Why I’m calling the US election for Biden and the Democrats
Given the absolute lunacy of this past year, the American presidential campaign of 2020 has followed a strikingly consistent pattern.
Since the coming of the virus in the spring, Democratic challenger Joe Biden has held a clear (if not quite overwhelming) lead over the incumbent Donald Trump.
Last Thursday’s Real Clear Politics aggregator of polls found Biden at 52 per cent nationally, with Trump 10 points back, at 42 per cent.
Of course, this number itself is an analytical red herring, as it is not how Americans elect their presidents. Instead, it is done through the electoral college, state-by-state, with the winner of all but two of the 50 contests receiving all the electoral votes from that specific election (with the exception of Maine and Nebraska, who assign their electoral votes using a proportional system).
The states with the largest populations receive the most electoral votes. This can lead to some very odd outcomes. For example, any campaign manager would far and away prefer to win the rich prize of California by one vote, rather than winning the beautiful emptiness of Alaska by 10,000.
Another quirk of the present system is that it is possible to call more than 30 states for the Democrats or the Republicans years ahead of the November vote. At present, Alabama, Kansas, and Oklahoma will perpetually vote for the Republicans, just as the Democrats do not have to worry about California, Massachusetts, or New York. As a general rule of thumb, the coasts are kinder to the Democrats with the vast hinterland of America (derisively dubbed “the fly-by states” by arrogant Democrats, which is perhaps why they tend to lose there) favouring the Republicans.
So given all this, in the end it is just a handful of battleground states — toss-ups which swing from party to party and have a significant number of electoral votes — that actually determine the overall presidential contest. This time around that list includes Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Ohio, and the Big Three that shockingly put Trump over the top last time: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
And here, the contest is much closer. As of last Thursday, the aggregate of battleground polls only had Biden up by four and a half points, tantalizingly at the edge of the margin of error. To put this in recent political context, in the key battlegrounds Biden finds himself ahead by almost exactly the same percentage as Hillary Clinton was in 2016.
This is a reality keeping Democrats up late at night. Trump has a real chance at winning a second term — say one in three.
And yet, for all this, I am prepared to call the coming election as a Democratic sweep.
The House of Representatives is easy: presently the Democrats are decisively ahead in the 215 contests, compared to the Republicans in 186, with 34 races in play, and 435 Representatives in total.
As such, the Democrats need to only win three more races to hold the House, which they will surely do. In fact, Speaker Nancy Pelosi will find herself again with a comfortable, if not overwhelming, majority to work with. Given that the lower House is run by majority on almost all voting matters, the Democrats there can do largely as they please.
The battle for control of the Senate is entirely different, as hard-fought and unpredictable as the House is a foregone conclusion. Presently, poll aggregators have it 51–49 for the Democrats, which would be a pick-up of four seats (I have it even closer as a sex scandal in North Carolina is likely to derail the front-running Democratic candidate there).
Presently, Republicans enjoy a six-seat majority, 53-47. Republicans are sure to pick up a seat in Alabama, but that is all. The Democrats, meanwhile, have the chance to win seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and quite possibly Iowa.
That will leave the chamber divided exactly evenly, 50–50. In such a case, the Constitution dictates that the usually embarrassingly extraneous Vice President, as nominal President of the Senate, should break ties — meaning whoever wins the presidency this time around would also take control of the Senate. That makes the stakes over who wins the White House that much higher.
This leaves only the race for the White House. Here we return to our old friend Heraclitus: “character is destiny.”
Donald Trump’s brashness initially seemed a refreshing breath of fresh air for America after years of what often seemed (even to moderates) to be decidedly mediocre government, presided over by a smug, entitled, quasi-aristocracy of the Clintons, the Bushes, and the Obamas.
After the debacle of Iraq, the global financial crisis, and years of the middle of the country feeling largely forgotten by coastal elites, Trump’s ascension perfectly fit this more populist tenor of the times.
That is, until Covid-19. Suddenly, Trump’s bumptiousness, silly belief in the rule of the amateur, serial narcissism, and most of all his preternatural lack of empathy — all in abundant display before in safer times — now seemed to many to pose an unendurable risk.
This, above all, is why Biden will win a relatively close but clear victory on 3 November.
This is how I have called the horse race. We will spend the next four years analysing what this new political constellation means for both America and the rest of the world.
Main image credit: Getty