Cook moves Iowa and Ohio to Tossups

[Alcibiades]

Iowa is more surprising as its very white and very rural so its demographics are not Democrat friendly at all.  Yes Maine and Vermont are even more rural and whiter but New England rural whites have a long history of bucking national trend on voting never mind in New England most are mainline Protestants or Catholics, few White Evangelicals unlike Iowa.

Iowa has a certain kinship with Maine and Vermont, due to demographics and the fact that they both swung Democrat at the same time. Of course it is now nowhere near as Democratic as those two, but it is certainly winnable for a Democrat in an election like this: it is rather elastic (in large part owing to its homogeneity), and has a larger culturally liberal base than Ohio.

[Alcibiades]

Can’t wait until "elastic" IA votes 10+ to the right of the NPV result and once again ends up being more Republican than TX, GA, NC, FL, and OH and everyone pretends that they saw it coming all along.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a pretty good chance Iowa votes to the right of all those states (although I think it won’t be 10+ to the right of the NPV this time). It’s just that if Biden does as well as the polls say, he may well eke out a victory in IA. Hillary was a uniquely bad fit for rural America, and 2018 shows that Iowa has by no means rejected the Democratic Party.

[Alcibiades]

Can’t wait until "elastic" IA votes 10+ to the right of the NPV result and once again ends up being more Republican than TX, GA, NC, FL, and OH and everyone pretends that they saw it coming all along.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a pretty good chance Iowa votes to the right of all those states (although I think it won’t be 10+ to the right of the NPV this time). It’s just that if Biden does as well as the polls say, he may well eke out a victory in IA. Hillary was a uniquely bad fit for rural America, and 2018 shows that Iowa has by no means rejected the Democratic Party.

I don’t think it’s impossible for Biden to eke out a very narrow win in IA (although it’s highly unlikely), but I’m pretty confident that Biden will already have flipped OH/TX/GA/NC/FL and be fairly competitive in states like KS/AK/MT if it gets to that point.

If Biden is winning by the narrowest of margins in IA, I don’t think he’ll be especially competitive in those states. Sure, he’ll have made a very good showing for a Democrat, but he’ll be behind by 5-10 points.

[Alcibiades]

Can’t wait until "elastic" IA votes 10+ to the right of the NPV result and once again ends up being more Republican than TX, GA, NC, FL, and OH and everyone pretends that they saw it coming all along.

Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a pretty good chance Iowa votes to the right of all those states (although I think it won’t be 10+ to the right of the NPV this time). It’s just that if Biden does as well as the polls say, he may well eke out a victory in IA. Hillary was a uniquely bad fit for rural America, and 2018 shows that Iowa has by no means rejected the Democratic Party.

I don’t think it’s impossible for Biden to eke out a very narrow win in IA (although it’s highly unlikely), but I’m pretty confident that Biden will already have flipped OH/TX/GA/NC/FL and be fairly competitive in states like KS/AK/MT if it gets to that point.

If Biden is winning by the narrowest of margins in IA, I don’t think he’ll be especially competitive in those states. Sure, he’ll have made a very good showing for a Democrat, but he’ll be behind by 5-10 points.

5-7 is definitely in the "fairly competitive" category.

I suppose you could say so, depending on how you define “fairly”, but 5-7 isn’t really the feeling of, “Ooh, he could have so easily won it if he’d just been a bit luckier.”