Trump v. Biden: Final Observations Heading Into Election Day (Week, Month)

After what seems like an eternity, the US Presidential election is only TWO DAYS away.

We’re cautiously optimistic that Joseph Biden beats Donald Trump, but we won’t know for sure until early in the morning on November 4th, possibly not until later in November or even early December if the election results are a lot closer than we expect.

Here are the critical elements we are watching leading into Tuesday, November 3rd.

As our readers well know by now, we hold Donald Trump in exceptionally low regard.  As we have noted on many occasions, he is a:

• Liar

• Business cheat

• Tax cheat

• Bankrupt

• Adulterer

• Kremlin stooge

• Draft evader

• Racist

• White supremacist

• Confederacy apologist

• Coward

 And now we can add:

• Mass murderer

30,000 Covid cases have been traced to Trump super-spreader rallies since June, leading to 700 deaths including former Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain.  So far, 236,000 American have perished with 1,000 more every 24 hours - a 9/11 every three days.  If the United States had only achieved the results of Canada in controlling the spread of Coronavirus, 146,000 Americans would still be alive.  Compared to German mortality statistics, 194,000 Americans would still be alive.  Please let there be a commission similar the 9/11 Commission to investigate this epic failure of leadership.

In terms of the US economy, Obama and Biden gave Trump the keys to a brand new Escalade in January 2017:

The US was well recovered from the financial crisis of 2008-9, with decent growth in the economy, decent growth in jobs and unemployment at the lowest levels since January 2000. 

44 months later, that Escalade doesn’t look so good:

Record job losses, record unemployment, record small business failures, record farm bankruptcies, record deficits, record national debt, and we won’t see an exit from the current recession until late 2021 or early 2022.  The two previous Republican presidents, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush, also left the United States in recession as they left the White House.  The best economic results and stock market returns of all presidents running back to 1961 were under Clinton and Obama (Reagan was third.)  If you’re voting with your pocketbook, logically you should vote Democratic.

Despite all this, Trump’s approval rating has remained freakishly stable between 40-45% for the last four years:

Source: FiveThirtyEight.com

In 2016, Donald J. Trump found just enough voters in just enough states to beat Hillary Clinton, who was widely expected to win.

Can Trump pull off another Royal Flush (in poker, a winning hand sequencing the Ace, King, Queen, Jack, and 10, all the same suit) to win a second term.

No president since modern records starting with Harry Truman has remained below 50% for his entire first term of office.  No president with approval below 45% on Election Day was re-elected (George H. W. Bush 32.6%, Jimmy Carter 37.9%, Gerald Ford 43.6%) with the exception, famously, of Harry Truman 39.6%.  Lyndon Johnson, with approval numbers below 50% in the last year of his presidency, decided not to run.

So Trump, based on approval rating, sits right on the cusp of being reelected.

Based on national polling, Biden is well ahead of Trump:

Source: FiveThirtyEight.com

In final national polls in 2016, Clinton was ahead of Trump by 3%, and beat Trump by 2% in the popular vote. But as we well know, the popular vote doesn’t count.

The final forecasts of the top 12 political analysts are, the state by state polling, and the gambling markets are:

270 electoral votes are required for the win, and not one source has Biden scoring less than 279.  Indeed, the likely result is a blow-out for Biden equivalent to the Obama win over John McCain in 2008 (365-173.)  FiveThirtyEight.com has steadily marked down Trump’s chance for the last 6 months, currently forecasts only a 1 in 10 chance:

Here is the final polling map. States with current polling that separates the candidates by less than 3% are considered toss-ups:

Here is the 2016 Election Final map:

Of the states Trump won in 2016, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin have flipped back to Democratic.  Florida, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio and Iowa, all states Trump won in 2016 are now regarded as toss-ups based on polling, but many forecasters have already assigned Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and even Georgia to Biden.

Florida is by far the most important state to watch.  It is numerically impossible for Trump to win the Electoral College without Florida.  Here the timeline for Florida on Election Day:

Early and mail-in reporting is well under way in Florida.  Unlike states such as Pennsylvania, which only starts counting mail-in votes on election day, Florida processes mail in ballots as fast as they’re received, and also reports voting by party affiliation (but not actual results.)

As of today:

Of the ballots submitted so far, in-person voting was 45.8% Republican, 32.2% Democratic, 20.6% No Party, while mail-in voting was Democratic 45.5%, Republican 31.2 and 22% No Party. Voters with No Party registration are more likely to vote Democratic than Republican, so as of right now, it looks like the Democrats have the edge in Florida. However, there will be a big final surge of in-person voting on Tuesday. If the margin of victory for Trump or Biden is less than 0.5% of the total votes cast, then a recount is automatically required using machines to be completed by November 12th. If the result of the first recount results in a margin of less than 0.25%, then a second recount, by hand, must be completed by November 15th.

In general, Florida has made significant strides since the disputed 2000 count which awarded Florida to George Bush over Al Gore (271-266 in the Electoral College.)

Polls close at 8PM EST in Florida. Preliminary results from most counties could be available as early as midnight. If Biden is ahead by at least 1%, at midnight, it would be reasonable to conclude Biden has won Florida and the Electoral College, even if some mail-in ballots are still be counted on November 4th or later as those mail-ins will like skew Democratic.

If Biden has lost Florida, or won with less than a 0.5% margin, then it could be a long night, long week, even long month until we know who the winner is.

Based on polling, Biden is clearly ahead. But polls can be wrong. Given the volume of mail-in ballots, delays in mail, the long lines at polls that we have already seem, the aggressive actions Republicans will take and have already taken to disqualify voters and invalidate ballots, we’ll just have to see.