Even though the elections in November are still months away, an increasing number of media sources are making forecasts. The Trump campaign ought to be grinning circumspectly after seeing one of the most recent ones, which came from The Economist, a publication that is not usually kind to Republicans. The outlet made its first prediction for the presidential election public on Wednesday, predicting that Donald Trump will defeat Joe Biden two to one in the Electoral College.
According to our poll tracker, there is a close race for the popular vote between Messrs. Biden and Trump. But according to our projection model, which evaluates the likelihood of various events, Joe Biden has a 33% chance of remaining in the White House. That is only marginally more than, say, the probability that any given day in London will see rain. Our prediction is based on a combination of opinion polls and “fundamentals,” or historical data points with predictive significance, such as the president’s approval rating and other economic indices. Because the electoral college, not the popular vote, determines the winner, the model also incorporates state-level statistics. After that, it generates 10,001 potential scenarios every day to determine the likelihood of various outcomes. “View our model analysis here.”
Let’s agree on one thing first: a “popular vote” does not exist. Not one. It is a statistical curiosity that might be useful for campaigns seeking a broad sense of the zeitgeist, but it has no electoral significance and no bearing. Not one. We don’t elect presidents in this manner, so it’s irrelevant, and it becomes tiresome to watch media organizations, who should know better, engage in such stunts. The state-by-state polls are the relevant data points since the Electoral College is how we elect presidents.
And the economist admits this afterward.
“For now, Mr. Biden’s situation appears bleak. Even though he won the Sun Belt battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada four years ago, he is currently down by almost five percentage points in the polls. In the event that Mr. Biden loses those three, he will instead need to win Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, the three Rust Belt states. These states are a coin toss because Mr. Trump’s lead is only one or two percentage points.”
Put another way, the Trump campaign is starting to resemble Christmas, but they had better be ready to run to the finish line. The reason such states are considered battlegrounds is well-established, so there’s no reason to believe that the Biden team will adopt a Hillaryan strategy and disregard states like Wisconsin in the naive belief that they will automatically flip to the Democratic Party. It’s also important to observe that Trump is pushing into blue states, trying to widen the electoral field, and, incidentally, putting the Biden campaign in reverse. Allowing your opponent to set the terms of the battle is never a beneficial idea, but it appears like Team Trump is taking the lead from the Biden campaign—at least for the time being.
Another factor that could be important is the lack of announcements about Donald Trump’s potential running partner.
Naturally, The Economist felt compelled to make one more jab because, well,
“There are still five months until the election, and a lot may happen. Additionally, a polling mistake is always a possibility and might work in any candidate’s favor. Because the Democratic Party’s educated voter base is more likely to come out than Mr. Trump’s coalition of less educated people, the polls may not fairly represent this fact. Or, like they did in 2016, they might underestimate Mr. Trump.”
Author:Â Steven Sinclaire
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