Who Will Win the 2020 US Presidential Election?
Let us not be confused by the news and let us turn to history to make sense of this election. Before, some description of the present is in order
Trump in 2020
Last election, Trump won with his populist rhetoric and use of social media to bash his political opponent. Fast forward in 2020 and a new reality has set in: the pandemic and the economy. Since the pandemic has hit, 200,000 Americans have lost their lives and the economy plummeted at its fasted rate ever hitting 14.7% unemployment in the span a of month to recovering now at around 7% nationally, still figures much higher than normal unemployment rates of 3.5–4% in the US.
Trump has seen his usual script of social media attacks being turned against him. As he attacked Clinton in 2016 with hurtful information against her released in the public, Trump’s tax payments now known to the public as well surely has hurt him with his own base questioning their representative — history is repeating itself in some fashion yet again. This is not the Trump of 2016 riding the same populist wave.
We must ask ourselves, does history itself repeat ?
This Time is Different, or Not?
In the book Superforecasters, one of the principles for predicting events is to look to use cases. Ray Dalio has a saying “Another One of Those”. Clearly these point to regarding history, so what does it foretell for this election. A stark statistic is presidents seeking election in recession or minor recession conditions. Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush both lost re-elections with recessions on their hands. Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have been historically Blue states except in 2016 when 40,000 extra voters gave those states to Trump. What tis the likelihood that these historically Blue states once again turn Red? Unemployment is these states is high and manufacturing — a decisive factor in the last election — hasn’t changed since the last election.
What about a contested election that gives Trump the upper hand? Only twice in US history has there been a contested election out of the 58 total elections. That is a mere 3% of cases. Odds are, this election will not be contested as well. Given that social capital is at historic lows, the odds of a coordinated backlash or civil war are slim — different from what I wrote in this article because the Civil War had high level of social capital and war erupted nevertheless.
Given that Donald Trump is a populist, we must ask, how successful has he been in delivering his election promises of 2016? From my count, he has kept his promise on 38% of his promises, not too bad, considering that he was a political outsider. However, this time is slightly different. We are dealing with a pandemic and as suggested from the polls, even Trump’s strong base of senior voters has been eroding due to his handling of the pandemic. The percentage of populist winning re-elections in the history of the US is only FDR, that is because populist voters are fickle. If you do not deliver they do not vote for you. And from the numbers, this as well as economy and pandemic and scandal (tax payment) is working against Trump.
Let’s not forget the Blue wave in the midterm elections, history shows that this is rarely a victim of trend reversals.
