-point margin in the presidential race in AL).

LOL That is a pipe dream.  You are basically saying 2016 was a fluke.

Yes it was.

Right all those WWC voters will magically flip to dems. The truth is both things are happening. GOP is continuing to lose more college educated whites while democrats continue to lose more WWC. Biden def does worse with WWC than Hillary which is why MN will flip and Trump keeps all the midwest states. He will lose GA or AZ before he loses the Midwest.

There is a good chance Trump keeps Wisconsin - and I think he WILL keep Iowa and Ohio - but Trump is going to lose Michigan and Wisconsin.

You mean MI and PA? I think MI votes to the right of PA. PA will be tight.

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Trump has a campaign rally in Macomb County weeks before the election with John James that draws 100,000 people.

I don’t think this follows the social distancing guidelines set out by the CDC

The rallies will happen anyway.

[SN2903]

After all the concerns about a 2016 redux and "underestimating Trump"; four years of bedwetting, overanalysis, and "learning lessons"; and excessive focus on/obsession over the "WWC" Obama/Trump voter, Donald Trump's presidency is ended by the "silent" suburban voter who couldn’t stomach voting for Hillary Clinton and considered Trump the lesser of two evils in 2016, record Democratic turnout across the country (but especially in metropolitan America, where we see unprecedented numbers for a Democratic presidential candidate in cities like Atlanta, Austin, and Bozeman ), and Biden's inroads among voters 65 and older. Biden flips MI, PA, AZ, NE-02, and two other states. States with the strongest D swings include MT, KS, TX, and AZ (which votes to the left of most, if not all, other battleground states). Everyone says that they saw it coming all along, that Biden was always far better-positioned than Hillary Clinton, that an incumbent like Trump never had a chance, that 2018 was an obvious sign of things to come, that Democrats did not hit a ceiling in Sun Belt urban/suburban areas in 2016 and 2018, and that they never doubted that Trump only won in 2016 because of the historic unpopularity of his opponent.

Biden doesn’t gain that much ground in most areas which trended strongly Republican in 2016 (with some exceptions like counties with a large number of Native American and "anti-incumbent" voters, especially in MT), but he manages to either make small inroads or at least hold his own in those states (e.g., only losing IA by 6-7 points, and losing OH by 4-5 points), which is more than enough to win the election. Democrats finally give up on Iowa as it turns out to be Trump's best swing state and Ernst wins reelection despite the Democratic onslaught, not least due to her #retailpolitics.

The Senate is incredibly close and not called on election night, with the closest races (decided by less than five percentage points) being MT (which is one of the last races to be called, as Daines does worse than Gianforte and Rosendale and the race is nip and tuck throughout the night until the wee hours), NC, GA-R, MI, TX, KS, and ME. MI and TX in particular are more competitive than initially expected, as Cornyn barely outperforms Trump and Peters actually runs behind Biden. Both GA seats go to a runoff, and Perdue just barely receives fewer votes than Ossoff in the first round as his Gwinnett GOTV Gang falls asleep at the wheel and his Cobb County Connections abandon him. There’s more split-ticket voting in smaller states (MT/AK/KS/ME) than expected. McSally and Gardner lose pretty badly (Gardner by more than Jones), and Tommy Tuberville picks up AL by an embarrassing margin after national Republican groups + Trump come to his rescue (he barely outperforms Roy Moore in urban AL and even slightly underperforms him in a few suburban counties, but is pulled across the finish line by presidential year turnout among Republicans/Republican-leaning independents, the absence of a lopsided enthusiasm gap, and Trump's 22-point margin in the presidential race in AL).

LOL That is a pipe dream.  You are basically saying 2016 was a fluke.

Yes it was.

Right all those WWC voters will magically flip to dems. The truth is both things are happening. GOP is continuing to lose more college educated whites while democrats continue to lose more WWC. Biden def does worse with WWC than Hillary which is why MN will flip and Trump keeps all the midwest states. He will lose GA or AZ before he loses the Midwest.

There is a good chance Trump keeps Wisconsin - and I think he WILL keep Iowa and Ohio - but Trump is going to lose Michigan and Wisconsin.

You mean MI and PA? I think MI votes to the right of PA. PA will be tight.

Whoops. Yeah, I mean Michigan and PA.

Trump is consistently down in Michigan, and Pennsylvania is Biden's home turf. I don't really see how he loses them unless something dramatic happens.

Polls don't matter right now. After the RNC Labor Day i will start to take them somewhat seriously

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Campaign
-Roy Cooper becomes Donald Trumps latest twitter target after he blocks the RNC from holding the convention in his state. The move helps rally Republicans against him but Cooper still wins by 6 on Election Day.
-A Trump rally is shutdown by local health authorities after the President ignores social distancing guidelines.
-At least one “semi credible” twitter journalist reports that the DNC is considering forcing Biden to drop out of the race over concerns over his ability to beat Trump. Though nothing comes out of the rumour.
-Joe Biden commits a verbal gaffe on a similar level as Kerry’s famous  "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it," though unlike with Kerry it won’t cost him that election.
-Jeff Flake publicly endorses Joe Biden  
-At least one potential electoral college elector in a state that has a credible chance of going to their party will publicly threaten not to vote for their parties nominee in the electoral college vote.

Results
-Texas will be listed as too close to call by the networks on election night though will vote for Trump.
-John James will only outperform Trump by less than 1% as both lose the state by around 7%
-Doug Jones just barely cracks 40% as he is defeated overwhelmingly.
-Steve Bullock loses by more than 5% helping prove split ticketing is close to dead.
-No state is within 1%. Wisconsin is the closest at 1.5% as it goes to Biden.
Biden wins 52% with college educated whites while only doing 2% better with non college educated whites than Clinton did.
-Trump cracks 30% and 10% with Hispanics and African Americans respectively.
-One of OK-5/SC-1/NY-22 stays Dem.
-Dems pick up at least two of NY-1/NY-2/NJ-2
-Republicans pick up one seat that isn’t MN-7 that was held by the Dems entering 2018.
-Democrat’s gain NC/AZ/CO/ME while losing AL in the senate.
-Biden loses no Hillary state while picking up MI/WI/PA/NC/FL and AZ.
-At least one Hillary state votes to the right of Michigan.

If Trump gets 10% AA he isn't losing all those states.

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AZ is not close and Trump wins there by about 6%.

VA will vote to the right of NV and CO. Trump wins VA by 1% while losing NV by 1% and CO by 3%.
COVID-19 will help Trump.

McSally squeaks by in the AZ senate race, Winning by 2% on the back of Trump.

Gardner loses but only narrowly by 1.5%.

NC and ME hold for the GOP while MI flips. The senate is 54-46.

Republicans come very close to taking the House but fall short. 221-214.

PA and MI could both vote right of WI.

NM is in play. Trump comes up only 3.5% short.

TX will shift heavily to the right and give Trump a 15% win.

Trump wins by 2% in the popular vote.

Yep, still a Trump optimist.

This is less optimism and more completely ignoring every single poll that has ever come out in the last year.

Polls didn't even mean anything during the end of the campaign in 2016 and they certainly don't exactly count for much of anything at this point. They were wrong in 2016, They were mostly wrong in 2018 and there's no evidence that they'll be right this year. Thus, I think Trump will defy the polls again.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point but.

The polls were mostly right in 2016. Excluding Wisconsin, the ones that were wrong were mostly within the margin of error.

The polls were mostly right in 2018, except for Florida.

You really need to pay attention to the actual polls themselves and not the pundit's interpretations of polls.

Polls: "Hillary leads by 2 points in 9/10 Michigan polls, with a margin of error of 3."

Media: (incorrectly) "HILLARY HAS A 90% CHANCE OF WINNING THE PRESIDENCY."

538 was the most accurate, giving Trump a 30% chance of winning, which was correct. He did have a 30% chance of winning. It's just that 30% happened. If the weather forecast said 30% chance of rain, you'd bring an umbrella.

Not true the Indiana and Missouri senate polls were horrific

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AZ is not close and Trump wins there by about 6%.

VA will vote to the right of NV and CO. Trump wins VA by 1% while losing NV by 1% and CO by 3%.
COVID-19 will help Trump.

McSally squeaks by in the AZ senate race, Winning by 2% on the back of Trump.

Gardner loses but only narrowly by 1.5%.

NC and ME hold for the GOP while MI flips. The senate is 54-46.

Republicans come very close to taking the House but fall short. 221-214.

PA and MI could both vote right of WI.

NM is in play. Trump comes up only 3.5% short.

TX will shift heavily to the right and give Trump a 15% win.

Trump wins by 2% in the popular vote.

Yep, still a Trump optimist.

This is less optimism and more completely ignoring every single poll that has ever come out in the last year.

Polls didn't even mean anything during the end of the campaign in 2016 and they certainly don't exactly count for much of anything at this point. They were wrong in 2016, They were mostly wrong in 2018 and there's no evidence that they'll be right this year. Thus, I think Trump will defy the polls again.

I'm beating a dead horse at this point but.

The polls were mostly right in 2016. Excluding Wisconsin, the ones that were wrong were mostly within the margin of error.

The polls were mostly right in 2018, except for Florida.

You really need to pay attention to the actual polls themselves and not the pundit's interpretations of polls.

Polls: "Hillary leads by 2 points in 9/10 Michigan polls, with a margin of error of 3."

Media: (incorrectly) "HILLARY HAS A 90% CHANCE OF WINNING THE PRESIDENCY."

538 was the most accurate, giving Trump a 30% chance of winning, which was correct. He did have a 30% chance of winning. It's just that 30% happened. If the weather forecast said 30% chance of rain, you'd bring an umbrella.

Uh.........say what now?

Find me a single source that says most, let alone 90%, of the Michigan polls had Trump within 2 points.

Also, the claim that Trump had a 30% chance in 2016 is just total, pure BS sugared-up hindsight bias and/or narrative spinning.

Very emphatically, he did not - based on any reasonably interpretation of the empirically data availably.

It is plain false to say he had a 30% shot, especially not if because just Nate Silver said so. Heck you could sooner make the argument he was a 2/3 lock to win!

Exactly most of the polls showed Hillary up 4-5 pts in Michigan before the election and most election analysts were predicting 310 to 330 EV for Hillary in the electoral college and about an 80% chance of winning. 80 to 90%. Nate Silver was one of the least bad but he was still wrong. The reality is that Trump's chances were a lot higher than people thought probably at least 50 50 because of how unpopular Hillary was and disliked and the fact that Trump was appealing to WWC voters to a higher degree than even Reagan and still is.