So, a lot of people seem to think the polls are wrong or must be wrong. No, actually, they're good. maybe some of the safer states have weird results, but if you actually looked at the 2020 results, and approached it as a sort of high water mark for Biden, what's happening now isn't that crazy. For reference, here's the 2020 map with all the right shades I normally give that stuff.
As you can tell, three states are shaded very light blue. Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia. We lose all of those if Biden performs worse in 2024 by a single point. This is what the map becomes with a Trump +1 shift:
269-269 Tie
Suddenly we're in a 269-269 electoral college tie, and facing a possible constitutional crisis. Given the volatile nature of 2020, this was particularly dangerous given the angry mob trying to overturn the election results.
This is what a 2 point shift gets us:
Trump would win outright with a two point shift. Also, forgot to shift ME2 with the last one to solid red, but yeah, not super important. I might make a couple errors with the coloring, but yeah the electoral count should be accurate. Here, we got PA shifting. And now Michigan and Nevada are on the clipping block.
Let's kick it up to a 3 point shift:
And now we basically got a similar map to where we're at. It's a little different. Rust Belt is a little redder, indicating it hasnt shifted that much. Sun belt is actually a bit LESS red. And of course there's a massive blue wall after that stopping him Trump from getting more states.
Let's skip ahead to Trump +6, shall we?
No states actually flip here, but do things look familiar? Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, and Minnesota are all light blue! NE2 is tilting democrat and barely holding on. The rust belt is redder than it currently is, thankfully a 3 point shift successfully emulates that, although to be fair, rust belt polling tends to low ball trump's chances in more recent election cycles, so it COULD actually look like that if it's off as much as it was in 2016 and 2020. But yeah. I admit, we're not seeing NJ, NY, IL, or WA flip yet to become swing states, but yeah, the map basically looks like it does now otherwise. I suspect it's either weak polling or RFK's influence that's gutting those states to the extent that they are.
But yeah. The current electoral map isn't unrealistic, if you assume Biden has lost 3-6 points relative to what he did in 2020. It's actually tracking pretty well. -3 for Biden in the rust belt and -6 elsewhere is about accurate. What would it take to actually see those light blue states flip? Let's do one more map. Here's Trump +9.
Thankfully it's hard to move states after that, but yeah. Here it would take Trump +10 to flip VA, and then you'd get Colorado and New Mexico next on the clopping block followed by Illinois. And yeah. That's basically what I'd say is the most realistic "best case scenario" map for Trump as of now. I dont know if NY/NJ/WA are really as close to flipping as it says. I kinda doubt it.
But yeah. Other than that, are the current polls really surprising? We can replicate the current situation mostly just by assuming Biden has lost 3 points in the rust belt and 6 points nationally. Maybe locally higher in some states. But yeah. The current map is mostly not unrealistic at all. Maybe a couple states should be a bit bluer. I still think Virginia should probably be Biden +3-4 right now. NY/NJ/WA/IL probably shouldn't be in play or close to in play. But yeah. We're at where we're at. Biden is less popular now nationally than he was in 2020. It's not that unreasonable to assume such. A 3 point shift would net the electoral college count I'm currently predicting, and +6 would still maintain it and explain the shifts we're seeing in most other states.
So can we please dispense with this silly notion that the polls are so inaccurate? I mean for the record, Im not sure if I believe the NY/NJ/WA shifts myself based on this, but everything else is looking about...accurate right now. Biden is just really in trouble and his numbers are horrible. All we can hope is that things either shift like 538 thinks they will, or that we're encountering some systemic polling error.
Btw, just for fun, here's how it would look if it went the other way.
Biden +1: 306-232 Biden
Biden +2: 321-217 Biden
Biden +3: 321-217 Biden
Biden +6: 388-150 Biden
Biden +9: 413-125 Biden
Again colors might be inaccurate, I definitely got a few states wrong on the shading (hard to keep track without a chart) but the electoral counts definitely are.
So if things were going the other way we'd get a result closer to how I estimated 2020 to actually be. I think, if I recall, my own predictions were off by about 4 all things considered. That makes sense here. But yeah. Sadly, we don't live in that world. We live in the world where people actually like Trump and now the democrats are floundering.
But yeah. That's where we're at. We're in the world where we're down 3-6 points vs 2020. And it fricking sucks. But yeah. This is why I believe the polling mostly. A lot of people have some idea that states like virginia, maine, or minnesota can't flip. Yes, they fricking can. WE ARE LOSING. And we gotta get our crap together RIGHT NOW if we want to actually pull off a win here.
It really is sad, we seemed to be trending toward the other set of realities in 2016 and 2020 for a while. I remember looking at polling around this time in 2016 and making maps like these showing what it would take for trump to win. And now we've been reversed unoed. It would literally take us gaining around 9-12 points to get back to where we were back during the obama era. We are in trouble, both this election, and as a party. And if we don't wake up and realize it, we are in a world of hurt come november. Which is why i get pissed off at democrats who stick their heads in the sand and act like everything is fine and the polls are just off. Maybe they are, but I have enough respect for polling to not wanna take that risk.
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