Election 2020: Small Things Make a Big Difference

So we're in the final week of September and I currently don't see any change in the electoral map from last week.

As it can be seen, there's a ways to go in this election.  Based on this map, MN would be an arguable tipping point state in this election.  Based on my analysis last week in MN, I could really see Trump being the first GOPer to win MN since 1972.  I argued that if he could do better with working-class, non-college graduates, especially in NE MN (i.e. Duluth and the Iron Range) he could do so. This theme applying to other battleground states (OH,WI, MN, PA) would have a similar effect.   So I was quite pleased to see that the Cook political report provided a "Swing-O-Meter" to do some sensitivity analysis on how demographic changes in the electorate changes the election outcome.

For example, currently the default map on the Swing-O-Meter is this

But now let's assume the following:

Trump's share of white, non-college grads goes from 69% in the above map to 70% and their turnout goes from 55% to 57%.  Here's the effect:

A pretty marginal change can make a large difference, one that is quite plausible from my myopic opinion.  Now let's look the at if instead of the above scenario if Trump share of white, non-college grads goes down to 67% and Biden's lead amongst white, college grads goes from 54% to 55%

There's been much buzz in anecdotal stories that Trump is doing better with Blacks and Hispanics than 2016.  So to test if that really makes much of a difference, let's hold all the shares of the electorate and the White/Asian vote shares splits the same as the default scenario.  I then change Trump's vote share of Blacks from 8% to 11% and his Hispanic share from 28% to 33%.

I guess it would make a significant difference.  So as I said at the beginning, there's much to see yet for the rest of this election.  Small changes in the electorate will make notable differences.

Talking about notable differences, the first debate is this upcoming week.  While there are many who think that Biden's public appearances would portend to Trump easily winning the debate, I beg to differ.  Incumbent Presidents generally haven't done well in their first debates, especially over the last 40 years.  Outside of President Bill Clinton showing much more vigor than Bob Dole in 1996, the incumbents haven't done well.  

• President Reagan's performance had voters wondering if he was becoming senile.  

• President George HW Bush looked at his watch during the debate, not something you want to publicly communicate how you feel in front of the electorate.    

• President George W Bush looked quite tired, repeating the same line ("He (John Kerry) always changes positions").  

• President Obama looked quite out of sorts from Mitt Romney's attacks on Obamacare.   

Each debate notably boosted the challenger in the polls.  Now in all the situations outside of President George HW Bush, the incumbent President was able to recover in following debates to win re-election.  However, beware of the expectations.

So until next time, it is what it is.