By Ryan Chou
No matter what happens, the 2020 Election is destined to be marked by chaos. In my opinion, it will be even more chaotic than the 2000 Election and, yes, the 2016 Election too. But doesn’t Joe Biden have a pretty commanding lead over Trump right now in the polls? And didn’t Allan Lichtman, the historian who correctly predicted every presidential race since 1984, call the race for Joe Biden? Well, yes, but all this doesn’t mean that Election Night is going to be as uneventful as an election to determine the next leader of the free world can get. Why?
First and foremost, Donald Trump’s base is remarkably loyal to him. No matter which poll you look at, Donald Trump has maintained steady approval ratings ranging from 40 to 45 percent over his tenure as president. It doesn’t matter what you look at: calling COVID the “Kung Flu”, going down as the third president in history to be impeached, admitting that he downplayed the pandemic we are in right now, or a controversial response to Hurricane Maria. During all of these events that would have traditionally caused at least considerable change in a President’s numbers, Donald Trump’s approval continued to stay put near 43 percent. In other words, Donald Trump’s supporters are fiercely loyal to him and still very much enthusiastic to vote for him again. And more than a few of Trump’s supporters believe that the establishment, polls, and mainstream media are trying to steal this race from him. If Joe Biden ends up winning this race, we could see levels of chaos from the Right even higher than the chaos seen from the Left in 2016.
Secondly, an upset can very well end up happening again as it did in 2016. In 2016, Trump notably flipped Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, which put him over the top to his 304-227 electoral college victory. According to RealClearPolitics, Hillary Clinton was leading Trump in the final polling average by 1.9 points in Pennsylvania, 3.4 points in Michigan, and 6.5 points in Wisconsin. In the end, Trump outperformed the polls by about 3 points in Pennsylvania, 4 points in Michigan, and 7 points in Wisconsin. Trump is not a normal presidential candidate, and he should not be treated as one. If pollsters think they fixed their Rust Belt polling methods from 2016, that’s great, but there’s also a chance that Trump ends up outperforming the polls again this time around. Right now, Joe Biden is leading in all three Rust Belt states, but his leads have started to deteriorate. As of September 2020, he has a 4.2 point lead in Michigan, 4.3 point lead in Pennsylvania, and 6.5 point lead in Wisconsin according to the RealClearPolitics average. Based on what happened in 2016, it is still considerably plausible that Trump flips Wisconsin, Michigan, and forces a recount in Pennsylvania. Another state to be worrying about is Texas, where Trump currently has a 3.5 point lead in. The worry here is that Trump underperformed the RealClearPolitics average by 3 points in Texas in 2016, not to mention that Ted Cruz underperformed the polls by almost 5 points in 2018 to squeak by with a 2.6 point margin of victory for the Senate. So, once the votes start being counted, it is plausible that Texas ends up flipping back and forth between Joe Biden and Donald Trump despite the fact that Trump appears to be opening up a lead in the state.
Third, the country is still in a global pandemic. So, a lot more people will be voting by mail than usual. What’s the concern? Firstly, Donald Trump has already made attempts to delegitimize the results of the election by arguing that mail-in voting leads to disproportionate amounts of voter fraud. So, if Joe Biden ends up winning, much of Trump’s loyal base may not trust the results of the election. Let’s add on another concern to mail-in voting. The 2000 Election went down in infamy because of the mainstream media pulling their calls of Florida back multiple times. Essentially, they called the state too early. Chances are, something like this may end up happening in 2020 on a much larger scale because of mail-in voting. 48% of Joe Biden’s supporters are planning to vote by mail, but only 23% of Donald Trump’s supporters will be voting by mail. However, mail-in votes and in-person votes are not going to be counted homogeneously come Election Night. In-person votes will be counted first, and these votes will most likely be predominantly Republican.
So, on Election Night, the results may point to another story of Trump beating the polls, and it may even look like a landslide for him. But afterwards, the mail-in votes will begin to trickle in, and within a few days, close states that would be showing Trump leads on Election Night, such as Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Arizona, may all flip to Joe Biden.
The 2000 Election was chaos because one state, which ultimately decided the race, was constantly going from Al Gore to George W. Bush and vise versa: so how chaotic will 2020 be if states across the country start flipping from Donald Trump to Joe Biden after election night because a disproportionate number of Democrats end up voting by mail and a disproportionate number of Republicans end up voting in-person?
