Good as Silver

Before presidential election, the top-notch analyst Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com always does detailed analyses of where things stand along the way.  And yesterday, he finally posted his long-awaited first-look at the current position of the 2020 race.  You can read the full thing here.

This is similar to a Twitter thread that he posted a few days earlier.  The very short version of it all is that Joe Biden is far ahead with a 71% chance of winning, but that’s almost identical to where Hillary Clinton was in 2016, and elections always narrow and so Trump has a meaningful chance of winning, just as he did four years ago.

Which brings us to my reaction –

I wouldn’t dream of arguing with Nate Silver, most-especially because he’s right.  Races do tend to narrow, and Trump won in 2016 under similar numbers, and so he has a meaningful chance of winning.  But life isn't a one-sided coin, and Nate Silver also says that Joe Biden currently has a 71% chance of winning.  So, I’d think that that’s an even more meaningful chance of being elected than someone who has a 29% chance. right now.

Also, while Nate Silver is absolute right about elections usually getting closer, I’d suggest that this isn’t a “usual” year.  In fact, I would note that it may be one of the more unusual years ever in American history.  Consider how "not usual" it is --

We’re in a pandemic, 169,131 Americans have died, doctors think the number could hit 250,000 dead Americans by election day, 55 million Americans have newly signed up for unemployment, thousands of businesses went bankrupt and won't be reopening, racial protests filled cities across the nation, Mississippi voted to remove the Confederate flag from its own state flag, unidentified federal mercenary troops gassed peaceful protests, most children through the country won't be going back to school in the fall, many if not most college students won't be returning to campuses in the fall, college football has been canceled by most conferences, major professional sports have had their seasons trimmed short and play with no fans in attendance, movie houses and stage theaters are closed, unlike 2016 Trump now has a four-year record that he has to defend and run on, Trump is running as only the third U.S. president to be impeached, Trump has never had a 50% approval since taking office, his current approval is around 40%, as far back as April there were 52% of voters who already said they wouldn’t vote for Trump under any possible condition, Trump is under investigation by the state of New York, he has floated the idea -- repudiated by all - of delaying the election which he has no constitutional authority to do, the U.S. mail service is being broken intentionally by Trump to suppress the vote though it will have great national repercussions separate of that, early voting options are far greater this year than ever in U.S. history, the opportunity to vote by mail is far greater than ever before, perhaps 70% of the country or even more may have voted by Election Day, Trump has less time to make up the deficit than any other president had ever had, and Trump isn’t surrounded by the best campaign managers since they all have left him – and more.  

And we didn't even touch on earlier than this year, like how Democrats control the House of Representatives because they swamped Republicans in the 2018 mid-term elections.  And children who Trump had taken from their parents still live in cages despite a court order requiring him to unite them all.  And more, 

Nate Silver is very right that the election can get closer as Election Day nears.  And I think it’s good that Democrats recognize this and know that there is, in fact, a meaningful way Trump can win -- because that will ensure that they don't take anything for granted and push them to be more aggressive in getting out the vote. I would suggest two things, though --

The first is that it’s not unreasonable to think since this is such an unusual year the election can possible get farther apart as Election Day nears because the Trump campaign ship is closer to being the Titanic than the QE2.  And the second being that if the margin does begin to close, then with early voting and vote-by-mail being so prominent this year, far more so than ever, this drastically cuts down the normal amount of time that Trump has for him to close the margin.

So, Nate Silver is absolutely right.  And Democrats should be very wary.

But Republicans should be scared.