In 2016, Donald Trump won the Presidency with 304 electoral voters (but three million fewer popular votes). In 2020,
Dr. Rachel Bitecofer anticipates that. whomever the Democratic nominee is, that challenger will garner at least 278 electoral votes.
Dr. Bitecofer cites four major influences shaping her prediction:
- overconfidence on the part of some voters
- hunger on the part of some
- the presence or lack thereof of a viable, effective third-party candidate
- turnout in general
Turnout is itself shaped by voter attitudes. In 2016, many polls gave Hillary Clinton such a large lead that many Democratic voters simply didn't bother going to the polls - a prime example of overconfidence. Similarly, in that same election, large numbers of working-class, male-over-50, white, no-higher-education voters, still wanting to reclaim "their country" from the likes of Barack Obama, were so hungry to go forward to the past that they elected Donald Trump. Finally, according to the
FEC, the Green Party's
Dr. Jill Stein won 7 electoral votes in 2016 - not enough to flip the election to Hillary Clinton, but enough to add to Mr. Trump's belief in his own inevitability.
Bitecofer's predictions for the 2018 midterms were eerily prescient. Let's hope she's as
sapient in her view of 2020 - that Donald Trump will be out of the Oval Office, gaining at best 260 electoral votes.
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