My (other, besides DJ) Jedi Master Auh2o will correct me if I make any mistakes here.
I think it’s 26-22, with PA tied and MI 8 rats, 7 Rs and Amash (who will come in third if he runs for reelection and probably wouldn’t vote for Biden anyway).
Some rats think they can gain House seats but I think that’s psychotic and it would certainly mean Biden has won easily, 100%. We’re gaining seats in a close election.
I don’t see a delegation that rats could gain as opposed to lose. MI if they win Amash’s seat in a three-way race is most likely.
But what it would mean (and it would be because of 269-269 tie which is very possible, rather than Jo getting any electoral votes) if there were not 26 delegations controlled by one party is that there would be no President elected until after the 2022 midterms (or a special election or 2) changed the composition of the House.
VP would be Acting President, if the Senate was tied also (no Pence tie-breaker for the vote to elect a new VP) then the Supreme Court would decide whether Pelosi (unconstitutional) or Pompeo would be Acting President.
Pelosi or Grassley can’t be Acting President because the constitution prohibits, other than the quasi-exception of the role of the VP in the Senate, serving in more than one branch of government at once. The succession act gets around that by requiring the Speaker to resign from Congress and as Speaker before taking office. This creates a legal absurdity of the highest order. Even if a sitting Speaker is an “officer” who can be Acting President, a FORMER Speaker is most certainly not. Blame early Federalists who wanted their Congressional leaders at the top of the line rather than Jefferson, short-sighted. And Harry Truman for putting the Congressional Leaders (order reversed) back in the line after they had been out for decades because he was a pee-brained failed clothing salesman who had no business being anywhere near the Chief Magistracy of this land.
I warned that we should have altered the succession act in 2018 in case the rats took the House.
If the election (ie all 51 separate elections) is (are) cancelled (LOL) there will be no House either so the Court will choose between Pompeo (who would surely seek the office even over Grassley IMO) and whoever either Grassley or Leahy is President Pro Tem after the Governors fill the vacant third of the Senate.
That is a great analysis.
269 won’t do it for Biden. He needs 270.
You are correct that the GOP currently controls 26 House delegations, and that if President Trump ends up with 269 EVs he would be elected by the House even if the RATs keep control of the body. The only way for the GOP not to control 26 state delegation on January 3, 2021 would be if the RATs win the open-seat race in MT or if they somehow capture pretty comfortably GOP FL-15 while holding all of the marginal seats in the state. IMHO, if either of those things happen then we’d be talking about Biden winning by 2008 margins, not a 269-all election. The odds are higher that the GOP could get to 30 state delegations by picking up a seat or two in PA, MI (which, BTW, only has 16 EVs, so its House delegation is 7D, 6R and 1L), IA and VA; heck, it would be less improbable that the GOP also picked up a seat or two in AZ, MN, NV and CO and controlled 34 delegations, although for that to happen we’d certainly be talking about a GOP House and 322+ EVs for President Trump.
As for what would occur in the improbable case that neither Trump nor Biden could get 26 state delegations to elect them, I agree with everything that you wrote.