2020 President

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Joe Biden outran Hillary Clinton in 73 of 75 large suburban counties, an indicator of the suburban strength that carried him to the White House. — In Georgia, Colorado, and Minnesota, Biden’s performance in the major suburban areas served as bellwethers for his statewide performance, as he used strong improvements in these counties to pad his statewide margin and carry himself to victory. — The link between education and voting tendencies is only getting stronger, with a heavy correlation emerging between Biden’s vote share improvement and the county’s four-year-degree rate. Biden’s suburban swings As Donald Trump became the first incumbent who lacked a serious primary challenger to lose re-election since 1932, Mitch McConnell noted, “We need to win back the suburbs.” An early analysis gives credence to McConnell’s theory; across 75 counties around major metro areas with over 105,000 presidential votes cast, Biden outran Hillary Clinton in 73 of them and Barack Obama in 66 of them. The demographics, geography, and local politics of these areas may vary greatly, but whether in a strong Republican area like Waukesha County in Wisconsin or a Democratic stronghold like Ramsey County in Minnesota (which contains the city

Dear Readers: Our new Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes webinar is now available on YouTube and on our YouTube channel, UVACFP. We discuss the latest in the pivotal Georgia Senate runoffs and hear from Greg Bluestein of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, who is covering those races as closely as anyone. Our webinars are also available as a podcast on Apple, Spotify, and other podcast providers. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Joe Biden did better than Hillary Clinton in the lion’s share of states. — However, when one takes into account how the states voted relative to the nation, Republicans retain an edge in the Electoral College. — Despite voting for Biden, key battleground states such as Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin all became more Republican relative to the national voting. Biden did solidify a number of the Clinton-won states, though, most notably Minnesota and New Hampshire. The 21st century’s Electoral College trends In winning the national popular vote by about 4.5 points, President-elect Joe Biden improved on Hillary Clinton’s two-point victory by about 2.5 points. In so doing, Biden also won the Electoral College 306-232, a reversal of President Donald Trump’s victory four years ago. With almost all

Dear Readers: We will be releasing a new episode of our Sabato’s Crystal Ball webinar series next Wednesday morning. It will be posted on our YouTube channel, UVACFP, and we will also send out the direct YouTube link in next Wednesday’s issue of the Crystal Ball. We’ll be discussing the Georgia Senate runoffs, continuing fallout from the election, the 2022 Senate map, and more. If you have any questions you would like us to answer during the webinar, please email us at [email protected]. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Prior to the election, several prominent political scientists forecast the election in PS: Political Science and Politics. — In aggregate, the forecasts performed very well. — However, several individual forecasts missed the mark, and this election showed the importance of questioning the assumptions of models in the midst of an unusual election. Assessing 2020’s political science forecasts The October 2020 issue of PS: Political Science and Politics included 10 forecasts of the national popular vote and seven forecasts of the electoral vote by prominent political science forecasters. Some of these forecasts were based on longstanding models while others were novel. Some were based on national data and others

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Once again, Wisconsin appears to be the tipping point state in the Electoral College, though its 10 electoral votes are back in the Democratic column this year. — In 2016, Donald Trump made major inroads in western Wisconsin. Despite coming up short statewide, his gains in the region largely held. — Joe Biden’s strength in the state was powered by a strong showing in the Milwaukee region, though future Democrats may not be able to replicate that. The tipping point state, again While a critical mass of votes are still being counted in several states — politically, these states range from those as safe as California to some as hotly contested as Pennsylvania — in Wisconsin, it looks like we have close to our final tally. As of Tuesday’s canvass, former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Trump by 20,608 votes, or about sixth-tenths of a percentage point. The president appears to be seeking recounts in two key Democratic counties, Milwaukee and Dane (Madison), although recounts typically do not lead to significant changes in the vote tally. Though this margin seems excruciatingly close, Badger State voters are no strangers to close elections. In four

Dear Readers: Check out our YouTube channel, UVACFP, later today for our latest Crystal Ball webinar. It will feature the 22nd annual American Democracy Conference: We’ll be hearing from New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie; CNN commentator Tara Setmayer; Republican strategist Chris LaCivita; and Democratic strategist John Lapp. That program will be posted by 2 p.m. on Thursday on our YouTube channel, UVACFP. We also just posted another new Crystal Ball webinar, which you can watch at this direct link on YouTube. Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato talks with Christopher Krebs, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), about protecting the integrity of the election and working to make 2020 the “most protected, secured election in modern history.” As the dust settles from the election, we were pleased to be identified by both the Harvard Political Review and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a standout for our Electoral College projection. It appears as though we missed only one state (North Carolina) while calling every other state correctly, including the competitive ME-2 and NE-2 congressional district electoral votes (the former went to Donald Trump, the latter went to Joe Biden). We took a closer look at both

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — New numbers from the UMass Poll show very few undecided voters and suggest the vast majority of those voting for Joe Biden and Donald Trump made up their minds well before the pandemic and before Biden secured the Democratic nomination. — Nearly two-thirds of likely voters say they made up their minds when Donald Trump was elected four years ago. Most voters decided long ago Estimates suggest that, when the dust settles, more than $6 billion will have been spent on this year’s presidential race. That’s more than double what was spent in 2016. Which makes sense, given that the stakes are so high. But, how many voters have been persuaded? Political operatives, the news media, and pundits painstakingly dissect the impact of convention speeches, the latest tidbits from the campaign trail, each new horse-race poll, the utterances of “undecided voters” in hokey on-air focus groups, and every debate gaffe or knock-out blow. We political scientists, on the other hand, have spilled substantial ink wondering whether campaigns even matter. After all, early studies of voting showed precious little persuasion during the course of a campaign. And, models based on indicators that precede the heart

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — Swing voters are not the same as swing states. This article discusses a metric called “elasticity” for counties, which tracks a county’s variance in vote margin, to help us better identify and draw the distinction between these two. — In the 2020 election, Republicans face an extremely tough challenge in holding Wisconsin, as the highly elastic nature of the state, combined with the heavily Democratic environment, open up too many holes to cover in order to maintain their 2016 margins. Similarly, Arizona may be difficult to hold for the GOP, given the leftward lurch of Maricopa County. — In inelastic states like Florida and North Carolina, both parties are heavily reliant on turnout from their bases in order to carry the state. Biden’s strength, however, may be in his ability to more closely match Barack Obama’s performance in the Republican areas of the states, which are generally more elastic than the Democratic areas. Introduction The concept of a “swing state” is thought to be an easily-understood notion in politics — it’s a state that could tip either way in any given election. But not every voter in a swing state is actually a swing voter,

Dear Readers: Join us tomorrow at 2 p.m. for our Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes webinar. In addition to breaking down the election with just days to go, we’ll be joined by members of the Decision Desk HQ team, which will be independently reporting results Tuesday night. They’ll give us some tips about what to watch for on Election Night — and beyond.   We are releasing this week’s episode a little differently as a way to address some persistent audio issues from previous episodes. Instead of livestreaming the webinar, we will be posting it directly to our YouTube channel at 2 p.m. eastern on Thursday. Just visit our YouTube channel, UVACFP, at 2 p.m. (or whenever you want), and look for Episode 11 of the Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes webinar. The direct link will also be available on the Center for Politics’ Twitter account (@center4politics) at around 2 p.m. Thursday. The Center for Politics is also hosting New Zealand’s ambassador to the United States, Rosemary Banks, at a virtual public event today at 4 p.m. Banks will speak about the relationship between New Zealand and the United States, the country’s successful response to COVID-19, and other topics. Those

Dear Readers: We will be back Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. for our final Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes webinar before next Tuesday’s election. We will also have a reaction show the Thursday after the election. The livestream will be available at our YouTube page, UVACFP. If you have questions you’d like us to answer during the program, just email us at [email protected]. Today, we’re pleased to feature Senior Columnist Alan Abramowitz, who is presenting his final forecast of the presidential race. — The Editors KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — A presidential election forecasting model based on the president’s approval rating, first published at the Crystal Ball in early August, continues to show Joe Biden as a favorite in next week’s presidential election. — An average of current state-level polling produces a very similar Electoral College projection. — These forecasting methods produce projections very similar to a more complex model published by FiveThirtyEight. Forecasting models point to Biden Models for forecasting presidential elections fall into two broad categories. Many political science models, including my own “time for change” model, use election fundamentals such as the state of the economy and the incumbent president’s approval rating to predict either the

Dear Readers: Join us today at 2 p.m., just hours before the final presidential debate, for the latest edition of Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes. Professor Sabato will be joined by Tara Setmayer, who is serving as a resident scholar at the Center. We’ll also hear from former White House Counsel John Dean, and former Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL). If you have questions you would like us to answer about the closing days of the campaign, email us at [email protected]. Additionally, an audio-only podcast version of the webinar is now available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast providers. Search “Sabato’s Crystal Ball” to find it. You can watch live at our YouTube channel (UVACFP), as well as at this direct YouTube link. One other note: The Center for Politics’ new three-part documentary on the challenges facing democracy, Dismantling Democracy, is now available on Amazon Prime. This week, we continue with our States of Play series. Matthew Isbell, who regularly writes about Florida elections, will explore the electoral trends in this quintessential swing state. This is our sixth installment of our detailed look at the key states of the Electoral College; previous editions featured Pennsylvania, Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and

Dear Readers: On tomorrow’s 2 p.m. edition of Sabato’s Crystal Ball: America Votes, we’ll go in-depth on the race for the Senate. We’ll also be joined by a special guest: Grace Panetta of Business Insider. The election has already started, with millions of votes already cast: Grace is closely following these trends and will give us an update on changes in how people vote and what those changes might tell us about the results. If you have questions you would like us to answer about early voting, specific races, or other developments in the campaign, email us at [email protected]. Additionally, an audio-only podcast version of the webinar is now available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and other podcast providers. Search “Sabato’s Crystal Ball” to find it. You can watch live at our YouTube channel (UVACFP), as well as at this direct YouTube link. One other note: The Center for Politics’ new three-part documentary on the challenges facing democracy, Dismantling Democracy, will be available on Amazon Prime starting this Friday. Today, we’re pleased to feature Steven Webster, one of the rising stars in political science. Steven is an expert on a very important albeit sobering topic: the anger that is an increasingly salient