Trumpism Is Not An Effective Electoral Strategy

Doug Jones is a solidly left wing Democrat who makes little effort to appeal to conservatives. Nevertheless, in 2017 he was able to win a Senate seat in Alabama, one of the reddest states in the nation.

In 2018, Democrats won the House popular vote by almost 9 points, and held on to Senate seats in Montana and West Virginia.

In 2019, Democrats took full control of the Virginia State Legislature after many years out of power.

In 2020, Donald Trump became the first President to lose re-election since George H.W. Bush was defeated by Bill Clinton in 1992.

In 2021, Democrats took control of the Senate.

On reflection, even Trump’s victory in 2016 was somewhat unimpressive. It’s very rare for any party to control the White House for more than 8 years at a time, and even so Trump lost the popular vote to one of the least popular major party nominees in history, and only just won the tipping point state and hence the Electoral College. In the end, the Trump era has been an electoral disaster for the GOP, going from full control of Federal Government in January 2017, to Democrats having full control just 4 years later. Now the Republican Party is facing an internal conflict over whether or not to retain Trumpism, and its decision could determine its electoral performance for the coming decade.

Fundamentally, the electoral Achilles ’ heel of Trumpism is that it caters exclusively to the base, passionate Republicans who are very positive about Trump. All of Trump’s actions, decisions, and rhetoric are aimed at this one group. But this group simply isn’t big enough. Trump’s approval rating currently sits at just 39%, fairly typical of his rating throughout his Presidency. But 39% is not enough to win an election, and in these same polls an average of 56% of voters say they disapprove of Trump’s Presidency. Trumpism demonstrates little ability to cater to moderates and persuadable voters, because it doesn’t consist of policies or arguments, it consists of emotion. Ultimately, Trumpism is the politics of resentment for those perceived to have better opportunities in life than yourself. In this politics of emotion, it seems to frequently become necessary to believe conspiracy theories to rationalise emotions such as hatred of top Democrats or distress regarding election results. But the vast majority of the public don’t support these theories, so unless you already feel what you need to feel to buy into Trumpism, there really isn’t much out there to convince you to vote Republican right now.

Nothing represents this better than the failure of the GOP to publish a new manifesto in 2020, the first time a major party has missed a manifesto in decades. Instead, Trump chose to reuse his 2016 manifesto, which contains various outdated policies and ideas and is of course absent of any policies regarding Covid-19. Then again, having no policies regarding Covid-19 is reflective of a President who has sought to avoid engaging with the issue, instead focusing on attacking his critics online and hosting rallies, once again playing on emotion rather than policy. Entertainingly, this document which the GOP came to embrace in 2020 also contains various direct criticisms of “The President”, referring to Obama in 2016 but now reading as though Trump were attacking himself: “The President has been regulating to death a free market economy that he does not like and does not understand. He defies the laws of the United States by refusing to enforce those with which he does not agree”. The laziness of copy and pasting the manifesto verbatim is symbolic of Trumpism’s lack of interest in the actual process of governing a nation.

Furthermore, we see that Trump himself performs worse than other GOP nominees, and that the greater distance Republicans have from the White House, the better they do. In 2020, Trump lost the popular vote by 4.5 points, but the GOP only lost the House popular vote by 3. Based on the State Legislative seats which went up for election in 2020, we estimate that if every seat had gone up for election, Republicans would actually have won the State Legislative popular vote by 1 point. In the House and Senate, the Republicans who performed best as compared to Trump were consistently those who most frequently vote against him in Congress. This has a major impact in elections, with all 4 Democratic Senate gains made against Republican incumbents who voted with Trump 80-95% of the time despite being from competitive states.

On the other hand, it’s not entirely clear what strategy Republicans could employ other than Trumpism. Both the moderate and calm McCain in 2008 and the traditional conservative Romney in 2012 suffered clear defeats. The last time the Republicans won the Presidential popular vote was in 2004, but George W Bush went on to become a deeply unpopular President with a stained legacy, so his strategy is hardly one Republicans wish to replicate. Before that, Republicans have George H.W. Bush’s victory in 1988 to look to, except that he was defeated convincingly by Clinton just 4 years later. Therefore the GOP has to look a full 40 years into the past to Ronald Reagan and his “Reaganonomics” to find any proven electoral strategy for conservatives. The GOP’s identity crisis is certainly severe, but lacking any policies or recent examples of successful strategies, it seems overwhelmingly likely that the Republican party will end up stuck with some degree of Trumpism, and all the electoral challenges it entails.

What Biden’s Win Means For The Political Landscape

After months of voting, counting, and waiting, the General Election is finally over, and it’s bad news for Republicans. In the end, Biden won the popular vote by a fairly convincing 4.5 point margin. This is substantially less than what most opinion polls were predicting, but was still just enough to bring Biden to a victory. Not only did Democrats win back the key swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, they also picked up Ariziona and Georgia from the Sun Belt, both of which are extremely promising states for the party moving forward. However, in a sense Biden’s margin of victory was quite narrow, as he won the tipping point state of Wisconsin by just 0.6 points, meaning that Trump’s Electoral College advantage was approximately 4 points. Republicans also seem to be solidifying their control of Florida and North Carolina, quashing Democrats’ hopes in these populous and fast growing states.

In the Senate, we expected many of the key races to be close. In the end, many of these toss-ups ended up going to Republicans, continuing the trend we see in these results of Democrats underperforming their polls. The GOP held on in North Carolina and Iowa, and unseated Doug Jones in Alabama, demonstrating once again that incumbency is worth much less than party identity in the current political paradigm, making it extremely difficult for Democrats to hang on in red states and vice versa. Indeed, the vast majority of Senate seats once again simply went to the same party that won the Presidential race in that state. Democrats benefited from this trend by picking up seats in Colorado and Arizona, as well as 2 impressive wins in Georgia, giving Democrats the majority in the Senate they so desperately needed. The sole exception to the rule was Republican Susan Collins in Maine, whose moderate reputation allowed her to clinch a narrow victory in a blue state.

The House was a major source of disappointment for Democrats. While polling indicated the party may enjoy slight gains, instead their majority has been shrunk severely. Those Democrats who remain are a fairly cohesive coalition so should still be somewhat effective, however House votes won’t be the sure thing they once were. Overall across Presidential and Congressional races, we called 98% correctly. Our incorrect calls were all cases of underestimating Republicans, primarily based off inaccurate opinion polling.

Overall, this is a huge win for Democrats. With control of Congress and the White House, they will be able to pass Covid relief bills, implement executive orders, and appoint cabinet secretaries and justices as they please. However, their slim majorities in Congress will likely prevent them from implementing anything radical, as even a couple of Blue Dog Democrats voting against a bill would be enough to block it entirely. Furthermore, they are likely to lose those majorities in the 2022 midterms, meaning they will need to use these 2 years very effectively before Congress becomes split and deadlocked once again.

This election also serves as a vindication of the establishment wing of the Democratic party, demonstrating that mainstream left wing politicians are in fact capable of beating Republicans. This could put the brakes on the Progressive wing of the party, who had previously been arguing that only a radical populist Democrat could excite voters enough to win. It seems likely that in 2024, the Democrats will nominate Biden or Harris for the Presidency, with AOC or any other successor to Bernie Sanders sidelined. Conversely, the GOP may be forced to rethink its strategy. A President failing to win re-election is unusual, as is losing a Senate majority within just 4 years. Whether Republicans stick with Trumpism or fall back to the traditional conservatism of figures such as Mitt Romney will be enormously impactful, and doubtless a major political conflict over the next 4 years.

Finally, Republican structural advantages were cemented and expanded this election, most notably in Trump’s 4 point advantage in the Electoral College, increased from 3 points in 2016. It is entirely possible to envision a scenario where in 2024 or 2028 the Republican nominee wins the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote by 5-10 million ballots. Additionally, the GOP did surprisingly well in State Legislative races, giving them extensive control of the redistricting process coming up in 2021. Meanwhile in many of the states that Democrats do control, they allow the redistricting to be carried out by independent commissions. Ultimately this is likely to mean that Republicans continue to have significant structural advantages in elections for the House and State Legislatures for the next 10 years counterbalancing Democrats’ larger coalition.

Joe Biden Has A 92% Chance Of Winning The Presidency

This year our Presidential forecast model heavily favours Joe Biden to win the 2020 election, in one of the most high turnout elections in American history. Currently leading the national opinion polls by 9 points, and ahead in states with a total of 351 electoral votes, at this stage Biden losing the election would be a significant surprise.

Trump commands a safe lead in 125 electoral votes worth of states (AK, ID, MT, WY, UT, ND, SD, NE, NE-1, NE-3, KS, OK, MO, AR, LA, MS, AL, SC, TN, KY, IN, WV) as compared to Biden’s 216 safe electors (WA, OR, CA, CO, NM, HI, IL, VA, NY, VT, NH, ME, ME-1, MA, RI, CT, NJ, DE, DC, MD). That means that for Biden to win, he needs just 54 electoral votes from the pool of 197 electors across competitive states.

His easiest set of opportunities are in the Upper Midwest, where Trump is 9-10 points behind in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan, which together have 36 electoral votes. Winning here would require Biden to win back non college-educated white Obama-Trump voters, which by all accounts he appears to be doing. A recent surge in Covid-19 cases in this region (especially Wisconsin), combined with Trump’s terrible approval ratings on the handling of the pandemic, is likely to shore up Biden’s odds in these states.

Biden’s next easiest opportunity is in Pennsylvania with its 20 electoral votes, where he leads by 6-7 points. Pennsylvania is very likely to be the tipping point state this election, playing an absolutely pivotal role. If Biden wins in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, he wins the Presidency without having to push any further into Republican territory. Our model gives Biden an 88% chance to win The Keystone State, which is a major contributing factor to his lead in our overall forecast.

Although Biden doesn’t strictly need any more targets, in electoral terms it’s generally wise to have backups. If something goes wrong for Biden in Pennsylvania or the Upper Midwest, he could well be rescued by the Sun Belt States. These are Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada, which together have 61 electors and represent a more racially diverse cross-section of the population, requiring Biden to excel with groups other than non college-educated white voters. Courtesy of continued strong support from racial minorities as well as improving numbers with older white voters, Biden leads in each of these states by 4-6 points. These states therefore represent a generous cushion for the Biden campaign, and could plausibly decide the election in his favour were he to underperform with white Midwestern voters, but have a strong performance among minority ethnic groups.

Going one step further, Biden has several plausible long shot targets, namely Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, and even Texas. Together these have 78 electoral votes, with Biden and Trump approximately tied in polls in each state. To some extent, states this red have limited relevance in determining the outcome of the election. However, their high number of electors mean that in the event of Biden victory, they will have a significant impact on the margin of victory in the Electoral College, playing a key role in shaping public perception of the outcome of the election, which could shape both major parties post 2020.

Overall, the current state of the race is bleak for President Trump, however the 8% chance of victory he has in our model is not to be disregarded. It’s important to remember that the President continues to have an Electoral College advantage, such that although national polling may have Biden ahead by 9%, he is only 6-7 points ahead in the most likely tipping point state.

Additionally, it’s worth remembering that polling is not an exact science, and that both random and systematic errors are perfectly common. In 2016, pollsters did not weight polls according to education level, resulting in non college-educated voters being underrepresented in samples which led to a 3 point underestimation of Trump, which was even more extreme in several swing states with large non college-educated white populations. In 2018, pollsters did weight by education and were very accurate indeed, so there’s no particular reason to expect a similar error this year as the problem seems to have been adequately addressed. However, it’s entirely possible that there may be a different systematic polling error, a possibility which our model does account for. If there is such an error, there is no particular reason to believe that it will favour Trump instead of Biden, such that a landslide for Biden is an entirely realistic possibility. Furthermore, even if we did see a 2016 style polling error which underestimated Trump by 3 points nationally and more in several swing states, Biden would still win the election. Biden’s lead is simply much larger than Clinton’s was in 2016, so for Trump to win as the result of a polling error we would have to see a truly historical systematic error across the polling industry.

The other mechanism by which Trump could remain President is via successful large scale voter suppression or vote manipulation attempts. Our model explicitly does not account for these, although it does take into account the normal levels of voter suppression which have been present throughout the nation for a long time. It’s very difficult to gauge what the probability of this happening is, but what you certainly can expect is extensive legal battles, delayed vote counts, and an extremely unusual election night. This year it’s going to be sensible to be patient, and voters will not necessarily know who has won the Presidency by the end of the night. Sticking to reliable, nonpartisan news sources and being aware of the fact that enormous amounts of disinformation are present are going to be critical to surviving the next week with our collective sanity intact.

Democrats Are Likely To Win Full Control Of Congress

With the 2020 General Election just a few days away, Democrats command convincing 9 point leads in both the generic ballot and Presidential opinion polling. Although Republicans have structural advantages in the House, Senate, and Electoral College, the size of the Democratic lead results in a grim outlook for the GOP this cycle.

Our probabilistic forecasts for the House, Senate, and Presidential races are complete and have been tracking the changing national environment over time. Since the first Presidential debate and Trump’s subsequent coronavirus diagnosis, the President lost the small gains he achieved following the Republican National Convention. This article explores our current forecasts for the House and the Senate. Although these might not be the most high profile contests this year, they are absolutely pivotal in determining whether the winner of the Presidential race will be able to govern effectively, or will simply be a placeholder keeping the next President’s seat warm for four years.

The House of Representatives

Following their blue wave in 2018, Democrats go into this year’s House elections with 232 representatives, a comfortable majority. To regain control, Republicans need to make extensive gains in an environment even more favourable to Democrats than the 8.5 point lead they enjoyed in 2018. Additionally, Democrats now have the advantage of incumbency in almost every swing seat, having won them off Republican incumbents 2 years ago. As a result, our model gives Democrats a 98% chance of maintaining control of the House, and actually expects them to expand their majority, winning 240 seats on average.

The Senate

In a chamber where California gets the same number of representatives as Wyoming, Democrats are always going to struggle. The Republican structural advantage in the Senate is immense, such that even in 2018 Republicans were able to expand their majority, and now occupy 53 out of the 100 seats. However, in 2018 Democrats had very high exposure in the Senate, with the vast majority of the seats up for election that year occupied by Democrats. This gave the GOP plenty of chances to pick off some of the less secure Democrats in red states they’d won courtesy of excellent years for Democrats in 2006 and 2012. In 2020, the tables are turned as the GOP seeks to hold onto the gains it made in 2014. Now Republicans have high exposure, and could suffer significant losses in this very blue national environment.

12 Democratic and 23 Republican seats are up for election this year, including many Republican held seats in moderately red states. To win control Democrats need to make a net gain of 3 or 4, depending on whether Kamala Harris or Mike Pence is elected to the Vice Presidency, which breaks ties in the Senate. The GOP stands to make a fairly easy gain unseating Doug Jones in Alabama. Following his victory in one of the reddest states in the country as a result of facing an exceptionally unpopular opponent in Roy Moore, Jones has been voting consistently with the Democratic mainstream. It appears he decided that even if he voted as a conservative Democrat in a similar manner to Joe Manchin in deep red West Virginia, Jones would still lose his re-election campaign, so has simply been voting with his party. The only other Republican target is Michigan, where Democrat Gary Peters is facing a small threat to his re-election campaign, but will probably pull through given that Peters and Biden are both consistently leading polls in the state.

Given Biden’s lead in national polling, it’s reasonable to assume that Democrats therefore need to make approximately 4 gains to win control of the Senate. Colorado is an obvious target, Biden is leading there by 14 points and incumbent Cory Gardener has made little effort to appeal to moderates in the state, and trails in polls by a significant margin. If Democrats can’t win this one, they can’t win.

Arizona presents a second strong target for Democrats. This swing state is currently leaning towards Biden, and the Republican incumbent Martha McSally is only an appointed incumbent, not an elected one, and is therefore not expected to command a significant incumbent advantage. Interestingly, in 2018 McSally lost Republican Jeff Flake’s old Senate seat to Democrat Kyrsten Sinema, so if McSally loses again this year she will have been responsible for the GOP losing both Arizona Senate seats in the space of 2 years!

Beyond these 2 targets, Democrats have to work harder to make gains. Maine is a slightly blue state, but incumbent Republican Susan Collins has a moderate reputation, putting her in a much stronger political position than Gardener or McSally. However, since voting in favour of confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, voters in Maine are increasingly questioning her moderate reputation. She trails slightly in polling, but this is a race that could easily go either way.

Iowa and North Carolina are each somewhat red states with Republican incumbents, so the fact that Democratic challengers have small leads in each of these states is a reflection on the national political situation being very favourable toward Democrats. Additionally, Democrats are only slightly behind in Montana, Kansas, Arkansas, South Carolina, and both races in Georgia. All of these are red states with Republican incumbents, the fact that Democrats are even in contention here must be alarming for the GOP.

All in all, Democrats have 2 easy opportunities to make gains, and 9 highly competitive races which could go either way. If Democrats win even just a couple of those, they win the Senate. That’s why our model gives Democrats an 81% chance of taking control of the upper chamber. An important note is that the margin could also be extremely important here. If Democrats have only 50 Senators, they would be reliant on conservative Democrat Joe Manchin, whose vote could not be counted on for any liberal policies. If Democrats have 52 seats things are very different, and if Biden were President he could probably pass mainstream Democratic reform through Congress easily. With 55 seats or more, Democrats could run rampant passing whatever progressive policies they so choose, so truly every single competitive race could have an immense impact on politics going forward.

Whilst this piece has focused on the more likely scenario of Democratic victory, it’s worth emphasising the fact that the 2% and 19% chances of Republicans winning the House and Senate respectively are real and should not be ignored. But to hold on even in just the upper chamber, the GOP has a lot of ground to make up. Aside from Susan Collins, Republicans in key races show very limited interest in using moderate rhetoric and policy positions to persuade Independent voters, leading Independents to overwhelmingly back Democrats. While passionate conservative messaging does encourage Republican turnout, it also fires up Democratic turnout, such that Republicans find themselves having to play defence deep within their own territory. If the GOP does indeed suffer a severe defeat this year, they may have to re-examine this strategy.

Biden’s Lead Is Significant, But Fragile

With the 2020 Presidential election less than 3 months away, high quality polls are being published in large numbers, giving us a clear understanding of the current state of the race. To help sort through this mass of data, we’ve calculated polling averages in all 50 states, DC, and the nation as a whole. These averages take into account the sample size and type of each poll, and each pollsters’ past performance. In states where few polls are conducted, the data used to generate the polling average is supplemented with the national polling average plus the base partisanship of the state.

West Virginia	Trump +23.0
Wyoming	Trump +20.5
Nebraska 3rd Congressional District	Trump +19.2
Oklahoma	Trump +17.8
Kentucky	Trump +15.1
North Dakota	Trump +14.7
Alabama	Trump +14.5
Utah	Trump +11.2
Idaho	Trump +11.2
Tennessee	Trump +9.0
Nebraska At Large	Trump +8.2
Indiana	Trump +8.0
Kansas	Trump +8.0
South Dakota	Trump +7.9
Montana	Trump +7.4
Mississippi	Trump +5.7
South Carolina	Trump +5.2
Louisiana	Trump +5.0
Arkansas	Trump +4.5
Nebraska 1st Congressional District	Trump +4.3
Missouri	Trump +3.7
Alaska	Trump +3.0
Texas	Trump +0.5
Iowa	Trump +0.2
Georgia	Trump +0.2
Ohio	Biden +1.2
Maine 2nd Congressional District	Biden +2.5
North Carolina	Biden +2.7
Arizona	Biden +3.9
Nebraska 2nd Congressional District	Biden +5.2
Florida	Biden +5.6
Pennsylvania	Biden +6.6
Wisconsin	Biden +7.3
USA	Biden +7.7
Minnesota	Biden +8.0
Michigan	Biden +8.2
Nevada	Biden +8.3
New Hampshire	Biden +9.7
Virginia	Biden +10.0
Maine At Large	Biden +11.4
Colorado	Biden +12.0
Oregon	Biden +12.3
New Mexico	Biden +12.6
Illinois	Biden +14.5
Delaware	Biden +14.9
Rhode Island	Biden +16.7
New Jersey	Biden +17.6
Connecticut	Biden +18.0
Washington	Biden +20.6
Maryland	Biden +21.7
New York	Biden +22.3
Vermont	Biden +22.9
Maine 1st Congressional District	Biden +23.0
Hawaii	Biden +26.3
Massachusetts	Biden +26.4
California	Biden +27.7
District of Columbia	Biden +51.9

Biden Leads Nationally And In Swing States

Clearly, these numbers paint a very optimistic picture for Biden, with a 7.7 point national lead. This is a larger lead than Clinton enjoyed at any stage of the 2016 campaign. Additionally, Trump is behind in key swing states, with Biden up 5.6 in Florida, 6.6 in Pennsylvania, 7.3 in Wisconsin, and 8.2 in Michigan. That said it is essential to remember that systematic polling errors do regularly occur. We therefore recommend you expect these averages to be up to 3 points off in either direction. Even with this degree of uncertainty, Biden looks comfortably ahead. His lead only becomes more apparent when the averages are plotted in Electoral College terms as shown in the chart below. Trump is ahead in states worth only about a quarter of the electoral votes, and behind in states worth two thirds, with the remainder being toss-ups.

The states in this chart are plotted in order of how well Trump is polling, with his biggest lead being in West Virginia, and his lead in each state diminishing clockwise around the chart. The state at the direct bottom of the circle (6 o’clock) is then the “tipping point state”. This is a term used for the state which provides the winner with their 270^th electoral vote. Clearly there is some uncertainty, but at the moment it looks likely that the tipping point state will be one of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, or Florida. These are therefore the most important states to be watching to determine who is going to win the election. In each of these states Biden’s edge is smaller than his national lead. This difference is Trump’s Electoral College advantage, which currently looks to stand at approximately 1.5 points. That means that Biden would need to win the national popular vote by at least 1.5 points to be the favorite to win. 1.5% is smaller than Trump’s 2.5% structural advantage in 2016, reflecting Biden’s strength as compared to Clinton with non college educated whites who dominate Midwestern swing states.

This Is A Snapshot, Not A Forecast

A crucial point to note is that these are simply polling averages reflecting current public opinion. The election is still quite some time away, leaving ample opportunity for the polls to shift. If the election were tomorrow, it would most likely be a landslide victory for Biden. The possibility that public opinion could change over time is what gives Trump a real shot at winning re-election. At this stage there are still plenty of major events that could swing the election, such as Biden selecting a Vice Presidential nominee (probably Kamala Harris), party conventions, and of course several debates.

There is also an argument to be made that this year public opinion could be more volatile than usual. Sharp shifts in the economy and the Covid-19 situation have already caused polling to fluctuate, and will likely do so again before November, potentially benefiting Trump or Biden significantly. On the other hand, one could argue that in these hyper-partisan times there are few people who are seriously going to change their minds, particularly as almost everyone in the country already has a strong and deeply ingrained opinion of the President one way or the other. So far, national polling has only varied between Biden +6 and Biden +10, with almost no good polling for Trump seen to date.

Overall, it is clear that the national environment remains about as favorable to Democrats as it has for the past 3 years, with Republicans consistently underperforming by 7-9 points. The fact of the matter is that currently the Democratic base is larger than that of the GOP, and most Independents are choosing to vote blue. For Trump to have a serious shot at re-election, something substantial is going to have to change.

Confusion As Iowa Results Delayed

Do you find the Iowa caucus system confusing? Don’t worry, so does the Iowa Democratic Party. It’s the morning after and there are still zero official results. Instead, we have chaos. The Party has failed to provide a thorough or consistent explanation for the absence of results. Reports from Iowa suggest that pretty much everything that could have gone wrong, has.

The key issue seems to be technical problems with an app precincts use to report their results. The technical helpline provided for this app is overloaded, with hold times of more than an hour and some callers being hung up on as soon as they get through to a technician. The backup system for reporting results, based on phone calls, also appears to have collapsed. Additionally there are reports of widespread confusion at caucus sites regarding the process itself, including among some organisers as a result of changes in the system since 2016.

Nevertheless, both the Buttigieg and Sanders campaigns have effectively declared victory, citing anecdotal reports from their own representatives at limited numbers of precincts, and unofficial preliminary results from <2% of precincts from the AP. Meanwhile the Biden campaign is casting aspersions on the legitimacy of the process, perhaps pre-emptively making excuses for what could have been a disappointing night for Biden. The President is also jumping in, insinuating that there exists a conspiracy in Iowa to manipulate the election results. This is one of many misinformation campaigns, with another example being the widespread retweeting of a report of Biden dropping out of the 2008 race, attempting to pass it off as being about 2020.

This is a disaster for Iowa, calling into question the caucus system and Iowa’s traditional position as first in the primary calendar. If Iowa were to switch from a caucus to a primary system, it would fall victim to a New Hampshire state law requiring the state to always have the earliest primary. This year, we can expect Iowa’s influence to be significantly decreased due to the confusion and mixed messages. This is probably good news for Biden, who was comparatively weak in Iowa, and disastrous for candidates such as Buttigieg and Klobuchar who built their entire campaigns on winning Iowa. We could now see New Hampshire become the most important state in the primary, and the power of Nevada and South Carolina magnified dramatically. Sanders particularly could stand to benefit due to his strength in New Hampshire, but this is uncharted territory, so the exact impact of tonight’s debacle is unpredictable.

For now, we recommend that you don’t take any of the currently available data seriously. Entrance polls, photos of caucuses, campaigns releasing their own biased estimates, and preliminary results from a tiny proportion of precincts are all very weak data points. We are going to have to wait for the final, official results. Thankfully, there is a paper trail for the caucuses. Therefore, if the worst comes to the worst, the Party can painstakingly recount every vote and eventually arrive at accurate, reliable results. Campaigns have been told that results should be released later today, but at this stage there’s really no telling whether or not that will happen.

The Iowa Caucuses

Today is the single most important day in the Democratic Primary. Although just 41 pledged delegates are up for grabs tonight, the results and their interpretation will have knock on effects on the rest of the country.

Iowa Predictions

Current Iowa polling shows Sanders and Biden effectively tied with 23% and 22% of the vote respectively. Buttigieg and Warren have each fallen to approximately 15%, while Klobuchar has surged to 11%. However, a naive assessment of these first choice preferences is insufficient in understanding who might win, Iowa is much more complex than that. For each local caucus, candidates who receive 15% or more of first choice preferences immediately bank those votes. However, people who initially supported candidates with less than 15% of the vote will have one opportunity to realign. They could vote for candidates who have already passed the threshold, they could simply go home, or they could support other candidates below the threshold to try and get them up to the 15% mark.

The impact of this system is that second preferences become immensely important. Bear in mind that Iowa voters are generally exceptionally well informed on the candidates due to the intensity of campaigning there, so many will have a well thought out list of preferences. Generally speaking, the field could be sorted into a moderate lane dominated by Biden and Klobuchar and a progressive lane dominated by Sanders and Warren, with Buttigieg in the middle. One would expect voters’ second choices to be from the same ideological lane as their first choice. Campaigns have explicitly reached out to one another to encourage their supporters to select each other as their second choices. The voters themselves will be in the room attempting to convince those realigning to come and support their candidate, all of which makes the process very challenging to predict.

Further complicating matters is the system of delegate allocation, with just 14 delegates being awarded based on the statewide popular vote, and the remaining 27 split between Iowa’s 4 congressional districts. Not only will the allocation be related to the candidates’ popularities in a non-linear manner due to the system of realignment and the 15% threshold, but some of the delegate allocation will be very approximate. Delegates afterall, are people, no candidate can win half a delegate, so the resolution of the system is very low. For example, the 4^th congressional district has just 5 delegates, so candidates with very different vote totals could receive the same number of delegates. Furthermore, a candidate with only a few more votes than a competitor could just pip them to the post for an extra delegate, winning far more representation despite having similar vote totals. Currently, our model is predicting that on average, Sanders will win the caucus with 14 delegates. He will be followed by Biden with 12, Warren and Buttigieg with 6 each, Klobuchar with 2, and another candidate with 1, most likely Yang or Steyer. It is worth noting that these predictions come with a very high degree of uncertainty owing to the complexity of the process.

Media Narratives

This year, for the first time, Iowa will release 3 sets of results. Historically, Iowa simply released the number of delegates allocated to each candidate. However, this year, both the first preference totals and the votes after realignment will be released. It is entirely plausible that these metrics will not all be won by the same candidate, potentially resulting in 2 or even 3 candidates declaring victory tomorrow! Whether or not that happens, the media narrative regarding the results will guide the public interpretation of them. This is not trivial, it is the public interpretation of the Iowa results, especially in terms of tactical voting and changing perceptions of which candidates are electable, which makes Iowa so important. Essentially, it doesn’t help a candidate much to win 13 delegates instead of 12, what matters is whether or not CNN declares them the winner.

Typically, the winner in Iowa receives a substantial bump in the polls. This might be more complicated this year due to potential disagreement over who the “winner” is, but remains electorally crucial. The popularity boost the winner gains is usually greater if they were not expected to win, indeed it may be more useful to consider each candidate’s performance not against one another, but against the respective expectations of each candidate. Currently, the media narratives are effectively, as ever, following intelligent averages of the polls but not accounting enough for uncertainty. Hence Sanders is broadly expected to win a narrow victory over Biden, and Buttigieg has largely fallen out of media coverage. In fact, it is still perfectly likely that any of the top four candidates could win in Iowa, although Sanders does have the best chance. High expectations of Sanders could limit the boost he receives should he win, whereas the potential upside for Buttigieg is massive, something he is counting on given his weak national polling.

Finally, candidates for whom expectations are very low can gain in the polls simply by coming second or third, exceeding expectations. This is effectively what Klobuchar is banking on. With 3 different sets of results it is also plausible that multiple candidates will be clamouring to claim second or third place. As you can probably tell, this is all becoming rather confusing and far too complicated to fit into a typical TV news segment. The manner in which journalists navigate this sea of information, and the spin candidates put on the results, will have a profound impact on the remainder of the primary.

Introducing Our 2020 Democratic Primary Model

There are a lot of conflicting media narratives about the race for the Democratic nomination. Is Biden falling in the polls? Is Warren a “front-runner”? Is Hilary Clinton about to leap into the race and cruise to victory? In such a large and chaotic field engaging in equally numerous and confusing arguments, it can be difficult to see past exaggerated news articles and the biases of those writing them. One way to decode this information is by simply ignoring all the punditry and going straight to the data. That’s why we’ve created a new probabilistic model to provide an overview of how data, not people, predict the primaries are going to go.

Our model draws on polls from dozens of organisations including national and state level research. Combined with data on historic voting patterns and the political similarities of various states, we simulate the primary, including adding random variations to polling averages to model uncertainty. After thousands of simulations, the results are averaged, allowing us to analyse results in individual states and the nation overall.

The headline is that Joe Biden is clearly in the lead. Elizabeth Warren is in second and Bernie Sanders third. That said, pollsters are coming to differing conclusions on the state of the race. Some give Biden double-digit leads on his competitors, others put Warren and Sanders neck and neck or even slightly ahead of the former Vice President. These differences are mainly due to the differing sampling techniques polling organisations employ, and it’s very difficult to say which are more representative of the truth. Our model takes an average of the results, affording more weight to pollsters with strong records and large sample sizes.

You may wonder why so few candidates are winning a significant number of delegates despite the crowded field. This is down to the all important 15% threshold. Each delegate is attached to either a particular district in a state or to the state as a whole. If a candidate fails to win at least 15% of the vote in a particular district, that candidate receives none of the district’s delegates. If they win less than 15% of the overall state vote, they win none of the statewide delegates. This makes the primary very punishing for anyone but the top three, who are the only candidates consistently polling above the threshold. The chart also demonstrates Biden’s significant lead, which appears even more pronounced when we focus in on how likely each candidate is to win the most delegates.

Although he may be winning the most pledged delegates, Biden is still struggling to win an outright majority of them. So long as this is a three horse race that could be a major issue for all the candidates. If nobody controls a majority of pledged delegates by the time the national convention in Wisconsin comes around, superdelegates will get involved. If they can’t push one candidate to an overall majority, there could be an unpredictable brokered convention. This could be quite likely according to the current data, as more than 90% of the time, nobody secures a majority in the first round of voting at the convention.

The chaotic nature of this primary doesn’t stop there though. Iowa and New Hampshire are looking to be highly competitive three or even four way races. Pete Buttigieg is gaining ground in Iowa, reaching second place with 20% of the vote in his best polls. By contrast, Biden is struggling in the two earliest voting states. He could very conceivably come fourth in Iowa and then third in New Hampshire, meaning that even if he does win this primary, it will hardly be a coronation, as he is reported to have been expecting when he joined the race. Our model does simulate voters changing their minds in response to the results of earlier primaries, with our calculations based on voter behavior in previous primaries. However, this year features an exceptionally large number of candidates, and the front-runner coming fourth in Iowa would be unusual, so there is a high degree of uncertainty involved. Therefore it’s important to keep track of simulation results in early states as well as the primary overall.

Iowa and New Hampshire are not especially diverse states. Many Democrats there are the white college-educated voters who form Warren and Buttigieg’s bases, explaining their above average performance in these early states. However, the often overlooked but still crucial Nevada and South Carolina also vote before Super Tuesday, when over a third of pledged delegates are assigned, and play a key role in shaping the narrative of the race early on. These two states are a lot more racially diverse than Iowa and New Hampshire, allowing Biden to thrive. In some polls Warren and Sanders are struggling to even reach 15% in South Carolina due to their low support among people of color, a severe problem they face in much of the South.

Overall, the race continues to be a highly competitive affair. But with many candidates struggling to qualify for the December debate it may start to become a little easier to follow. There are surely plenty of twists and turns left, such as Michael Bloomberg considering entering the race. And there’s still everything to play for as the majority of key party figures, such as Obama, are yet to issue endorsements, and most voters are still considering multiple candidates.

What The 2019 Election Results Do and Don’t Tell Us

The votes are in, and the headlines are big wins for Democrats in Virginia, where they took full control of state government, and Kentucky, where they overcame partisanship to win a gubernatorial race in one of the reddest states in the country (albeit by just half a point). But Republicans did manage to hold on to full control in Mississippi, and conservatives saw some success in ballot measures. Naturally there are already a huge variety of hot takes on what this all means, let’s break the main ones down one by one.

This was a good night for Democrats

True. Across the board, Democrats significantly overperformed the partisanship of their districts and states by an average of 5 points, with that advantage rising to about 9 points in races with no Republican incumbent. These figures approximately match other indicators of the mood of the electorate, such as the congressional generic ballot showing Democrats 6-7 points ahead. Additionally, polls pitting theoretical Democratic Presidential nominees against Trump show 5-7 point leads for Warren and Sanders, with Biden holding an even greater lead. All in all Democrats can rest easy that the national environment is distinctly blue, although not quite as blue as it was in 2018, when Democrats won the House popular vote by 8 and a half points. Furthermore, Democrats and left-leaning Independents are clearly highly motivated, displaying very high turnout for an odd year election. In future analysis we should be operating with the prior assumption that something significant has to change before Republicans can dream of winning the popular vote.

The results show Trump will lose re-election

False. Elections this far away from Presidential races simply are not good indicators of voting intention so far in the future. For example, Democrats suffered heavy electoral defeats throughout Obama’s first term, yet he went on to win re-election fairly comfortably. With Trump himself on the ballot, perhaps Republican turnout will rise to match that of Democrats. Or maybe Democrats will fail to convince the nation that Trump should be impeached, yet still go ahead and impeach him. The Democratic nominee could be perceived negatively, perhaps for extreme left wing positions in Warren’s case, or old age in Biden’s. And don’t forget the Electoral College which in 2016 gave Trump an advantage of about 2 and a half points, and the political wisdom that incumbent Presidents typically win re-election. If anything, the takeaway here is that 2020 will be very competitive.

2020 turnout will be at a record high

True (probably!) We’ve now seen exceptionally high turnout in both 2018 and 2019, with many of last night’s elections showing higher turnout than the 2014 midterms. All the data points suggest a deeply politically engaged electorate who are keen to come out and vote, especially for or against the President. Healthcare, immigration and gun control also appear to motivate voters a great deal, and there will be enormous contrast between Democratic and Republican policy on all three of these issues, regardless of who Democrats nominate. 2020 turnout in excess of 70% (compared to 55% in 2016) is entirely plausible. Who this would benefit is another question. Ethnic minorities and young voters are the traditional low turnout demographics. If increased electoral engagement is driven by these groups then Democrats could be at a big advantage. That said, every demographic has room for turnout to increase substantially. This is a case where the details are everything.

Split ticket voting is alive and well

False. Sure, Kentucky voted for a Democratic governor, yet voted against Democrats down the ballot by margins of around 20 points. But this really was an exceptional case, on par with Roy Moore’s ill-fated 2017 bid for an Alabaman Senate seat. Matt Bevin was the least popular governor in the country, with a net approval rating of about -25, and a net approval of only +11 points among Republicans. He won just 52% of the vote in his primary and is infamous for putting both of his feet in his mouth at once, for example when he “guaranteed” that children in Kentucky were being sexually assaulted as the result of a teacher strike. Overall in recent elections there is very little evidence of significant ticket splitting, and in 2020 we should expect the vast majority of voters to vote the same way in all races.

Mitch McConnell’s re-election is at risk

False. We can be fairly sure that the Senate Majority Leader won’t be losing his seat in 2020. He is certainly a remarkably unpopular senator given the partisanship of Kentucky, with approval ratings comparable to those of Bevin. But the crucial difference is that McConnell is up for re-election in a presidential year. All the media attention will be on the presidential race, and Trump’s presence at the top of the ballot will help out any struggling Republicans in red states. In 2016, every state voted the same way for the Presidency and the Senate. In 2018, we saw further evidence that party identification is becoming a much more important factor than the specific person running for office, especially in federal races. We should therefore continue to assume that so long as Kentucky is safe for Trump, it’s safe for McConnell.

One last thing: Democrats now control the entire Virginian legislative and executive branches, will they seek to aggressively gerrymander Virginian seats in their favor? Before they came into power in the state, Democrats vigorously supported a bill seeking to create an independent redistricting commission. That bill has now made quite a bit of progress, but its successful passage would prevent Democrats from capitalizing on their gains in 2019 to draw maps designed to elect as many Democrats as possible. So the question is, will they hold fast to their established anti-gerrymandering position, or will 10 years of massive electoral advantages be too great a temptation to resist?

Why The 2019 Elections Matter

Today’s elections may not be for the Presidency or Congress, but they will still have a profound effect on the lives of millions. In addition to a wealth of local elections there are also competitive gubernatorial races in Kentucky and Mississippi, and every seat in the Virginia state legislature is up for grabs. Even if you don’t live in any of these states, here’s why it’s still worth keeping an eye on today’s races:

Redistricting

The next round of redistricting is coming up in 2021 following the 2020 census. This provides an opportunity for state governments to redraw the boundaries for both their own seats and congressional districts. Following Obama’s election in 2008, Republicans came back with a vengeance in 2010, winning control of a large number of governorships and state legislatures. In the following round of redistricting, many state governments completely controlled by Republicans chose to take this opportunity to draw maps designed to elect more Republicans. Some states entirely controlled by Democrats did the same, but the overwhelming GOP victory in 2010 meant Republicans were able to obtain advantageous electoral maps across the country, leading to them winning a majority in the House of Representatives in 2012 despite losing the popular vote.

In the hyper-polarized modern political climate, it is unlikely either party will have mercy if they control the majority of state legislatures after 2020. That means every state level election for the next two years has significant effects on the following ten years of elections. In Kentucky and Mississippi, Republicans are fighting to hold on to governorships such that they can maintain total control of state government. This is crucial as governors can veto redistricting proposals in their state, so a Democratic governor could prevent Kentucky from maintaining 5 out of 6 congressional seats as easy Republican wins. In Mississippi, the current maps pack so many of the state’s Democratic voters into one district that in 2018 Republicans didn’t even field a candidate there, while Republicans win each of the remaining seats by very comfortable margins.

In Virginia, Democrats need only marginal gains in each chamber of the General Assembly to take full control of state government. Here Democrats will be most eager to redraw the boundaries for state level elections after failing to take back the House in 2017 despite winning the popular vote by a large margin. With eleven congressional districts, a state government fully controlled by Democrats could also significantly influence the state’s future congressional delegations, should they decide to be ruthless.

Looking Ahead

These elections will also serve as perhaps the first high quality data points since the midterms towards predicting the results of the 2020 elections. Presidential election polls at this point in the race still tend to have approximately twenty point margins of error, but these are actual elections with real votes. Which demographics are sufficiently enthusiastic to turn out and how those groups vote inform our understanding of the current national environment, and will help political parties analyse which groups they need to target.

Clearly, if Democrats can win a gubernatorial race in just one of Kentucky, which on average leans 24 points towards Republicans, and Mississippi which leans 15, it is a very good sign for them, proving they can compete in even the most deeply conservative states. However despite much media attention, it seems unlikely that either of these governorships will actually go blue. Kentucky’s Republican governor Matt Bevin is deeply unpopular, but the state is simply too conservative for him to be anything but the frontrunner. Nevertheless, that one could be close. In Mississippi, it is much more feasible that the Democratic nominee Jim Hood could win the popular vote, but in Mississippi things are not so simple. In order to win the race, Hood also needs to win in the majority of the districts that make up the state House of Representatives. But these seats were gerrymandered by Republicans in 2011, so there’s next to no chance he succeeds. If Hood does win the popular vote but not the majority of districts, the large Republican majority in the state House gets to pick the winner, which would inevitably be the Republican candidate Tate Reeves. As a result, the real thing to watch for in these races is not the winner, but rather the margins by which the popular vote is won or lost.

The results in Virginia are crucial in their own right, giving strong indications toward how this swing state might vote in 2020, as well as whether its even more important neighbor North Carolina’s fifteen electoral votes might be in play for Democrats. This will also serve as a test of how hard a series of significant scandals have hurt Democrats in Virginia, where recently two out of three top Democrats were found to have worn blackface and the third was accused of sexual assault.

All this said, tomorrow morning there are going to be a lot of takes on how 2019 informs us about 2020 and Trump’s popularity. Take these with several generous pinches of salt. Between now and the presidential election we have a whole year, a general election campaign, the selection of the Democrat’s nominee, a final vote on impeachment, and most likely a senate trial of the President. Tonight’s results are probably not going to be all that reflective of 2020, they simply serve as a starting point for our analysis of the coming elections.