The 2020 Presidential race

[Rewind]

Only seven more days in which to vote for President – and The Economist now gives Trump only a 3% chance of winning in the Electoral College.

Analysis: Here's how tough the electoral math is for Donald Trump right now
CNN, Oct 28 2020 1:50 PM ET

Six days before Election Day, anyone paying even a small amount of attention knows that former Vice President Joe Biden is the favorite to beat President Donald Trump. But what fewer people realize is just how dire the incumbent's electoral prospects actually are. The best way to understand just how difficult it will be for Trump to win a second term is via the electoral map. – and just how short he is of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win.

According to CNN's latest "Road to 270" rankings, Trump has 163 electoral votes solidly in his camp or leaning his way, which means he has to find 107 electoral votes more in order to win a second term. The obvious place for Trump to turn is the states that CNN rates as "battlegrounds," where neither side has a clear edge: Iowa, Ohio, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida. There's also a Congressional district, Maine's 2nd, that CNN rates as a toss-up between the two parties. Add those five states and Maine's 2nd and you get a total of 85 electoral votes. Give Trump a clean sweep of all of them and he's up to 248 electoral votes, still 22 short of what he needs to win.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/polit...den/index.html

[Rewind]

Biden really needs to win Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan and Wisconsin. It would also be nice if he could win Arizona and North Carolina. He is leading in every national poll – but the Presidency is determined by individual states and their Electors.

CNN Poll: Biden continues to hold nationwide advantage in final days of 2020 race
CNN, Oct 28 2020 4:00 PM ET

With the race for the Presidency approaching its end amid a raging pandemic, Democratic nominee Joe Biden maintains a substantial lead over President Donald Trump nationwide, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS. Among likely voters, 54% back Biden and 42% Trump. Biden has held a lead in every CNN poll on the matchup since 2019, and he has held a statistically significant advantage in every high-quality national poll since the spring. Although the election will ultimately be decided by the statewide results, which drive the Electoral College, Biden's lead nationally is wider than any Presidential candidate has held in more than two decades in the final days of the campaign.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/polit...ber/index.html

[Rewind]

Justice Barrett did not take part in this decision. Now that Donald Trump and the Republicans have stacked the Supreme Court with conservative, pro-Trump justices, I doubt there will be very many more decisions favoring the Democrats. But if a mailed ballot can take up to nine days to arrive, the Postal Service definitely needs an overhaul!

North Carolina can count votes received 9 days after Election Day, Supreme Court says
CNN, Oct 28 2020 9:37 PM ET

The Supreme Court today allowed the counting of ballots in North Carolina received up to nine days after the election as long as the ballots are postmarked by Election Day, a victory for Democrats in another key state. Republicans and the Trump campaign had asked the court to reinstate a deadline set in June by the state Legislature that allowed ballots to be received only up to three days after Election Day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett took no part in the decision because she had not had time to fully review the briefs, the court said.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/28/polit...ays/index.html

[Rewind]

"Look, I don't care about anyone but myself, okay? If people at my rallies get the coronavirus or have to endure extreme cold or extreme heat, that's a small price to pay to give me the praise and adulation that my galaxy-sized ego requires, okay?"

Dozen people overcome by heat, rushed to hospital during Trump's Florida rally
Cold, COVID-19 and now heat seem to be stalking maskless Trump crowds.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/flori...b6f7f4a16a7900

[Rewind]

FiveThirtyEight.com gives Biden an 85% of chance of winning Pennsylvania and a 66% chance of winning Florida. Those two states are probably the most crucial for Biden to win.

Older women voters want to send a message to Trump in November
Four years after Donald Trump won the senior vote, polling suggests Joe Biden
is performing better among seniors than any Democrat has in a generation.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/30/polit...ers/index.html

[Rewind]

More than 90,000,000 Americans have already voted. That is 66% of the total number (138,847,000) who voted in the 2016 Presidential election.

CNN Polls: Biden leads in Michigan and Wisconsin as campaign
ends, with tighter races in Arizona and North Carolina

https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/31/polit...ina/index.html

[Rewind]

There are ten "battleground states" in this year's Presidential election. The latest CNN polls show Donald Trump with a big lead in Iowa and a very small lead in Florida. Biden is leading in the other eight states, most notably by 12 points in Michigan, eight in Wisconsin, six in North Carolina and four in Arizona. CNN projects Biden could lose Florida and Pennsylvania and would still defeat Trump, 284 electoral votes to 254.

Analysis: Why this race likely comes down to Arizona and Pennsylvania

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/01/polit...nia/index.html

[Rewind]

Some more good news for the Biden campaign:

Biden's lead widens in Rust Belt: Reuters/Ipsos poll
Reuters, Nov 1 2020 11:38 AM

Joe Biden's lead over President Donald Trump has widened a little in the final days of the 2020 campaign in three critical Rust Belt states that Trump narrowly won four years ago, according to Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls released today. Biden leads Trump by 10 percentage points in Wisconsin and Michigan and is ahead by seven points in Pennsylvania. Biden has led Trump in all three states in every Reuters/Ipsos weekly poll that began in mid-September and his leads have ticked higher in each state over the past two weeks.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-u...-idUSKBN27H1PO

[Rewind]

Donald Trump admires dictators and aspires to be one. He sees himself as a king or emperor. By acquitting him of impeachment charges, Senate Republicans ensured that he remains above the law and above the Constitution, pretty much free to do whatever what he wants. Thus, this story should surprise no one.

Analysis: Trump tries to undermine democratic process at the end of the campaign
CNN, Nov 2 2020 11:02 AM

President Donald Trump is casting doubt on the integrity of vote counting and warning he will deploy squads of lawyers when polls close on Tuesday, as his latest attempts to tarnish the democratic process deepen a sense of national nervousness hours before Election Day. The President's maneuvering, as he fights to the last moment to secure a second term, is taking place ahead of a court hearing in Texas today on a Republican request to throw out 127,000 drive-thru votes in a key county. The case is one of a growing number of GOP legal gambits to jam up vote counting or reject ballots and comes amid new concerns that the Postal Service, after reforms initiated by its new pro-Trump CEO, may struggle to deliver a deluge of mail-in ballots before counting deadlines. Fears are also growing that the President might try to declare victory before all the votes are counted.

In an extraordinary departure from American political tradition, Trump has been arguing for months that the election is "rigged" against him, has made false claims that mail-in voting is corrupt and has refused to guarantee a peaceful transfer of power. On Sunday, the President stoked fears of a disputed election that could have corrosive long-term effects by raising the false argument that results not declared on an election night are somehow illegitimate. Many US elections have gone past midnight on Election Day. It is common for some states to take several days to finalize vote counts.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/02/polit...tes/index.html

[Rewind]

Republican election lawyer Ben Ginsberg Trump has denounced the "shameful" voter suppression efforts of Donald Trump and the Republican party, who have filed more than 40 lawsuits against various states and counties. Making false claims of voter fraud, the Trump campaign has sought to employ poll watchers, disqualify hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots, ban curbside voting, reduce the number of ballot drop boxes and disallow mail-in votes that arrive after election day. Republicans are trying to rig the election in Trump's favor. "Look, I don't care how I win – just as long as I win, okay?"

Analysis: This Republican lawyer just totally exposed
the Trump campaign's voter suppression efforts

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/02/polit...ion/index.html