Swing States in the 2020 US Presidential Election

Election Prediction

The most important swing states for the election are Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Ohio and Arizona could also be included in that mix. Trump won all six of these states in 2016. However, polls show these states as leaning to Biden or at the very least too close to call ahead of time. The states that are likely safest for Trump are Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, and Arizona. Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio nonetheless will be the battleground states: Florida represents 29 electoral college votes; Michigan 16; Ohio 18; and Pennsylvania 20. Arizona represents only 11 and Wisconsin only 10. So in a tight race, the four states with the larger electoral college votes are going to be the ones to matter most. Florida went to Bush in 2000 (perhaps thanks to some hanging chads) and again in 2004. The state then went to Obama and Biden in 2008. It went back to the Republicans in 2016 with Trump and Pence. One has to go back to 1992 before one sees an election in which the way Florida voted differed from the outcome of the national election. That year Florida went for Bush; yet Clinton won the Electoral College overall. Since 1996, Florida has predicted the winner correctly. Understanding Florida is really the key if the trend is to continue. But the other three key swing states are also worth considering.

The presidential approval rating in each of these four states is as follows:

1. Florida: 41%

2. Michigan: 40%

3. Pennsylvania: 42%

4. Ohio: 45%

Prior to Trump flipping Michigan in 2016, the state had not gone red in a presidential race since 1988. The same is true of Pennsylvania. Ohio has flipped between red and blue, with the Bushes taking it in 1988 and 2000/2004; but with Clinton and Obama taking it the other years. Trump won both in 2016 as well.

Florida has 5.3 million Hispanic voters and 3.2 million black voters out of a total population of 21 million. Michigan has .5 million Hispanic voters and 1.4 million black voters out of total population of 10 million. Ohio has .4 million Hispanic and 1.4 million blacks out of a population of 11.6 million. Pennsylvania has .9 million Hispanic and 1.3 million blacks out of a population of 12.8 million. Yet these figures are useless unless one is capable of interpreting what is going on in these particular demographics. That shall now be discussed in detail.

Although Biden is currently leading comfortably in the majority of the polls, some of the outliers, such as The Sunday Express/Democracy Institute or Trafalgar Group—which was the most accurate pollster in 2016 and 2018—are predicting a much tighter race in 2020 (Manchester; Weidman). A recent a Wall Street Journal/NBC News Survey showed Biden with a 14-point lead just weeks out from the election (Weidman). The question that Trafalgar Group has been asking, however, is whether the so-called “shy” Trump voters are a myth or a reality (Easley). In other words, are Trump supporters remaining quiet about their preference, and if so is there a way to tell? This question could help to shed light on how swing states, such as Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio and Arizona—with some pollsters even arguing that Georgia (right smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt red south even flipping blue)—might vote in November. These are the swing states whose voters are most likely to make the key difference if the race is indeed as tight as Trafalgar Group suggests. If, however, Biden’s lead is as great as Real Clear Politics or NBC’s polling suggests, it is undoubtedly too large a gap for Trump to cross to secure a second term. So who is right—NBC or Trafalgar? The best way to answer that question is to examine the two sides—the side that sees a blowout win for Biden and the side that sees a down-to-the-wire race that could be all up to the voters in one of the above-mentioned swing states.

It should be noted that because the Electoral College selects the president, national polling, i.e., popular polling, does not accurately reflect the results of the electoral college, i.e., how each individual state votes. To understand the race, one has to look at state by state polling. But aside from state by state polling, are there any other factors that might help determine which way the election is going to go? One can look at shifting demographics in states like North Carolina, Florida, Texas and Georgia, as demographics are destiny, as the saying goes.

Jim Rossi, contributing author at Forbes, interviewed Patrick Basham, polling director at the Democracy Institute to find out why this particular pollster is going so against the grain when virtually every other polling outfit has put Biden at an insurmountable lead. Democracy Institute is credited with correctly predicting the Brexit vote as well as the 2016 US presidential election outcome (Rossi). As of October 7, 2020, Democracy Institute had Trump leading Biden 46% to 45% with Trump ahead 4 points in the all-important swing states. To explain how Democracy Institute has arrived at its conclusion, Basham reported to Rossi that “polling has always been a synthesis of science and art – and polls are more art than science in 2020. One of the major challenges is figuring out how the electorate will look.” One of the underlying assumptions going into the 2020 election is that there will be a 25% to 30% larger voter turnout, i.e., approximately 10 to 30 million more voters than in 2016 (Rossi). Basham pointed only to two other pollsters—Zogby and Trafalgar Group—as polling groups indicating a much tighter race than that being suggested by CNN, NYTimes or any of the many others (Rossi).

However, as Rossi points out, there may be some political bias on the part of Democracy Institute, which works with the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute. But is it not just as likely that there is political bias on the part of CNN or NYTimes? One has to look beyond the risk of polling bias to see what the actual methodologies are. USC was using a consistent methodology this election cycle, but changed it after the results began indicating Biden’s lead evaporating; Basham’s claim is that USC is underpolling Republican voters (Rossi).

But the main crux of the issue remains the “shy” Trump voter. Basham reports to Rossi that the only reason the Democracy Institute correctly predicted Brexit when few others did was that it took into account the “shy” Brexit voter. It did this by asking questions that might give clues as to one’s actual political leanings rather than simply asking directly which way the voter was leaning. In 2016, Basham’s group uncovered enough “shy” Trump voters to give the president a few percentage points’ worth of advantage. Basham argues that the “shy” Trump voter has increased in number this election cycle—an argument that is not hard to believe considering the violence that has risen in a polarized populace. Democracy Institute thus asks questions like: “If you were a Trump voter, would you tell anybody? Would you tell family? A friend? A coworker? Would you put a sign on your lawn or your car?” (Rossi). Rossi notes that “in 2016, Trump outperformed the Real Clear Politics (RCP) average for battleground states by four points.” Basham argues that in swing states, Trump is likely going to outperform the RCP average by even more in 2020. Basham goes so far as identify the demographics of the “shy” Trump voter and categorize them into three groups: The blue-collar, middle-aged, Midwestern white male, who is busier than he is shy but is nonetheless not showing up in mainstream polls; the white suburban female; and the African-American and Hispanic voters who are moving over to Trump (Rossi). Basham then goes on to state that the biggest predictor of a person voting Republican is whether that individual owns a handgun, and after noting that “black female gun ownership has skyrocketed; forty percent of new handgun owners are female; sixty percent are African American,” concludes that this stat alone suggests that Trump will be picking up a lot more votes from minorities in 2020 than he did in 2016 (Rossi). On top of all this is the finding that 56% of Americans report being better off economically today than they were four years ago, a percentage that has not been reported since the 1980s when Reagan went on to win reelection (Rossi).