A vote isn’t the same thing as it was in 2016. It’s meaning will decide the 2020 election.
4 years ago, there was a nation. It was a nation, full of optimism, hope. Cheers were drawn on from every echo of its coasts. Parties flooded the homes of the right, the left, and everyone in between. The TV, it was a smile on everyone's face, as a childlike alacrity struck a nation to its core. History was in the making 4 years ago. In those fine days, making history was the fabric that fueled a fire deep inside that nation. It was chariots, chariots of passion that would be the envy of the world, which would ask for a nation as forth fully united in its people, such as this nation was.
Now, I don’t know what nation I’m referring to there- or whether or not there was a nation like that at the time, but that nation was not the United States of America. In the U.S, things were- to put it in terms that would best be described as loosely precise: frantic. Polls were on the screen of every Americans’ phone, the news predicting a win for the Democrats, all the while the Republican party was basking in the magnetic fury that grasped the Trump name- a magnet leading them to the polls, to vote in the 45th president of the United States of America.
Now, while the country was not united in its optimism, the election was, in every respect, an upset that has stuck with the country all up until today. Today, questions of how Clinton lost still come up- and answered with a salad of answers. Character, emails, not going into swing states. The plate goes on.
The election of 2016 was a rather unexpected victory for Donald Trump, and in 2020, that mood is all but an amplified Deja Vu to some. It’s also that same mood that offsets the 2020 election from 2016. This time, it’s not Joe Biden who will win the election.
Now, let’s be clear; that’s not to say Donald Trump will be winning this election, but rather that the vote for Joe Biden isn’t what’s going to turn this election.
The voting environment this time is different because the strategy and variables that lead to victory aren’t what they used to be.
There are 4 possible outcomes that I’ve found mask this election:
- Trump Best Case (280–258) https://www.270towin.com/map-images/BXQE1
- Trump Swing R Case (273–265) https://www.270towin.com/map-images/6kKZd
- Biden Best Case (328–210) https://www.270towin.com/map-images/VpA0b
- Biden Swing D Case (299–239) https://www.270towin.com/map-images/bvO6m
Out of these cases, swinging R- or Republican is what I’m finding least likely, and I’ll explain the reason soon. The most likely case is Biden Swing D, an electoral outcome that doesn’t result from a mere vote for Biden.
What leads this outlook begins with a couple of changes in polls- because this prediction isn’t prioritizing the polls, it’s prioritizing behavior. The voting behavior that has been submerging the 2020 election differs from the operations of traditional elections, including 2016.
That being said, polling makes a part of this behavior, but instead of looking at where they are pointing at, it’s important to look at what their margins show- a greater certainty. What this means is that the demographics that they find aren’t going to be as disrupted as they were in 2016. This comes more from a greater ideologization because voters are more certain about whom they are choosing to vote for, meaning that polling data is more confident. According to the Tampa Bay Times, “In each poll, the combined percentage of undecided voters and those supporting third-party candidates dropped from 2016 to 2020. In most of them, the combined percentage fell by 50 percent or more in 2020.” (Tampa Bay, 2020)
This drop doesn’t actually affirm greater confidence polling data, which doesn’t just have to predict the outcome of the election, but at what margins as well. As a result, the cumulative polling data can still be thrown off as to where it’s headed, but the behavioral data that it produces can still be crucial in looking at the victor of the election.
That behavior can lead to another outlook- voting numbers. More people are participating in early voting, indicating a high-turnout election day. However, cumulative national data isn’t what will showcase state-by-state voting, but rather-well- state-by-state voting. Now, looking through either swing-states, or potentially disrupt state numbers, more takeaways can be drawn.
One of the most crucial numbers isn’t Texas. Not Florida. Not Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, or California. It’s from Iowa. The Hawkeye state predicted 4/5 of the last presidential elections. It’s a state that’s had a history of leaning both right and left, and as an indication, shows that it can be a strong sample to the voting behaviors of Democrats and Republicans alike come election day. That being said, Iowa’s voter turnout has been astounding. According to their Secretary of State, “ We have surpassed the all-time turnout record for a June primary, with more than 487,000 ballots cast & more still coming in,” (Des Moines Register, 2020).
Texas broke Twitter when it broke its own voting turnout with “About 735,000 more people voted early this year in Texas than voted in the entire 2016 presidential election, including on Election Day.” (USA Today, 2020).
So, 2 things are clear: People know where they are voting, and people ARE voting.
Those 2 things also help fit the puzzle pieces together about where states will go, because early voter turnout is a response to incentives, and in this case, incentives strongly benefit Democrats over Republicans. While Republicans can also vote early, this also predicts a strong Democratic showing. Knowing voter preferences advance that, which is what helps also show where certain states that swing may go, like Iowa.
Assuming Iowa was to go blue, there’s a couple of other strong positions that can be made:
- The tossups in the south and rural midwest, specifically AZ, KS, and TX- will likely go red. The reason why is because, while there’s a stronger Democratic presence, voters are going to try to keep the state to the best of their degree, meaning they’ll also be showing up to vote.
- The northern swing states that were already tilting blue are likely to stay tilting blue come election day.
- Florida, one of the crucial swing states, and has Trump and Biden neck and neck. Since it can’t be affirmatively favored to lean left, as well as relatively similar spending on both sides (Biden and allies: $83.5 million
Trump and allies: $82.3 million: NPR, 2020), the strategic move is to give it the incumbency advantage to tilt red aside from a blue best case, and make it a controlled error, - This brings the 2 most crucial states to be North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Both states are states that voted red in 2016, but Pennsylvania has seen a clear push from Democrats in 2020, enough to swing the states blue. North Carolina on the other hand, is a state very evenly split, and showcasing strong- but not overwhelming turnout numbers. If he wins any of those 2 states (given everything above), Biden will win the election.
This results in an electoral outcome favoring Biden, in a swing left election.
Still, that doesn’t mean that it’s Biden who wins. The strategy employed by the Democrats this time was a radical departure from before. Trump is one of the few candidates who would be deterred by a more defensive strategy because his rhetoric is has been one of the key components in deciding this election.
The difference this time is that the angles of campaigns differ significantly from before. Donald Trump is now the incumbent candidate: he holds both the faults and the wins of the presidency. While known for his conservative demeanor, his legislative history and what has been passed isn’t entirely short of liberal intentions. If he had so decided, Trump could have angled his candidacy as one more moderate than what it has appeared. The more conservative aspects of his presidency and personality are there for a reason: that’s where his base is most active.
Trump’s campaign was, in serious respect, an emphasis on being an extension of 2016, seen greatly with the slogan “Keep America Great”. Note the Keep- and the America Great, a clear reference to 2016. What Trump was angling at to victory was that he is the exact same person he was in 2016; that the presidency has not changed him. What he has tried to build with his supporters is loyalty and trust, to make them show for him again in 2020. Trump is Trump’s greatest strength, plain and simple. When modern Republicans will be voting, they’ll be voting for Trump, first and foremost, in the majority.
Trump’s personality is what drove this election, and in the case of Biden, Trump is also Trump’s biggest weakness, because this time, the Democrats ran a different strategy than 2016. In 2016, the candidate was the emphasis. People who voted in 2016 would more often than not, be voting for Clinton, because they either liked Clinton from the start, or they liked Clinton more than they liked Trump.
The Democrats this time didn’t do that. They ran, more or less, a non-offensive campaign. In many ways, they ran themselves as the alternative to Trump, who’s vote is specific. They consolidated themselves with progressives, with a candidate who didn’t try to pose himself as better than Donald Trump, but as what Trump isn’t. This is important because before it was about who Trump was, versus who Clinton was.
This time, though, people are voting because they kept on being told to vote, non-stop. People who just, traditionally, back the left-wing candidate. People can cast a vote against Trump. People cast votes to introduce a more progressive agenda. People are casting votes against the constant news.
Biden’s strategy was to let Trump be Trump, for the most part. Biden wasn’t positioned as a policy candidate but as the only way to vote against Trump. Against him, for the Democrats.
Trump, on the other hand, is not campaigning on the reverse: Trump, on the other hand, is what saves the Republicans from the Democrats. To them-he wins, and if the Democrats win, they lose, and when the Democrats win, the fears of their governing will be realized. Donald Trump- not the Republicans, positioned himself as the solution to that, backed by people who’s brand of conservatism is far more traditional. They’ve united towards Trump, as the gateway “anti-democrat”. In 2016, this wasn’t used against them, but in 2020, it has been.
Biden isn’t a candidate who’s disposition rallies numbers and certainty. The Democratic Party, in that sense, has been branded as a flagship of moderate temperament. But if it’s not Biden who’s directing those numbers to him, then it’s Donald Trump- meaning that, if the strategy is victorious, it wasn’t simply the vote towards the candidate that won the election. What then won Democrats the election was the vote against Trump. It was the vote to go out and vote. It was the vote for the agenda. It was the vote for the coalition. These votes aren’t what a vote used to mean. In this election, it’s also not the only meaning people are choosing from.
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