6 ms·

Are you saying Trump could have won in 2020? I think the pandemic killed his presidency... it's like 1932 when Herbert Hoover got voted out because of the Great

Are you saying Trump could have won in 2020? I think the pandemic killed his presidency... it's like 1932 when Herbert Hoover got voted out because of the Great Depression, regardless of whose fault it was. It was that, and mail-in balloting and dropboxes, which the Democrats used to great advantage, blindsiding the Republicans in all the swing districts. It seems to me the Democrats snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in 2020. However in 2022... mathematically, they're almost guaranteed to cede the House and maybe the Senate as well, depending on how events in Europe and general economic trends play out.

krapp 5y ago
Yes, I said that if not for those events I think Trump could have won. Better leadership with COVID along with his (somewhat fictitious but still compelling) narrative of turning around the economy would probably have put him over Biden. Even though Biden won by a sizeable margin of popular votes - and as a candidate, he received more votes than any other candidate in history - he won with fewer electoral votes (the only votes that actually matter) than the 78,000 votes in three swing states which got Trump over in 2016.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  > [Biden] won with fewer electoral votes [than] Trump over in 2016. That's both not true and trivially checkable.
  - krapp 5y ago
    In 2016, Trump won by 77,744 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won by 42,844 votes in Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona. I got my numbers here[0] so feel free to fact check me. I may have been imprecise in referring to electoral votes specifically, but I think I am correct about the margins of victory. [0]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-win-little-or-lot-answer-yes-n1251845 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-wi...
    - notafraudster 5y ago
      "Electoral votes" appears to be a term you've created to mean "the smallest number of votes it would be possible to flip to change the result of the election, if allocated perfectly", rather than what most people would assume you mean -- electoral college votes. Given your definition, you are basically correct. Trump won 306-232 in 2016. With faithless electors, this became 304-227. He lost the popular vote. As you note, 77,000 votes in the three closest states could have flipped the election. Biden won 306-232 in 2020 (the same margin, or better if you allow for the faithless electors). If he lost 42,000 votes it'd have been 269-269, which would have led to the House of Representative contingency, which might have elected either Biden or Trump (or ended in a different outcome, frankly). It'd take another 33,000 votes to give Trump an unambiguous win by flipping Nevada. This is an interesting curiosity -- but for Aunt Maria getting the flu, the election could have been different! But we're in increasingly silly hypotheticals. Knowing what we know now, it's clear Clinton would have done more to target the states she narrowly lost. But the problem is that state votes are correlated with one another and so the number of hypotheticals you need to sustain to "flip" exactly those votes without turning out any additional votes or affecting the campaign strategies is pretty weird. Even if you take the prototypical version of this question "Did Ralph Nader 'cost' Gore the 2000 presidential election by 'taking' at least 500 of his votes in Florida?" it's sort of a rabbit hole of absurdities. The answer is surely yes to the question, because the answer to any hypothetical is yes when the margin is that close. But beyond that not super productive. In general I think most people would, collectively, analyze Biden's victory over Trump as somewhat more decisive than Trump's over Clinton or Bush's over Gore, though less decisive than either of Obama's or Bush 2004.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      Ah, you're talking about the fewest number of regular votes that would have to change so that the electoral college would flip. in that case I'd say 42k and 77k are essentially the same number, given the large number of voters we're talking about. But yes, Biden's victory was tighter than Trumps in that calculus. Although, in the situation you propose, 2020 would actually be a 269-269 tie. Which means any unfaithful elector could refuse to vote for their candidate and throw it to the other party. And even if no one did, then Congress would break the tie in a pair votes that would presumably go for Trump and Pence if people voted on a party line.
Talanes 5y ago
> It was that, and mail-in balloting and dropboxes, which the Democrats used to great advantage, blindsiding the Republicans in all the swing districts. I'm not sure how not wanting to travel to a random gymnasium on a Tuesday became a political thing, but it's weird. Who actively wants their life to be worse?
- krapp 5y ago
  >I'm not sure how not wanting to travel to a random gymnasium on a Tuesday became a political thing, but it's weird. Trump knew that mail-in votes would favor the Democrats, so he spread a conspiracy theory that mail-in voting was rampant with Democratic ballot fraud (it wasn't,) going so far as to attempt to defund the Postal Service to prevent mail-in voting altogether[0]. Of course, this meant Republicans avoided mail-in voting en masse, so when the (primarily Democratic) mail-in ballots came in after the initial numbers appeared to favor Trump, and the tide turned against him, the cries of fraud only became louder. That's what Trump does, he poisons any well he can to harm his opponents, even if he has to drink from it afterwards. It's political because he made it political, the way he made masks and vaccination political because he thought COVID would distract from his narrative of a "roaring economy" and because he thought wearing a mask would make him look weak in front of the press, who he considered his enemy. [0]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/24/why-trumps-attack-on-usps-is-an-attack-on-the-constitution-democracy-and-racial-equality/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/24/why-trumps-...
  - cudgy 5y ago
    > That's what Trump does, he poisons any well he can to harm his opponents Not a fan of Trump either, but would things have been so much better with Hillary as President? Her actions are equally if not more heinous than Trump. She’s just not as obvious about it.

krapp 5y ago

Yes, I said that if not for those events I think Trump could have won. Better leadership with COVID along with his (somewhat fictitious but still compelling) narrative of turning around the economy would probably have put him over Biden. Even though Biden won by a sizeable margin of popular votes - and as a candidate, he received more votes than any other candidate in history - he won with fewer electoral votes (the only votes that actually matter) than the 78,000 votes in three swing states which got Trump over in 2016.

HWR_14 5y ago
> [Biden] won with fewer electoral votes [than] Trump over in 2016. That's both not true and trivially checkable.
- krapp 5y ago
  In 2016, Trump won by 77,744 votes in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In 2020, Biden won by 42,844 votes in Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona. I got my numbers here[0] so feel free to fact check me. I may have been imprecise in referring to electoral votes specifically, but I think I am correct about the margins of victory. [0]https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-win-little-or-lot-answer-yes-n1251845 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/did-biden-wi...
  - notafraudster 5y ago
    "Electoral votes" appears to be a term you've created to mean "the smallest number of votes it would be possible to flip to change the result of the election, if allocated perfectly", rather than what most people would assume you mean -- electoral college votes. Given your definition, you are basically correct. Trump won 306-232 in 2016. With faithless electors, this became 304-227. He lost the popular vote. As you note, 77,000 votes in the three closest states could have flipped the election. Biden won 306-232 in 2020 (the same margin, or better if you allow for the faithless electors). If he lost 42,000 votes it'd have been 269-269, which would have led to the House of Representative contingency, which might have elected either Biden or Trump (or ended in a different outcome, frankly). It'd take another 33,000 votes to give Trump an unambiguous win by flipping Nevada. This is an interesting curiosity -- but for Aunt Maria getting the flu, the election could have been different! But we're in increasingly silly hypotheticals. Knowing what we know now, it's clear Clinton would have done more to target the states she narrowly lost. But the problem is that state votes are correlated with one another and so the number of hypotheticals you need to sustain to "flip" exactly those votes without turning out any additional votes or affecting the campaign strategies is pretty weird. Even if you take the prototypical version of this question "Did Ralph Nader 'cost' Gore the 2000 presidential election by 'taking' at least 500 of his votes in Florida?" it's sort of a rabbit hole of absurdities. The answer is surely yes to the question, because the answer to any hypothetical is yes when the margin is that close. But beyond that not super productive. In general I think most people would, collectively, analyze Biden's victory over Trump as somewhat more decisive than Trump's over Clinton or Bush's over Gore, though less decisive than either of Obama's or Bush 2004.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    Ah, you're talking about the fewest number of regular votes that would have to change so that the electoral college would flip. in that case I'd say 42k and 77k are essentially the same number, given the large number of voters we're talking about. But yes, Biden's victory was tighter than Trumps in that calculus. Although, in the situation you propose, 2020 would actually be a 269-269 tie. Which means any unfaithful elector could refuse to vote for their candidate and throw it to the other party. And even if no one did, then Congress would break the tie in a pair votes that would presumably go for Trump and Pence if people voted on a party line.

Talanes 5y ago

> It was that, and mail-in balloting and dropboxes, which the Democrats used to great advantage, blindsiding the Republicans in all the swing districts. I'm not sure how not wanting to travel to a random gymnasium on a Tuesday became a political thing, but it's weird. Who actively wants their life to be worse?

krapp 5y ago
>I'm not sure how not wanting to travel to a random gymnasium on a Tuesday became a political thing, but it's weird. Trump knew that mail-in votes would favor the Democrats, so he spread a conspiracy theory that mail-in voting was rampant with Democratic ballot fraud (it wasn't,) going so far as to attempt to defund the Postal Service to prevent mail-in voting altogether[0]. Of course, this meant Republicans avoided mail-in voting en masse, so when the (primarily Democratic) mail-in ballots came in after the initial numbers appeared to favor Trump, and the tide turned against him, the cries of fraud only became louder. That's what Trump does, he poisons any well he can to harm his opponents, even if he has to drink from it afterwards. It's political because he made it political, the way he made masks and vaccination political because he thought COVID would distract from his narrative of a "roaring economy" and because he thought wearing a mask would make him look weak in front of the press, who he considered his enemy. [0]https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/24/why-trumps-attack-on-usps-is-an-attack-on-the-constitution-democracy-and-racial-equality/ https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2020/08/24/why-trumps-...
- cudgy 5y ago
  > That's what Trump does, he poisons any well he can to harm his opponents Not a fan of Trump either, but would things have been so much better with Hillary as President? Her actions are equally if not more heinous than Trump. She’s just not as obvious about it.