(Map courtesy of 270towin.com)
Today, July 26, we begin the home stretch of the 2020 election campaign. As of today, there are 100 days left until the November 3 elections. At this point in time, I am projecting that Democrat Joe Biden is now a clear favorite to defeat Republican Donald Trump, and that the Democrats are now favored to win control of the U.S. Senate.
In my last projections, 100 days ago, I was more circumspect on both counts. But the continued rolling disaster of the Trump Administration’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic is looking more and more like Trump’s “Katrina event.” The difference is that the bungled response by George W. Bush to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina happened in his second term; politically, it only hurt his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections, not him personally. Trump has not been so lucky.
At this moment in time, Biden’s average polling lead is close to 9%, per Real Clear Politics. That puts him approximately 6.5% ahead of the 2.1% national popular vote margin posted by Hillary Clinton in 2016. While it is not necessarily a realistic view to assume a uniform shift, the state-by-state polling at this point does, in fact, reflect something very close to a uniform shift.
As a result, I am making the following ratings changes in the presidential race, all of which favor Biden:
GEORGIA (16 electoral votes) moves from Lean Trump to Tilt Biden.
FLORIDA (29 electoral votes), NORTH CAROLINA (15 electoral votes) and NEBRASKA-2 (1 electoral vote) move from Tilt Biden to Lean Biden.
MICHIGAN (16 electoral votes) moves from Lean Biden to Likely Biden.
OHIO (18 electoral votes), IOWA (6 electoral votes) and MAINE-2 (1 electoral vote) move from Lean Trump to Tilt Trump.
TEXAS (38 electoral votes) moves from Likely Trump to Lean Trump.
SOUTH CAROLINA (9 electoral votes) moves from Safe Trump to Likely Trump.
I am not as quick as some other commentators to move Indiana, Missouri, Kansas, Utah or Montana away from Safe Trump. I think that’s a stretch at this point. Demographically, nothing in any of these states indicates that they are likely to be in play for real in November. Despite the Johnson County suburbs moving away from Trump, he is still going to win rural Kansas by crushing margins. The same is true in Indiana and Missouri, where Trump is weak in suburban areas but disproportionately strong in rural areas. Utah’s potential to flip has been widely overstated as a result of a third-party candidate (Evan McMullin) shaving off much of Trump’s margin in that state in 2016.
I also remain hesitant to move Pennsylvania or Wisconsin from Lean Biden to Likely Biden, for much the same reasons that I am not moving states like Indiana, Missouri or Kansas out of the Safe Trump categorization at this time. Unlike most commentators, I think Wisconsin is likely to be a better state for Biden than Pennsylvania, and I would have moved Wisconsin to Likely Biden if not for the extremely draconian voter suppression laws that Wisconsin Republicans, both at the legislative and judicial levels, have put on the books in the last decade.
The reason why I consider Michigan and Wisconsin better turf for Biden than Pennsylvania is because Democratic losses in the first two states in 2016 clearly came down to turnout. If Detroit and Milwaukee had turned out at just slightly better rates in 2016, Clinton would have won both states. In fact, Trump won Wisconsin with fewer votes in 2016 than Mitt Romney got there in 2012, when he was losing the state by 7% to Barack Obama. A simple increase in Democratic turnout will solve any problems the party might have in Michigan and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, conversely, Clinton did well enough in the major cities to have won in any other year, but she got clobbered in the rural areas by unheard-of margins. Additionally, both Michigan and Wisconsin have consistently been to Pennsylvania’s left by at least a small margin for decades.
As of today, my projection is that Biden defeats Trump by a vote of 350-188 in the Electoral College, up from my previous 334-204 projection 100 days ago. The projected flip of Georgia from Lean Trump to Tilt Biden accounts for the change. But I also now believe Ohio, Iowa and Maine’s District 2 are all in play, which I did not believe in April. I still think flipping Texas is a bridge too far for Democrats this year.
Here are my current characterizations for all states:
SAFE BIDEN (210): California (55), New York (29), Illinois (20), New Jersey (14), Virginia (13), Washington (12), Massachusetts (11), Maryland (10), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Oregon (7), New Mexico (5), Hawaii (4), Rhode Island (4), Delaware (3), District of Columbia (3), Vermont (3), Maine-1 (1).
LIKELY BIDEN (38): Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Maine-At-Large (2).
LEAN BIDEN (86): Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), North Carolina (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Nebraska-2 (1).
TILT BIDEN (16): Georgia (16).
TILT TRUMP (25): Ohio (18), Iowa (6), Maine-2 (1).
LEAN TRUMP (38): Texas (38).
LIKELY TRUMP (9): South Carolina (9).
SAFE TRUMP (116): Indiana (11), Tennessee (11), Missouri (10), Alabama (9), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Oklahoma (7), Arkansas (6), Kansas (6), Mississippi (6), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Idaho (4), Alaska (3), Montana (3), North Dakota (3), South Dakota (3), Wyoming (3), Nebraska-At-Large (2), Nebraska-1 (1), Nebraska-3 (1).
TOTAL BIDEN: 350
TOTAL TRUMP: 188
U.S. SENATE PREVIEW
(Map courtesy of 270towin.com)
Shifting to the U.S. Senate, I am taking the unusual step of moving a state into the “safe” category for a challenger taking on an incumbent. I do not see any way at this point that Senator Cory Gardner can win reelection in Colorado. I now rate Colorado as Safe Democratic and expect Democratic nominee John Hickenlooper to comfortably defeat the incumbent. This is more due to Colorado’s continuing leftward shift than anything having to do with Hickenlooper personally. By most accounts, he is not running a spectacular campaign. But he doesn’t need to.
In Georgia, I would be tempted to rate Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff a slight favorite over Republican Senator David Perdue, given Trump’s troubles in the state, and also to rate the Democrats as slight favorites in the special election for the seat currently held by appointed GOP Senator Kelly Loeffler. However, both Senate races in Georgia present unique challenges for the Democrats. The regularly scheduled election between Ossoff and Perdue includes two third-party candidates, and because Georgia requires a runoff in any race in which no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the likelihood of a close race going to a low-turnout runoff in January is high, and lower turnout will favor Perdue. The special election will certainly end in a runoff, but because there are more Democrats running than Republicans, the likelihood at this point appears high that Democrats will split their vote too many ways, enabling both Loeffler and fellow Republican Doug Collins to advance to the runoff. As a result, I continue to rate both races Lean Republican.
I still have just enough doubt about Arizona and Maine not to move those states. I still think Arizona is Likely Democratic, with Democrat Mark Kelly poised to defeat Republican Senator Martha McSally, and I still rate Maine as Lean Democratic, though I think Democratic nominee Sara Gideon is certainly favored to defeat Republican Senator Susan Collins. As long as Iowa remains “Tilt Trump,” I think incumbent Republican Senator Joni Ernst is also a slight favorite to win, but the prospects for neither Republican look as rosy as they did 100 days ago.
I am not as optimistic as many commentators are about the chances of Democrats Steve Bullock in Montana and Barbara Bollier in Kansas. In both states, Trump appears likely to win by large margins, and I find it doubtful that upwards of 15%-20% of Trump voters will vote for a Democrat for the Senate. The same is true in Kentucky, where Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is unpopular, but also highly unlikely to lose to Democrat Amy McGrath.
Bullock and McGrath face an additional obstacle that Bollier does not: they are running against incumbent Republicans. It is highly, highly unusual for a challenger to beat an incumbent senator in a year in which the incumbent senator’s presidential candidate wins the state. It has happened only twice in the last 20 years, and in both cases, there were special circumstances. In 2008, Democrat Mark Begich unseated Republican Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska, despite John McCain winning the state, because Stevens was under indictment at the time; Begich won by 1%.
Before that, it last occurred in 2000, when GOP Senator John Ashcroft lost narrowly in Missouri, despite George W. Bush winning the state. You may remember that was the famous race in which Ashcroft lost to Democrat Mel Carnahan, who had died in a plane crash just days before the election. Carnahan had been losing in most polling, but ended up winning posthumously after the Democratic governor promised to appoint his widow, Jean Carnahan, to the seat if the dead candidate won.
Neither the Montana nor Kentucky Senate races have any special circumstances this year. GOP Senator Steve Daines is not unpopular and there really seems to be no plausible reason why very many Trump voters would choose the Democrat Bullock over Daines. McConnell, on the other hand, is very unpopular, but Kentucky is such a heavily Republican state that it is impossible to imagine there will be very many Trump/McGrath voters. Besides, McConnell has always won despite never being especially well-liked in Kentucky, and that’s because Kentucky is a deeply conservative state. It may elect Democratic governors, but at the federal level, Kentucky hasn’t elected a Democrat in over 20 years, and voters clearly do make a distinction between state and federal races.
That said, the two-term governor Bullock is so well-liked in his state that I am shifting Montana from Safe Republican to Likely Republican. I am making the same rating change in South Carolina, where Democrat Jaime Harrison is running a credible race against Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, and where I think Trump’s support is softening a bit. Additionally, I also think Democrat M.J. Hegar is a good candidate in Texas, but I expect GOP Senator John Cornyn to run better than Trump in that state. To me, that means a rating of Likely Republican. I am making no ratings changes in Kansas or Kentucky, which remain Safe Republican.
As of now, I expect Democrats to defeat Republican incumbents in Colorado, Arizona, Maine and North Carolina, where Democrat Cal Cunningham continues to lead Republican Senator Thom Tillis. I characterize North Carolina as Lean Democratic. I also expect Republican Tommy Tuberville to defeat Democratic Senator Doug Jones in Alabama, and I rate this race Safe Republican (another rare instance in which I consider a challenger a safe bet against an incumbent). Jones won a special election under fluky circumstances, and while he will likely run well ahead of Biden in Alabama, it won’t be enough to keep him in office.
Iowa will be competitive, but right now, I still rate it as Tilt Republican. That could change between now and November, as could my rating in at least one of the two Georgia races.
Strangely enough, although Democratic prospects have improved over the last 100 days, I still, at this time, only expect Democrats to gain a 50-50 tie in the Senate, a net gain of three seats. If Biden does win, as I expect, his vice presidential candidate will be the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, giving Democrats procedural control of the chamber. However, if the present trends continue, there is a very real chance that Democrats could pick up seats in Iowa and Georgia as well. If there is a total Republican collapse, it is not out of the question that Democrats could end up with 52 or 53 seats in the Senate.
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES PREVIEW
As to the House of Representatives, I still have not sat down and done a comprehensive review at this time, but that is in part because I believe Republicans have no chance of retaking the chamber. Unlike most commentators, I do expect Democrats to make notable gains; they left a lot of suburban House seats on the table in 2018 by very small margins. I expect Democratic net gains in the House of somewhere from 12 to 15 seats. I will dig into this more deeply in future ratings.