New South Hampshire Carolina

 I have not been posting about the primaries as much this year as the last few cycles for the very sensible reason that we know who both nominees will be.  But I don't want to ignore the news all together, so here is my look back at NH and look forward to SC.

New Hampshire: I Nailed It.

Here are my predictions for the Republican primary with the actual results in parenthesis.

Donald Trump: 54.1%   (54.3%)

Nikki Haley       43.9%   (43.2%)

Binkley                0.5%   (0.1%)

Others:                 1.5%  (2.0%)

I should have lumped Binkley in with "Others", but I wanted to give the guy a fair shot since he was the only declared candidate still in the races of any stature at all. 

Just want to point out that my slight error was to overestimate Nikki Haley's performance. But boy am I less guilty of that than any mainstream pundit.

Here are my predictions for the Democratic primary with the actual results in parenthesis:

Joe Biden: 64.3%  (63.9%)

Dean Phillips: 16.7%  (19.6%)

Marianne Williamson: 8.2%  (4%)

Others: 10% (12.5%)

The key number here was Biden. He was a write-in candidate and those are hard to predict. My only slight mistake was underrating Dean slightly and overrating Marianne Williamson. (I can't help it. She's wonderful, isn't she? So sad that her grift is now dead.)

Giving myself an A on this one. Close to an A+ on Republican and somewhere between A and A- on the Democratic side.  

South Carolina: Not Much Suspense.

South Carolina has been pivotal in the last 3 contested Democratic races. Obama winning in 2008, Bernie losing in 2016 and Biden crushing all of hos opponents in 2016 can largely explain the last four Democratic presidential contests.

The stakes are lower today. But Biden could use a big number. This is his first time on the ballot in this cycle and a crushing might push Dean Phillips back to the back benches of Congress where he belongs for the next 11 months.

So here's the official pick:

Biden 83%

Phillips 13%

Others: 4%

Williamson will get some votes and there will be write-ins. But nothing to move the needle.  Most  likely, Biden will win all 29 delegates.

About November.

Still holding off on my first official general election forecast. But I feel good about things. There has been a stream of good economic news. And it looks like we might just get a substantial ceasefire in Gaza soon.

The Republicans don't have a real contest for the next three weeks. But Haley's polling in SC has cratered. At some point soon she might admit that it's better to withdraw than to lose her home state by 25 or 30 points.

The public is slowly waking up to the reality of a Trump-Biden rematch. Polling for now is still all over the place. But I think that will change over the next six weeks or so. 

My confidence of a Biden win this November is up to about 60%. Details to follow. 

New Hampshire-What Will We Learn?

 Iowa: What Did We Learn?

Very little. The result pretty much matched the polls. But a quick moment of self-reflection. Here are my predicted vote percentages for Iowa with the actual result in ( ). 

      Trump 53% (51%)

      Haley 21% (19%

      DeSantis 20% (21%)

      Ramaswamy: 5% (7.7%)

      Hutchinson: 1% (0.2%)

Pretty close, but I did have Haley in second and Ron in second. That didn't work out.  Give myself a B+.

New Hampshire: What to Expect.

We're about 14 minutes away from the results in Dixville Notch and that other stupid town up north. But that won't tell us much.

Since Iowa, The third, fourth and sixth place finishers have all dropped out. (Shout out Ryan Binkley who finished ahead of Asa Hutchinson in Iowa and then stayed on to fight in New Hampshire! Well done, weird nobody.)

DeSantis and Ramaswamy have both endorsed Trump. The polls this week suggest that most of their votes are going to go with Trump. He is a very heavy favorite to win and very well might run up a big margin.

But New Hampshire does have a contrarian streak. They don't like to vote for the winner of the Iowa Caucuses. And Trump had a few hiccups on the trail this week, so maybe he won't quite crush it.  There also could be some Democrats voting in the Republican race to just drag it out a little longer.

Here's my official prediction:

Donald Trump: 54.1%

Nikki Haley       43.9%

Binkley                0.5%

Others:                 1.5%  (Strays for Christie, DeSantis, etc.)

What Does Haley Need?

To even dream about being the nominee, she needs a win. She's not getting that. But if she can get 45% of the vote, than she might be tempted to hang in there a little longer and see if the donor class keeps her afloat just in case DJT strokes out in the next month.

If she loses by more than 15, she probably drops out tomorrow night or Wednesday morning. The humiliation of losing South Carolina to Trump would be too much to bare. (And the donor class won't waste their money on her.

What About the Dems?

There is a Democratic Primary tomorrow too but it won't be sending any delegates to Chicago and Joe Biden isn't on the ballot.

That said, there's like 25 other people in the ballot and no small number of Granite Staters are pissed off that the Democratic party took away their monopoly on being the first in the nation primary. So this number could be interesting.

Biden will win and he should do so with an outright majority. If he doesn't, and Nikki Haley drops out, the media will try to make the Democratic race feel competitive. (It isn't.)

But once again in the breach, here I go:

Joe Biden: 64.3%

Dean Phillips: 16.7%

Marianne Williamson: 8.2%

The other weirdoes and spoiled ballots will be like 10%.

Ooooh, Dixville Notch and Hart's Crotch are going to be announcing in a minute.....

The 2024 GOP Presidential Race.

Just kidding. There is no 2024 GOP presidential race. Donald Trump will be the nominee of that party next year. It does not matter that he has been indicted four times. It will not matter that he will likely be a convicted felon by Super Tuesday. It does not matter that he is a corrupt, incompetent drama queen. The Republican party likes him. They like him because he gives them license to vocalize their prejudices and take pride in their ignorance. They like him because he tells them that they are victims, which is very comforting. 

Most all they like him because he is their guy. They chose him seven years ago and there is an entire echo chamber that exists for the sole purpose perpetuating this status for him. Some pieces of this machinery wish to move on, but the masses say otherwise. He is currently polling at 55% of the field in a race with a dozen candidates.  He will win early. He will win often and the only thing that can stop him is the right Twinkee clogging the wrong artery between now and March 1st or so. If Donald Trump is capable of breath and basic mobility, he will be the Republican party for president next year.

Nevertheless, we are about 48 hours out from the first "Debate" of this presidential cycle. This event will look more like auditions for the vice-presidency than a traditional debate. The front-runner is staying home. Only one guy is expected to say anything mean or critical about him from the stage. He will be booed heartily when he does so. 

So this post is a look at the dozen or so other people who have decided to pretend the last three paragraphs are not so set in stone. They are worth looking at, at least once. After all, they pretend to think they're going to be president in 17 months. That's wild.

For each candidate,  I will ask three questions: Is he qualified?, Why is he running?, and what would a successful campaign look like for him? Then I'll make a brief prediction about how I think they will do in this sham of a primary. 

I have already squeezed the suspense out of who will win. But maybe these questions can help us begin to understand how this ill-fated clown car got quite so jammed.

TIER ONE: The Nominee Presumptive.

1. Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States.

National Polling Average among Republicans: 54.8%.

a. Is he qualified? Well, he's the first former president to seek the office since Grover Cleveland so, I guess technically....no. The answer is good lord, no.

b. Why is he running?  To fill the love-shaped hole in his heart.

c. What would a successful campaign look like for him?

To be elected President of the United States again. The full Grover Cleveland experience. It is the only thing that will ever make him feel a moment's happiness. And he has a chance. I would say he has about a 35% chance of achieving this, which is based entirely on the fact that Joe Biden's approval ratings remain stubbornly low. I think those numbers will change when the country accepts that we only have two options, but Biden is not as popular as he should be given the state of the economy, lack of meaningful scandal and his various successes in passing domestic legislation and forging foreign policy successes. But that is the subject for another post.

Trump will be the nominee and he has a chance of winning the election. We will go to the polls in 441 days and we won't be certain who the winner is until late that night.

TIER TWO: The Plausible Alternative.

2. Ron DeSantis, Governor of Florida.

National Polling Average among Republicans: 14.3%.

a. Is he qualified? Yeah, sure. He's the governor of a big state and he was in congress before that. 

b. Why is he running? Because he assumed that his success in Florida would translate to a national mandate as the alternative to Trump. This was stupid. He should have waited until 2028 when he could have waltzed to the nomination. But I guess he had FOMO. Or an overly ambitious wife.

c. What would a successful campaign look like for him? 

Being the nominee. It is still possible. Trump's likely convictions could start happening early in 2024 and maybe that will give some voters pause about whether he can beat Biden. (One small problem there-Republican primary voters all think that Joe Biden is awful and assume that the rest of the country share that sentiment.)  At the risk of being morbid, there is also the fact that Donald Trump could die in the next six months. But short of that, DeSantis is probably fated to get his ass kicked in the early primary states and return to Florida with his national brand deflated.

It's worth noting that DeSantis has already done something very stupid. Instead of running a traditional campaign he has decided to let his Super PAC do most of the fundraising. This means that he can't "coordinate" with the Super PAC openly, so they have to talk to each other through the public press releases. It really is as stupid as anything any presidential candidate has ever done. If you want the details, Josh Barro does a great job with them here:  https://www.joshbarro.com/p/memo-to-ron-desantis-be-smarter

So this is where the GOP golden boy stands. He's still second in most national polls but he has hopelessly destroyed his relationship with Trump and he has exposed himself as a terrible retail politician. He might be able to have a comeback in 2028 but as of now it looks like no one will lose more political capital in this cycle than Ron DeSantis.

Prediction: Second in Iowa. Third in New Hampshire. Dead after South Carolina. 

Tier Three: The Quadrennial Flash In the Pan.

3. Vivek Ramaswamy, Media Gadfly.

National Polling Average Among Republicans: 7.2%.

a. Is he qualified? Not on your life.

This stupid motherfucker is an insult to American democracy. It's early days but I think he might be less qualified for the presidency than Donald Trump. He started the campaign without having ever held a job in government and without even knowing what the nuclear triad is. His biggest "ideas" are for the United States to befriend Vladimir Putin and he thinks 9/11 may have been an inside job. I hate this prick. tl;dr:No.

b. Why is he running? To become famous. Did I mention that he is a prick and that I hate him? Because he is and I do.

c. What would a successful campaign look like for him? Mission accomplished. He is the only candidate in this horrible field who is exceeding expectations. Of course, starting as 3o-something whose only accomplishment was to start a business that has never turned a profit, expectations were not exactly high. But he knows how to talk to old white people and make them feel good. That's a valuable commodity if your goal is to be a guest on Joe Rogan and maybe set up a reverse mortgage concern. 

This vapid asshole has already gotten tons of free press. The people who watch Fox News have picked him as their official token minority for this cycle. He is in the Alan Keyes-Herman Cain-Ben Carson fraternity for life. Two years from now he'll be writing books and hosting a podcast and being an irritant in our national life.  It beats working. 

Prediction: he'll finish 2nd or 3rd in Iowa. Then 4th in New Hampshire. He'll probably bow out before South Carolina, in order to stay in Trump's good graces.

TIER FOUR: Garden Variety Losers.

4. Mike Pence, 48th Vice-President of the United States.

National Polling Average: 5.2%.

a. Is he qualified? Yeah, sure. 

b. Why is he running? It's what vice-presidents do.

c. What would a successful campaign look like for him? 

Second or third place. Staying in past New Hampshire. Maybe staking some claim to his legacy as having done the bare minimum to keep our republic in place?

Primary Prediction: 4th in Iowa. 5th in New Hampshire. Extremely boring concession speech.

5. Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina.

National Polling Average: 3.4%.

a. Is she qualified? More than most in this field.

b. Why is she running? Because she is a try-hard who is in denial about the racist, sexist nature of her party.

c. What would a successful campaign look like for her? Proving me wrong about the racist, sexist nature of her party by coming in second and/or winding up on the ticket.

Primary Prediction: She will not run a successful campaign. But she will burn through a lot of money that would have otherwise been spent on second boats and fourth golf club memberships. But she'll probably cling on to her place in the national discourse-going on Sunday talk shows to prove that the Republican party is not racist and sexist. Someday she'll probably be a cabinet secretary.

6. Tim Scott, Junior Senator from South Carolina.

National Polling Average: 2.8%.

a. Is he qualified? Yeah, I guess.

b. Why is he running? Because a lot of rich people told him that the party is dying to nominate a never married black man to be president. And he probably thinks he can wind up being Donald Trump's running mate. 

c. What Would a Successful Campaign Look Like For Him? Being on the ticket. 

Primary Prediction: He seems like a nice enough guy. He'll get some traction in Iowa. If he can finish second there, then he will just need to survive New Hampshire and probably come in second again in South Carolina. That could be a strong enough performance to get Trump's attention. 

7. Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey.

National Polling Average: 2.6%.

a. Is he qualified? Yes.

b. Why is he running? He seems to think he can out bully Donald Trump. But he has no idea the difference between being a Jersey caliber asshole and a world-class malignant narcissist. I genuinely believe that if Donald Trump participated in even one debate, he would make Chris Christie cry on the stage. That's the only thing I will regret about Trump not doing these debates.

c. What Would a Successful Campaign Look Like For Him? I suppose he thinks he can rehabilitate his image. And be there in case the party wakes up to how weak a general election candidate Trump is because of his baggage. But the party will never nominate him.

Primary Prediction: 4th in New Hampshire, out of the race soon after that. He'll probably go back to a cushy media job although I personally hope it's a peg or two lower than the one he had at ABC before entering this race. We need to stop making presidential candidate a good thing to have on your resume.

TIER FIVE: The Dreggs.

8. Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota. 

a. Is he qualified? Yes.

b. Why is he running? He is a rich guy that wants to be a national player. He actually has one admirable quality-he believes in climate change. (Although being from North Dakota, he also loves the fossil fuel industry, so that's kind of a wash. But I hope he gets to make that point on the debate stage this week because more Republicans need to hear it.

And he's a patron of the arts. Which is nice. But he also signed a sever abortion ban for his state, so fuck this guy after all. 

c. What Would a Successful Campaign Look Like For Him? Try not to blow too much of that fortune, Doug. Who knows, you might want to do this again in 2028.

Primary Prediction: Maybe the field thins out after Iowa and he wins some delegates in New Hampshire. If he really wants to burn a hole in his billion dollar fortune, he can hang on and win some more delegates in the early primaries. +

9. Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas.

a. Is he qualified: Almost.

b. Why is he running? He thinks he can govern like an old-school mainstream Republican free from the taint of Trumpism. That ship has sailed, but he's going to go down swinging.

c. What Would a Successful Campaign Look Like for Him? Qualifying for all the debates Not dropping out before Iowa. He also has shown some glimmers of independent thought on the subject of Trump's corruption, so he might be able to have a moment in this first debate. 

Primary Prediction: Hopeless.

TIER SIX: Sludge and Slugs.

There are some other dirt bags running in this race. The mayor of Miami. Lawrence Elder. One or two rich weirdoes (besides Trump and Ramaswamy.) Oh, and Will Hurd, who is sort of decent guy that is gaining all the traction you would expect a sort-of decent guy to get among these swine. I won't waste your time with them but I'll leave this a place holder. There is one scenario worth thinking about-what if Trump clobbers this field in the early states but then gets convicted of a crime and the party tries to turn on him? Well then we'll probably need a compromise candidate.  If DeSantis has done okay in the first few primaries, it could be him. But he'll probably alienate a lot of people in the coming months by spending a lot of money to get his ass kicked.  

If I had to pick someone to be the nominee who is not in the current field, I would go with Glenn Younkin, the governor of Virginia. He's a lightweight but he doesn't offend any of the major constituencies and the the party will probably fall for the hype of possibly winning Virginia for the first time in 20 years.

But brokered conventions and white-knight candidates are the stuff of history books and West Wing fan fiction. This is the real world and we are stuck with Trump v. Biden II. 

\

A Fortnight's Sleep (The Road to 270, Take 14)

My first map of 2020.

Two weeks from tonight I will sit down at this desk and type out my final election prediction for 2020. Then I will go to bed and be hit with a wave of nervous anticipation that I have not felt since my last Santa Claus Christmas. 

For now, Joe Biden leads by nine or ten points. He has leads in the pivotal states and has a few routes to running up the score. Ohio and Georgia, two states that Biden does not need to win, are true coin-flips. 

There is only one debate remaining. Perhaps most importantly, President Trump seems to be incapable of changing his course. He lives in the Fox News Bubble and he seems determined to campaign there as well. The election is more likely to be ugly and scary than it is to be close.

But this project is a commitment, so I crunched the numbers again. There was some modest movement towards Donald Trump in some of the betting markets for individual states. But the polling data remains pretty stable. Biden's numbers improved slightly in Arizona  and North Carolina, but remained where they were last week in most other places.

 I.  The Taxonomy Down the Stretch.

Last week I introduced a new way of thinking about the election, dividing all of the remotely competitive states into six categories. I'll walk through each of those tiers here.  The chart this week includes changes from last week for the prediction market prices and the 538.com forecast. 

A. The Nightmare scenario: The States Biden Defends.

There is no sign that NH, MN or NV have become competitive in the polling data. Nate Silver has all three of these states trending towards Biden. It must be noted that the betting markets for these states have drifted slightly toward Trump.  I think that is mostly profit-taking. People sold their shares in the 80s to buy more competitive states in order to collect more on election night.  

B. The Tight Scenario: The Rust Belt Hillary Killer States.

Very little movement in these states. Trump got one good poll from a Republican pollster called Trafalgar that had him up by one.  The other polls this week had Biden winning by at least eight points.

Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nebraska-2nd congressional district are basically unchanged from last week.

There was some Trump movement in the prediction markets here, but less pronounced than in the long-shot states.

C. The Good Scenario: Sun Belt States.

Here is a certified quirk of October. Florida's in-person early voting began today. About 50 of the 67 counties released data on the party affiliation of ballots returned. It was just about a draw, with the Republicans netting about 4K votes. That margin was more than made up for in today's vote by mail numbers. Most importantly, Miami-Dade did not release numbers by party affiliation but will do so tomorrow.  Today, the betting markets moved to Trump by about seven points, based on this data. But I expect we will see a correction tomorrow when the Miami numbers are released. 

Arizona and North Carolina have both trended towards Biden this week, but not dramatically.

I still like Biden to run the table up to this point. That would get him up to 334 Electoral Votes.

D. The Great Scenario: The Map Expands.

Georgia and Ohio remain true toss-ups. For most of the week Nate favored Biden slightly in GA and Trump slightly in OH. But neither is more than a 52/48 proposition. We are expecting a high-quality New York Times poll of Ohio tomorrow. I expect it will be very close, and that is consistent with my overall theme-if Ohio is close, Joe Biden is winning the election.

I am starting to think of Ohio and Iowa as a 7-10 split for Biden. He probably can't win both so he might as well focus on winning one of them. With two competitive senate races, Georgia is the logical place to put more resources. To be sporting, I'm moving Georgia into Biden's column tonight. But it is a true coin toss.

Trump remains a modest favorite in Iowa.

E. The Dream Scenario: A Blue Texas

Fun little data point here. In both the Economist and FiveThirtyEight models, the most common EV total for Joe Biden is 413.  That means running the table in all of the above states plus adding Texas.

But don't get carried away. It's "the mode" but it only happens 3.8% of the time. There are a lot of combinations in a race that has 56 jurisdictions A lot has to go right for Biden to get to this point. I think it's unlikely. 

This week, Texas moved slightly to the left in the models and slightly to the right on Predictit.com. The fundamentals are this-Trump is the favorite but Biden doesn't need to win there.

F. The Blow Out Scenario.

Biden has remote shots of winning Alaska, South Carolina and Montana.  You can probably add Kansas to that list, but none of these states will decide the election and the movement this week was modestly towards Donald Trump. 

All margins and prices are for Biden/Democrat. Changes from last week are shown in parenthesis.)

State	Elect Votes	2016 Margin	Predictit Price	538 Margin	538 %
New Hampshire	4	0.37%	77 (-3)	10.3 (+1)	87 (+3)
Nevada	6	2.42%	75 (-5)	7.1 (None)	88 (+1)
Minnesota	6	1.51%	75 (-5)	8.6 (+0.2)	92 (+1)
Michigan	16	-0.22	69 (-7)	8 (-3.9)	92 (None)
Pennsylvania	20	-0.72%	68 (-2)	6.1 (-0.4)	87 (None)
Wisconsin	10	-0.76%	68 (-5)	6.7 (+0.2)	87 (+2)
Nebraska-2	1	-2.00%	N/a	5.2 (+0.4)	79 (+3)
Florida	29	-1.19%	52 (-6)	3.2 (-0.6)	71 (None)
Arizona	11	-3.50%	57 (+3)	3.1 (+0.2)	69 (+2)
North Carolina	15	-3.66%	51 (-5)	2.6 (+0.5)	68 (+5)
Georgia	16	-5.10%	41 (-2)	-0.1 (+0.5)	50 (+4)
Ohio	18	-8.07%	37 (-5)	-0.1 (-0.6)	49(-4)
Iowa	6	-9.41%	35 (-6)	-1.2 (-0.3)	43 (-2)
Maine-2	1	-10.29%	N/a	0.4 (+1.1)	52 (+5)
Texas	38	-8.98%	27 (-3)	-2.6 (+0.6)	33 (+2)
Alaska	3	-14.73%	17 (-3)	-6.9 (-0.1)	22 (-1)
South Carolina	3	-14.27%	11 (-5)	-7.9 (-1.2)	11 (-5)
Montana	3	-20.23%	10 (-3)	-9.9 (+0.4)	11 (None)

II. The Forecasts.

1. FiveThirtyEight. Biden is at 88 percent, up slightly from 87 percent a week ago. 

2. The Economist. The most aggressive forecast in the field inches up again-moving Biden up to 92% from 91% a week ago. He seems to be determined to stay one step ahead of Nate Silver so he can yell "First!" when the networks call Florida or Pennsylvania on Election Night. His tally right now is Biden 350, Trump 188, which means that like me he moved Georgia into Biden's column this week. 

3. Sabato Crystal Ball. Biden 290, Trump 163, Toss-up 85. No changes from last week. 

4. 270toWin. Biden 290, Trump 163. Toss-up 85.  No changes from last week.

I think Sabato and 270 are both being too conservative with their toss-ups. Biden leads in FL and NC. Trump leads in IA. OH and GA are the only true toss-ups at the moment.

5. JHK Forecasts. Biden 88.3%, up slightly from 87.7%  They have Biden slightly favored in Georgia and Iowa with Ohio as close to a dead-heat as possible. They give Trump the edge there, 50.1% to 49.9%. That makes 357 Biden, 181 Trump. 

They are a little bullish on Biden in Texas, with him winning there 38.8% of the time. 

6. Plural Vote. Biden has a 73.1% chance of of winning, down slightly from 74% last week.

But they have Biden 332, Trump 206, which is up from 323 to 215 last week.  And they are even more bullish on Texas, giving Biden a 44% chance of winning there.

Right now this forecast feels the shakiest. They give Biden the lowest chance of winning the election but the best chance of achieving a blowout. 

7. Betting Markets. Predictit.com gives Biden 61.9%, up slightly from last week's 61.1%. That is consistent with other betting markets, that give Biden a slightly better than 3 to 2 chance of winning.

There was state-level movement toward Trump this week but that hasn't moved the big board. It also didn't change any states in their overall forecast, which remains Biden 334, Trump 204.

8. Spider Stumbled.

I remain confident but the state-level betting markets have me slightly more concerned than I was the last two weeks. I will move Biden from 91% down to 89%.  He was at 91% two weeks in a row.

He didn't have a bad polling week, but he did have a stable polling week, after several consecutive weeks of gains. 

But I do move Georgia into his column-by an inch.  That leaves my official prediction at Biden 351, Trump 187. 

And as I started last week, I will take a crack at the popular vote totals again. 

Biden 52.36%  (-0.19)

Trump 45.02%  (+0.17)

Jorgenson (Libertarian) 1.76%  (+0.1)

Hawkins (Green Party) 0.65%

Others: 0.2%  (+0.1)

Looking at all of the date-polls, forecasts, betting markets, there is simply no reason to doubt that Joe Biden remains on a path to 270 and beyond.  We got this week and then next week. Then it will be Monday. Then it will be game day.

Keep the faith.

Democracy (The Road to 270, Take 10)

 I.  The Horse Race.

We have seen another week of very little movement in the polls. Joe Biden led the RCP average by 6.8 points one week ago and he leads it by 6.6 points tonight. Biden leads the 538.com average by 6.9 points, virtually changed from 7.0 points last week.  The only slight movement in these averages was caused by an outlier Rasmussen poll that showed Trump up by one. Everybody else has Biden up somewhere between six and nine points.

At the state level, there has been some modest tightening in Pennsylvania but nothing that will cause me to change any predictions.  

Okay, now to the real news of the week-the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

II.  Democracy.

Ruth Bader-Ginsburg died on Friday evening, aged 87.  The death of a SCOTUS justice is always major news, but the proximity to the election and the expected nomination of someone at the opposite end of the ideological spectrum made this one a huge story.  Polling indicates that the American people think the nomination should be filled by the winner of the looming presidential election. Facts on the ground indicate that this will not deter the Republican party from cramming through someone in the six short weeks they have to play with.

The most tiresome subject in politics is hypocrisy but a few words must be spared here for the colossal flip-flip that Republicans have made from 2016 in the aftermath of Antonin Scalia's passing. That event caused them to collectively pull a precedent out of their own ass and say that a vacancy that opens in a presidential election year can not be filled until after the election.

That precedent went right back up their ass this week in record time. The Republicans are goin to put a 6th Federalist on the bench because "fuck you, pay me" is the most subtle, nuanced idea they are capable of believing in.

I'm a moderate guy. I'm an institutionalist. I was stupid enough to think that some Republicans in 2016 would insist on giving Obama's nominee a hearing. But even II am not surprised that that they are pulling this move. They exist to exert power and they think this helps rally their base. You have to remember that a group of (mostly) men who are willing to surrender their self-respect to licking Donald Trump's shoes are not goin to be concerned with fair-play or niceties.

Despite the seemingly inevitable outcome of this process, let's take a minute to measure how bad this is for the country.  Republicans have been justifying their flip-flop, to the extent they bother explaining themselves to anyone, by saying that the American people have chosen them to make these decisions.  Let's take a look at the numbers behind this claim.

This coming election is the last one before I turn 50. In my whole voting life, Republicans have won the popular vote exactly once.  The longest serving justice at the moment is Clarence Thomas.  He was nominated by George H.W. Bush in 1991.  If you add up all of the presidential elections since Bush's victory in 1988, Democrats have received 443.5 million votes. Republicans have received 416.5 million.  That's a 27 million vote deficit.  

As for the senate, it is true that the Republicans held on to the majority in the 2018 election by winning races against incumbents in Indiana, Florida, Missouri and South Dakota. But that doesn't tell the whole story of the 100 senators in that once august chamber.  If you add up the votes from the last 3 cycles of elections, that is from the last time that every seat was up in a regularly scheduled election, you get an aggregate result of 124.5 million votes for the 47 Democrats against only 99.7 million votes for the 53 Republicans. 

The senate is an inherently non-democratic institution. Creating it was part of the grand bargain between large and small states. This favors Republicans in ways that are not subtle. They currently control 53 percent of the seats after getting only 44 percent of the votes in the elections for those seats.

At least we can say the House of Representatives represents the will of the people, as it was designed to do.  In the most recent regular House Election, Democrats got 60.6 million votes and the Republicans only got 50.9 million.  The Democrats do have a majority in the house, although the 53.4 percent of seats they hold slightly undercounts the 54.3% of the two-party vote they got last time.  And, of course, the House plays no role in confirming Supreme Court Justices.

This is not sustainable.  The Democratic party have gotten over 54% of the votes during the most recent round of elections for President, Senate and the House.  Those numbers are likely to be worse after November third, where I expect the Democrats to take back the White House and they are slightly favored to win control of the senate. But soon the Supreme Court will have six dogged conservatives and only three Democrats, none of whom are as consistently liberal as the late lamented RBG.

There are two specks of hope on the horizon. RBG's passing led to an avalanche of donations to Democratic candidates over the weekend.  No Democratic candidate for senate with a serious chance of winning will have trouble getting the word out in the closing weeks. And Joe Biden has an apparently commanding cash lead over the idiotic incumbent he must defeat.

III.  The Forecasts.

The professionals barely budged this week-again. Biden gained 1% chance of winning in both the 538 and Economist forecasts.  He slid a point in the Neutral Vote and JHK forecasts. 

Trump did have some good news in the state level betting markets this week.  Predictit.com went a little nuts after the RBG news and flipped both NC and FL from Biden to Trump. We haven't really seen any polls to justify that movement, but the speculation seems to be that a Supreme Court Confirmation battle will rally the base to Trump.  It's not a crazy idea, but I will wait to see polling evidence that the counter-effect among Dem voters isn't greater.

I will trim 1% of my confidence in Biden winning. I now give him an 84% chance of winning.  The weeks in polls was fine but his lead is better described as stable than growing. With the lead he has, that's probably enough. But we're not in the zone where we should be overly confident.

IV. Taxonomy, Again.

Every time the numbers move slightly, I start to think of the electoral map in different ways. This is how I can best describe my current expectations.

I am confident that Biden will win. But the size of the outcome depends on the following:

A. It will seem close if he doesn't win Florida.  He probably only gets to 290 maximum without Florida.

B. It will seem comfortable if he wins NC and GA. Getting over 350 will look like a nice win, especially if he can win a state like Georgia, which Obama never carried and which ought to be trending blue over time.

C. It will seem like a blowout if he adds Iowa and Ohio.  This is where he recreates the 2008 coalition, with GA subbing in for Indiana.

D. The cherry on top would be Texas.  This probably only happens if Trump craters in some way, but the psychological value of flipping Texas will be enormous.

The Road to 270, Take 5

The election is now 100 days away. I haven't updated my prediction in six weeks because the polls have been steady. Joe Biden is winning the national vote by eight to 10 points and seems to have multiple paths to 270. He is the betting favorite and his opponent does not seem capable of substantive change.

A lot can happen in 100 days but for the moment, it is reasonable to start thinking less about who will win the race and more about what the margin of victory will be.  I think comparing the possible outcomes to recent elections is a good framework.


I.  The Obama Coalition.

Year	Result	Changes
2008	Obama 365, McCain 173	359/179 After 2010 census reapportionment.
2012	Obama 332, Romney 206	Lost IN, NC & NE-2.
2016	Trump 306, Hillary 232	Lost PA, WI, MI, FL, OH, IA and ME-2.

In 2008 Barack Obama won the popular vote by more than seven points and the Electoral College by more than two to one. The democrats receded from that mark in the two most recent elections, but I think Biden has a shot to win every state Obama won in 2008 except Indiana. He is still the under dog in Iowa and Ohio but he could make up for those states by winning Arizona and Georgia.  So let's define a big win as going over 360 electoral votes-that is to win more EVs than the original Obama states have been worth since the 2010 census reapportionment.

A significant win could look something like winning all of the Obama states except IN, IA & OH. That would put him at 322 votes. Give him Arizona and he's up to 333, one vote better than Obama did in 2012.

A more modest victory would be anything short of the 2012 race.  And, of course, a loss would be a loss. A terrible loss would be to somehow do worse than Clinton did. If that happens, a lot has gone wrong over the next 100 days.


II. The Veep Stakes.
Last time I updated the field, I thought that the list had been narrowed down to five people. But this week Joe Biden said there were four black women still in contention. My short list had three (Harris, Demmings and Rice).  So it's safe to assume that he is considering some combination of them along with Major Lance-Bottoms of Atlanta and/or Representative Bass of California.

The betting markets still prefer Harris but I am leaning more and more towards Susan Rice. Here is my new look at the options. I hope that Biden is confident enough in his polling and prospects that he chooses the person who he thinks will make the best president. In my estimation, that person is Susan Rice.

Candidate	Percentage	Change
Harris	38	Down from 50%
Rice	30	Up from 3rd place and 18%
Bass	12	Up from unranked
Duckworth	9	Up from 8%
Demmings	6	Down from 2nd place and 20%
Lujan-Grisham	2	Up from unranked
Widmer	1	Up from unranked
The Field	2	Down from 5

III. Other Forecasts.

1. Spider Stumbled.  Holding steady with Biden 334, Trump 204. I think Biden is a 85% favorite to win.  And for the record, here is how I have predicted the other elections since the Obama coalition uhh...coalesced.

Year	Spiderstumbled Prediction	States I got Wrong
2008	Obama 349, McCain 189	North Carolina and Nebraska-2.
2012	Obama 303, Trump 235	Florida
2016	Clinton 322, Trump 206	PA, WI, MI, FL, OH, IA and Maine-2.

I was slightly cautious in 2008 and 2012 but like most people, I did not see the Trump upset coming.

2. JHK Forecasts.  They give Joe Biden a 87.1% chance of winning. Their median result is Biden 347, Trump 191. (Up from 325 to 213.)  If you award every state to the winner with a 50.00001% probability, you end up with an unchanged result of Biden 341, Trump 197. (Up from 334 to 204-they now give Biden Iowa and all of Maine's votes.)

3. Predicit it:  Their betting line is Biden 62 cents, Trump 39 cents. That is up from 58/42. Once again if you award every state to the candidate who is favored, however slightly, you get an unchanged result of Biden 334, Trump 204.  That is unchanged from last time.

4. 270towin.com  They have joined the bandwagon. They now project Biden to win with 278 votes, with Trump getting 169 and 91 votes being toss-up. Six weeks ago they had Biden stuck at 232 with Trump at 204 and 102 toss-up. They moved PA, WI and MI to Biden's column from toss-up and they have moved Ohio and Maine-2nd to tossup.

5. Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball: Yet more static;  Biden 268, Trump 204, Toss-up 66. That is up from 248/233/57 but he still has Biden short of 270. To be elected, Biden would need to win one of four toss-up states-Arizona, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Florida.

6.  The Economist. The Economist continues to be most bullish on Biden.  They give him a 92% chance of winning (up from 84%)  and a median result of Biden 350, Trump 192. (That's up from 335/213)  If you look at their categorizations, it's a bit more conservative-with Biden 307, Trump 185 and Uncertain 66.  They have Ohio as uncertain,  along with IA, NC, GA and AZ.  

Still no forecast from Nate Silver.  But I think that is coming soon.  His first 2016 forecast was released on June 8th. One possible explanation is that the Democratic primaries are not officially over yet because of COVID-19 delays. But it's hard to imagine that the results of the Connecticut primary on August 11th will move the needle at all.