Joe Biden is Now in a Position of Strength
Photo Credit: Daniel Schwen, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
By: Logan Phillips
Date: November 4th
By: Logan Phillips
Date: November 4th
The White House:
Update 10:16PM
Reminiscent of one of the most chaotic years in American history, the election results have been just as tumultuous. However, now the picture is clearing, and Joe Biden is now in a position of strength. Biden has won Michigan and Wisconsin. Georgia and Pennsylvania are counting their final ballots, and Biden’s chances in both states have risen sharply.
However, Donald Trump is not done in Arizona, as previously looked to be the case. Several media organizations, including Fox News, ABC, and the Associated Press, had claimed Arizona was firmly in Biden’s camp, but they jumped the gun.
The final batch of mail in-voters in Maricopa county that came in on election day appear to be trending towards the President. He’s now down by 2.8% lead with 14% of the vote left to go. I still expect Biden to win, but this will get closer and the state is now in play.
If Joe Biden loses Arizona, Biden would need to win either A. Pennsylvania, B. Nevada and Georgia, C. Nevada and North Carolina, or D. North Carolina and Georgia.
Georgia:
Georgia was almost written off early on, but the results in and around Atlanta have been truly remarkable for Democrats. Joe Biden has cut his deficit to just 0.7% left, and the majority of the vote still tilts towards Joe Biden. That margin will continue to shrink, and its question of whether Biden’s margin is high enough to take the state.
Pennsylvania:
Pennsylvania is starting to tilt significantly towards Joe Biden. It is still in play for both sides, but indications are that Joe Biden will more likely then not pull ahead and take the state, as a result of a large number of voters left to be counted from cities like Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Biden was trailing by 20% at one point, but now he’s down by 2.9% with 12% of the vote left. It’s also possible that we could know the results faster then expected.
Nevada:
If Biden wins Arizona, he would be just six electoral votes short of 270. Nevada is worth exactly six electoral votes, and it is currently favoring Joe Biden by 0.6% with 87% of the vote reporting. We didn’t expect the remaining vote to be released until tomorrow, but Nevada has decided to start counting tonight instead. The remaining vote is entirely made up of three groups:
1. Mail in ballots that were received on election day
2. Provisional ballots
3. Mail ballots that arrive after the election over the course of the next week.
These are votes that I think are very likely, but not certain, to favor Joe Biden more than the existing Nevada vote. I think he’ll end up winning the state by a few percent. However, we don’t have enough history here to judge properly how much the late sent mail in ballots will favor Biden, if at all. Democrats aggressively encouraged voters to send their ballots in history, so we can’t rule out that they tilt a bit more Republican. That’s why I think this state is still in play.
North Carolina
Finally, North Carolina is tilting towards Republicans. We have 6% outstanding, and it is primarily from the suburban and urban areas where Joe Biden is performing best. The margin will get closer. I think the odds are about 75-85% that Donald Trump will win the state.
So this is looking like a Biden win. It won't be a landslide, but it could be a clear victory if he takes Pennsylvania and Georgia. I’ll acknowledge, we thought Biden was likely to win by more. It looks like there has been a large polling error in the direction of Donald Trump.
The Senate
Update: 10:18 PM
Republicans are the favorites here, although Democrats still have a viable pathway to victory here. Their odds increased as Democrat Sarah Gideon just conceded to Susan Collins in Maine.
Democrats on the other hand just got very encouraging news in Michigan, where Incumbent Democrat Gary Peters has won the seat after a strong finish from voters in Detroit. Now, Republicans have 48 seats, and Democrats have 47. Now that Democrats are the heavy favorites for the Presidency, their magic number is 50 seats, which will give them the majority if they win the White House. Republicans likely need 51 seats to win the Senate.
That leaves four seats in contention: North Carolina, Alaska, and two seats in Georgia. Republicans are clear favorites in North Carolina - although Cunningham still has a possible route to victory. Alaska is one of the slowest counting states in the nation historically, and Al Gross has polled only a few points behind Republican Dan Sullivan. However it is likely to go in the Republican parties favor.
That would give Republicans 50 seats, with two seats in Georgia remaining. The Special Election will see Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican Kelly Loeffler going to a runoff in January. David Perdue could outright win the other seat today, but if he falls below 50%, he will also be in a runoff. If that happens, Georgia will decide the winner of the Senate, literally days after the Senate is inaugurated.
Here’s a more in depth breakdown of the states:
Georgia (Update 10:17 PM):
There are two options in this race. One, Republican David Perdue finishes with 50%+ votes and wins the seat, or two, it goes to an outright runoff if he falls below that margin. He is at 50.2%, with 8% remaining. However, the vote around Atlanta will overwhelmingly favor Ossoff,. It’s two counties, one favoring Ossoff 80% to 17%, the other favoring him in Cobb county. I think that it is highly likely he will fall short.
Georgia Special
Democrat Pastor Raphael Warnock, who preaches at the same church MLK once worked for in Atlanta, had an excellent day in Georgia and finished first out of over twenty candidates with 31.9% of the vote. He will move on to the January runoff with incumbent Senator Kelly Loeffler. I consider Warnock to be a modest favorite and he's polling 6.2% ahead of Loeffler (although at this point let's take all polling with a grain of salt).
North Carolina:
Thom Tillis has a 1.8% lead with 94% of votes reported. Republicans have excelled in rural areas, which have mostly already reported. Democrats are winning the suburbs and cities - which is where the outstanding votes are coming in. . However, while he's winning these counties by margins of 15-30%, it's probably not a decisive enough margin to win. I believe that Cal Cunningham will close the deficit to within a percent but fall short. However, I do not think we can call this race just yet.
Alaska (Update: 207 PM)
The early voting is exceptionally strong for Republican Dan Sullivan - but it includes no mail in votes, nor early votes in the last five days of the election, which will represent the remaining ballots. In the current vote, Sullivan has a 30% lead. Given how unusual the early-vote election day splits are in 2020, we don’t have enough history to assess this properly, so I can’t asses how positive this news is for Sullivan, but you’d clearly rather be Sullivan.
Remember, the early vote in Ohio was truly incredible for Biden and he lost the state by wide margins. We’re dealing with the reverse here, so the key here is to be patient. Alaska will not release any more ballots until at least November 10th. They allow a very generous policy for ballots coming in late - which will be accepted until November 13th domestically, and until November 18th from Alaskans voting outside the United States. We will not know the result for at least a week.
Sullivan came in as the favorite, he remains the favorite, but could lose. He barely won in 2014 in a Republican wave year, and Al Gross is a strong candidate. If an upset happens here, then Democrats become the modest favorite in my view to win the Senate.
Michigan - Update (2:00 PM):
Republican John James, like in 2018, has run far above his polls in Michigan. However, I strongly believe, but am not certain, that he will fall short of victory, and Democrat Gary Peters will be re-elected. At the time of this update (2:01 PM), Gary Peters just surged ahead of John James for the first time, and the remaining vote is primarily absentee ballots from Detroit. That’s the Democratic parties biggest strength in Michigan, so Peters is the clear favorite now.
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