KManX89 said:
Trump's shown a comfortable and consistent enough lead in Texas and Ohio to where I could call those for him. Even though Biden COULD take them, it's something of an uphill battle, so just for argument's sake, I'd call Texas and Ohio for Trump. However, a loss in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and all the rust belt states is not only possible, but VERY much in play according to all the data, so, barring some otherworldly rigging, I don't see any way Trump wins reelection. Trump doesn't have the Independents, whites and elderly voters on his side QUITE like he did in 2016, or not at all in the case of Independents (who, as we all know, are very important in deciding the election), and he's getting destroyed nationally in the polls by an even bigger margin than Hillary in 2016, not to mention Democrats are destroying Republicans in early voting. Hardly surprising considering the pandemic that he helped worsen and the threat of stacking the courts and DebateGate alienating voters (on top of all the other shit he did to alienate voters, which I'd be typing until Christmas to list off every single one, lol). tRump has so much going against him by every single metric-or just by being an all-around incompetent idiot-that I'd be genuinely shocked if he won this time around. |
KManX89 said:
Trump's shown a comfortable and consistent enough lead in Texas and Ohio to where I could call those for him. Even though Biden COULD take them, it's something of an uphill battle, so just for argument's sake, I'd call Texas and Ohio for Trump. However, a loss in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and all the rust belt states is not only possible, but VERY much in play according to all the data, so, barring some otherworldly rigging, I don't see any way Trump wins reelection. Trump doesn't have the Independents, whites and elderly voters on his side QUITE like he did in 2016, or not at all in the case of Independents (who, as we all know, are very important in deciding the election), and he's getting destroyed nationally in the polls by an even bigger margin than Hillary in 2016, not to mention Democrats are destroying Republicans in early voting. Hardly surprising considering the pandemic that he helped worsen and the threat of stacking the courts and DebateGate alienating voters (on top of all the other shit he did to alienate voters, which I'd be typing until Christmas to list off every single one, lol). tRump has so much going against him by every single metric-or just by being an all-around incompetent idiot-that I'd be genuinely shocked if he won this time around. |
I was genuinely shocked the first time around. I know I shouldn't have really been based on the data, but it still seemed to defy common sense.
As for Texas and Ohio, I don't think his lead is comfortable or consistent.
In Ohio, his lead is only .4% by the fivethirtyeight average, and his odds of winning are 52. There's been surprisingly little polling in Ohio, although maybe that's not so surprising, because there's no real situation where Biden can win Ohio and lose the election. But the polling shows a very tight race. This is especially true among the better pollsters. Fox News (which actually has pretty good polls that surprisingly tend to lean a bit democratic), had Biden up by 5 in their most recent poll. NYTimes (which maybe surprisingly leans a bit Republican) has Biden up by one. Quinnipiac has Biden up by 1 as well. So in Ohio, it's a situation where most polls are showing a Trump lead, but the better polls are showing a Biden lead. It balances out to about a tossup, at least according to fivethirtyeight.
In Texas, Trump's lead has been more consistent, but still is within a polling error. Trump's lead is only about 1.4% there. What makes Texas a bit of a unique case is the changing demographics. There are 1.8 million new voters in Texas and 60% of those voters are non-white and under 25, demographics that generally favor democrats. In particular there are a lot of new Hispanic voters. Many of these are Mexicans, who compared to other Hispanic groups (for instance Cubans in Florida) are more likely to vote democrat. In 2016, 51% of Texas's population was White. The question is if the polling sampling has kept pace with the change in the voting population.
The last piece of the puzzle for me is that the state has not been polled much in the election. It's another state that really doesn't matter. It won't be the difference between a Trump win and a Biden win, but could only be the difference between a Biden win and a Biden landslide. There have only been 3 B+ or better rated polls done in Texas in the last month. This is compared to 8 conducted in Pennsylvania. The fact that there is less polling doesn't necessarily mean anything good or bad for one candidate or another, but it means that there is more of a likelyhood in general that the numbers will be off, which is what Biden would need for a win.
That's why I think that Biden has a good chance to win in Texas. We're seeing shifts of about 7-9 points in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Iowa, if the polls are to be believed. And those are states that, to my knowledge, haven't seen big shifts in demographics. Texas on the other hand, has been shifting in demographics, and has been consistently getting more blue. In 2004, Bush won Texas by 23. In 2008 McCain won by 12. In 2012 Romney won Texas by 16 points. In 2016 Trump won by 9. So, in a year where the national average shifted one point towards the republicans, they lost 7% in Texas. This year, it looks like there will be a 4-8 point swing in favor of the Democrats, so it seems reasonable Texas will shift more.
Considering the overall shift in Texas over the past couple of decades, I think it's reasonable to expect that the shift in the vote in Texas would be larger than that of Ohio or Iowa, in which case Biden would win. The polls right now are within the margin of error, so anything from a 5 point Trump win to a 3 point Biden win is a possibility without any abnormal kind of error. Based on the factors above, I think Trump is being slightly overrated, enough for Biden to win. I'm actually a bit more confident that he'll win in Texas compared to Ohio.
Could all be wishful thinking, but it's like wishing that Geno will be the announced for Smash Bros, rather than wishing for Goku. Both may be unrealistic, but one is within the realm of possibility.
