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Jaicee on 20 October 2020
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JWeinCom said:
 


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.

I live in Texas and there's a crucial piece of the puzzle that I think you're missing here: Unlike nationally, in Texas the college-educated suburban middle class has continued to vote Republican overall during the Trump years and continues to lean toward Trump and the GOP in the polls overall. Why, you ask? Because, unlike nationally, in this state said group continues to be heavily influenced by the "evangelical" Christian churches, and by the Southern Baptist Convention in particular. (This is the buckle of the Bible belt.) They're more socially conservative than their counterparts in most other states as a result. They tend to be more anti-gay, more anti-abortion, all that sorta thing. This demographic is the main one that has actually switched from voting Republican to voting Democratic nationwide during the Trump years so far, so the fact that the Republicans so far have managed to keep their loss of support among this group finite in Texas is likely decisive here. Joe Biden's coalition doesn't work without that group. Without that group he would lose and he doesn't quite have it here in Texas. He does nationwide overall for sure, but not here.

jason1637 said:

Well 2018 midterms showed that a lot of Trump support stayed abouy the same. Covid happened this year so that could have a big impact but Republicans still have a lot of anticipation so I expect him to be either down up to 1m or up 1m. I think Biden wins 5-6m and third parties down a bit.

The Democrats picked up 41 seats in the House of Representatives in the 2018, which was the most they had won in any midterm cycle since 1974: the year Nixon resigned in disgrace to avoid otherwise inevitable impeachment. Democrats got 8.5% more votes in the 2018 midterm elections than Republicans did overall. For perspective, Obama won the 2008 presidential election amidst the onset of the Great Recession and the Iraq War by 7 percentage points. It wasn't close. Biden is polling ahead of Trump right now by a similar margin nationwide. This year looks to me a lot more like 2018 than like a repeat of 2016.

There has been one continuous trend in elections throughout the Trump years. The Democrats won the 2017 off-year elections, the 2018 midterm elections, the 2019 off-year elections, and appear poised to win this year's presidential election by a similar margin. The pattern has been pretty consistent all in all. The fact is that Trump is an anchor around his party's neck, weighing the whole institution down. He's been and continues to be a massive political liability for them, which is why they're running away from him as fast as they can right now. The Democratic candidates sometimes run on their party association with the Biden-Harris ticket. The Republicans aren't generally running on their ties to Trump. They seem to fear the association anymore.

Last edited by Jaicee - on 20 October 2020