Biden beats Trump in this game

Let’s play a game. It entails addition. The winner must reach the sum of at least 270. And we do this by counting Electoral College votes. 

The projections are based on the latest polls. This is not scientific and it’s not a prediction. It’s way too early, especially in what looks like the strangest election in the history of the country. Facing the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve already written that Joe Biden, the former vice president and Democratic Party candidate, leads in almost every poll while hunkered down in his basement at home in Connecticut. And the incumbent president is itching to open up the country at the expense of more deaths — more than 80,000 and counting.

Let us start with Joe Biden and how things look in states where the voters at this point, at the very least, lean in his favor. The numbers are what each state represents in Electoral College votes. I will travel from west to east:

Hawaii (4); California (55); Oregon (7); Washington (12); Nevada (6); Colorado (9); New Mexico (5); Minnesota (10); Illinois (20); New York (29); Vermont (3); New Hampshire (4); Massachusetts (10); Rhode Island (4); Connecticut (7); New Jersey (14); Delaware (3); Maryland (10); District of Columbia (3); Virginia (13); Maine (4)

If the election were held this week, polls show that Biden would garner at least 233 Electoral College votes. But as I stated at the beginning of this game, to win, one has to reach the magic number of 270. 

Now let’s look at President Trump’s numbers:

Alaska (3 Electoral College votes); Idaho (4 EC votes); Utah (6); Montana (3); Wyoming (3); North Dakota (3); South Dakota (3); Nebraska (5); Kansas (6); Oklahoma (7); Texas (38); Iowa (6); Missouri (10); Arkansas (6); Louisiana (8); Indiana (11); Kentucky (8); Tennessee (11); Mississippi (6); Alabama (9); Ohio (18); Georgia (16); South Carolina (9) West Virginia (5); Maine (1)

Trump’s count stands at 204. Also not a winner.

So let’s look at states considered a tossup at this moment:

Arizona (11); Wisconsin (10); Michigan (16); Pennsylvania (20); North Carolina (15); Florida (29)

In other words, there are 101 electoral college votes up in the air. Who wins those?

Let’s compare the states where we’ve decided that each candidate wins: In Biden’s case, of his 233 votes, 182 are what we can call ‘safe’ votes. In other words, Biden will win those states. In Trump’s case, his ‘safe’ votes are at 126. Advantage, Biden.

Next, I looked into the tossup states, the battleground states. I’ve listed them above. They are Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona. 

In Wisconsin, Biden leads Trump in an average of polls by 2.7 percent. (Trump beat Hillary Clinton here in 2016.) In Pennsylvania, Biden leads Trump in an average of polls by 6.5 percent. (Again, Trump beat Hillary here in 2016.) In Florida, Biden leads Trump in an average of polls by 3.2 percent. (Trump beat Hillary in this state in 2016.) But wait, in North Carolina, Trump leads Biden in an average of polls by 0.3 percent. In Michigan, Biden leads Trump by at least 7 percentage points. (Trump was a winner here in 2016.) And finally in Arizona, Biden is beating Trump by 9 percent. 

So let’s do this. Let’s give Biden Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Michigan. And for the sake of this game I’ll give the president Florida and North Carolina.

When you add them up, Biden receives 57 more Electoral College votes. And Trump gets 44. Add Biden’s 57 to the 233 he already has, and it adds up to a winning margin of 290 Electoral College votes. Trump ends up with a respectable 248 votes making this a close election…

I know. It’s all a game. And this thing has yet to really begin. But the last few months have not been good for Donald Trump. The wartime president, as he likened himself at the beginning of the pandemic, has lost, in two months, more innocent Americans than were lost over more than a decade during the Vietnam War. In my book that makes him a failed wartime president. The economy, Trump’s one time claim to fame, is now at an all-time low: Job losses, unemployment, and businesses on the verge of bankruptcy, are at numbers not seen since the Great Depression almost a century ago. Surely, it’s not all Trump’s doing, he’s not at fault for the virus, but when a president wraps his arms around an economy (that he inherited from Obama), he must accept the good — and the bad. So he’s failed at the economy too.

One last thing that makes me think that at this point Trump is in real trouble. It helps to explain the reversal in the battleground states. The most reliable voters historically are the elderly, persons 65 and older. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, “In his 2016 victory, Trump won voters 65 and older nationwide by nine percentage points, 53 percent to 44 percent, according to the Pew Research Institute.”

Here’s the problem [for Trump] according to the LA Times: “Today [as compared to the 2016 election], that’s reversed. Instead of a nine-point lead among seniors, Trump now has a similar deficit in many polls.

“That’s critical because seniors made up slightly more than a quarter of the electorate nationwide in 2016, Pew found. Their support was key to Trump’s victory in each of the major battleground states.”

I return to the beginning. This has all been a game, but one based on good information. Trump’s not in a good place — at the moment. But from here to November things can change. Practically overnight, as we’ve learned over the past several months…

In the meantime, if you’re already a voter, commit to finding five other voters who will cast ballots in November. Make sure they’re not for Trump, by the way. If you’re eligible and not registered, what are you waiting for? I know you’ve heard this a million times already, but it’s true: This coming election for president is the most consequential of our lifetime. 

Vote. Against Trump or for Biden, but vote.