Better Luck This Time: My Prediction

 Last time, on the Friday before the election, I made my prediction.  It was just a wee bit off.  As I have insisted, this time is different.  Am I daring the fates, the Gods, by trying again?  Maybe.  But I am not deterred by my wrongness last time.

So, I will predict and then explain:

Go big or go home, as they say.  My decisions this time have been critically shaped by the turnout figures.  That more Texas have voted thus far than have ever voted seems to be a thing that we should take into account.  That the turnout figures in Georgia and the utter collapse of David Perdue might be signs as well.  I have no trust that Florida will do the right thing.  Plus looking at the stats of minority turnout and voting tendencies suggests that there might be enough Cuban Americans who vote GOP to offset the turnout of other people in Florida (but they are mostly irrelevant anywhere else). Also, I don't trust DeSantis.  While Kemp can try to mess with things in Georgia, I worry more about Florida being Florida.

Ohio?  That the GOP governor is one of the few who has been reasonable on masks and has been pretty straight-shooting means that there will be less shenanigans with ballots.  And the state has paid a big price for Trumpism.  

PA? The stories I have heard about rural PA being different this time make sense to me.  Although, yes, confirmation bias is my guide.  

When I played around with this, I got Biden to 270 without AZ/TX/GA/NC/OH because I gave PA, MI, WI to Biden.  I think that a few things make the old blue wall a bit more solid this time:

1. COVID has been killing Wisconsin
2. Trump's trade wars have been awful for farmers yet not that great for steel workers.
3. The misogyny that tipped things last time is not relevant despite Trump trying to make Kamala Harris a thing (suggesting that she would be awful if Biden got shot, etc).  
4. People are tired of Trump and his nonsense, Biden's boringness is a big plus. 
5. The Senate races, the SCOTUS stuff (Barrett plus vote suppression), the naked voter suppression are all driving big time turnout.  One of the truisms of American politics is that there are more Dems than GOP, so it is really about turnout.  

The only real worry I have is that Trump will get the courts to stop the counting of ballots.  The good news is that few states start counting only on election day.  PA, alas, is one of those.  But if we get TX or GA or NC or AZ reporting Biden wins, then we can go to sleep early.  The decentralization of American voting management is bad for some things--reacting to the Russians--but good for others--limiting how much a President can do to mess with things.

 Last time, I thought that the prospect of Trump was so awful, it would tip things.  Now we have had four years of him, so any "hey, he will govern as a moderate" or "he can't be that bad" or "I hate her more than I hate him" stuff is simply not in play.  Trump has proven to be an arsonist at a time where we desperately need government.  I was saying before COVID that the Dems would win if they could get their act together.  And they have--there is no movement for leftwing types to vote third party or not to show up.  Oh, and the kids are turning out, and the GOP has lost that generation by being intolerant, by trying to deny them health care, and by trying to destroy their future.  

 Of course, I could be wrong.  It has happened before.  But I think a landslide is far more likely than Trump winning.  

Then we can argue what Biden should do with the mandate he gets.  That will a different kind of fun.