Quick Takes (v56): Predicting the 2020 Election

It's kind of funny that so many people in the president's circle - and the president himself - seemed so shocked with the outcome of the election, and that while he was ahead on Election Day, in the end he lost. 

Back on September 24th, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal suggesting that, while we might not know everything, "in all likelihood, we will have a good idea on election night, or within a few days after, of whether Donald Trump or Joe Biden won the White House."

Mail-in ballots, of course, were talked about in the article. There were concerns that counting would "take an inordinately long time" due to the prospect of some 50% of voters saying they were likely to vote by mail, more than double the 20% who did the last time out. And, because state rules are vastly different, on both when the ballots needed to be received and when they could be counted. There are also varying rules on when early votes are counted - it's a patchwork quilt of rules, basically. And that's the way it's supposed to be, since the states have control over how voting is handled - the feds do not. That said, 

Even if all states can’t produce a complete preliminary count of their ballots by the wee hours of Wednesday morning, and even if the earliest votes skew Republican, these earliest returns may still contain enough information to allow us to see whether Mr. Trump or Mr. Biden has a clear path to 270 electoral votes—and whose path is wider.

The article goes on to describe some "back of the envelope" calculations that look at past performance, polling averages, the number of uncounted ballots, and even things like "fast-reporting counties within slow-reporting states." Those are the same kinds of calculations that the national networks use when deciding whether - and when - to call a state for a particular candidate.  

Responsible media outlets project a winner only if the leader has an insurmountable lead, given the likely composition of the uncounted ballots.

The WSJ article referenced a different, even earlier article - one that recapped an Axios interview with John Mendelsohn, the CEO of "a top Democratic data and analytics firm" called Hawkfish. He suggested that

It's highly likely that president Trump will appear to have won - potentially in a landslide - on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted. 

Because of coronavirus fears, "way more Democrats will vote by mail than Republicans," and everyone knew that. Prominent Democrats - even non-prominent Dems - were encouraging everyone to vote by mail. At the same time, Republicans from the president on down were encouraging everyone to go to the polls in November. Because of the different approaches to how people should vote, Mendelsohn said

When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which might be some day after Election Day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage. It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted. 

The point of Mendelsohn's interview and the article was to make sure Dems were careful with their ballots and followed of all the rules, since the rejection rates are higher for mail-in ballots than for in-person ballots And,

The group is also trying to sensitize state and county election officials, news and social media organizations, and the courts to the perils of premature results - and to the possibility of Trump and his team applying challenges and political pressure to reject a higher share of mailed-in ballots counted after election day.

The WSJ article notes that if we did see a huge swing from Trump to Biden, there could be trouble. 

Such a dramatic change from the election-night result could lead to baseless Republican charges of fraud and cries that the election was rigged, which could spark dangerous political unrest.

Huh... Baseless charges of fraud, cries that the election was rigged, challenges and political pressure to reject mail-in votes... it's all playing out exactly as predicted. In September.  

But you know what else is playing out exactly as discussed back then? This.

Indeed, those out to undermine Americans’ confidence in the mechanics of their democracy are depending on an information void following Nov. 3, which they will try to fill with a torrent of disinformation designed to foment potentially violent conflict. To protect the legitimacy of the outcome, election officials and journalists will need to fill that void with facts about the counting.

Other than the violence part - at least, so far. There have been threats, for sure, and hopefully that's where it will end. 

Facts about the counting - that's what we've been getting from the media, for the most part, particularly from the state and local media outlets in the thick of things, in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Nevada and Arizona and Michigan and Wisconsin. And, we've also been seeing local officials rise to the occasion, particularly the GOP officials who are standing up to the pressure from the president and his minions. And, of course, we're getting very good coverage on the many court cases that have been filed - and tossed - in states around the country. 

The next time someone tells you no one could have predicted this outcome, that Trump would appear to win on Election Day but lose in the counting, show them this. And tell them that all of Trump's actions since the election were predicted, too.