Primary Season Expectations Largely Mean Nothing... yet

The Trump supporters belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen has proven to be tenacious. It’s always been a silly belief because the claim of election fraud only existed for the presidential campaign and a couple of governor races. If Democrats were changing votes in the top race, why weren’t they targeting more down ballot races?

Also, every recount done in any state supported the initial outcome. Numerous court challenges by Trump or other Republicans also turned up no fraud that would have changed the outcome in any state. And despite claims of ballot harvesting or ineligible people voting that also emanated from Trump, only a few hundred ballots proved to be cast fraudulently and more of those were cast by Republicans.

The worst case of election error was reported 5 days ago when Prince William County in Virginia reported that in 2020 Trump incorrectly received 2,327 extra votes, while Biden was shorted 1,648 votes. No election outcome in VA was changed by the programming error.

Election watchers in the US and UN stated that the 2020 election was unequivocably the most accurate election in US history. Viewing all the actual evidence, the fact that Trump supporters persist in ignoring all evidence demonstrates that Trump supporters simply don’t care about facts, don’t trust any fact reporters, don’t trust any political analysts or experts and don’t believe judges and jurors. Many - possibly most - of the hundreds of imsurrectionists who pled guilty for their January 6 crimes still believe Trump won.

The ultimate proven fact is that Donald Trump has never won any popular vote in his entire life.

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In 2020, pre-election polling was pretty accurate. The categories of ‘Lean Democrat’ and ‘Lean Republican’ were defined as ‘at least 5% leads existed in the last 3 pre-election polls in each state’ and none of them flipped.

If the last 3 pre-election polls were rated ‘slightly D’ or ‘slightly R’ that means at least a 2% lead existed, making those states more likely to flip. How many states were in those groups? Only 2: Arizona and Nevada. Both were rated ‘Slightly Democrat’ and neither of that pair was flipped either.

There were only 6 states with final polls showing less than 2% differences: TX, FL, GA, OH, NC and IA. They were rated as ‘tossups’. Trump won 5 of those 6, losing only GA in that group. But even if he had won GA, he still would have lost the Electoral College to Biden 274-264.

Although a few states did have significantly different results than the polls showed (indicating that certain pollsters were off the mark), NONE rated by category were off at all. Trump needed to win every tossup state plus one of the two Leans Democrat states and he failed.

From the time that the primaries ended in June 2020 to Election Day, Trump was always behind in the polling. And he knew it.

In the final 5 months, he began talking about the election as likely to be rigged, setting the stage for the stolen election claims before a single vote was cast. As many states began shifting to allow more mail-in voting (due to the covid pandemic), Trump’s campaign tried to block those efforts in swing states. His appointment of a new Postmaster General was also considered suspect, since the new guy could slow mail deliveries causing some votes to miss voting deadlines. Even though mail-in voting has always been the most error free.

Despite the closeness of a handful of state elections (Biden won but with less than 50% in AZ, WI, GA and PA. Trump won but with less than 50% only in NC ) the outcomes were well predicted by those final 3 polls in each state, all of them taken in the final 15 days before Election Day.

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So what can be expected in this 2024 race?

1) Polling for primaries are relevant but are currently irrelevant for the general election. May and June polls are when to start paying attention to those.

2) Economic issues almost always outweigh all others in national elections. Indicators like inflation, gas prices, fuel prices, unemployment and wages don’t rely on stats from 2021 to 2023. Those numbers matter in the final 6 months of the campaign. The trends in all those measures have been more favorable to Biden since midsummer 2023.

3) Trump has been making campaign appearances for at least 6 months. Biden’s campaign hasn’t really begun, beyond fundraising. Biden has already raised more money than any Democrat in history has achieved by the first month of the election year.

4) Trump’s legal troubles will mount through this year. Every conviction decided by judge and jury will drain more support from him. Trial delays and conviction appeals can slow the draining some, but he really can’t afford any drain at all.

Trump has a lot of base support unlikely to change. Extremist evangelical support (many who consider women’s rights and LGTBQ rights to be unforgivable sins) isn’t likely to wane. Much of his top 1% of wealth guys won’t wane much as they remain addicted to gaining ever more tax cuts and loopholes. And that portion of his white racist base has no other alternative to shift to other candidates. But Trump’s most ardent base is not even 33% of the eligible adult voters in the country. He cannot count on retaining Libertarians, Greens and other independent voters as few of them are motivated by the things Trump offers.

5) A poll this past week showed that nearly 70% of young voters (18-30) support Biden over Trump. Because of the fresh round of abortion restrictions, the support of women voters for Biden has grown since 2020 and that’s the majority of voters. Support from voters 55 and older has grown because of perceived threats to Social Security and Medicare. Trump’s main support now comes from white men between 30 and 56 years of age.

6) One thing that has shifted in favor of Trump came from the 2020 census. Overall three electoral votes have shifted to states Trump won in 2020. CA, NY, IL, PA and MI have each lost an electoral vote, 5 that previously voted for Biden. OH and WV each lost an electoral vote, so combined, this represents 3 votes for Trump.

FL, MT, NC each gained 1 vote and TX gained 2, so that’s 5 more votes favoring Trump. OR and CO also gained 1 vote each, so that calculation equals the previous one: Trump has gained 3 electoral votes and Biden has lost 3, a total swing of 6 electoral votes. Biden won 290 electoral votes in 2020, so a 6 vote difference PLUS a change in the very narrow GA vote would have caused a Trump win by 270-268.

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Where will the 2024 campaign be fought?

7) TX, FL, GA, OH, NC and IA were the 6 states rated as tossups by polls last time. Of those, Trump won IA by 8.2%, OH by 8%, TX by 4.6% and FL by 3.4% And AZ, NV, PA, MI and WI were each decided by less than 3%. Those 11 states plus MN (Biden by 7.1%) are the dozen states where most of the campaigning will occur.

But out of those 12, Trump won last time in TX, FL, OH, NC, IA so there’s only 7 states Trump can flip. If he doesn’t flip PA, he has to win 2 of the remaining 6 states (AZ, GA, MN, MI, NV, WI ).

Put in an easier way to understand, Trump has to defend 5 swing states plus win 2 more, to win. Biden has to defend in PA (the state he was born and raised in), and defend another 6 swing states, but he can afford to lose one. OH/IA are the hardest for Biden to flip and MN is the hardest for Trump to flip, so the other 9 states are going to see most of the action. In Sept/Oct, if significant campaigning is occurring beyond these 12 states, that’s an indicator that one of the two candidates is starting to make greater gains than can be foreseen now.

8) With the likelihood of bad economic measures slim, there’s only three unknowns that no one can predict:

a) will the wars in current Israel or Ukraine broaden and draw other countries into active fighting?

b) will countries eager to hurt us or our allies provoke bigger wars or try to influence US voters to abandon Biden? Russia, North Korea and Iran may possess the resources and knowhow to do these things and it’s obvious by their investments that Saudi Arabian royalty favors a Trump win.

So the actions of foreign governments are two of the great unknowns this election cycle.

c) The third unknown is the actual health of the candidates. Even if Biden’s health remains good, Trump will continue his efforts to create the perception that Biden is frail and incompetent.

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Random factors:

9) Trump’s VP selection. To offset the abortion factor, Trump pretty much has to pick a woman for his ticket. Despite the significant popularity of Haley, Trump might calculate that the state where she wields most influence is SC, a state already safe for Trump. The same can be said for Kristy Noem (ND).

Kari Lake (AZ) could help him flip a state. Former Lt Gov Rebecca Kleefisch (WI) also could, though both women lost their last statewide elections. Rep. Beth Van Duyne (TX) now in a safe GOP district, could help Trump retain the swing state of Texas, and Gov. Kim Reynolds (IA) could help him retain the swing state of Iowa.

He typically prefers loyalists who don’t outshine him on the campaign trail or in office so it remains difficult to find many who fit that bill.

10) House GOP show trials are likely to continue. They may impeach several Biden appointments or Biden himself but the Senate won’t convict any of them. As with several presidents in history have experienced with scandalous family members, anything Hunter Biden did or gets punished for won’t make a difference in the election. GOP officeholders are great at distraction but seem to be obstinate against learning anything from history.

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Summary

Most of Trump’s trials will be completed before Election Day, though many appeals may not be complete by then. His base support will be eroded considerably before the August Republican Convention.

Other than his health or the efforts of anti-American and anti-Israel foreign governments, Biden is in very good position to win re-election. The refusal of most GOP officials to support anyone other than the obvious criminal Trump sets them up for a worst case scenario of losing the presidency and both congressional chambers.

Primary upsets and health issues are possible but not predictable. But non-Republicans should ignore the social media trolls, racists, misogynists and other bigots, along with most election polling until May. Seasonal oil prices reach their summer peaks mid May through mid July which will result in the worst short period of polling for Biden, as pump prices will drop significantly the last 2 months beffore Election Day and no other economic issues should cause any difficulties for Biden.

Pay particular attention to state polls in the 12 key states I defined, from May through October. One last intangible is the SCOTUS rulings on election issues and Trump trial appeals. Despite its heavily conservative tilt, the odds are good that Trump will lose most or all rulings there, as the court has sustained considerable damage to its credibility and it would take an incredible sense of royal indifference and hubris if they foment further division in this country.

March brings Super Tuesday followed by a spate of court appointments for Trump which is precisely the time to expect the Biden campaign the first real ramp up of the Biden campaign. Until then, spare yourself all the fuzz, static and noise.

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More than two months of health issues and offline duties near an end, permitting more effort to get this newsletter out. If any 2023 paid subscribers feel shortchanged by my newsletter interruptus in recent months, You can ask for a refund and I’ll do my best to accomodate that.

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Other recommended readings

— Historian Heather Cox Richardson on the brutal choices of the Texas governor that also usurp federal authority.

— Her thoughts about MLK Jr and heroes are also solid.

— And for a trifecta, her report on budget negotiations, the lame excuses of Texas Governor Abbott about the needless deaths he’s caused and the damage done to US diplomatic leadership in the world by Trump’s decisions is also well worth your consideration.

— If you’re looking for well thought out movie reviews of some Oscar contenders, another fellow writer - Roy Edroso - brings the goods with reviews of Barbie, Killers of the Flower Moon, and The Holdovers. I’m hoping he follows soon with Oppenheimer, as the Golden Globes voters of the foreign press gave it the most Globby things. I’ve only seen The Holdovers so far and highly recommend it (available on the streaming service, Paramount).

And rather than music, my video close presents the funniest ventriloquist I’ve ever seen, who I only discovered in the past month. I don’t know if you have to have a facebook account. Enjoy Nina Conti and Monkey.