Posted on 09/21/2024 7:13:51 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
In case of a tie, the House of Representatives would decide. This favors Trump. But what are the odds? I make a guess...
The above map is not contrived or convoluted. It is the current state of affairs except for Nebraska and a small lead for Harris in Nevada, reversed in the above map. However….
Please note Republicans Push to Change Nebraska’s Electoral System
Nebraska Republicans are pushing for the state to change its electoral vote process to a winner-take-all system, which could give former President Donald Trump an extra electoral vote in this year’s close presidential race.
Nebraska’s all-Republican congressional delegation sent a letter to Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen (R) and Speaker of the Legislature John Arch (R) asking them to pass and sign a bill that would make this change.
How does Nebraska’s electoral system work?
Currently, Nebraska is one of the only states in the country that doesn’t award all of its electoral votes to the presidential candidate who received the most votes statewide, which is a winner-take-all system. Instead, they split up their votes by congressional district.
The state has five electoral votes, a small fraction of the Electoral College — made up of 270 votes.
Nebraska has three congressional districts, and if a presidential candidate wins a district, they get a single electoral vote. If they win all three districts, they get three electoral votes. The state’s two remaining electoral votes go to the person who received the most votes statewide. This system has led to Nebraska splitting its Electoral College votes in the past.
In 2020, President Joe Biden lost to Trump in Nebraska statewide and in the mostly Republican districts, but he defeated him in the state’s 2nd congressional district, which includes Omaha — the state’s largest city. So, Trump garnered four electoral votes and Biden netted one. [Mish Comment: Polls show Harris is ahead in Omaha. Biden carried the district by 7 points.]
“As Governor of Nebraska, I will never waver in my commitment to do what is right for our state,” Pillen said. “As I have consistently made clear, I strongly support statewide unity and joining 48 other states by awarding all five of our electoral college votes to the presidential candidate who wins the majority of Nebraskans’ votes.”
However, he said he would only do this if he knew that 33 senators would vote for it. Nebraska has a unicameral legislature — meaning they only have one chamber in their legislature instead of two. The legislature is made up of 49 senators, so Pillen is asking for over two-thirds of the members to clearly and publicly express support for this.
Around 30 to 31 votes have been confirmed, the legislators said.
Maine, which operates on the same system, have threatened to do the same.
However, time has expired for Maine to make the change.
If Nebraska acts, Trump wins on 269 but Harris would need 270.
Correct. Trump would win.— Mike "Mish" Shedlock (@MishGEA) September 20, 2024
In the House, each state delegation (not representative) would get one vote, with the presidency going to whoever wins a majority of state delegations.
Republicans currently control 26 of the 50 House delegations.
Regardless of who controls the House next year, Republicans are a strong favorite to remain in control of 26 House delegations.
The Center for Politics discusses Breaking an Electoral College Tie
The presidential election of 1824 was the first one in which there is a tabulation of the actual popular vote for president, albeit not from every state. A majority of states in the Union at the time had adopted a popular vote for presidential electors; previously, presidential electors had generally been chosen by state legislatures. Thus, one can describe 2024 as representing the 200th anniversary of a popular vote for president, even if the totals represented only 18 of the 24 states voting at the time. (This history is from What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe).
The 4-way presidential race failed to produce a majority winner in the Electoral College: Andrew Jackson finished first, with 41% of the popular vote and 38% of the electoral votes, short of the majority required for election. The election went to the House of Representatives, which brings us to the second bicentennial anniversary in 2024: 1824 was the most recent election in which the House decided the presidential winner. The 12th Amendment stipulates that in the event no one wins a majority of the Electoral College votes, the House chooses among the top 3 finishers in the Electoral College, with each state’s delegation getting a single vote. The House ended up backing the second-place finisher, John Quincy Adams. Jackson would get his revenge in a landslide victory 4 years later.
Nate Silver and others have concocted bizarre scenarios to arrive at 269-269 math. The above map is not bizarre. It is currently one of the most likely scenarios.
Most likely scenario does not mean probable. There are thousands of scenarios, most of which are near-zero probability outcomes (for example Trump or Harris winning every state).
Nate Silver has Harris’ odds of winning Pennsylvania at 53.7%, Michigan at 61.8%, Wisconsin at 55.4%, and Trump winning Nevada at 47.4%.
If we assume every other state is as projected, the odds of 269-269 tie are 0.537 * 0.618 * 0.554 * 0.474 = 0.0871.
That would be an 8.7 percent chance. But It is not quite that simple because the other states are not guaranteed, reducing the odds.
Keep the above assumptions but factor in Arizona with Trump’s odds of winning at 64.5 percent and the tie odds drop to 5.7 percent. Also factor in Georgia the odds drop to 3.51 percent. And finally, factor in North Carolina and the odds drop further to about 2.3 percent.
But a correlation factor increases the odds depending on what assumptions we make. For example, if we assume Harris wins Wisconsin, her odds of winning Michigan and Pennsylvania rise because the states are similar in voting patterns.
Nate Silver has the deadlock odds at 0.3 percent.
Look for Silver’s odds of a tie to jump 8-fold or more. My crude calculation suggests the odds are between 2 and 3 percent but this can easily rise (or fall) over time.
It’s gonna be wild to see a 269/269 split where Kamala wins the (meaningless) “national popular vote” by 5 million and the GOP House delegation gives Trump the presidency.
But are there Never Trumpers in a few House delegations who would vote with the Dems in their delegation and give Harris the win
My thought in 2016 was that Trump would win, even though the polls going in said Hillary would win. Several factors were important: 1) Democrat cheating was less pervasive than it was in 2020, 2) people we afraid to admit they were voting for Trump in 2016 and fewer did so in 2020, but voted Trump in the booth. Today, I still think some people won’t admit to voting for Trump, but the Democrat cheating (and, yes, I call registering illegal aliens cheating) persists.
RATS...the party that always cheats.
Not enough. He may lose one or two. In the end, he'd win.
Trump has total control over today's GOP.
My point is that if this happens, there will be an absolute shitstorm from the "defend democracy" side.
And it'll be glorious!
Kamela proposed another debate.
Her team knows she’s losing.
Trump does not sound like he is going to do another debate.
His team knows he’s winning.
I’ve seen the polls shifting ever more strongly in Trump’s favor. the democrats know this too.
More democrats talking about a close race means that they’re now hoping that the race is close. (because that advantages them.)
but the momentum now is 100 percent team trump.
the gap between now and election day looks like its going to get wider.
And it looks like the polls are going to return the place they were at just before biden dropped out.
Virginia Minnesota and New Hampshire may come back into play.
Four weeks from now New Mexico and New York may come into play.
Kamela is doing nothing to tamp down the surge.
Illegals will play a role in keeping the race closer than it other wise would be and maybe even picking off a red state or two.
but its looking less likely that their role will be decisive—because the trump surge is getting broadening out. that means that trump is gathering more and more ways to win.
that said, its likely a number of states will not have their votes counted by election night. however, judging by what’s shaping up to be a more decisive win by trump—those states totals won’t matter. the race will have already been won.
Praying what you have described comes to pass.
If there is a tie, expect the Democrats to threaten, blackmail or even kill Trump electors in order to scare at least one into switching to Harris.
why waste time using Nate Silver projections-just ask President Hillary Clinton
Don’t assume the house GOP delegation would give Trump the nod. It was GOP votes that let Pelosi conduct her Soviet style show trial.
I know that we are going to send a horrible Republican never Trumper from Colorado to Congress in a hard Republican district. How many more Cheney/Kinzingers are there going to be in the new Congress?
And I know that Merchan is going to sentence Trump after the election and before the House vote would occur. Why do you suppose Merchan set the sentencing hearing for then? I think he did it exactly for the tie contingency and for the fight that will occur in the House and Senate over disqualifying Trump as an insurrectionist under the 14th Amendment.
The Supreme Court in the Colorado case allowed Congress to dq Trump as an insurrectionist. That will be the big fight even if Trump wins the electoral college. An R majority in the House does not come close to guaranteeing a pro-Trump vote in either the tie or the insurrection contingencies.
The representatives don’t vote individually, the delegation does.
My point is that if this happens, there will be an absolute shitstorm from the “defend democracy” side.
And it’ll be glorious!
********************
Lol
The liberal meltdown would be epic.
Time Expires in Maine
Maine, which operates on the same system, have threatened to do the same.
However, time has expired for Maine to make the change.
Time did not expire in Maine. This stupid meme has recently appear based on very false information.
The Maine legislature only meets from December to May in the odd years and January to April in the even years. It would require a bill passed by the legislature in one of those sessions to change the law. Very unlikely to ever happen.
The only article I have seen about changing was an interview with the house assistant majority leader in which she talked about the possibility without pointing out that the legislature had already adjourned for the cycle. There has been no effort made to change the electoral vote process in Maine.
Time Expires in Maine
Maine, which operates on the same system, have threatened to do the same.
However, time has expired for Maine to make the change.
Time did not expire in Maine. This stupid meme has recently appear based on very false information.
The Maine legislature only meets from December to May in the odd years and January to April in the even years. It would require a bill passed by the legislature in one of those sessions to change the law. Very unlikely to ever happen.
The only article I have seen about changing was an interview with the house assistant majority leader in which she talked about the possibility without pointing out that the legislature had already adjourned for the cycle. There has been no effort made to change the electoral vote process in Maine.
There were all sorts of emergency changes made to election laws during Covid that many said were not legal. It wouldn’t surprise me if Maine could have an emergency session due to “literally Hitler” being on the ballot.
Which is important because we may need those stages in order to beat the fraud.
JD Vance was giving a speech in Pennsylvania today. In these small rallies he always gives time for a few questions from the reporters. It was hard to here the questions, but one was about polls - probably that Trump was behind.
Vance said something like “Well - we do our own polling too, and we’re looking good. One of my friends when I was running for Congress... polls had us behind. I called him up - he said ‘JD - I’ve got you winning by 7 points - we’re okay’. And you know what - we won by 7 points. I’m not worried. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need to vote! That is the only poll that matters - vote.”
And then he told the story of a colleague, which JD has now stolen. “I want you to vote 10 times! That’s how we win!!!”
.
.
.
Get you and 9 of your friend out to vote. He also made a great point of doing it early and mailing it in or dropping it in the booth. Things come up. Somebody in the family gets sick, etc. and you forget about it or run out of time. (I know that has happened to me in the mid-election state stuff.)
for the fight that will occur in the House and Senate over disqualifying Trump as an insurrectionist under the 14th Amendment.
this is their fallback plan when Trump wins
what are the republicans doing to prepare for this?
I saw a video from Nevada on a CNN(?) reporter that was doing interviews with locals - the clip I saw was at 4 different cafes that seemed normally filled at lunch time.
After CNN showed her conversations with people the reporter said something like “That last guy - he was the only Harris supporter that I found in all of those places. That was shocking.”
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