UPDATE:
While the back-of-the-envelope calculations below were based on a total early vote (in-person + mail-in) of 85 million by November 3, Professor McDonald reports a total of 86,166,713 early votes as of 5:32 PM Eastern Time, October 30, with a little over 35 million mail ballots still outstanding.
In a little kudo for my home state, Texans have already cast more than 9 million ballots, already exceeding the total 8,969,226 ballots cast in 2016.
Original Post:
Let me say up front: I know beans about polls, election basics and prognostications and very little about politics. I am certainly no Nate Silver.
Just throwing out a simple conjecture on the upcoming elections for the purpose of drawing out more informed commentary.
First, some assumptions (some based on data and statistics as noted):
There are about 240 million “citizens eligible to vote” in the U.S. this year.
About 150 million Americans are expected to vote by Nov. 3, “at 62%, one of the highest turnout rates in recent history – since 1908.
Around 33% of voters identify as Democrat, 29% as Republican and 34% identify as independents.
When taking independents’ partisan leanings into account, 49% of all registered voters either identify as Democrats or lean to the party, while 44% identify as Republicans or lean to the GOP.
In his most recent update, Professor Michael M. McDonald cites the total early votes cast as of 2:22 PM Eastern Time, October 29, at 80,061,661 — both in-person and mail-in.
It is likely that 85 million people will have voted before Nov. 3.
That would leave about 65 million votes yet to be cast on Nov. 3.
While Republicans are narrowing the gap, and while accurate data is difficult to obtain, it is generally reported that Democrats have been dominating the early voting.
In September, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that Biden was leading Trump 67 percent to 31 percent, among those who planned to vote early and Trump was leading Biden by 19 percentage points among people who intended to vote on Election Day,
On Oct. 15, SpectrumNews1 reported that Democrats registrants cast 51% of all ballots reported, compared with 25% from Republicans. On Sunday, Oct. 25, Democrats had a slightly smaller lead, 51% to 31%.
But CNBC reports that Republicans lead on in-person votes with party affiliation with 41.7% over Democrats’ 36.9%.
Other reports reflect a narrower gap in favor of Democrats and most experts caution that such reports are “an imperfect indicator of which party may be leading.” Also, that “the data only shows party registration, not which candidate voters support” and that Republicans will have a much stronger showing than Democrats on Election Day.
Having said/assumed all this, let’s also assume that early voting (mail ballots and in person) will favor Biden a conservative 60 to 40 percent and that the November 3 in-person vote will favor Trump 60 to 40 percent.
Now, let’s do the math:
Early vote:
Biden: 60% of 85 million = 51 million votes
Trump: 40% of 85 million = 34 million votes
Nov. 3 vote:
Biden: 40% of 65 million = 26 million votes
Trump 60% of 65 million = 39 million votes
That would give Biden 77 million votes and Trump 73 million votes.
Of course, we have ignored the big elephant in the room: The Electoral College, a creature that has given us six presidents thus far who lost the popular vote and the even bigger one: a president who won his election with 46 percent of the popular vote and who now is “so reliant on wide-scale efforts to depress the vote.” These two factors can blow up even the most sophisticated predictions.
Now, your views.
Illustration 196904293 © Anastasiia Atamanchuk – Dreamstime.com
