Source: 270 To Win
There are about 100 days to go to the election — and people keep imagining how the electoral college maps will shake out. The site “270 To Win” lets you create your own electoral college map on a state by state basis. The map above is their “Consensus Electoral Map” (as of July 17) that has been sent to me by folks on both sides of the aisle.
The version above comes from someone I would describe as “conservative, but pragmatic,” a GOP ticket voter in 2016, off of the Trump train in 2020. He has Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania as toss-ups, which I suspect some of you might not agree with.
Here are a few 4 other examples:
1. Narrow Victory, Biden: Good probability: Trump holds most of his 2016 states, but loses Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, giving 278 electoral college votes to Biden.
2. Narrow Victory, Trump: Threads the needle (again) outcome: Michigan, and Wisconsin return to blue, Maine and Nebraska split EC votes, but Trump holds on well enough to capture 278 votes.
3. Decisive Victory, Biden: It is July, and there is still time for Trump to turn this whole thing around, but this appears to be the current projection. Perhaps this map represents peak Biden, and he never has this much support again. Still, if we forget the chatter about Texas and Arizona, and leave Florida and Ohio with Trump, but the Midwest plus North Carolina go blue, it is a substantial electoral college victory with 322 votes for Biden:
4. Decisive Victory, Trump: Something would have to go terribly wrong for Biden, and I see this as low probability outcome: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin go red, Maine and Nebraska split EC votes, and Trump captures more than 300 votes.
5. Blowout Landslide Biden: Consider this scenario: The sunbelt gets overrun with Covid-19 infections, its hospital systems are overwhelmed, and it sees a surge in fatalities. Trump’s embrace of masks in July, was too little too late, and the electorate is infuriated. The bungled response by POTUS leads some states to vote for the Democrat — for some, for the first time in decades. Not just swing states Florida and Ohio, and the Carolinas, but Texas and Arizona shock the nation by giving the challenger more than 412 electoral college votes:
Yes, there are more than 100 days, and while anything might happen, some of the bigger outliers are hard to understand. Can Texas really go blue before 2030? Are Wisconsin and Michigan already lost to Trump? Is Biden as strong in Pennsylvania as many suggest? Sure, Ohio and Florida swing both ways, but are Arizona and Georgia — Yes, Georgia?!? — really in play?
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270 To Win is a fun site, one that lets you play with all of the combinations of lean D/R, strong D/R, or tossup. Check your assumptions at the door, and see how the 2020 election comes out in your view.
