2020 Electoral College Projection

an analysis uninfluenced by polling

This 2020 electoral college projection, and corresponding analysis, is unique in that it eschews all polling. While political handicappers have traditionally utilized polling data to make electoral college projections, in the modern climate this data tells an increasingly limited story. One needs to look no further than 2016 to find evidence of this. The days of landlines are gone. Polling methods are increasingly handicapped by the challenges of connecting with real voters and learning their true intentions. The following pages include a thumbnail examination of voting in 2020’s swing states followed by a projected electoral college chart. Through this method of analysis, Biden is projected to win a close election with 278 electoral votes to Trump’s 260.

It must be stated that national polling, while vastly interesting, is also entirely useless. Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore before her, found that earning a national plurality does not earn you the White House. National polls create good headlines for the uninitiated, however, in our electoral college fifty individual elections amalgamate to determine the victor. Therefore, relevant data must be state specific. Each state has its own multitude of variables including voter demographics, voting trends, and, in some states, voter suppression. This all creates a state-specific fingerprint – sans polling – of factors which influence elections.

All of this can easily lead to over-analysis. It’s nearly impossible to avoid it. I’ve limited this analysis to snapshots – containing valuable, non-partisan data – which both paint a predictive-picture and prevents analysis-fatigue. Too many self-identified electoral sages get lost in the weeds of political minutia. In other words, they lose track of the forest from the trees.

Arizona

Arizona has seen a rising tide of positive Democratic trends. The state saw a 9.3% increase in registered Democrats from 2014 to 2018.[1] In 2018, 23% of registered voters were Hispanic[2] (a group that President Trump has famously and frequently disparaged). While then-Congresswoman Martha McSally (R) lost a state-wide election to now-Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D), her old Congressional District replaced her with a Democrat.[3]

All that said, Republicans still have a plurality of over 100,000 registrants[4] and has only voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate once since 1952.[5] While Donald Trump was the first Republican in recent memory to receive less than 50% of the vote, Democrats have struggled to even break 45%.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 49% of vote.

Colorado

Colorado has voted Democratic in the previous three presidential elections. By a small margin, Colorado has more Democratic then Republican voters,[6]. This state’s election will be determined by their plurality of Democratic-leaning unaffiliated voters.[7] Colorado’s voters are coming out, too – particularly their young voters.[8] The state had the second highest turnout percentage in the nation among age-eligible residents during the 2018 mid-term elections.[9]

There will also have be highly competitive Senate race in 2020, with Republican one-term incumbent Cory Gardner being challenged by former two-term Democratic Governor John Hickenlooper. This competitive race is bound to further boost statewide turnout. But among which voters? Senator Gardner’s roots are from Colorado’s 4^th Congressional District, which consists of the rural front range. Prior being governor, Hickenlooper was previously Denver’s two-term mayor – Colorado’s largest city. Turnout, particularly among Democrats, is likely to rival all-time highs.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Biden wins with 51.5% of vote.

Florida

Florida could be the most important of all swing states due to its size. In the last six presidential elections Floridians have supported the Republican and Democratic candidate three times each. They supported the national winner in each of these cases.[10] In fact, only once since 1960 did Florida support the losing presidential candidate. Talk about a bellwether! In 2016, Trump won a convincing 64% of Florida’s white vote[11] while the black state’s turnout was down 4.2%.[12]

Despite have very stringent voter registration deadlines that many perceive are designed to depress the vote,[13] Florida still ranked #13 in turnout during the 2018 mid-terms.[14] During that election, even with the top of the Democratic ticket including an African-American gubernatorial candidate, the Republican Party won close votes for both Governor and U.S. Senate (and nearly cleaned house in all statewide offices). Elections are strictly about votes, and in Florida, Republicans have been recently, and steadily, winning a paper-thin plurality of them.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 49.5% of vote.

Georgia

The only Democrat not-named Jimmy Carter to win in over fifty years was Bill Clinton in 1992. He who won by less than 1% (with an assist to Ross Perot).[15] In recent years, however, Georgia’s voting population has been undergoing a drastic transformation. Over the last four years there has been a 68% increase in voters under 35 years old while there has been a 0%(!) increase in voters over 65 years of age.[16] Since 2016, over one million new driver’s license recipients have been automatically registered to vote.[17] In 2018, Georgia had the twelfth highest turnout in the nation (55%)[18] and the 6^th congressional district (located in suburban Atlanta) flipped from Republican to Democrat (it was a 1% margin of victory)[19]. Many have cited this as a prelude to 2020.

While this all points to a Democratic crescendo in this year, Georgia has strict voter registration deadlines[20]. Georgia is, in fact, one of the only states that removes voters from the rolls simply for not voting in recent elections[21]. As a result of this policy 300,000 registrations were removed in 2019.[22] This voter-purging policy has had a deleterious effect on Democrats.[23] Georgia remains in the Deep South, and a Democratic victory remains unlikely. If Biden wins Georgia – and correspondingly the White House – the person most responsible for his victory could be Stacy Abrams, as her voter accessibility efforts would certainly be the deciding factor.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 50.0% of the vote.

Maine

The Pine Tree State has a fair and funky way of voting. They allocate one electoral vote to the winner of each congressional district. The candidate who wins the state’s overall plurality is awarded two electoral votes. In 2016, Maine had the fourth most white, non-college educated voters in the nation[24]. This is a population Trump excels in. Trump won the second Congressional District by a comfortable margin, however, two years later this same district flipped from Republican to Democrat – though by a margin thinner than a pine needle (.7%).[25]

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins CD 2 with 50.5% of the vote; Biden wins CD 1 with 57% of the vote and 53% the state-wide popular vote.

Michigan

Trump won Michigan by about 10,000 votes. Curiously, 70,000 presidential votes in the Democratic bastion of Detroit were discounted because their presidential preference was determined undeterminable.[26] This is not the accusation of far-left conspiracy theorists – it’s according Michigan election officials.[27] Another key aspect of the 2016 election in Michigan was that black voter turnout dropped by over 12%.[28]

2018 signaled a stark change in Michigan’s Democratic voting patterns. The Michigan Secretary of State’s office reports that the turnout of the voting age population in the last four presidential primaries has been consistently in the high teens. During the 2018 gubernatorial primary, however, turnout skyrocketed to over 28%[29] (the state ranked in the top ten in turnout in the nation[30]).

Buttressing these positive Democratic trends is that the population trend of the last ten years is that the rural Upper Peninsula (a noted Trump stronghold) has had a decreasing population while urban and suburban regions (a believed-to-be Biden advantage) have increased in population.[31]

While Sanders beat Clinton in the 2016 Democratic Primary by a small margin, Biden beat Sanders in the 2020 Democratic Primary by a decisive one. Indeed, it is evident that Michigan prefers Biden to either 2016 candidate. As a result of dramatically increased Democratic turnout – particularly among African Americans – Michigan won’t be an election night nail-biter.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Biden wins with 51.5% of the vote.

North Carolina

How close is North Carolina? Four years ago, neither candidate reached 50% of the vote. Since the 1980s the Tar Heels have had among the closest elections in the nation.[32] With an obvious nod to gerrymandering, in the state’s 2018 mid-terms Republicans earned just 50.4% of the vote while winning more than three-quarters of the state’s U.S. House seats.[33] Though gerrymandering does not apply to the electoral college (stated with apologies to author Mark Stein[34]), the 2018 election indicates that North Carolina is a closely divided state. In fact, since 2016, the majority of new voters have registered without affiliation to either major party[35]. 61% of all new registrants were under 30 years old.[36] While that’s a gaudy number of young voters, in 2018 their turnout was below 40%.[37]

There are also many headlines describing how the black population will decide the election in North Carolina. This can be misleading, however, as they are largely outnumbered by their white counterparts; in 2018, 2.7 million ballots were cast by white voters; 750,000 ballots were cast by black voters.[38] Analysts have also identified the efficacy of North Carolina’s past,[39] and ongoing,[40] voter suppression strategies and its impact on black voters.[41] An increase in black voting would have to be sizable to sway the result. Though North Carolina has only voted Democratic once since 1980, it should be noted that this one time was when a black candidate was on the top of the ballot. Perhaps this year, with an African-American candidate sharing the ticket, Biden can eke ahead.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 49.5% of the vote.

Ohio

Ohio has supported the winner in the last five presidential elections. But in each of those the victor has not reached 52% of the vote. The Buckeye government has done its best to buck increased voting by enacting among the nation’s strictest voter registration deadlines[42] (nearly a month before election day[43]). A 2019 state-sponsored voter purge canceled nearly a half million registrations.[44] This purge canceled more Democratic registrations than Republicans, with a disproportionate effect on young voters.[45]

But just how serious are they about citizens not voting? On the election page of the Ohio.gov web-site, the first “common question” listed is how to cancel one’s voter registration.[46] That’s serious! African-American voting was down 7.5% in 2016.[47] Perhaps this is not surprisingly when systematic voter-suppression combined with a Democratic candidate who did not inspire turnout. Clinton did not reach the 45% threshold. Notably, popular former Gov. John Kasich is one Ohioan who didn’t vote for Trump in 2016[48] and doesn’t plan to vote for him in 2020[49]. Even if an increasing amount of Biden voters break the shackles of suppression there are still too many hurdles to overcome.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 50.0% of the vote.

Pennsylvania

It will be difficult for Biden to win without this keystone to the light-blue wall and it’s twenty electoral votes. Much has been publicized about Scranton being Biden’s birthplace and his working class roots. But that was a long time ago and perhaps of overstated importance in today’s election. In 2016, this was a state of extremes. There was high rural Republican turnout balanced by Democratic gains in suburban Philadelphia.[50] Prior to the 2016 vote there was also a significant party migration towards Republicans.[51]

It remains to be seen whether this migration was driven by Trump-love (which could buoy him again) or Hillary-hatred (which could swing these voters back to Biden). Pennsylvania also has punitive registration deadlines which correlates with depressed turnout.[52] The growing Lehigh Valley[53] (which is about halfway between Scranton and Delaware) and may prove critical to the outcome.[54] 2016 was an anomaly, with Trump winning absent a plurality.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Biden wins with 52% of the vote.

Texas

There is growing belief that Texas is a swing state. Believers point out that Hispanic turnout has nearly doubled in recent years.[55] They’ll cite that between 2010 and 2018 there has been a 39% increase in the Hispanic and African-American population. During that same time the Caucasian population only increased by 4%.[56] This all reflects increasing demographic diversity. But it hasn’t had a corresponding effect on voting. Hispanic turnout has hovered around 40% while white turnout has been near 60%.[57]

Texas ranked near the bottom in terms of eligible-population turnout in 2018.[58] Republican presidential candidates haven’t lost in Texas since the 1970s. In the last four presidential elections the Democrat hasn’t cleared 45% of the vote while the Republican hasn’t been below the 50% threshold. All of this begs the question: is Texas really a paper-thin swing state? Only on paper.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Trump wins with 51.5%

Virginia

Republicans can find hope in the fact that while winning Virginia in 2016, with a hometown Senator as her running-mate, Clinton still did not reach 50% of the vote. But the trends over the last four years have been solidly blue. In last year’s state legislative elections Democrats averaged more than a 3% increase in results.[59] They won control of both the state house and senate for the first time in 25 years.[60] This occurred in the midst of an increasing trend in turnout. 2018 was the highest off-year turnout percentage since 1994.[61] The Democratic bastion of Northern Virginia has seen massive population growth in the last ten years.[62]

Virginia is also one of the most well-educated states in the nation[63] (a Biden strength). In 2016 they ranked only 42^nd in terms of the non-college educated white percentage of the vote (a Trump strength). Also, just this spring Virginia passed significant voter accessibility laws.[64]

2020 Electoral College Projection: Biden wins with 52% of the vote.

Wisconsin

Meeting its definition as a swing state, PEW Research Center identified that 42% of Wisconsin adults identify as Republican/lean Republican (54% of this population being men) PEW equally identified 42% of Wisconsin adults identify as Democrat/lean Democrat (54% of this population being women).[65] Four years ago, Wisconsin had one of the highest levels of voter turnout in the nation.[66]

There are three variables which will ultimately decide this election. The black vote. In 2016 black turnout was down more than 10%.[67] This alone may have been the difference in Wisconsin’s razor-thin outcome). Non-college educated white voters. Wisconsin ranked 7^th in the nation with 57.2% of turnout from this population. Suburban Southeast Wisconsin. This is where Republican Congressional representation (it’s Paul Ryan’s former district) meets educated suburbia.[68]

Furthermore, in the 2016 primaries, the winners were Ted Cruz and Bernie Sanders. This indicated displeasure with both candidates on that year’s general election ballot. In 2020, only one of these candidates is on their ballot again.

2020 Electoral College Projection: Biden wins with 51.5% of the vote.