ThatOneKrazyKaptain
If an exact average between 2016 and 2020 were to happen the final score would be 272-268 narrow Republican victory. Though both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania are razor thin on average leaning less than 1/4 a percent either way. Nothing shown here had an average trend of above 10% margins(Nothing 60-40 or greater).
I also note the states considered ‘swing states’ are the 5 FULL states in the middle, plus the closest one on each side. That wasn’t intentional on my part, it’s sorted by margins, but that’s evidence enough to me it’s not completely broken.
New Hampshire and Minnesota are the weakest ‘solid blue’ states while Florida and Texas are the weakest ‘solid red’ states(Albeit due to raw numbers the latter are stronger). I also note the 4 ‘Old’ Swing states used from 2000-2016 to predict elections (Iowa, Ohio, Florida, and Virginia) are all still here and are still closer than average. Ohio and Florida especially, though Iowa and Virginia are both trending a bit more left and right than average recently.
Off-scale the next tightest Blue States are Oregon and New Jersey, the next tightest Red States are South Carolina and Alaska. Again, doesn’t account for trends (Alaska is probably blue-er than South Carolina without the green party, and New Jersey is absolutely redder than Oregon atm)
What caused the gigantic spike in the betting odds for Beshear? The website FINALLY added Tim Walz(he got on the radar of the media like, the day after the website started tracking, so until this morning he was just lumped in OTHER which caused the funny situation of OTHER being the third biggest option). I also know why Roy Cooper tanked since he said he was out. But it looked like the Top 4 was solidly Shapiro and Kelly in the Top 2 and then Walz in a strong third(OTHER until recently) and then Beshear fighting Mayor Pete for 4th and 5th.
Just to say, I’m increasingly uncertain about how truthful it really is that JD Vance was the worst possible pick for Trump and the best case for the democrats. If the matchup was still Biden, perhaps. But the thing is, Kamala has the black vote, Indian vote, and to a lesser extent the Female vote on lockdown now. She’s the candidate, she’s got them turning out hard, any attempt for Trump to win some over with someone like Carson or Swaney would have been utterly undone and rendered moot. There’s a bit more of an argument for the women, but Nikki was too troublesome and most of the other options are either old or look old. Trump needed someone young to shore up that flank, who won’t depress his base(or will help boost them, albeit after the shooting that’s not needed), helps him look sane and the ticket by proxy, and is at least potentially helpful with either the rust belt whites or Hispanics(who are the actually gettable ones against Harris). Vance is young, helps the base, and might edge out a few rust belt voters. He’s useless with Hispanics though and doesn’t help the moderate issue. So still not great, but a lot of the picks people were worried about like Ben Carson would have been completely neutralized by Harris with hindsight. The threat of Trump pulling over key black voters is a dead threat and that’s not where the VP sway matters most right now.
The two picks that would be better than Vance(and the two you should feel worried about Trump switching to in the next 10 days) are Doug Burgum and Glenn Youngkin. Burgum has a lot of the same advantages as Vance, and he comes off as a lot more sane and less stupid, albeit at the cost of being older than Harris and most of her VP choices. That one could go either way honestly and I doubt Trump would risk the optics for someone barely better, but if he did he could be an issue especially as it kills stories like OP. The real threat would be Glenn Youngkin. He’s younger than Harris by two years and younger than almost all her VP options. He’s a white guy, he comes off as more moderate than Trump or Vance by comparison, but not so much to risk depressing the base like Haley, and he’s younger(Also he has Young in his last name, easy to work with). The biggest threat with him though is that he’d give a boost in Virginia, and while Post-Biden that’s not a death sentence it forces Harris to commit resources and time to a state the Republicans don’t really need to win and the Democrats really cannot afford to lose. Also both Burgum and Youngkin have tech industry roots and heavy ties. They might not be Vance tier loyalists, but they’ll sing the tune of the Paypal Mafia if they must.
One thing worth noting about how much the devil is in the details.
Arizona and Nevada are still leaning pretty solidly R at the moment.(Trump’s hispanic margins have steadily gone up since 2016, dropping the wall focus helped a lot). Wisconsin and Michigan are the closest to going D albeit Trump still leans ahead. PA is in the middle and is the most important of the set. (North Carolina is the strongest R of all 7, and Georgia is the Libertarian Ex-Democrat Chase Olivers homestate which combined with Cornell West’s strong focus there and the election commission shenanigans means those two are out of play barring some good luck and Roy Cooper being picked. Trump would have won Georgia in 2020 with no third party vote and those have leaned left since. I don’t consider them swing states unless Andy or Roy are on board).
In the Rust Belt Focus scenario(They pick Shapiro or Walz and make Pennsylvania the biggest focus as it’s the most important state, and manage to finish ahead in all 3, at the cost of Arizona, Nevada, and the Southern States), the final score is 268-270. A win, but a damn tight one.
Except…Nebraska. Nebraska is putting a law up in September to change the way their state distributes to be Winner Take All. If it goes through it would be passed in October, taking away one D vote from Omaha and giving it to R. (Maine has threatened to do the same if Nebraska does, but they wouldn’t have it done til after the election if they did, not enough time). That would change the above scenario to a 269-269 decided by the current House…which is Trump run and even if it wasn’t it’s state by state and more than 26 states are safe red even in a blue wave scenario. Though it would leave the VP pick to the Senate, which is democrat right now, and while it couldn’t be Harris due to her current spot anyone else would be came. So there’d be a very real chance of a Trump/Shapiro ticket which would be a dysfunctional nightmare and would have a massive chance of one of the two getting murdered.(I can’t find a source if it’s the current senate or the newly elected one as they get inaugurated seperately from the president, but if the senate falls which looks likely the Republicans can pick the VP, and while the House is leaning democrat due to it being state by state it would be R regardless).
This ALSO happens in the reverse scenario, where the Dems focus on the Southwestern States with Mark Kelly(taking Arizona and Nevada) AND manage to put on enough pressure to take Wisconsin and Michigan(which are the closest and Kelly while he isn’t a winning deal there is still better than nothing), but are unable to win Pennsylvania(which is a lot more red leaning and without Shapiro or Walz is probably going red). 270 - 268 win for Democrats…unless Nebraska changes the law in which case it’s a tie, House picks, see above.
The specific configuration of which states go where makes a tie super likely this year especially if Nebraska switches their rules(which isn’t unconstitutional, they picked a weird unique system and they can unpick it, the other system is used by 48 states that’s all above board. The scummy part is the timing as it would leave Maine without time to change their own system before the election and thus secure an extra R vote without an extra D vote from changing Maine). There are also tie scenarios in the event Nebraska doesn’t change, namely the “Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia go blue, everything else goes Red” possibility if someone like Beshear or Cooper is picked ends in a 269-269 tie, as does a couple of scenarios where Maine-State swings Red(which it has come extremely close to more than once), turning narrow Blue wins into ties. And if those scenarios happened alongisde a Nebraska change they’d suddenly be 270-268 clean wins.
It’s probably a trap…but beating him there would be a huge huge fucking deal. Trump took the last debate on Biden teams terms and despite that Biden still cocked it up and that made the burn worse(had that debate been on Fox the age issues would have been blamed on their audio mixing and editing and the room being too hot and crap). If Trump loses on his own turf on his rules with his followers watching?
It’s actually really debatable which side RFK is drawing more from, it’s gone back and forth. Same with the Libertarians this year, there’s been an internal shakeup and Chase Oliver is a democrat, but most of the base leans right, but not all of them especially the quieter ones.
The Constitution Party is still firm right and the Greens and PSL are still firm left, albeit even then outside of the PSL there’s *'s on that(The Greens are pro-Russia and the Constitution Party guy was a democrat for one year after a decade as a Republican).
Like if you support third parties in general aiming for the center(which RFK is given that both sides have accused him of being a spoiler) is the best bet, and getting the other 3rd parties in line helps. Interested to see if he can break the 5 percent funding margin to get on debates and get national funding. 2000 was the last election that was at play for anyone.
If you assume he’s legit(which maybe? I’ve heard rumors the leaks about him working with Trump were fake because the Republicans are panicking and fear he’ll siphon votes, some people blame the Dems, some people say it’s true, honestly all 3 are possible at this point though I lean to the first one) getting the Libertarians and whatever is left of the Reform Party with him is probably the best possible call for RFK.
There’s been a bit of a Libertarian revolt internally, the Colorado branch defected to Kennedy and the party’s been a bit directionless since Chase Oliver turned the party leftward and broke with the old Gary Johnson clique. And the Reform Party died when they lost Nader in 2005, they haven’t been relevant in years. There’s also a couple small state level parties joining RFK’s coalition who used to work with the Constitution Party so who knows what they’ll do. Every third party who isn’t the Green Party or PSL has some degree of interest in RFK Jr