Wednesday, October 7, 2020

I'm Becoming Optimistic About the Election

This spring Biden led in surveys. Even so, I presumed Trump would play his political cards well despite his malevolence and policy incompetence, and estimated the incumbent's electoral college chances at 65%. Now, stricken by Covid-19 himself as it rages through his unprotected government, and pulling the plug on economic relief negotiations as his own Fed Chair pleads for a bill and the economy falters, I feel he is sealing his political demise. In contrast to what I expected, Trump's politics have been as abysmal as his policies, and I feel things are starting to look very, very good to defeat him.

Financial services company Goldman Sachs today forecast that the Democrats will take both the White House and the Senate, and said a Democratic sweep would mean a faster recovery and thus would be good for the economy. Moody’s Analytics, a subsidiary of another financial services company, recently found that Biden’s plans would add 7.4 million more jobs to the economy than Trump’s would.

Real Clear Politics state by state poll averages have Biden's current electoral vote at 374 and Trump's at 164. Nate Silver's 538 site has Biden's projected Election Day chance of coming out ahead in the popular vote at 93%, and of electoral college victory at 83%. I was listening to NPR yesterday. They had the editor of The Economist on. She said their forecast, based on both polls and broader "fundamentals," many of them economic, of course, has Biden's popular vote win probability at 99% and his electoral college win probability at 90%. A New York Times Sienna College Poll out yesterday showed Trump losing senior citizens, a group he won by 9 points in 2016. The handwriting is on the wall.

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