In the last two days, the revelation that Donald Trump had contracted COVID-19, and has been hospitalized as a result, has roiled the presidential race, but at this point, there seems to be no reason to expect that it will make a material difference. It is clear that the trajectory of the race has shifted back to Joe Biden. Readers may recall that in my last update, 30 days ago, I struck an ominous tone about the trajectory of the presidential race for Biden. Democrats will find my new update more heartening.
It is clear, from an examination of the polling trends in the key states, that Biden’s course has stabilized and has actually moved back in his direction. He maintains a lead in most of the key states and is, in fact, in better condition in some unexpected states than I expected he would be at this time.
A trend is emerging in which Biden’s position, relative to the position of Hillary Clinton four years ago, is improving among white voters in Midwestern states, but not improving significantly among their counterparts in southern states. It seems clear that white voters in the Midwestern and northeastern battlegrounds are much more “elastic” than white voters in southern states, who remain much more difficult to budge out of the Republican column.
The trends now clearly point to the first major shakeup in my view of the state of the race, as I am cautiously shifting Ohio to “Tilts Democratic.” Polling data clearly points to a race in the Buckeye State that has shifted in Biden’s direction, with Biden leading 10 of the last 12 polls since July. That said, his leads are very small—but consistent.
I am also moving Iowa at this time to “Tilts Democratic,” even though Trump’s polling position has been better in Iowa than in Ohio. It appears the trend is moving against him, with Biden recently moving into a small polling lead, and Biden’s improving position among Midwestern white voters and older voters augurs well for him in Iowa.
It is also clear that Michigan and Wisconsin can be moved back to “Leans Democratic,” although Michigan polling still appears softer for Biden than I expected it would. That bears watching. I also am moving the race in Nebraska’s District 2 back to “Leans Democratic,” and Biden appears to be in a very strong position to win that single electoral vote in Nebraska.
I remain convinced, as I have for months, that Pennsylvania is a harder lift for Biden than either Michigan or Wisconsin, and polling data is now bearing that out. I am keeping Pennsylvania at “Tilts Democratic,” as it is clear that Trump’s team is putting a lot of marbles in Pennsylvania. However, some recent polling in Pennsylvania has been very favorable for Biden, and the state appears likelier to move toward “Leans Democratic” than “Tilts Republican.”
I am also keeping Florida at “Tilts Republican,” despite a narrow polling lead for Biden. All signs I am seeing point to Democrats completely misplaying their hand with the state’s non-Cuban Latino communities. I have been in contact recently with a well-placed source in south Florida Democratic politics who indicates to me that the Democratic failure to engage these communities is even worse than I imagined. Make no mistake: with Biden’s improved position among white voters and seniors, he should be well ahead in Florida right now, by at least two or three points on average. The fact that he isn’t should be concerning to Florida Democrats.
I am also keeping North Carolina at “Tilts Republican,” because I find it hard to imagine that North Carolina will flip blue while Florida stays red.
But I am moving South Carolina to “Leans Republican,” based on a continued trend toward stronger-than-expected showings by Biden in that state’s polling. That, coupled with a very strong race by Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison, convinces me that something unexpected is going on in the Palmetto State, and it bears watching.
At this point, it is clear that Biden’s position in Minnesota and Maine is strong, and I am moving Minnesota back to “Likely Democratic,” and three of Maine’s four electoral votes to “Safe Democratic.” I am also shifting the electoral vote in Maine’s Congressional District 2 to “Tilts Democratic.” Polling in Maine is now very strong for Biden, and it is hard to imagine him winning the entire state by double digits while losing the 2nd District. The same trends that are benefitting Biden in Ohio and Iowa—improved performance among white voters and older voters—will also benefit him in northern Maine.
The ratings changes now show states that fall into the safe, likely or leaning Democratic categories have a total 270 electoral votes, exactly the number required for Biden to win. If all the states listed as “Tilts Democratic” also go to Biden, he would win the electoral vote by a count of 315-223.
U.S. Senate
One of the dumbest things a person can do when his theories are cast into doubt is to double down and ignore all evidence to the contrary.
It has long been my contention that it is unlikely that any given state will vote for one party’s presidential candidate and another party’s candidate for Senate this fall. I still consider it unlikely. However, weeks of consistent polling data have made it clear that Democratic Senate candidates in Iowa, Kansas, Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina are clearly running ahead of Joe Biden in those states. While I still expect Republicans will win most or all of those races, it would be stupid to rule out the possibility of a split result in any of them.
In the last 20 years, the results of Senate and presidential races, when both are contested in the same year, have shown almost an 85 percent correlation. The correlation is even more stark when an incumbent senator is on the ballot and a presidential candidate of his or her party wins the state. There has been only one exception since 2000, and that exception occurred with the incumbent senator (Ted Stevens, R-Alaska) under indictment.
This is why I have been hesitant to give much of a chance to Democrats Steve Bullock of Montana or Jaime Harrison of South Carolina. Both are running against incumbent Republican senators in states that Donald Trump is likely to win. In the end, unless Trump faces surprisingly close races in those states, I still expect both Democrats will lose. But it would be foolish to deny that they are competitive and may have a realistic chance to win.
I have also been hesitant to give much of a chance to Democrat Barbara Bollier in Kansas. Although Bollier is not running against an incumbent, she is running in one of the most safely Republican states in America—one which hasn’t elected a Democrat to the United States Senate since 1932, and one which has not voted Democratic in a statewide federal race since 1964. In the end, I also expect she will likely lose, but again, it would be foolish to deny that she is close enough to have a puncher’s chance at an upset. That said, I’ve been fooled by Kansas before. In 2014, I bought into the polling that showed independent Greg Orman beating incumbent Republican Senator Pat Roberts. In the end, Roberts won comfortably, which has rendered me exceedingly cautious about overstating Democratic prospects in Kansas.
I am moving all three of these races to “Leans Republican,” but at this time, I still expect Republicans to win them all.
I still remain convinced that Democrats, in the end, will probably lose both Senate races in Georgia, with both likely headed for runoffs in December. Given a historical pattern of Democratic turnout drop-off for post-election runoffs, the dynamics favor the Republicans in both races.
Right now, the likeliest state for a split result split appears to be North Carolina, where Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham is clearly running ahead of Biden in his race against Republican Senator Thom Tillis. That said, unlike in Iowa, Biden also maintains a razor-thin polling lead in North Carolina, so it may happen that both Democrats prevail in the Tar Heel State. That said, the recent revelations of romantically charged texts between Cunningham, who is married, and a married California political consultant, may change the trajectory of this race. At this time, out of an abundance of caution, I am moving this race to “Tilts Democratic.”
The next likeliest state for a split result appears to be Iowa, where Democratic Senate candidate Theresa Greenfield has established a small, but consistent, lead over Republican Senator Joni Ernst, but Biden is in a very tight race with Trump. I am moving this race to “Leans Democratic,” but I also have Iowa now going narrowly to Biden as well, so there may not be a split result here after all.
A split is also possible in Alaska, where independent candidate Al Gross won the Democratic primary and is polling very strongly against incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan. Biden is also polling surprisingly well in Alaska; as in South Carolina, there may be something interesting happening there worth watching as well. I am now moving this race to “Tilts Republican.” Keep an eye on this one.
In addition to characterizing Iowa and North Carolina as “Tilts Democratic,” I continue to rate Colorado as “Safe Democratic,” while setting Senate races in Arizona and Maine as “Leans Democratic.” If Democrats prevail in these five races, while losing their seat in Alabama, as expected, they will finish with a 51-49 majority in the Senate.
U.S. House
I will not get into an exhaustive race-by-race breakdown here. There are always some House races on both sides that go an unexpected direction. Most people were taken completely off guard by Kendra Horn winning a seat in Oklahoma in 2018. That seat was on my list of potential surprises, given the fact that it was the kind of urban/suburban district that had been trending blue since Trump won in 2016. It is the same kind of seat, in locales across the country, where I expect Democrats will add to their House majority in 2020.
After 2018, my assessment of the results was that there were about 20 Republican-held seats in suburban districts that Democrats narrowly missed picking up in their 40-seat wave. Two of those seats have gone back to the Republicans as the result of a special election loss (California 25) and a party switch (New Jersey 2), but I expect them both to flip again, back to the Democrats, in 30 days.
This year, I think Democrats have a top-out number of +21. I don’t think they will top out; it is probably more realistic to expect that they will net about half of what they left on the table in 2016, roughly 10 seats. Using those two numbers as a range, my best estimation at this time is that Democrats will make a net gain of 16 U.S. House seats, which would give them a 249-186 advantage. This figure would approach the crushing 257-178 majority Democrats held in the House after the 2008 elections. However, with no filibuster available in the House, as there is in the Senate, and a continued trend toward partisan polarization, the margin in the House does not matter nearly as much as it once did.
However, these expected Democratic gains would not change the balance of power in state delegations, where Republicans would continue to control the delegations of at least 26 states. In the event that disputed results in one or more states send the presidential election to the House of Representatives, Trump would still likely have the edge, despite Democrats controlling more seats, because a House vote for president provides that each state, not each representative, would have one vote.
Final Update and Election Night Guide
I will issue a final update on the election on the morning of Monday, November 2, and I plan to publish a comprehensive election night guide on my website at that time. The quadrennial Cliston Brown Election Night Guide will provide a rundown on the presidential race and key House and Senate races in every state, listed by poll closing times, so that viewers can have a sense of what to be watching for as the returns come in.
It was around this time four years ago that I began to observe that the position of Hillary Clinton relative to Donald Trump in the Electoral College was slipping. At the time, I did not assign enough importance to this development, assuming that her continued polling lead was the key point to consider in forecasting the ultimate outcome of the race. I thought she was far enough ahead that some slippage would not matter. Like most election forecasters, I was wrong.
After Trump pulled out his upset victory, I began considering why I and so many others missed what was happening. In my case, I identified three considerations that I missed and resolved not to miss again.
Events matter. It became clear, based on exit polling of late deciders in 2016, that the James Comey announcement, late in the race, that he was reopening the FBI investigation into Clinton, moved late deciders heavily in the direction of Trump, clearly flipping Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin out of the Clinton column and into Trump’s.
All polls matter. I was too dismissive of polling that came from Republican outlets, which clearly showed movement in Trump’s direction in key states, particularly Florida and North Carolina, in the final days of the race, and I left such polling out of the state-by-state polling averages.
The trend matters. In past elections, the actual polling numbers have often been a lagging indicator, and it is the trend that gives us a better view of how the race is going. Two key examples: the elections of 1980 and 1948. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan were in a dead heat going into Election Day, but Reagan ended up winning in a blowout. In 1948, President Harry Truman trailed Thomas Dewey, but the trends had been moving in his direction for weeks, and Truman won by a surprisingly decisive margin.
In 2016, the polling trend was clearly moving against Clinton by this point in the race, so much so that I was revising her status downward in every swing state. I didn’t miss the trend, but I missed what it meant.
It is clear now that Biden has been suffering some slippage since my last forecast 40 days ago, with his national lead over Trump falling from 8.6% to 7.2%. While this is still a solid lead, the trend–particularly some concerning slippage (on average) in the battleground states–should be a matter of concern for the Biden campaign and his supporters.
In short, all three of the key areas of consideration that I missed in 2016 are showing movement in Trump’s favor. Events are moving in his favor as COVID is no longer a novelty and the public has, to some degree, gotten used to it; polling averages are moving in his favor; and polling trends are moving in his favor.
Several other factors are also concerning for Biden. A fourth factor in play is that Biden, according to virtually all available polling, is suffering slippage among Latino and Black voters relative to Clinton and certainly as compared to Barack Obama. This slippage could pose problems for him in states like Arizona, Nevada and even New Mexico if not reversed. Virginia may still be safe for Biden, even with slight slippage in its significant Black vote, due to its educational demographics; the same is true for Colorado, even with slight slippage for Biden among Latinos.
The fifth factor that poses a problem for Biden is that more people surveyed continue to view Trump as stronger on the economy than Biden would be, despite the economic turmoil that has racked the country due to the administration’s bungled COVID-19 response. As Democrats too often do, they are leaving it to the voters to connect the dots, which is a mistake. They seem to be banking on the idea that voters will independently deduce that Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic response has been the cause of the economic downturn. While this may seem like an obvious fact to Democrats, the general public seems to be disconnecting the two issues. Democrats’ failure to make that connection for voters is reminiscent of the John Kerry campaign’s failure in 2004 to knock down the Swift Boat allegations that damaged his image as a war hero.
And there is a sixth factor that should be particularly concerning for Team Biden: his slowness to act. His failure to go to Kenosha swiftly after the police shooting of Jacob Blake and the ensuing riots was a colossal mistake, opening the door for Trump to capitalize on that mistake by going himself. As we have repeatedly seen over the last few decades, Democrats are consistently too passive and slow to act, while Republicans are consistently proactive and quick to seize opportunities that Democrats fumble. Biden finally went to Kenosha this week, but his flat-footedness is a matter of concern.
As a result of negative, or at least concerning, developments in these six areas, I am revising my ratings in 16 states in Trump’s direction. While I still rate Biden as the favorite, Team Biden needs to be thinking about playing to win rather than trying to run out the clock, and they especially need to be doing a better job with Latino voters.
I am, at this time, making the following ratings changes:
SAFE BIDEN to LIKELY BIDEN (5 electoral votes): New Mexico (5). LIKELY BIDEN to LEAN BIDEN (38 electoral votes): Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Maine-at-large (2). LEAN BIDEN to TILT BIDEN (71 electoral votes): Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Nebraska-02 (1). LEAN BIDEN to TILT TRUMP (15 electoral votes): North Carolina (15) TILT BIDEN to LEAN TRUMP (16 electoral votes): Georgia (16). TILT TRUMP to LEAN TRUMP (25 electoral votes): Ohio (18), Iowa (6), Maine-02 (1). LEAN TRUMP to LIKELY TRUMP (38 electoral votes): Texas (38). LIKELY TRUMP to SAFE TRUMP (9 electoral votes): South Carolina (9).
The upshot is that I now show Biden winning the Electoral College 319-219, down from my 350-188 projection 40 days ago, with North Carolina flipping to “Tilt Trump” and Georgia flipping to “Lean Trump.” But that is a very soft 319 for Biden, with only 210 electoral votes in the “safe” or “likely” category for him, and 270 needed to win.
In the U.S. Senate, I continue to maintain that it is highly unlikely that any state will produce a split result in which a presidential candidate of one party and a Senate candidate of the other party both win. At this time, I now expect Republicans to maintain their majority in the Senate by a bare 51-49 margin, with Democrats picking up seats in Arizona, Colorado, and Maine and losing a seat in Alabama.
With Biden’s fortunes clearly on the decline in North Carolina, and with the slippage of Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham as well in recent polls, my expectation at this time is that the GOP will hang onto that Senate seat, unless the trajectory of the race turns back in the Democrats’ favor. I continue to maintain my view that Democrat Steve Bullock is not just an underdog in Montana, but a significant underdog. I also discount the chances of Democratic contenders in Kansas, Kentucky and South Carolina due to the fact that partisan polarization has created a very significant correlation between presidential and Senate results during presidential election years.
Additionally, I expect Democrats will make small gains in the House of Representatives. In 30 days, I will do a full analysis on the House.
The bottom line is that Democrats cannot expect to just run out the clock and win this election. Team Biden and the rest of the Democratic contenders need to be not just active, but proactive, and they need to both define Trump (rather than assuming that events will define Trump for them) and demonstrate that they will do better than Trump. Although some Democrats may consider it obvious that Biden will do better than Trump, they would do well to remember that nothing in politics should ever be considered obvious. You have to draw the voters a picture. If the Democrats don’t, the Republicans will.
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’sDistrict 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).
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 KellyLoeffler. 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.
Contrary to popular belief, the vice presidency is not a great ticket to the Oval Office. Only 29% of vice presidents have gotten there, and nearly two-thirds of those became president due to the previous president dying or resigning.
A vice president who doesn’t succeed to the presidency due to a death or resignation has about a 1-in-10 chance of actually getting there.
A popular notion on Twitter these days is that Joe Biden, should he win the presidency this fall, will only serve one term and, therefore, whoever he selects as his vice president will have the inside track on the Democratic nomination, and the presidency, in 2024.
We’ll set aside, for a moment, a discussion of the myth that running for the presidency as a sitting vice president gives anyone a leg up. (History shows that most sitting vice presidents don’t even get nominated for the presidency, much less win; only four ever have, and only one of those since 1836. But that’s another topic that I plan to cover as part of another post soon.)
Today’s post will focus on the widely circulated belief that Biden is running purely to get Trump out of office and, due to his advanced age, will not seek a second term if elected this November.
Well, sure. It’s possible. But it’s highly unlikely.
It must be said: we never know what is in a person’s mind unless they tell us. But Biden hasn’t made any such pledge, so his course of action in 2024, if elected in 2020, can only be guessed at. And there are a lot more reasons to guess that he will seek a second term than there are to expect that he won’t.
The truth is that it takes a certain kind of personality to run for president. It’s a huge job that requires an insane amount of striving to get. It also requires a pretty large ego–anybody who really thinks he or she is the best person to hold the most powerful job in the world must have an extremely high opinion of oneself. Anyone who makes it to the White House has generally has spent a significant part of his adult life building toward that moment. For whatever reason, they want the power and the prestige of the presidency, whether for altruistic reasons or for purely egotistical ones.
People who put so much time, and so much of their heart and soul, for so many years, into becoming president are not likely to step away from their lifelong dream voluntarily. It is no coincidence that so many rulers in other, less democratic countries end up staying on for life. Honestly, where do you go, and what do you do, after you have been the head of state of the most powerful country on earth? What can compare? Do you think Bill Clinton doesn’t wake up every day feeling a little bored and thinking wistfully about the job he once held? (Asked in the early 2000s if he would have sought a third term, had it been constitutional, Clinton responded candidly: “I’d have made y’all throw me out.”)
In America, it became customary for presidents to seek no more than two terms due to the example set by President George Washington. Ultimately, after Franklin Roosevelt broke with this tradition by successfully seeking a third term in 1940 (and a fourth in 1944), Congress and the states enacted the 22nd Amendment codifying the two-term limit into law–although it is instructive that Congress quite pointedly did not apply any term limits to itself. Congressmen like power and prestige, too. They might not mind limiting someone else’s terms, but they’ll gladly hang out in Washington for 40 years if they can, thank you very much.
Since the passage of the 22nd Amendment, only two presidents have voluntarily stepped aside while still eligible to run for reelection. Harry Truman, who was not covered by the amendment due to having already been in office when it passed, chose not to run in 1952. But Truman had already served almost two full terms, taking over the presidency just three months into Franklin Roosevelt’s fourth term in 1945 and then winning the presidency in his own right in 1948. Truman may have had the least ambition for the presidency of anyone who has sought the office in the last century, steadfastly resisting the offer of the vice presidency in 1944 until essentially commanded by Roosevelt to accept for the good of the Democratic Party. So perhaps he would have chosen to step aside in 1952 even if his approval ratings hadn’t sunk to 22%. We’ll never know–but remember, he had essentially already served two full terms, and with the Republican Party set to nominate General Dwight Eisenhower, Truman would have had to be remarkably optimistic–or stupid–to expect that he would win.
Lyndon Johnson, in his sixth year in the Oval Office, withdrew from the 1968 presidential race, claiming that the country needed him to focus on the Vietnam War rather than running another campaign. This self-serving statement of martyrdom by an intensely vain, power-hungry man who would have sold his own mother into slavery to be president doesn’t meet the smell test. Johnson was badly wounded by his support of the unpopular war in Vietnam, and shortly after an obscure anti-war senator won 42% against him in the New Hampshire primary–a shocking testament to his political vulnerability that showed the writing was on the wall–Johnson bowed out. But again, he had served about a term and a half.
You’d have to go all the way back to 1880 to find a president who voluntarily stepped away after only one term. That was Rutherford B. Hayes, a mediocre president who had been elected under the most divisive and frankly shady circumstances in the history of U.S. presidential elections. No president in the last 140 years has voluntarily chosen not to run for reelection after just four years in office.
And some presidents hung on to their offices even during severe health crises that made it impossible for them to do their jobs properly, or at all. For all the talk about how Biden will probably forego a second term if he has health issues, consider two examples of how presidents will hang on by their fingernails even during the worst health crises.
EXAMPLE 1: Franklin Roosevelt accepted renomination in 1944 even though he was clearly dying of acute congestive heart failure. He had been ordered by his physician not to work more than four hours a day–an extremely light work schedule for a president in the middle of a world war. His condition was so well-known by key insiders that party elders knew the 1944 Democratic convention was selecting two presidents, not one, as documented in the Truman biography by David McCullough.
One response to this observation is that FDR stayed on because the country needed continuity in wartime, but whether he had stood for reelection or not, it was likely that there would be a change in leadership one way or the other. This is, of course, exactly what happened, as FDR died 82 days into his fourth term, months before the war ended. Whether his doctors told him explicitly of his prognosis is not known, but surely Roosevelt knew his condition was grave, having had a type of seizure shortly before accepting his 1944 renomination by radio linkup.
EXAMPLE 2: President Woodrow Wilson, half his body paralyzed after a pair of strokes and an embolism, actively conspired with his wife Edith to deceive Congress and his own cabinet about the seriousness of his condition. After his devastating second stroke in September 1919, Edith Wilson took on the president’s duties while blocking access to the president to obscure his inability to do his job. His physician, Dr. Cary Grayson, blatantly lied, claiming after the first stroke that the president had taken ill with influenza. The country went on like this for the final 18 months of Wilson’s second term.
Ego-driven leaders who have risen to the height of power simply do not part with that power unless they absolutely have to–due to term limits, losing an election, or impending defeat in an upcoming election. Nobody can read Biden’s mind, or know what he would do if hit with a serious health crisis.
But those who are counting on him to serve only one term, and hoping their own preferred candidate will become the heir apparent in 2024, should learn from history that they shouldn’t count on it.
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