Four Courses for Fall: Scenario 3 (2020 Redux)

Topic: Elections

Before reading further, familiarize yourself with the following introductory piece:

Link to Four Courses Orientation

And then, review the first course of action, Scenario 1: Trump Squeaker, presented two weeks ago in these pages and the second, Scenario 2: Trump Blowout, presented last week.

What follows is the third of four scenarios I consider most likely to occur regarding the 2024 presidential election.  The final scenario will be published in the next week.

Scenario 3

Race to the Top - 2020 Redux

The third scenario, which falls under the two most likely scenarios outlining a Biden “victory,” sees a repeat of the 2020 election, featuring obvious cheating, government malfeasance, coverups, and vilification of those who oppose such actions. 

Things were a lot different this time in the run up to Election Day, most notably with Trump performing much better in public polling than in 2020, which five of eight American likely voters continued to believe contained a fraudulently decided presidential election.  Despite the obvious shifts in voter registration favoring Trump’s party, which suggested wins in all the anticipated “battleground” states, the media had reined in polling corroborating these registration shifts and delicately manipulated them to portray a toss-up race going into the big day.

Months of judicial persecution couldn’t phase Trump if plain sight and anecdotal evidence were the instruments of judgment, but those pesky “independents” kept getting moved around in cooked polls, and immediately, the core Trump base knew it was a ruse to set up for a second rendition of the 2020 election.  On Election Night, things started off just like “Captain K” said they would, with the East Coast displaying predictable shades of red and blue, and Florida zooming off into the Republican stratosphere - which should have been a great sign for the Industrial Midwestern states that would decide the race.  The interior states fell like Trumpian dominoes, with Chicago-dominated Illinois a disappointing exception, as the national attention swept westward.

No real surprises were falling for either side, with Virginia, New Mexico, and New Hampshire staying stuck on “blue,” but no solid red states changing color, either.  The Latino coalition came through in Texas, nudging it to nearly 10 points in favor of Trump and getting Ted Cruz across in the process. As counting progressed, things were looking good in Georgia, but North Carolina came with that flashing warning light - “too close to call.”  Meanwhile, taking cues from Florida, the vote tallies were pouring in from Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Minnesota was leaning toward Biden, but not by 2020 margins, which when coupled with imposing Trump leads in the aforementioned trio of blue-collar states, left watch parties feeling optimistic.  In those states that mattered, Trump was getting it done - even with people feeling queasy about North Carolina, which was expected to go to Trump by almost double digits.

Election Night closed with Trump sitting on a confirmed 216, and presumptive 219, electoral votes, assuming Alaska would close the deal like it had in every election since 1968.  Biden was at 226, with the only unwelcome surprise that New Hampshire had been called early.  At this point in the count, the election map was completely identical to the map in 2020, and if not for electoral vote values having been slightly jumbled by the latest census, would present nearly identical math.  This time, it seemed half the country refused to go to bed, remembering what happened in Wisconsin and Michigan the last time around.

Trump’s leads at 3 a.m. eastern came in at:

·      North Carolina, +1.2%

·      Georgia, +4.3%

·      Pennsylvania, +6.2%

·      Michigan, +4.8%

·      Wisconsin, +3.8%

·      Arizona, +1.9%

·      Nevada, +3.0%

·      Alaska, +11.3%, waiting for the call

Notably, Trump held a narrow lead in the national popular vote even with California counting having started, and appeared set to surpass 86 million votes, which would mark an even larger gain than his own from 2020, in which he became the first incumbent president since Grover Cleveland in 1888 to gain votes from the previous election and somehow “lose” the race.

Once Alaska is called for Trump, the top three pathways to victory look like this: