FL, MN, NV - Civiqs/DailyKos: Biden +4, +10, +9

[TheLaRocca]

There's an orthodoxy based on the 2010s elections that Florida is invariably razor-thin regardless of the national environment. But Obama won it by 3 in 2008 and, before that, Dubya won it by 5 in 2004, so clearly it is capable of producing low-to-mid-single-digit results. It just hasn't done so in the last few cycles.

Yeah, but the image of Rick Scott being projected as the winner/FL flipping red on the Senate maps of NYT, Politico, CNN, etc. (especially after a somewhat protracted recount battle) has been burned into people's minds forever even if the objective reality remains that a slight change in outside factors or even sheer chance could have produced a Democratic victory with a near-identical county map/result, as it did in the Agriculture Commissioner race. The meme itself is hilarious, but the hysterical/illogical FL takes are testament to the powerful, long-lasting impact of single peculiar (negative) events/outcomes on the human psyche. If a little more than 5,000 Puerto Ricans who saw Rick Scott in a good light due to his tenure as governor/outreach to Democratic-leaning voter groups/etc. but held unfavorable opinions of Trump/national Republicans had changed their minds and voted for Nelson, Titanium Tilt R Florida would be tipping-point Florida right now because even their best possible Republican candidate/strongest recruit of the cycle couldn’t beat sleepy Bill Nelson!

Sure, there was no third-party candidate on the ballot in 2018, Scott outspent Nelson almost 3-to-1 and had higher favorability/approval numbers than Trump, Nelson did worse than Biden seems to be among seniors/retirees, Scott's campaign reached out more efficiently to non-white voters than Trump ever will, etc., but too bad all of this + current polling/fundamentals do not matter, as red FL is indelibly engraved in the minds of Atlas posters suffering from PTSD.

Yeah if 2020 environment > worse then 2018

and Biden > Nelson with Seniors and > Nelson in Dade

then how does he lose FL if its a +10 Biden lead?

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

Polling indicates Trump is doing quite well in the Iron Range.

Suburbs will save Biden in MN and some farming swings. That's really it though.

he's not beaking 7% lol.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

This is what delusion looks like

Nobody who thinks Minnesota will be close has given a reasonable explanation as to why.

Um, I have like five times.

You guys just chose to ignore any analysis that does not have the Democrats winning by massive margins in the midwest (despite polling tell you its close).

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

This is what delusion looks like

Nobody who thinks Minnesota will be close has given a reasonable explanation as to why.

Um, I have like five times.

You guys just chose to ignore any analysis that does not have the Democrats winning by massive margins in the midwest (despite polling tell you its close).

You seriously think MN is a tossup? lmao

I think Minnesota is about 3 to 4% to the right of the nation.

So if Bidens up by 10 nationally (per 538) he's ahead by about 5 to 6 in Minnesota.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

This is what delusion looks like

Nobody who thinks Minnesota will be close has given a reasonable explanation as to why.

Um, I have like five times.

You guys just chose to ignore any analysis that does not have the Democrats winning by massive margins in the midwest (despite polling tell you its close).

You seriously think MN is a tossup? lmao

I think Minnesota is about 3 to 4% to the right of the nation.

So if Bidens up by 10 nationally (per 538) he's ahead by about 5 to 6 in Minnesota.

That seems pretty reasonable (depending on how MN trends). Although I think he’ll win by about 7-8 in the end.

wasserman says Trump is doing way worse in St. Paul/Minneapolis suburbs, worse in southern rural Minnesota, but about the same in the Iron Range.

Makes sense to me.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

Polling indicates Trump is doing quite well in the Iron Range.

Suburbs will save Biden in MN and some farming swings. That's really it though.

he's not beaking 7% lol.

... what proportion of Minnesota do you think lives in the Iron Range? Tina Smith lost MN-08 in 2018 on her way to an 11 point win.



If "suburbs" are as D we expect, then the Iron Range is going to be a statistical quirk this year, not a kingmaker.

Metro Minnesota (2.628Mil) = 57-34 Clinton (59-39 Obama 08) (includes Ramsey, Hennepin, Anoka, Washington, and Dakota)

Non-metro Minnesota (2.651mil) = 56-35 Trump (48.8-48.8 Obama 08, rest of the state)

so no Minnesota is pretty evenly split between rural and urban areas (more so than Ohio even). If Trump is matching 2016 numbers (or just slightly worse) in the Iron Range and still winning rural MN by large margins, Biden won't be winning the state in a landslide.

2016 numbers in Metro MN (which was a GOP underperformance TBH) + increased rural margins (GOP is not anywhere near maxed out in rural MN) make this state VERY favorable for the GOP.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

This is what delusion looks like

Nobody who thinks Minnesota will be close has given a reasonable explanation as to why.

Um, I have like five times.

You guys just chose to ignore any analysis that does not have the Democrats winning by massive margins in the midwest (despite polling tell you its close).

I've been one of the most vocal in disputing the "massive margins" argument red avatars are pushing. But your Tossup Minnesota is equally unrealistic.

Saying the Iron Range vote will trend the state Republican makes no sense because the reason for the change in rural margins is because they are depopulating--people are moving to more urban areas, and are trending them further left in the process. That's not going to change the state's vote as a whole.

(1) Minnesota IS A tossup state (voted slightly to the right of the nation). It's just the national margin is so large for Biden that it doesn't matter. It's like if Obama won by 15 in 08 and won Ohio by 8-10. Ohio is still a toss then. Just the national margin has shifted.
(2) Okay half the state is urban and half is rural. In terms of voting. If rural MN stays about the same (let's say slightly better for Biden) then Metro MN shifts the state only by about 3 to 5.
(3) um but the rural areas are getting more GOP no? I just posted population numbers from daves redistricting that prove my point.
(4) the floor is much stronger for republicans in metro MN than for democrats in rural MN. Remember that.

All said and done at this very moment MN is about 6% D.

[TheLaRocca]

I think this is fine. But Minnesota is def not that blue.

Trump is favored in the Iron Range according to polling. But he does MUCH worse in Minneapolis suburbia and southern Minnesota. Should win by 5-6ish.

No. Biden will win MN by 7-10%.

Polling indicates Trump is doing quite well in the Iron Range.

Suburbs will save Biden in MN and some farming swings. That's really it though.

he's not beaking 7% lol.

... what proportion of Minnesota do you think lives in the Iron Range? Tina Smith lost MN-08 in 2018 on her way to an 11 point win.

If "suburbs" are as D we expect, then the Iron Range is going to be a statistical quirk this year, not a kingmaker.

Metro Minnesota (2.628Mil) = 57-34 Clinton (59-39 Obama 08) (includes Ramsey, Hennepin, Anoka, Washington, and Dakota)

Non-metro Minnesota (2.651mil) = 56-35 Trump (48.8-48.8 Obama 08, rest of the state)

so no Minnesota is pretty evenly split between rural and urban areas (more so than Ohio even). If Trump is matching 2016 numbers (or just slightly worse) in the Iron Range and still winning rural MN by large margins, Biden won't be winning the state in a landslide.

You literally acknowledged in your post that there would be a farm bump for Biden, not to mention that all polls show Trump is performing disastrously in MSP suburbs. He's not matching the 2016 margins. My point is that the Iron Range is not large enough to offset those.

2016 numbers in Metro MN (which was a GOP underperformance TBH)

MSP results in 2016 were absolutely not a GOP underperformance. If it was an underperformance, they wouldn't have lost two of their House seats here in 2018 in addition to getting swept in those five counties in the three races at the top of the ticket and losing double-digit seats in the state house. Outside of maybe Ramsey, Trump won't come close to his 2016 numbers anywhere in this area.

+ increased rural margins (GOP is not anywhere near maxed out in rural MN) make this state VERY favorable for the GOP.

In 2020 it's absolutely not favorable. We know from crosstabs that nationwide Biden has seen substantial gains from older and northern white voters. This is the type of person who lives outstate (not to mention outstate has plenty of small-sized cities like St. Cloud, Moorhead, etc. with college educated voters ready to bounce back - calling the entirety of the rest of the state "rural" is misleading). Trump performing better than historically anomalous performances in the Iron Range won't be enough to offset this. You can say longer-term prospects are better but this year is absolutely not the year for Republcians here.

Besides, any analysis of MN that doesn't mention the catastrophic (for Dems) third party protest vote and/or the fact that turnout was down from 2012 is incomplete. Trump edged Romney's 12 performance by 2K votes while Clinton lost 180K votes from Obama 12. Clinton and Trump both underperformed Kerry and Bush 04.

We're going to see on election night that 2016 was an aberration. We already saw abundant evidence of this in 2018 but people (many of whom have never set foot in the state) refuse to see it.

Trump is down 6 in Minnesota though.

Just because Minnesota has suburbs (lol Anoka isint the same as NOVA) does not mean Biden will win the state by 20 points.