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JWeinCom on 20 October 2020
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EpicRandy said:

Trump appears to now be embracing the vote by mail after months of sowing doubt on it: https://globalnews.ca/news/7403460/trump-vote-by-mail-ads/
It's not surprising when looking at the early vote stats https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
on States that reports ballots by registered affiliation:
8.1M Dems have voted so far VS 3.8m Republicans
24M Dems have requested a ballot and only 13.4M Republicans have done so


This is not surprising giving the president stance on mail in ballot certainly had more effectiveness on it's own electoral base. So Republicans are expected to vote en masse in person but the thing is: https://www.google.com/search?client=opera&q=us+covid&sourceid=opera&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8
Covid 19 daily cases are spiking and would probably be hitting all time high this week and additional federal/red state measures seems to be a far cry giving the president stance on this.


With all this information, it is possible that sowing doubt in mailing voting will backfire spectacularly on republicans?
Do you think republicans officials are now afraid their voter base gonna be afraid to go vote on election day and hand many surprise victory to Democrats base on early voting?

Trump has never been against mail in ballots, he's been against Biden ballots in whatever form they take. 

Whether a Covid-surge will effect republicans depends on how enthusiastic Trump supporters are and how seriously they take the virus.

The difference is more likely to be felt among older voters and independents. I don't think that on the whole it will make or break the election, but in a place like Florida it may have enough of an impact to turn the tide, and if Florida votes Biden, then that's it.

Jaicee said:
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.

 


That may be true, but I think the analysis kind of accounts for it. 

Basically in Pennsylvania there's not much shift in the demographics to my knowledge. So, whatever change happens is attributed mostly to Trump and the situation in general. There we're seeing what looks like a 6-8% shift.

In Texas, if there were no change in demographics, then I agree the shift would not be as big. Maybe 4-6%, in line with what we see in North Carolina and Georgia which are more similar in terms of evangelical influence.

But considering how much Texas shifted left in 2016 when the country generally went right, you'd have to consider that demographics on their own would cause a shift of 2-3%. If that's the case, an overall shift of 6-9% would be possible, and if it's on the high end of that range, Biden would have a very realistic shot.

That's oversimplified obviously, but the point is even with college whites as a buffer preventing the same kind of loss in Trump support we see in other states, I think the change in demographics can make up for that difference.