Trump Will Lose Tomorrow-- And It Won't Be Close

 

Red America by Nancy Ohanian

The foundation to any Republican presidential victory is Texas. Bottom line: if Trump loses Texas and its 38 electoral votes tomorrow, game over. But he's not likely to lose the state. It's still just too red. But the fact that Trump looks so weak in recent polls-- ahead of a nothing like Biden by just 2.3 points according to the most recent Real Clear Politics average-- is a testament to what a disastrous presidency he's presided over. And while those weak numbers may not deny Trump Texas' 38 electoral votes, they may well presage half a dozen or more GOP congressional losses in "safe" red districts. It's likely that TX-10 (McCaul), TX-21 (Roy), TX-22 (Olson), TX-23 (Hurd), TX-24 (Marchant), TX-25 (Williams) could all flip blue tomorrow.

Over the weekend, one of the Mike Siegel campaigners told me that 366,000 people had already voted early in TX-10, more people than had ever voted in an election in that district totally. Black voters, Asian voters, first-time voters and young voters all set new participation records. (301,200 voters participated in the TX-10 congressional race in 2018.) Siegel is expecting a big turnout tomorrow as well. Big turnouts are not what Republicans encourage. And those new voters and young voters and voters of color are not who Trump is trying to appeal to now.

In fact, Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey reported for the Washington Post that Trump's madcap super-spreader rallies are focusing exclusively on his base of uneducated white racists. They wrote about episodes likely to turn off swing voters but enthuse his beloved "poorly educated," noting that in a frenzied burst of campaigning in the last days of the presidential race, Señor Trumpanzee has "accused doctors of fabricating coronavirus deaths for money, pantomimed a physical fight with Democratic rival Joe Biden, mocked a Fox News host for wearing a mask and celebrated his supporters for using pickup trucks to ambush a Biden campaign bus on a Texas highway... [H]is closing message is a classic display of the kind of red meat tailored specifically to animate his most faithful supporters. Convinced that it’s too late to change the minds of voters who are not yet sold on Trump, the president’s advisers are intensely focused on turning out those who are. Trump’s decision to forgo a broad, unifying closing message and instead double down on appealing to a narrow but enthusiastic slice of the electorate is a gamble. Whether it pays off or becomes a cautionary tale will not be known until the polls close Tuesday and the votes are counted."

It doesn't look good for Trump. His polling numbers are falling and COVID-19 infections are rising, particularly ones that are tied specifically to his super-spreader rallies, which caused at least 700 deaths, not counting Herman Cain. Yesterday 71,321 new cases were reported, bringing the U.S. total to 9,473,911-- as well as 399 new reported deaths for a total of 236,471. Swing states, many with Republican governors and or legislatures who have followed Trump's anti-science line, are being hammered. Yesterday's swing state new cases (with number of cases per million residents):

• Texas +4,193 (33,140 cases per million residents)
• Florida +4,865 (37,593 cases per million residents)
• Wisconsin +3,493 (39,307 cases per million residents)
• Ohio +3,319 (18,738 cases per million residents)
• Iowa +2,394 (41,320 cases per million residents)
• Minnesota +2,200 (26,717 cases per million residents)
• North Carolina +2,057 (26,382 cases per million residents)
• Pennsylvania +1,684 (16,755 cases per million residents)
• Arizona +1,527 (34,000 cases per million residents)
• Georgia +1,192 (34,093 cases per million residents)

Trump is in his own fantasy world though, gaslighting his rallies 'til the very end. He spread COVID to his Pennsylvania supporters in 4 rallies on Saturday. The first was on Newton where he told the crowd, "A great red wave is forming. As sure as we’re here together, that wave is forming. And they see it, they see it on all sides and there’s not a thing they can do about it."

In front of large crowds that defied public health guidelines in the middle of a pandemic, Trump offered a defiant closing message about the forces he battled during his first term, claiming that his willingness to fight them is one reason he deserves a second term.

“We did not come this far and fight this hard only to surrender our country back to the Washington swamp,” Trump said Friday in Waterford Township, Mich.

That event kicked off a four-day stretch of rallies taking him to Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Wisconsin. By the time he holds his final rally in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Monday night, Trump will have given his stump speech to tens of thousands of potential voters.

The president’s allies say he is smart to make a bet on rallying his troops at this stage of the campaign, with few undecided voters left and more to be gained from juicing turnout than from winning converts.

“The weekend before election, you’re not changing minds,” said Bryan Lanza, an adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign and transition. “You’re not IDing supporters, you’re just turning them out. That’s where we are. Persuasion is done. He’s got to turn out what’s there.”

Trump is under more pressure to turn out his base voters in the last days of the race due to the unprecedented partisan split between Americans who vote early and those voting on Election Day.

More than 90 million Americans have already voted early or by absentee ballot, according to data maintained by the U.S. Elections Project, a nonpartisan early-voting tracker. Democrats have an edge over Republicans in several swing states, and Trump has explicitly told his supporters to cast their votes in person on Tuesday.

...The president’s strategy carries risks. His embrace of the conspiracy theories spread by his most ardent supporters about the coronavirus pandemic has driven away potential supporters, according to polls.

Trump has increasingly used his rallies to promote misinformation about the deadly virus, downplaying it and bemoaning the fact that it continues to dominate news coverage. He has told supporters that the country was “rounding the turn” on the virus even as the case count soars to record levels, and claimed without evidence that a vaccine has been held up until after the election due to politics. On Friday, he mocked Fox News host Laura Ingraham for wearing a mask to his crowded Michigan rally.

“No way!” he said from the stage. “She’s wearing a mask? She’s being very politically correct!”

During the same rally, Trump made the baseless accusation that doctors are inflating the number of patients who died of covid-19 to “get more money.”

“Now they’ll say, ‘Oh that’s terrible what he said,’ but that’s true,” Trump said of his false allegation. “It’s like $2,000 more, so you get more money.”

The American Medical Association called the claim “malicious, outrageous, and completely misguided” in a statement Friday, without naming Trump.

Trump’s conspiratorial approach to the pandemic comes as the number of Americans dying each day has begun to increase, along with the rising caseload and hospitalizations.

More than 230,000 Americans have died of covid-19, and more than 9 million have been infected.

...[H]e has veered away from his prepared remarks to offer controversial running commentary to his supporters. He has fed off crowds chanting “Lock him up!” about Biden and “Superman!” about him. Shortly before his fourth rally of the day in Pennsylvania on Saturday, Trump tweeted a video of several of his supporters forming an intimidating vehicle caravan around a Biden campaign bus as it attempted to drive down a Texas highway.

“I LOVE TEXAS!” the president wrote.

On Saturday, Keith Collins, Trip Gabriel and Stephanie Saul took NY Times readers on a trip into the 20 Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin counties across the country where they claim, inaccurately, that the battle for their states' electoral votes are fiercest. Let's follow along anyway:

Miami-Dade, FL-- A Democratic stronghold, it is not a county Mr. Trump would hope to win. But this majority-Hispanic county was a disappointment for Democrats in 2018, especially in heavily Cuban-American precincts. Younger Cuban voters have started identifying as Trump Republican here.

Disappointment in 2018? The Democrats targeted 2 congressional seats in Miami-Dade and won both. Gillum won with 59.9% and Nelson won with 60.6%

Pinellas County, FL-- Perhaps the biggest swing county in the state, which backed Mr. Trump after twice backing Barack Obama, it is a Florida microcosm: solid Democrats in St. Petersburg and Midwestern retirees elsewhere.

2018 was good for Dems in Pinellas-- Gillum won with 50.7%, Nelson won with 52.6% and Charlie Crist was reelected with 57.6%

Osceola County, FL-- Part of the greater Orlando area, it is increasingly Hispanic. Conservative retirees have been joined by hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, who did not register in expected numbers to give Democrats an advantage in 2018, and so far, are lagging behind other groups in early voting.

Osceola was another good county for Dems in 2018-- Gillum 58.4%, Nelson 59.7%, and it performed for mediocre Rep. Darren Soto D+26. It would have been way more interesting to include Polk County  

Union County, NC-- In 2016, Mr. Trump easily won this suburban Republican bastion near Charlotte. Republicans remain dominant, but signs of disaffection with the president, along with an upswing in “unaffiliated” voters, give Democrats hope they can trim Mr. Trump’s margin.

Union is one of those counties where Republicans routinely steal votes

Wake County, NC-- One of the nation’s fastest-growing counties, Wake has shifted steadily leftward over the past 20 years, supporting Hillary Clinton in 2016 by more than 100,000 votes. An influx of out-of-staters since then stands to boost the Democrats even more, potentially offsetting high Republican numbers in rural areas.

Robeson County, NC-- A former Democratic stronghold, this economically depressed county went for Mr. Trump in 2016. The prize will likely go to the candidate most popular among the Lumbee Indians, the county’s largest group. Mr. Trump held a rally here in October, and both campaigns pledged to support the tribe’s quest for federal recognition.

Robeson delivered for Democrat Dan McCready in 2018 (D+15)

Westmoreland County, PA-- Typical of other counties where Mr. Trump outperformed with white working-class voters four years ago, this area near Pittsburgh is where he must win even bigger margins to counter a likely Democratic surge in the suburbs.

Hillary screwed the pooch but 2 years later Tom Wolf took 46.4% and Bob Casey took 43.9%-- which is all Biden needs to do there and in places like it to be sure of winning Pennsylvania

Chester County, PA-- Democrats must continue their 2018 midterm surge in this suburban Philadelphia county, especially with college-educated women, or Mr. Trump could carry Pennsylvania again.

In 2018 Dems all did better than Hillary had-- Casey drew 59.2%, Wolf took 61.3% and the county performed as a D+18 for Democrat Chrissy Houlahan 

Erie County, PA-- One of three counties in the state that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016, its mix of a working-class post-industrial economy and rural towns makes it “the oracle of Pennsylvania,” in the words of a Democratic strategist.

Erie Co. regretted going for Trump in 2016 and made up for it 2 years later-- Bob Casey 55.7%, Tom Wolf 59.8 and the county is the biggest one in PA-16 and performed at a D+20 level for Democrat Ron DiNicola

Philadelphia County, PA-- The big question here is whether Mr. Biden can re-energize Black voters-- Democrats’ core supporters-- after Hillary Clinton’s lackluster showing in 2016. Mr. Biden will have to boost the numbers to counter Mr. Trump’s margins with rural white voters. The Trump campaign has taken on aggressive tactics, like videotaping voters at ballot drop boxes.

Macomb County, MI-- Heavily unionized and mostly white, the state’s third largest county has picked the statewide winner in the last seven elections for governor and president.

In 2018 Stabenow did 8 points better than Hillary and Whitmer did slightly better than Stabenow. The county performed at a D+19 level for Andy Levin

Oakland County, MI-- Once solidly Republican, it is a more affluent neighbor of Macomb County and has been trending Democratic. It is a prime example of the changes that are taking place in many of the nation’s suburbs. In 2018, it gave Gov. Gretchen Whitmer the biggest margin for a Democrat in 20 years.

Oakland was good for all the Dems running in 2018 and will be for Biden tomorrow

Kent County, MI-- This traditional Republican stronghold-- home to Grand Rapids, where President Gerald Ford was raised-- has moved away from the Republican Party in the Trump era.

Mentioning Ford is the most hawkish possible thing to say about Kent. He served from 1949 to 1973-- 100% irrelevant. Maybe they should have mentioned current Rep. Justin Amash. Stabenow and Whitmer both won the county in 2018

Brown County, WI-- Among the top counties that will decide the state’s winner is the home of vote-rich Green Bay. It’s a swing county that in 2018 voted for the Republican candidate for governor, Scott Walker, and the Democrat for Senate, Tammy Baldwin. Mr. Trump won blowout margins here compared with Mitt Romney in 2012.

Waukesha County, WI-- It is the largest of Milwaukee’s suburban counties. Long a Republican stronghold, the county underperformed for Mr. Trump in 2016. Mr. Biden has forged inroads here, but it’s not clear how deep they are.

Don't get excited; Biden has not forged any inroads in Waukesha. The writers had nothing so say so they made it up

Dane County, WI-- This is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it’s where Democrats surged in an April 2020 race for the State Supreme Court. Nearly as many votes were cast here as in Milwaukee County, even though Dane has less than 60 percent of Milwaukee’s population. Heavy turnout in early voting suggests Mr. Biden is claiming those votes.

Grant County, WI-- Emblematic of southwest Wisconsin, it is one of the state’s swingiest regions, where weak partisan identity saw voters shift from Mr. Obama to Mr. Trump.

In 2018 it swung back blue-- Tony Evers beat Scott Walker by about a point and Tammy Baldwin beta her GOP opponent by 9 points

Maricopa County, AZ-- Home to Phoenix and more than 60 percent of the state’s electorate, it is Arizona’s most important county. It went narrowly for Mr. Trump in 2016, but two years later supported a Democrat, Kyrsten Sinema, for senator. The question is whether the county’s changing demographics will tip the state to a Democratic president for the first time since 1996.

Pima County, AZ-- The home of Tucson, Democrats typically run up the score here.

Pinal County, AZ-- The state’s third-largest county is a Republican redoubt. Mr. Trump will have to turn out enough rural white voters to help protect the 3.5-point margin he won the state with in 2016.