The General Election Gets Underway to Great Stability (The Road to 270, Take 8)

My last Road to 270 post is only six days old. It was written at the tail end of a brief spate of polls that showed some signs of hope for Donald Trump. Less than a week later, his convention ripple has flattened. 

Joe Bid leads the Real Clar Politics average by 7.1 points and the FiveThirtyEight polling average by 7.5 points. He has a clear lead in almost every true swing state.  In Nate Silver's model only one state is categorized as a "toss-up", which means neither candidate has a greater than 55% chance of winning.  That state is North Carolina. Mr. Silver's forecast has Joe Biden winning North Carolina 53% of the time.  The second closest race is Ohio, which Trump is currently winning in 57% of simulations.

A lot of the concern about Biden's momentum was based on a stutter-step in the 538 model.  When Trump got the slightly more favorable post-convention bounces, Biden's chances of winning dipped below 70% for a time, which changed the characterization of the race from "Biden Favored to Win" to "Biden Slightly Favored to Win."

A few days ago Nate tweeted out an important explanation of how his model works.  His mode factors time remaining quite heavily.  Polls a few months out are subject to a lot of change, and Nate balances those out by considering previous voting behavior and partisan fundamentals in each state. If you click on his Wisconsin forecast, you learn that "Right now, 56% of the forecast for North Carolina is based on polls and 44% relies on factors like demographics and past voting patterns." As the election gets closer, the polls will count more and the other factors less.  Silver summarized this effect by saying that if the election were being held that day, Biden would be about a 90% favorite to win.

So the difference between the Economist's bullish forecast and Nate's more guarded forecast is time.  As a general principal, I tend to favor Nate's logic.  But you do have to consider the specifics of this election.  A lot can go wrong in eight weeks, but Trump's biggest obstacle seems to be that the American people have firmly fixed views of him, and they tend to be negative. 

Trump will get over 40% of the vote. He might get over 45%. Because the electoral college structurally favors Republicans, that might be enough for him to win.  But so far he has tried several approaches to attacking Biden and none of them have worked. I simply do not think that he's going to be able to make up for his three years and eights months of shitty, incompetent, and corrupt governance. Trump will fight hard and he will fight dirty. But he is a the under dog, and for very good reason.

The only real news this week was that Trump's campaign may be having financial troubles.  Biden raised $364 million dollars in August.  That is more than Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump combined to raise in August 2016.  Trump has not yet released his number for August.

I think some of the reporting on his cash woes is a bit overstated. I do not think he will have any trouble being on the air waves in the closing weeks of the election. But big Republican donors can read polls too. If they think Trump can't win, they may start diverting funds to important Senate races.

I revise my forecast slightly by giving Biden an 85% chance of winning. That is up from 83% last week and back to where I had it 3 weeks ago.  My prediction remains Biden 334, Trump 204 in the Electoral College. Nothing I have seen recently has convinced me that a single state has changed. 

I think Biden will sweep the Big 3 Rust Belt states that swung the election last time (WI, MI and PA). I also think he will win Arizona and Nebraska's 2nd congressional district. I remain cautiously optimistic that he will win Florida and I favor him slightly in North Carolina.  

The states to watch for an expanded map are, in order, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas. For now, I assume Trump will sweep them.

Forecast	Current %	Current EVs	Previous	Changes
Spider Stumbled	85.00%	334-204	83/334	Biden up 2% probability
JHK Forecasts	77.40%	334-204	79.7/335	Biden down 2% and ME-1 to Trump
270towin.com	N/a	278-169-91	278-169-91	None
Predicitit.com	57.80%	319-219	55.3/319	Biden up 2.5% probability.
Sabato Crystal Ball	N/a	268-204-66	268-204-66	None
The Economist	84.00%	335-203	84%/352	None
FiveThirtyEight	72.00%	334-204	70%/319	Biden up 2%, NC to Biden

Faint Signs of a Bounce (The Road to 270, Take 7)

This post is a day late and it will also be very brief. Since the Republican convention ended, the mood in the media has been an anxious anticipation of a tightening race. But 5 days after the Republican convention ended, we are seeing only a modest bounce for the incumbent. Biden's lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average dipped from 7.8 points to 6.2 points. It currently stands at 6.5. And Biden's chances in Nate Silver's forecast dropped slightly from a high of 73% down to 68%. It currently sits at 70%. Trump has gotten a couple fo decent polls. One poll of Michigan by a Republican pollster had him up by two. And a national poll conducted by Emerson right after the convention showed Biden's lead down to two. But the cross-tabs on that poll showed some screwy results, like Biden winning the suburbs but losing the cities. More importantly, Morning consult released a new round of battle groun polling yesterday tha showed Biden up in every swing state except North Carolina, where he was two points behind. The only state that showed significant movement was Arizona, where Biden's lead went up to 10 points. Two new national polls are out this morning, showing Joe Biden up by seven and eight points, respectively. So with both conventions behind us and Labor Day upon us, Joe Biden maintains a clear lead in national polls. He also has the upper hand in the electoral college and just announced a massive haul of $300 million dollars raised in August. His campaign is doing great. The biggest news fo the week might be that Donald Trump has embraced the notion that recent violence in Kenosha and Portland is a harbinger of things to come in Joe Biden's America. It has apparently not occurred to him or his senior staff that these events have happened in Donald Trump's America. No matter. If this gambit was going to work, we would be seeing more movement in his direction. There will be a flurry of polls in the next week or so. But for now, I remain confident that Biden is the heavy favorite. And I'm not sure what moves Trump can pull to change that dynamic. 

I. The Forecasts. I'm shaving one point of my forecast. I now give Biden and 83% chance of winning. I'm not flipping any states, so my official forecast is still Biden 319, Trump 219. Here is a look at how others see it:

II. The Paths. As the election gets in full swing, I thought it might be helpful to write a bit about what the most important states mean to the Biden campaign.

 

a. The Straightest Line. Hillary Clinton won 232 electoral votes. Her closest path to victory would have been to carry Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Wisconsin (11). Those three states would have gotten her to 278, but she lost each of them by less than one point. So the most obvious path for Biden is to do one point better in each of those states. 

But if something goes wrong, here is how he can make it up by winning something in the sun belt. 

b. The make-ups. 

If Biden loses Wisconsin (or Minnesota) he can make up for it by winning AZ, NC or FL.

If Biden loses Wisconsin AND Minnesota he needs to win FL or AZ AND NC. 

If Biden loses Wisconin (or Minnesota) and Michigan, he needs to win FL or AZ and NC. 

If Biden loses Michigan, he needs to win AZ, NC or FL. 

If Biden loses Michigan and Wisconin (or Minnesota), he needs to win any 2 among NC, AZ and FL. 

If Biden loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, he needs to win FL or NC AND AZ. 

If Biden loses Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, he wold need to win FL plus NC or AZ. 

c. The quirks. 

For all of the above scenarios, GA could do the job of NC. I think Biden is more likely to win NC, but this could be a year that rearranges some things. Also must note that NH could throw a monkey wrench in some of these secnarios, but it's only 4 electoral votes and I think Biden will do well there.

A Lot Has Happened But Nothing Has Changed. (The Road to 270, Take 6)

The election is 10 weeks from today. It has been exactly 30 days since my last forecast. In those 30 days, the Joe Biden selected kamala Harris as his running mate and the Democrats held their modified mostly vitual convention from a small arena adjacent to a minor league baseball stadium in Wilmington, Delaware. Both Senator Harris and the convention have been well-received. The polls have been pretty steady. Biden's average in the "poll of polls" has been somewhere between seven and nine for most of the summer. At the moment it's about eight. The Republican convention started last night to decidenly mixed reviews. The early speakers were Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who got mostly good reviews but the night ended with bizarre speeches by both Donald Trump Junior and his girlfriend, who appeared not to notice that she was addressing an empty room. For reasons unkown to this correspondent, they both finished their speeches several minutes faster than planned, leaving seven minutes of dead air time for the networks to fill with pundits desperately trying not to speculate about what caused that. The other item of interest to readers of this blog that happened since our last forecast is that Nate Silver finally published his forecast. The headline is that he gave Biden a 71% chance of winning, the exact same percentage that he gave Hillary of winning going into Election Day 2016. But I hvae to mention that the new website is an ugly, awful mess. The graphics are busy and stupid. It is difficult to get important information such as what polls have been added to the forecase recently. I'm still not sure why he took so long to publish, but we can safely rule out a desire to improve the viewing experience of his audience. I. My Forecast. I have not changes to announce. My previsou forecast had Biden at 334 and Trump at 204. I see no reason to change that. Last week I was wavering on putting North Carolina in Trump's column but we have seen gotten two polls that show Biden up by 4 and 3 points, respectively. That race will be close but Biden is the narrow favorite for now. II. Other Forecasts. Now that Nate Silver has joined the fray, I think we can make a chart to track where everyone stands.

With 70 days to go, there is something of a consensus-Biden is the favorite. He will probably win with a state or two to spare but things could get close. I am having a hard time seeing Trump make up all that ground though. The American people know him and they don't like him. The message of the Democratic convention was both straight-foward and true-the President is an asshole and maybe that shouldn't be so. The Republican convention seems to be a mixture of scaring people into thinking that their way of life is imperiled and that only Donald Trump can save them. That would have a lot more plausibility if we weren't still living in a pandemic as the rest of the world gets back to normal. Trump has a big enough base that he won't be blown out like McGovern or Mondale. He should even avoid Duakakis like numbers. I intend to update this blog every Tuesday between now and November 3rd. At some point, things will probably be close than they are right now. Maybe Biden will have a bad debate. Maybe the deaths from and new cases of COVID-19 will plummet enough to create a sense of relief. But it sure seems more likely that we'll thrash about with something like a 50 to 42 split for most of the coming months.

Being the Story of the Worst Person in the World and the Time He Spent Working for Donald Trump

The below post is a review of "The Room Where it Happened" by former National Security Advisor John Bolton.

I struggled with how to rate this book. It contains important historical information. The writing style is vintage prep school/Ivy league. It is unadorned with digressions or excessive color. No infinitives are split and ending a sentence with a proposition is a a proposition up with which he will not put. 

But he's also a raging asshole. The books contains no grace notes. He rarely credits anyone with any good ideas or for being helpful to him in carrying out his duties. There is not a whiff of humanity on display here. If you think I'm exaggerating consider that he at one point complains that former Chief of Staff John Kelly spent too much time visiting the grave of his son at Arlington National Cemetery. 

The details of daily life in Trump world are about what you expect. The President is a deeply unserious person, filled with personal rage and unable of paying attention to any subject more complex than a personal insult or longer than a matchbook. Whenever the subject of Iran comes up, he goes on a tirade about wanting to prosecute John Kerry for talking to the Iranians. Whenever the subject of Afghanistan comes up, he rails about how corrupt the president of Afghanistan is. Small problem there-the stories he tells are about Hamid Karzai who was has not been president of Afghanistan since 2014. 

But we already know what an ignorant buffoon the author's former boss is. What he can't help revealing is what a malevolent, remorseless prick he himself is. At one point he describes the night that Donald Trump reversed a decision to strike targets in Iran because the lawyers told him it could cause as many as 150 human deaths. (The mission was to avenge the loss of an unmanned drone over the Persian Gulf.) Bolton counters that the more accurate number was probably closer to 100 because one of the 3 proposed targets would probably not be located in time. He describes Trump's decision to back down thusly, "In my government experience, this was the most irrational thing I ever witnessed any President do."

There is one slightly juvenile joy in this book. Bolton delights in shitting on the other members of Trump's inner circle. His criticisms of Nikki Haley wreak of sexism, but then again maybe she is a shallow egotist obsessed with her own political future. His treatment of Kelly and Jim Mattis are down right insulting. He is slightly ambivalent about Pompeo but ultimately throws him under the bus too. The only public figure that avoids Bolton's insults is Mike Pence. Some of that is probably genuine. Pence appears to at least be an adult and to have had some modest success in counseling against Trump's very worst instincts. But I suspect he real reason for this is much more base. John Bolton probably figures Pence is likely to be the Republican nominee next time around. And like any shallow egoist, he is a little too mindful of his own political future. 

The Epilogue is 12 page whine about why he was right not to testify in Trump's impeachment. His reasons for this decision are too stupid to detail but the short version is this-he didn't want to weaken the Executive branch. Because deep down, John Bolton is an authoritarian. He just was not happy about how reluctant the current authoritarian was to use military force.

For four years, I have tried to think of circumstances in which I might vote for Donald Trump. That has not been an easy answer. But I now have one that is easy to spot-I would vote for Donald Trump if the other candidate was John Bolton.

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.

Just Kidding-The Road to 538, Just for Fun-Take Two.

I realized after my last post that JHK forecasts also ranks the contests by likelihood of outcome.  So I checked my rankings against their more sophisticated forecast and not surprisingly, there was a lot of similarity.

They are a little more confident than me that Biden will win Florida and (to a lesser extent) North Carolina.  I make him the modest favorite in both places but they are pretty bullish on him, especially in Florida. They give him an 82.8% chance of winning there. The scars of 2000, 2016 and especially 2018 make it impossible for me to go much higher than 60%.

Their forecast also gives Biden a shot in Alaska.  He is the heavy underdog there but at 10.7%, they give him odds roughly equal to picking a correct digit at random.  I don't see it happening for him. LBJ in 1964 is the only Democrat to ever win Alaska. And Trump's foolish drilling policies are popular there.

Here is the chart for comparison.I had to estimate their odds for some of the congressional district races in Maine and Nebraska.

Jurisdiction	Electoral Votes	Running Tally	JHK Chances of Biden Win
DC	3	3	100
Delaware	3	6	100
New York	29	35	100
California	55	90	100
Hawaii	4	94	100
Vermont	3	97	100
Massachusetts	11	108	100
Connecticut	7	115	99.9
Maryland	10	125	100
Illinois	20	145	99.9
New Jersey	14	159	100
Washington	12	171	100
Oregon	7	178	99.6
Rhode Island	4	182	100
Virginia	13	195	97.2
Colorado	9	204	96.6
New Mexico	5	209	99.4
Maine 1st CD	1	210	100
Maine	2	212	95.5
Minnesota	10	222	93.2
Nevada	6	228	90.1
New Hampshire	4	232	88.5
Michigan	16	248	92.7
Pennsylvania	20	268	87.9
Wisconsin	10	278	82.1
Arizona	11	289	73.3
Florida	29	318	82.8
North Carolina	15	333	75.1
Nebraska 2nd Cd	1	334	63 (Estimate)
Iowa	6	340	53.2
Georgia	16	356	51.9
Ohio	18	374	47.4
Maine 2nd CD	1	375	50 (Estimate)
Texas	38	413	30
Montana	3	416	5.2
South Carolina	9	425	6.8
Missouri	10	436	3.7
Indiana	11	446	4.1
Alaska	3	449	10.7
Mississippi	6	455	2.8
Kansas	6	461	1.8
Nebraska	2	463	0.2
Nebraska 3rd CD	1	464	0
Nebraska 1st CD	1	465	0
Tennessee	11	476	0.1
Louisiana	8	484	1
South Dakota	3	487	0.1
Utah	6	493	0.1
Alabama	9	502	0
Kentucky	8	510	0
Oklahoma	7	517	0
Arkansas	6	523	0
Idaho	4	527	0
North Dakota	3	530	0
Wyoming	3	533	0
West Virginia	5	538	0