It’s the final stretch.  The bottom of the ninth.  The last lap.  The closing chapter.  The happy ending.  Or insert your own culmination idiom here.

Anyway, since we’re only two weeks away from Election Day, I revisited my election models for the Electoral College, the Senate, and the House.

Fair warning:  My analysis yields slightly different results than I’ve been reading elsewhere.  While I certainly find no fault with the more professional models used by others (538, Cook, Sabato, Politico, etc.), my mathematical models somehow seem to reflect my non-mathematical outlook – which, at the moment, resides somewhere between a default pessimism and a very cautious optimism.  That said, my models take into account weighted polling data, but also consider the each state’s voting history, party control in each state, state demographics, 2018 election data, and few other factors.

Presidential Election

Here’s my current landscape map of the 2020 Electoral College (using 270toWin‘s build-your-own map feature):

While things have definitely moved in Democrats’ direction since I published my initial 2020 landscape post way back in December of 2018, the movement hasn’t been massive.  My current analysis says that forty states are now baked.  Biden has 217 solid Electoral votes (dark blue) to Trump’s 182 (dark red).  Sure, some models show a few of those states (e.g. Texas, Kansas, Ohio) are still within reach for Biden.  My model says otherwise.

Of the remaining ten in-play states, Biden is likely to win six of them (light blue) and Trump is likely to win the other four (light red). That split would give Biden a 290/248 win in the Electoral College.

All ten of these states, however, could move into the other camp – with varying probabilities of doing so within the next two weeks.  Pennsylvania and Florida appear to be the states on each side most likely to move.

The good news?  If my model holds, Biden wins.  The win is largely the “Middle America” strategy I discussed in a February 2019 post with a focus on winning the Great Lakes states that currently lean toward Biden.  Note that even if Biden loses any one of his “likely” states, he’d still be just over the threshold of the required 270 Electoral votes.  Conversely, Trump needs to not only hold all four of his “likely” states, he needs to move at least two Biden states to his column.

The bad news?  Nothing is over.  Trump could still win or could at least get close enough that the election results get thrown into the courts and/or the House – which wouldn’t end well for anyone.  A Biden blowout is possible, but it looks unlikely to me.  A close Electoral College split is the more probable outcome.

U.S. Senate

I don’t understand the rosy predictions I see everywhere for Senate Democrats.  Yes, Democrats will see a net gain of seats and things may be very slightly better for Democrats than they were when I discussed the Senate last month.

However, my model currently has the most probable outcome to be a 50/50 split – with the winning VP casting the deciding Senate votes.  That wouldn’t be at all pretty regardless of the VP.

Democrats should flip Arizona, Colorado, Maine, and North Carolina; Republicans will likely flip Alabama.  That D+3 net is the 50/50 split.

The best path Republicans have to retain their majority is to pull out a win in North Carolina – which is only recently a possibility after the NC Democratic candidate insisted on pulling out something himself.  That’s right.  Democrats could actually lose the Senate because one guy couldn’t keep his pants on.  How 2020 is that?

The best paths Democrats have to secure a majority are through Iowa and/or Montana.  Both are within reach but both are far from sure things.

The other races on some radars as potential R-to-D flips (South Carolina, Kentucky, Kansas, Texas, and both Georgia races) just ain’t happening in my model.  In this regard, I sincerely hope that my model is wrong.

U.S. House

I didn’t need to do the math here, but I did.  Democrats will easily retain control of the U.S. House.  In fact, they’re likely to see a small net gain of 5-8 seats.

You know the wheels are off and quickly rolling away from your political cart when you entrust your campaign’s “October Surprise” to Rudy Giuliani.

Let’s recap.

In July of 2019, Trump called the Ukrainian President to pressure him for “a favor” by launching an investigation into Joe Biden – Trump’s then-presumptive 2020 rival.  Of course, that seriously improper conversation prompted impeachment proceedings that produced the politically predictable result.  Still, one would think that Trump would want to move on from that particular narrative.  One would be wrong.

Trump had made the call hoping that an investigation would prove that Biden abused his position as Vice President to push for the ouster of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had investigated Burisma – an energy company on whose board Biden’s son, Hunter, served from 2014 to 2019.  The facts, however, have never supported an allegation of improper influence.

In 2015, Biden did indeed threaten to withhold U.S. aid to Ukraine unless the prosecutor was fired.  That wasn’t a secret.  In fact, the firing had long been publicly sought by numerous officials – from the U.S, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank – due to corruption charges.  Furthermore, there was no active investigation into Burisma when the prosecutor was finally fired in 2016.

When Trump’s Ukrainian government approach fizzled, a GOP-led Senate committee devoted a ton of U.S. government resources to produce a political hit piece in September that even Republicans thought was over the top.  So, when that report landed like a wet dog, Giuliani gleefully stepped into what the dog left behind.

And here’s where it gets fun.

The New York Post published a story this week based on Giuliani’s “research” claiming that Hunter left his laptop at a repair shop but never came back for it.  You know… as one does.  The repair shop owner frighteningly made a copy of the hard drive which somehow made its way to Giuliani.  Giuliani, in turn, claimed it contained a “smoking gun” email from a Burisma exec who thanked Hunter for the “opportunity to meet your father.”

So.  Let’s ignore the fact that the presumed chain of events with the laptop reads like a cheap espionage novel.  Let’s also ignore the fact that the Post is a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch (who also owns Fox News) and that the story’s reporter is a former producer for Sean Hannity.  Let’s further ignore the fact that this soap opera has all the markings of a poorly executed Russian hack.  And let’s finally ignore the fact that Trump’s own intelligence analysts warned him in September that Giuliani was a targeted pawn in a Russian disinformation effort directed at influencing the November elections.

Here’s what the political pundits on all sides are missing:

No one gives a shit.

Most Americans couldn’t find Ukraine on a map even if you spotted them Eastern Europe.  Most Americans are worried about their own jobs and not the job of some obscure prosecutor from Kiev.  Most Americans aren’t focused on catching Hunter Biden for something that happened years ago; they’re focused on not catching COVID-19 now.  Most Americans think Rudy Giuliani is the punchline of a bad joke.  Hell, even his daughter is voting for Biden.

So why was Hunter given a position on the Burisma board in the first place?  The answer, of course, is that his Dad was the Vice President of the United States.  Duh.  So what?  If anyone thinks that many board members of most major companies don’t have their positions because of their names and/or their contacts, they don’t understand how corporate boards work.  Even if Hunter did introduce his father to a Burisma exec (which is itself questionable), an introduction is far from evidence of anything improper.

Look.  I’m not complaining.  But if this is the best the GOP can do, I’m a bit embarrassed for them.  And I’m even more embarrassed for the Russians.

Since I last wrote about the 2020 Senate races, much has changed and I suspect more changes are in store.  The full extent of the backlash over the GOP’s rush to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat isn’t yet known.  At the moment, though, control of the chamber appears to be a toss-up.

Democrats need a net gain of three Senate seats if Biden/Harris wins or a net gain of four seats if Trump/Pence wins.  While I unfortunately need to assume that Democrats will lose the Alabama seat, all other Democratic incumbents now appear to be in pretty good shape.  Thus, Democrats need to flip five GOP seats to guarantee a Senate majority.

Based on my analysis, Democrats are currently favored to flip three seats that Lean D.  Another three seats are Toss-Ups and Democrats need to flip at least two of them.  Thus, these six races are where Democratic focus (i.e. money) could best be applied now.  I’ll expand on the money issue in my next post.

I’ve also identified an additional four races which I currently consider to be Stretch goals but which might also be deserving of some attention.  While these are longer shots, throwing money at Democrats running against such people as Mitch McConnell and Lindsay Graham just feels good.  I also suspect that some of these races may soon move into the Toss-Up category.

Beyond the above ten races, I note a few other races that some consider to be in-play, but that aren’t yet “practically” in-play from my perspective. Within this group, I’d love to suggest a stronger defense of the relatively safe Democratic seats and a stronger offense to take the relatively safe Republican seats.  However, money needs to be spent where it can do the most good.

The races are presented here in my current order of importance using the same structure and methodology as previously discussed.  Click on the table below to display a larger version; hit the back button to return here.

Dear Senate Republicans:

A true American icon has died.

Ruth Bader Ginsberg was a passionate and brilliant defender of our Constitution.  As only the second woman to ever serve as a Supreme Court justice, she leaves behind a 27-year record of both majority opinions and powerful dissents that will be quoted as long as our democracy lives.

I know RBG wasn’t your favorite jurist.  But she was sincere.  And she was funny.  And she was a good person.  She was great friends with Antonin Scalia – who probably was your favorite jurist – and they highly respected one another.  That should mean something to you.

While it’s sad that discussions have turned away so quickly from her amazing life and toward the nasty process of replacing her on the Court, it’s not unexpected.  Since we’re here, though, I’ll take a moment to discuss the politics.

I know that McConnell was crystal clear when he said immediately after Scalia’s death ten months before the 2016 presidential election:  “The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”

I am also quite aware that McConnell has no problem at all flushing any pretense of principle down the drain in order to replace Ginsburg less than two months before the 2020 presidential election.  I just wish he’d be honest about a purely political power play.  His logical gymnastics to justify the switch are embarrassing.

I’ve already seen a ton of opinion pieces addressing all sorts of Senate process questions – how long does it take to get a nomination through the Senate, do you have time to do it before the election, can you do it after the election in a lame-duck session, would enough of you be willing to rush a vote, does the math change if Kelly beats McSally and he takes the Arizona Senate seat immediately since that’s a special election, etc.

I guess this inside baseball is moderately interesting, but I fully understand the bottom line:  At least 50 of you will fall in line behind Trump and McConnell, with a Pence tie-breaker if necessary, to do whatever you damn well want to do on whatever timeline you so choose.  You could technically seat Rudy Giuliani on the Supreme Court by the end of today if you wanted to.  You could seat a new justice an hour before a Biden inauguration.  And you would.  I know you would.  There’s nothing that can stop you.

In 2016, your decision to not even give Merrick Garland a hearing put the selection of a replacement for a very conservative Supreme Court justice firmly in the hands of the next President.  I still don’t understand why you didn’t give Garland a hearing and then just voted against him.  It would have produced exactly the same result without the political baggage.  In any case, however, the open seat was undoubtedly a factor in many voters’ choice of Trump over Clinton.  It’s even reasonable to contend that this was a deciding factor since a Clinton-appointed jurist would have surely swung the balance of the Supreme Court.

However, 2020 is not 2016 and this open seat is not the 2020 campaign “game changer” that some of you are calling it.  Or at least it’s not the game changer that you think it is.

You want to fill Ginsberg’s seat before the election?  Go ahead.  Make my day.  You’ll guarantee a 2020 blow-out loss for your party.  Replace the premier liberal on the Court with a conservative and both Democrats and independents will be galvanized to an extent that you can’t even imagine.  On the other hand, numerous Republicans will become complacent about voting for your party since they will have already won their solid conservative Supreme Court majority.

You want to fill the seat after the election in a lame-duck session if you lose either the White House or the Senate?  Dandy.  You’ll put a nail in your party’s coffin for decades.  2022 will be all about that vote.

Fill the seat before January and the voices of reason in the Democratic party will be silenced and the Senate filibuster will be tanked as soon as they have control.  You can all just go home since your votes won’t matter at all on anything.  Oh, and by the way, your Supreme Court majority will be short-lived when Democrats simply expand the Court.  Most Democrats don’t support an expansion but, if you force the issue, almost all of them will.

I rather hate giving you political advice, but you really have only one decent option.

You can indeed make the election about the Supreme Court – but only if there’s still an open seat.  Sure, only an idiot would have assumed that RBG’s seat would not have been vacated during the next President’s term anyway.  But let’s be candid here:  You have a lot of idiots in your party.  Making the election about filling an actual open seat probably helps you more than it helps Democrats.  It will bring out more voters in both parties – but my guess is that there are more Republican votes to be had in this scenario.

So here’s the possible outcomes of delaying a confirmation until January:

1. It could help you win both the Presidency and the Senate – in which case you could then seat whomever you want.  You win.
2. It could help you win either the Presidency or the Senate – in which case you could at least guarantee a moderate justice to replace a liberal.  You still win.
3. It could have no impact and you could still lose both the Presidency and the Senate.  Democrats would get to name a liberal replacement for a liberal and the Supreme Court balance would be unchanged.  However, your 2022 campaign issue to take back the Senate would be delivered to you with a cherry on top.  You eventually win.

You’re welcome.

Of course, I fully expect all of you to tell me what I can do with my advice.  You want to take your opponent’s Queen even if it means you’ll lose the game.  Cool.  I’ll get back to mourning and save my “I told you so” for another day.

The cast of “The Princess Bride” is reuniting for a virtual table read of the script, followed by a cast Q&A, to raise money for the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Here’s just three reasons that I’ll be donating and tuning in:

1. The 1987 movie is one of my all-time favorites.
2. Wisconsin is a critical 2020 swing state with 10 Electoral College votes.
3. Ted Cruz is big fan of the movie and absolutely HATES the idea of the fundraiser.

Donate any amount you want to sign up for the event and mark your calendars for 6pm CT on Sunday, September 13^th!

Fezzik: “Why do you wear a mask?”
Westley: “I think everyone will be wearing them in the near future.”

I haven’t posted in a while and the pause has been enlightening.  Despite rhetoric from both parties and the media, it seems that nothing has really changed in the past several weeks.  Surprises are surprisingly few.

National poll numbers are still the media’s focus and they are still beyond irrelevant.  The swing states will still decide the Electoral College and that’s all that matters.  The margins are tight in most of these states and they will get tighter. Much tighter. There will be no blow-out.  No surprises here.

Biden chose Kamala Harris as his VP.  Yep.  I suggested a Biden/Harris ticket back in May of 2019.  It’s a good ticket, but it’s not a surprising ticket.

McConnell, Graham & Company are still making excuses for a last-minute Supreme Court confirmation hearing for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat, despite their arguments against exactly that same action when Obama nominated Garland before the 2016 election, despite the fact that a lifetime appointment to our nation’s highest court deserves more than a political show vote, and despite the simple fact that Ginsburg is… wait for it… still alive.  A Triple Dick Move.  Impressive, but not surprising.

Trump has taken the natural advantage of being the incumbent President and has stretched it well beyond what anyone in either political party has ever done before.  Trump has unapologetically used the free media coverage afforded to White House “press briefings” to conduct taxpayer-funded substitutes for his campaign rallies.  He has even been so brazen as to use the White House as a partisan prop during the GOP convention.  This should surprise absolutely no one.

Trump continues to be quite content to misuse the full power of the Presidency to win re-election.  After the U.S. military essentially told him to pound sand when he threatened to send active duty troops into U.S. cities, Trump switched to using the Federal Protective Service within the DHS – significantly augmented by outside contractors (read: mercenary soldiers) – for the broad purpose of protecting federal interests.  In essence, Trump has claimed the right to deploy his own private Delta Force anywhere on American soil that he so desires, disregarding any objections from the associated state or local governments – which are, of course, exclusively under Democratic leadership. Trump hasn’t even attempted  to camouflage the purely partisan nature of the para-military deployments.  Will anyone be surprised when such forces are deployed to polling locations on election day?

Trump continues to stoke racial divides in the country, presumably because he thinks that’s his best path to victory in November.  Consider for a moment, in isolation, the President of the United States hailing as a hero a 17-year-old kid that drives 40 miles from his home to confront protesters in another town and ends up shooting three of them, killing two, with a military-style weapon that he could neither legally own nor carry at his age.  Now consider how different Trump’s reaction would have been if the teenage vigilante was black instead of white.  Surprised?  Yeah, me neither.

People are getting really tired of COVID-19.  It’s tough to sustain panic-mode for months at a time.  Unfortunately, COVID-19 isn’t at all tired of infecting people.  It hasn’t gone away.  The impacts of school re-openings and Labor Day activities have yet to be recorded and it won’t be pretty.  For those of us residing in states where Friday Night Lights is a way of life, it will be downright ugly.  Trump, of course, continues to be the voice of reason and caution that we’ve come to expect.  Exactly as we’ve come to expect.

• Trump has personally involved his administration in talks to start the Big Ten football season (but not the other conferences).  Of course, it’s entirely coincidental that many of the Big Ten schools are in swing states.
• Trump wants to rush FDA approval of a vaccine before the election despite a history of failures when vaccines were rushed into use.  [In 1955, the first polio vaccine was rushed and given to over 200,000 children before being pulled.  About 20% got some level of polio from the vaccine.  Hundreds were paralyzed.  Ten died.]
• Trump claims that the 190K COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are overstated since many of the dead had other health conditions – ignoring the fact that this group includes people with non-fatal conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma.  It includes pregnant women.  It includes the entire elderly population.

Trump’s callousness toward suffering and death continues to be unsurprising.

The GOP is now the Party of Trump.  While that happened long ago, it’s now official.  The formal GOP platform takes no positions on any issues at all.  Zero.  Instead, the one-page document notes that “The RNC enthusiastically supports President Trump … therefore, be it resolved that Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”  So.  They now want whatever Trump wants without even the pretense of any principles or any moral core.

The GOP once stood for something and the party elders knew how dangerous Trump was.  Now they just don’t care. For better or worse, all Republican politicians have now welded their careers to Trump and the time has passed for any of them to show independence.  Of course, for his part, Trump could not be less interested in the political fortunes of anyone other than himself.  This is the typical dynamic between a cult’s leader and its followers.  Everyone across the political spectrum should be mournful that a once proud political party has been reduced to sycophancy.  No one should be surprised.

The future GOP is also the Party of Trump.  The 2024 Republican hopefuls spent their 2020 convention speeches kissing Trump’s ass.  Pence, Haley, Don Jr., and Pompeo all displayed appropriate allegiance to the leader of their cult.  The latter was the first sitting Secretary of State to ever address a political convention and he iced that cake by doing it while on a taxpayer-funded trip abroad.  Damn.  The Republican Party is all in on a bluff and, unfortunately, that’s just not a surprise bet.

I fully expect a whole lot of additional crap to happen before the November elections.  I just doubt I’ll be surprised by any of it.