Electoral Current

One benefit of modern life is the proliferation of outlets that irritate, provoke, mislead, goad, trigger, inflame and generally annoy the populace. A blessed number of those channels remain freely accessible. Without them to stoke grudges and outrage, people might devote more of their energies to improving their lives and communities, and where’s the fun in that? Constructive and noble as that may be, it doesn’t exactly feed the furnace. 

All of which gets to a recent outing in which I spun the car radio AM dial and landed on a right-wing talk show. The larynx in question trafficked in predictable talking points: Trump as national savior and antidote to Biden Administration incompetence and malfeasance, with a side of heroism for surviving an assassination attempt; Kamala Harris as unfit and possibly dangerous and emblematic of the Democrat Party’s threat to America. Between the ‘hyper’ and ‘bole’, however, the voice floated the notion that Electoral map arithmetic is and is likely to be incredibly tight, almost no matter what occurs between now and Election Day. 

After scraping around a bit, some numbers appear to bear that out. I’ll try to go light on the dipshit civics, since y’all come to this space for political yammering the way people go to concerts for the $15 beers. You could, and should, access a dozen other sites for more knowledgeable and nuanced political discussion, though it’s unlikely to be wedged among Muppets and music. 

The idea that a good deal of presidential election math is essentially predetermined doesn’t get nearly enough run in the political discussion, probably because it doesn’t conform to the national image we’ve constructed and of which we’ve convinced ourselves. It’s tough to hold yourself up as a model of democracy and representative government when you admit that a sizeable segment of results is aligned and racked before the first ballot is cast. That doesn’t even get to the number of state legislatures in the tank for one side or the other because of lockstep voters, district gerrymandering or both. Bless our tribal hearts and that delightful relic and Founding Fathers’ chew toy, the Electoral College. 

Consider the last presidential election. Biden won the popular vote by seven million and held a 306-232 edge in the Electoral College, which if not a mandate appears to be a comfortable margin. However, he won Georgia and its 16 electoral votes by fewer than 12,000 votes out of 4.9 million cast. He won Arizona (11) by fewer than 11,000 votes out of 3.3 million, and he won Wisconsin (10) by 20,000 votes from more than three million total. Flip just 42,000 votes out of more than 11 million in three states, and suddenly the Electoral count is tied at 269 (the magic number is 270). The tiebreaker would have been a vote by the incoming House of Representatives. With a slim Republican majority, the nation would be winding down the Orange Oaf’s second term, despite him twice losing the popular vote. 

As for presidential voting being predetermined, 2020 also offers a guide. Not to go all Steve Kornacki, but forty-two states and the District of Columbia had margins of at least five percentage points in favor of one of the two candidates. Thirty-eight states and D.C., had margins of 10 percent or greater. Odds are, you’re either a member of the solid majority or despairing minority. An especially attractive or poor candidate, or ghastly mis-step, might nibble away at the margins, but are unlikely to erase the dominant bloc in most states. 

Some back-of-the-envelope noodling suggests that Democrats can pretty much pencil in 223 electoral votes and Republicans 216 votes before ballot counting even gets underway. This leaves us with indicators that the race for the keys to the Lincoln Bedroom will likely be decided by seven states: Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania and North Carolina. In the last go ‘round, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada – in addition to Georgia, Arizona and Wisconsin – also went to Biden by just a few percentage points or less, while North Carolina went to Trump by 75,000 votes out of 5.4 million total. For what it’s worth, Florida went to Trump by fewer than four percentage points, but given the population, that still amounted to 371,000 votes. Flipping DeSantistan blue is likely too tough an ask. 

This is the way

Elsewhere, Michigan appears to be more a blue lean, having given Biden a 155,000-vote margin out of 5.4 million. Pennsylvania is tighter, having gone for Biden by just 81,000 votes (1.2 percent) of 6.8 million total in 2020, and for Trump by 46,000 votes out of 5.9 million in 2016. Should seven states that are home to 15.3 percent of the population have the responsibility to choose the nation’s path for the next four years and beyond? Seems less than democratic. 

Now, one might argue that our one-person, one-vote experiment led to an unintended consequence, that the freedom to live and vote where we choose created the boundaries and expected results nationwide that give a small minority outsized influence. One might also argue that it’s time to turf the Electoral College as burdensome artifact and go straight popular vote. Good luck with that, given that Constitutional tinkering requires both a super-majority in a split Congress and ratification by three-quarters of the states, many of whom still embrace it as a potential path to power. Who would have thought that the Constitution and sites devoted to history and with “dot-gov” in their address could be as discouraging and annoying as anything else in the agitate-o-sphere? Progress.