Donald Trump’s 2016 election victory stunned the world. It also uprooted the electoral map: Trump won narrow victories in states which had voted Democratic for decades. This year, many forecasters have been keen to stress the unpredictability of an election that may well redefine that map again.
Holding an election in a pandemic makes predictions tough: while most Republican voters are still happy to vote in person, most Democrats have cast absentee or early ballots – which may be counted at different times or rejected at different rates. It’s also unpredictable because the Trump era has shattered many usual voting habits, with many blue-collar working-class communities now solidly Republican – and Democrats making huge inroads in former conservative bastions. It’s clear that diversifying states like Arizona, Georgia and Texas are moving in the Democrats’ direction, but we don’t know if it will be enough for Biden to take any of them across the line.
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