Trump's easiest path to victory

[Psychic Missile]

Honestly, I think the only hope Trump has for winning re-election is one of the following happening:
1) The Coronavirus going into major remission for some reason or another.
2) Biden doing a terrible job at the debates.
3) Biden dying before the election and a much less popular candidate being put in his place.

What about disenfranchisement? The combination of a second wave of coronavirus, mass evictions/homelessness, a reduction in polling locations, a near-bankruptcy or bankrupt USPS, delayed receiving of ballots, and ballot invalidation favors one side, and all of the blue states in the OP either have Republican governors and/or majority Republican state senates. New York still hasn't finished counting ballots from their June 23rd primary. Georgia saw in increase in mail-in ballot voters by 2500%. And did you know that if a post-office forgets to add a postmark, a ballot is invalid through no fault of the voter?

[Reepicheep]

As of today, the current easiest path to victory for Trump is to win each of the following states. If Trump loses even one of these states, then Biden will be the next President. I give the most recent polling numbers for each state.

+6 Biden - Pennsylvania
+5 Biden - Florida
+3 Biden - Arizona
+2 Biden - Georgia
+1 Biden - Ohio
+1 Biden - North Carolina
+1 Trump - Texas

Statistically, Trump currently has a 13% probability of winning.

[Whateverman]

As of today, the current easiest path to victory for Trump is to win each of the following states. If Trump loses even one of these states, then Biden will be the next President. I give the most recent polling numbers for each state.

+6 Biden - Pennsylvania
+5 Biden - Florida
+3 Biden - Arizona
+2 Biden - Georgia
+1 Biden - Ohio
+1 Biden - North Carolina
+1 Trump - Texas

Statistically, Trump currently has a 13% probability of winning.

I just can't make myself feel confident about the results of the 2020 election. So many people in my country are willing to toss their/our values under the bus...

[Reepicheep]

I just can't make myself feel confident about the results of the 2020 election. So many people in my country are willing to toss their/our values under the bus...

Yes, I agree. The current polls don't make me as confident of a Biden victory as I'd like to be.

I think Biden choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate is positive news. I'm anxiously awaiting the polls from the next couple of weeks, where voters take into account Kamala as a VP pick.

********************

As per your recommendation, I've added Fox News Sunday and MediaBuzz to my Sunday afternoon TV watching schedule. The guests and panelists, on average, lean a bit too far to the right for my taste, but since the hosts make an effort to keep everyone honest, I think I'll continue to watch both shows.

[Whateverman]

Yes, I agree. The current polls don't make me as confident of a Biden victory as I'd like to be.

I think Biden choosing Kamala Harris as his running mate is positive news. I'm anxiously awaiting the polls from the next couple of weeks, where voters take into account Kamala as a VP pick.

I'm very happy with the pick of Harris for VP. She was who I was hoping for.

As per your recommendation, I've added Fox News Sunday and MediaBuzz to my Sunday afternoon TV watching schedule. The guests and panelists, on average, lean a bit too far to the right for my taste, but since the hosts make an effort to keep everyone honest, I think I'll continue to watch both shows.

Did I recommend Fox News Sunday? I don't remember that, though I definitely watch Media Buzz. The effort to be somewhat balanced is what keeps me tuned in to the latter - though it's drifted a bit right from where it used to be.

Either way, I try to be sure my biased media is balanced overall :)

[Reepicheep]

Did I recommend Fox News Sunday? I don't remember that, though I definitely watch Media Buzz.

Yes, I think you are right. We were discussing the Trump interview on Fox News Sunday (which went so badly for Trump that I almost felt sorry for him), when you recommended Media Buzz. I don't think you expressed an opinion one way or the other about Fox News Sunday.

The current polls give Trump an 11.8% probability of winning, but give Biden a 20.6% probability of a total blowout, with over 400 electoral college votes. Statistics indicate that Biden should win by a large margin in November, but of course statistics showed the same thing in 2016...

[Whateverman]

Yes, I think you are right. We were discussing the Trump interview on Fox News Sunday (which went so badly for Trump that I almost felt sorry for him), when you recommended Media Buzz. I don't think you expressed an opinion one way or the other about Fox News Sunday.

The current polls give Trump an 11.8% probability of winning, but give Biden a 20.6% probability of a total blowout, with over 400 electoral college votes. Statistics indicate that Biden should win by a large margin in November, but of course statistics showed the same thing in 2016...

What was it again that threw everyone off? State polling?

I believe the national polls were the most accurate, showing Clinton with a narrowing lead over Trump until the last month or so. The state polls were the ones that were significantly off, giving Clinton a much larger lead than she ultimately had...

National polls today show Biden with a clear lead.

[CivilDiscourse]

Nate silver has launched his prediction model. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...tion-forecast/

It currently has Trump sitting at a 27% chance of winning, which is better than 1 in 4. Very similar to his 29% chance of winning in 2016.

It's still a long-shot, but it's far from a certain loss.

[Reepicheep]

Nate silver has launched his prediction model. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...tion-forecast/

Thanks for the link, a very interesting read. I go to the fivethirtyeight website every day to check out the latest polls, but I didn't know about the above link.

According to the polls, Florida is now leaning solidly towards Biden, and Texas is a toss up. On election day, if Biden takes either Florida or Texas, then the election will essentially be over and Biden will be the next president.

[JimL]

Nate silver has launched his prediction model. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...tion-forecast/

It currently has Trump sitting at a 27% chance of winning, which is better than 1 in 4. Very similar to his 29% chance of winning in 2016.

It's still a long-shot, but it's far from a certain loss.

Probably the worst (27%) chance of winning for any incumbant ever.

[Terraceth]

Probably the worst (27%) chance of winning for any incumbant ever.

This statement makes little sense.

If we're talking by the percentages of FiveThirtyEight, it was founded in 2008. Even if they gave odds for Obama in 2012--and I am not sure they were--this would mean we can only compare the odds for two incumbents seeking re-election. This is a far cry from any incumbent ever.

If we are trying to examine all incumbents who sought re-election, I am not sure exactly how you believe we should be evaluating the odds for those in the past--particularly given I think presidential polls, the main way to try to evaluate these odds, only started in the mid-20th century. That said, by whatever metric one tries to figure out the percentages of victory, I have a very difficult time believing that Trump's odds of re-election are lower than that of certain past presidents. Even the worst-case scenario results I've seen offered for Trump aren't as one-sided as Roosevelt's victory over Hoover was.

The other question is a matter of timing. Shortly prior to the election, I expect someone would have given Lincoln good odds to win re-election. However, from my understanding (and someone is free to correct me if I am wrong), for a good while it looked like Lincoln was going to lose badly; in August 15 of 1864, someone would have probably instead given Lincoln very long odds. But a bunch of stuff happened in the last several months before the election, such as Sherman's capture of Atlanta in early September being a major morale boost to the US, that strengthened Lincoln's popularity and allowed him to ultimately have a quite decisive victory.

So while it may be difficult to quantify odds of various past elections, it's hard for me to see Trump as being the lowest chances of winning for "any incumbent ever."

[Reepicheep]

Probably the worst (27%) chance of winning for any incumbent ever.

In terms of elections since WW2, I think the only incumbent who had a worse probability of winning than Trump was Carter in 1980, when Reagan wiped the floor with him.

There is also Clinton's defeat of H.W. Bush, but I don't count that one since that is the year Ross Perot ran as an independent and took 19% of the vote (mostly) away from Bush, who otherwise would have won a second term.

[JimL]

In terms of elections since WW2, I think the only incumbent who had a worse probability of winning than Trump was Carter in 1980, when Reagan wiped the floor with him.

There is also Clinton's defeat of H.W. Bush, but I don't count that one since that is the year Ross Perot ran as an independent and took 19% of the vote (mostly) away from Bush, who otherwise would have won a second term.

Yep, and I don't believe that any incumbant has ever had a worse favorability rating than Trump which has never, in his entire term in office, been on the positive side.

[Reepicheep]

Yep, and I don't believe that any incumbant has ever had a worse favorability rating than Trump which has never, in his entire term in office, been on the positive side.

Agreed. To the best of my knowledge, Trump is the only president to NEVER have an approval rating of over 50%. He reached a high of 47.8% approval a few days after his inauguration, and it's pretty well been downhill since then.

"In his first year in office, Trump became the least popular president in history, with an average popularity level of 39% according to Gallop and data collected by the Associated Press."

[JimL]

This statement makes little sense.

If we're talking by the percentages of FiveThirtyEight, it was founded in 2008. Even if they gave odds for Obama in 2012--and I am not sure they were--this would mean we can only compare the odds for two incumbents seeking re-election. This is a far cry from any incumbent ever.

If we are trying to examine all incumbents who sought re-election, I am not sure exactly how you believe we should be evaluating the odds for those in the past--particularly given I think presidential polls, the main way to try to evaluate these odds, only started in the mid-20th century. That said, by whatever metric one tries to figure out the percentages of victory, I have a very difficult time believing that Trump's odds of re-election are lower than that of certain past presidents. Even the worst-case scenario results I've seen offered for Trump aren't as one-sided as Roosevelt's victory over Hoover was.

The other question is a matter of timing. Shortly prior to the election, I expect someone would have given Lincoln good odds to win re-election. However, from my understanding (and someone is free to correct me if I am wrong), for a good while it looked like Lincoln was going to lose badly; in August 15 of 1864, someone would have probably instead given Lincoln very long odds. But a bunch of stuff happened in the last several months before the election, such as Sherman's capture of Atlanta in early September being a major morale boost to the US, that strengthened Lincoln's popularity and allowed him to ultimately have a quite decisive victory.

So while it may be difficult to quantify odds of various past elections, it's hard for me to see Trump as being the lowest chances of winning for "any incumbent ever."

Wasn't actually going by that percentage, but the polls are not only bad for Trump, but they are consistently bad including his favorability polls which have never been positive. I know, people don't trust the polls because of 2016, but the polls were pretty much spot on nationally. Trump just managed to eke out a few of the closely contested states to pull off an electoral college win, but they don't seem to be as closely contested this year not to mention that even traditionally red states seem to be up for grabs this year.