Read on Twitter
So I have been looking at some of the national polling data because there are so many people in such a crazed panic about them. Full disclosure, I was too for a while but when you start looking at what they actually mean in terms of numbers of votes it doesnt make much sense.
I started looking at numbers of total voters and increases in turnout cycle over cycle dating back to 2000. In 2016, 136.7 million people voted with 128.8 million (or 94.2% of total voters) voting for either Trump or Hillary. This was actually an increase of 6% over 2012.
For the purposes of this exercise I originally was going to apply a 7% growth rate to the 2016 number but some folks who are good on elections told expected it to be more like 3-4% so I am going to apply 4% growth to be conservative. This would peg total 2020 voters at 142.1mm.
So about 5.5mm more total voters vs. 2016. I am also going to shave 2.5% off the top of that for third party voters (more in line with norms bc 2016 was very high over 5%) which brings us down to ~138.6 million people voting for the two major candidates in 2020 - Trump or Biden.
So what does that mean in terms of actual vote totals in terms of different margins of victory? Remember the current RCP polling average has Biden up near TEN POINTS nationally. If Biden were to win 55-45 amongst the 138.6mm votes heads up with Trump that is a 13.9mm vote margin.
He would basically have to outperform 2008 Obama by a significant amount to hit these kinds of numbers. Dont care how much you think people hate Trump I think most have a hard time seeing that happen. This would be Reagan 1980 territory.
Now lets assume he performed exactly like 2008 Obama and Trump like McCain (only real "blowout" in decades). This would translate into a 7 point win and a 10.25 million vote victory for Biden. So in this scenario, on net, Biden takes 100% of the turnout increase + flips 2mm...
...prior Trump votes (accounting for fact that Hillary had him by 3mm PVs). This again, seems incredibly unlikely. So now that we have knocked off a 10 pt margin and a 7 pt margin what does that mean for lesser margins? What would a 52.5% Biden to 47.5% Trump (5 pt win) yield?
Biden winning by even 5 points assuming a 4% increase in number of total voters means a nearly 7mm vote margin of victory. Again chopping off the 3mm PVs HRC won by this means Biden takes 73% of the additional 5.5mm votes in play compared to 2016. This again seems pretty high.
When you consider the complete lack of enthusiasm for Biden (its all anti-Trump not Pro-Biden at all) and the fact that many people on the Right like myself stayed home in 2016 but wont in 2020, where do these millions of votes come from?
I keep hearing about these scores of voters Trump has lost from his 2016 coalition but who are they? No one I know have met any. Other than online grifter claims, I have only ever come across people like myself who didnt pull the lever in 2016 but more than likely will in 2020.
Or people who didnt vote for Trump in the first place and still wont be. But no one that did in the first place but will no longer be. Maybe there are millions of these people out there but is so where are they then?
But the real moral of this long and boring thread that no one actually read is that when you start looking at the numbers in terms of millions of votes that have to change direction it kind of makes clear just how absurd the current polling numbers are.
