It's possible the EC advantage shifts towards Trump again

[Arizona Iced Tea]

The conventional wisdom right now is that it will move towards Biden but there isn't really much evidence to say that it can't shift towards Trump again.

People mention the midterm US House races but I feel like that is flawed logic. In 2022 there were 435 different races in 435 different districts. Each and every candidate was different, and the GOP just happened to nominate better candidates in more safe districts and weaker ones in the key battlegrounds. However, this year Trump vs Biden is going to be the exact same matchup in every state, in every county, in every city, and every precinct.

Not to mention that in 2020 very few people expected the EC advantage to shift nearly an entire point towards Trump. I'm not saying that it will happen again but its a seriously underrated possibility. In 2016 it was 3.1, in 2020 it was 3.9, if it creeps up even just a little bit to 4.2 or so, that would spell very bad news to Biden's campaign. If it goes a full 0.8% towards Trump again it would be requiring a Biden win of 4.7% to break even. (Swing isn't universal but still worth noting)

I talked about the midterm theory above, but a more valid but still doubtful one is the NY-CA one. In it, Trump makes massive gains in NY FL and CA and not the swing states which lowers the threshold.  The biggest flaw with this one though is it leaves out Texas. NY and Florida's population is only 2/3 the size of the giants California and Texas. If Trump is improving in Texas by a significant amount that means he must be making gains in DFW and Houston which would have to be replicating in Phoenix and Atlanta. I think this theory makes more sense, but I don't know why people rule out the EC advantage shifting towards Trump.

[OSR stands with Israel]

That does not take into account PA/MI/WI though. Really the EC advantage is almost entirely based on the margins on Midwestern/Rust Belt Swing States

[Arizona Iced Tea]

That does not take into account PA/MI/WI though. Really the EC advantage is almost entirely based on the margins on Midwestern/Rust Belt Swing States

In 2020 vs 2016, Wisconsin trended right, PA stayed stagnant, and Michigan trended left although Trump triaged the latter. Proper investment and it probably stays close to even.

[Progressive Pessimist]

What do you mean "again?" Trump has always had the electoral college advantage across all three of his elections.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

What do you mean "again?" Trump has always had the electoral college advantage across all three of his elections.

I mean the size of the advantage increases in his favor again.

[cherry mandarin]

That does not take into account PA/MI/WI though. Really the EC advantage is almost entirely based on the margins on Midwestern/Rust Belt Swing States

Exactly this (plus NV/AZ/GA too).

It would be possible for the EC advantage to shift back toward Trump again.

No it isn’t.

In 2020 very few people expected the EC advantage to shift nearly an entire point towards Trump.

Not really. Most serious pundits thought Trump’s EC advantage would be significantly larger than it ended up being.

Remember that people thought Biden would win the PV by a lot more than he did in reality, whereas the eventual EC result was very close to the actual state-by-state breakdown that people expected.

I saw many predictions where Biden was winning the NPV by 7 or even 9 points but Biden was still under 300 EVs. If you’d told them Biden would only carry the PV by 4 points in the end, many of them would’ve taken that to spell certain doom for him.

The election results in places like MD, IL, NY, and especially CA were way closer than people thought they would be. Trump also outperformed expectations in safe red states, just not to the same extent. However the 2020 “red wave” didn’t really reach the swing states at all (aside from exceptions like WI), since Biden’s campaign did a good job of targeting the real battlegrounds.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

That does not take into account PA/MI/WI though. Really the EC advantage is almost entirely based on the margins on Midwestern/Rust Belt Swing States

Exactly this (plus NV/AZ/GA too).

It would be possible for the EC advantage to shift back toward Trump again.

No it isn’t.

In 2020 very few people expected the EC advantage to shift nearly an entire point towards Trump.

Not really. Most serious pundits thought Trump’s EC advantage would be significantly larger than it ended up being.

Remember that people thought Biden would win the PV by a lot more than he did in reality, whereas the eventual EC result was very close to the actual state-by-state breakdown that people expected.

I saw many predictions where Biden was winning the NPV by 7 or even 9 points but Biden was still under 300 EVs. If you’d told them Biden would only carry the PV by 4 points in the end, many of them would’ve taken that to spell certain doom for him.

The election results in places like MD, IL, NY, and especially CA were way closer than people thought they would be. Trump also outperformed expectations in safe red states, just not to the same extent. However the 2020 “red wave” didn’t really reach the swing states at all (aside from exceptions like WI), since Biden’s campaign did a good job of targeting the real battlegrounds.

While the EC map in 2020 was similar to what people predicted, the margins were way off by similar margins to the PV, which would render your whole point moot.
People thought he would be winning the rust belt 3 by close to 10, and Iowa and Ohio would be within a few points.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

No it's 276 to 188 advantage for Ds I showed you the map

The NV polls are just ridiculous no way is Trump leads by 12 and Emerson shows a tied race in NV 51/49 R

[Tekken_Guy]

I think it’s based on Trump making gains disproportionally in diverse swing states while Biden holds up better in the whiter ones. Trump flips the sun belt trio but falls short in the rust belt, and loses by 1 EV.

[Annatar]

It is plausible the tipping point state is more Republican relative to the NPV then in was in 2020. WI which was R+3.9 relative to the NPV and the tipping point state could easily trend Republican again this year and if GA and AZ stay the same relative to the NPV as they were in 2020, the tipping point state would become even more Republican.

I think people underestimate the likelihood of states like WI and PA trending Republican this year, back in 2020 the polls indicated they would not and Biden had special strength in relative terms among white voters in these states, they were wrong, both WI and PA trended Republican in 2020 despite Trump gaining heavily with Hispanics, no reason that won't happen this year. 

PA in particular has shifted Republican relative to the NPV 4 times in a row now, every election since 2004 its trended Republican, why would that trend stop this year.

[Mr. Smith]

Yeah, but still more likely right now for a Biden shift, The questions are whether it will be enough to get him re-elected or not, or if the Trump lead currently is real or not.

[ProgressiveModerate]

*Possible* yes, but I would still place my bets on a Biden shift.

While it is fair that the CA/NY/FL theory leaves out Texas, CA+NY+FL by itself is still pretty significant and perhaps you could even add Illinois and New Jersey to that group.

I think the main way in which the divide grows is if educational polarization is basically the only driver of swings. This is because basically all the most educated states are safe/likely Biden at this point. By college educated % the most educated state that's not federally likely/safe blue are Utah and Pennsylvania at spots #14 and #15 respectively. The other main swing states are average or below average on educational attainment.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

*Possible* yes, but I would still place my bets on a Biden shift.

While it is fair that the CA/NY/FL theory leaves out Texas, CA+NY+FL by itself is still pretty significant and perhaps you could even add Illinois and New Jersey to that group.

I think the main way in which the divide grows is if educational polarization is basically the only driver of swings. This is because basically all the most educated states are safe/likely Biden at this point. By college educated % the most educated state that's not federally likely/safe blue are Utah and Pennsylvania at spots #14 and #15 respectively. The other main swing states are average or below average on educational attainment.

If Illinois shifts right due to Chicago wouldn't the same apply to Milwuakee and Detroit? Ditto with NJ and PA.

[ProgressiveModerate]

*Possible* yes, but I would still place my bets on a Biden shift.

While it is fair that the CA/NY/FL theory leaves out Texas, CA+NY+FL by itself is still pretty significant and perhaps you could even add Illinois and New Jersey to that group.

I think the main way in which the divide grows is if educational polarization is basically the only driver of swings. This is because basically all the most educated states are safe/likely Biden at this point. By college educated % the most educated state that's not federally likely/safe blue are Utah and Pennsylvania at spots #14 and #15 respectively. The other main swing states are average or below average on educational attainment.

If Illinois shifts right due to Chicago wouldn't the same apply to Milwuakee and Detroit? Ditto with NJ and PA.

Not necessarily. It depends upon what's causing the shift. If the rightwards shift is largely caused by Hispanics, Asians, and certain ethnic whites (as we sort of saw in 2020), that would disproportionately swing Chicagoland right. Simillar to how in 2020 the Philly shift was much more muted than NYC despite the 2 cities being close to eachother in the same region and often being lumped together.

If the swing was caused in large part due to black voters then any midwestern city with a notable black population probably shifts right.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

*Possible* yes, but I would still place my bets on a Biden shift.

While it is fair that the CA/NY/FL theory leaves out Texas, CA+NY+FL by itself is still pretty significant and perhaps you could even add Illinois and New Jersey to that group.

I think the main way in which the divide grows is if educational polarization is basically the only driver of swings. This is because basically all the most educated states are safe/likely Biden at this point. By college educated % the most educated state that's not federally likely/safe blue are Utah and Pennsylvania at spots #14 and #15 respectively. The other main swing states are average or below average on educational attainment.

If Illinois shifts right due to Chicago wouldn't the same apply to Milwuakee and Detroit? Ditto with NJ and PA.

I live in Chi and Chic isn't shifting right Trump will lose IL by 12

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

As I said before the way Trump is acting in CRT, he is acting Maga when he is accused of cheating on Melanie Trump

[kwabbit]

That does not take into account PA/MI/WI though. Really the EC advantage is almost entirely based on the margins on Midwestern/Rust Belt Swing States

Exactly this (plus NV/AZ/GA too).

It would be possible for the EC advantage to shift back toward Trump again.

No it isn’t.

In 2020 very few people expected the EC advantage to shift nearly an entire point towards Trump.

Not really. Most serious pundits thought Trump’s EC advantage would be significantly larger than it ended up being.

Remember that people thought Biden would win the PV by a lot more than he did in reality, whereas the eventual EC result was very close to the actual state-by-state breakdown that people expected.

I saw many predictions where Biden was winning the NPV by 7 or even 9 points but Biden was still under 300 EVs. If you’d told them Biden would only carry the PV by 4 points in the end, many of them would’ve taken that to spell certain doom for him.

The election results in places like MD, IL, NY, and especially CA were way closer than people thought they would be. Trump also outperformed expectations in safe red states, just not to the same extent. However the 2020 “red wave” didn’t really reach the swing states at all (aside from exceptions like WI), since Biden’s campaign did a good job of targeting the real battlegrounds.

They did not think Trump’s EC advantage would be bigger. I can’t recall a single person thinking Biden would be likely to lose if he won by 4. Most had it staying the same or really believed that Biden had made disproportionate gains in the Rust Belt as an Old White Guy and it would contract. Polling had it contracting to around 2 pts from the 2.9 it was in 2016. It ended up be 3.8.

[jamestroll]

haha

[cherry mandarin]

snip

Congratulations you just broke the forum interface again!

They did not think Trump’s EC advantage would be bigger. I can’t recall a single person thinking Biden would be likely to lose if he won by 4. Most had it staying the same or really believed that Biden had made disproportionate gains in the Rust Belt as an Old White Guy and it would contract.

This isn’t what I recall being the case, but perhaps we frequented different communities around that time.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

What is a "midterm theory"??

[DaleCooper]

What is a "midterm theory"??

Probably something to explain why every single Republican electoral failing over the last 2 years has nothing to do with Trump.