2020's battleground states are not the ones you think: Some number-crunching reveals a few surprises

American Thinker ^ | 10/14/2020 | James Swofford

[SeekAndFind]

It is well known that in November 2016, a little over 136.5 million Americans voted in the presidential election.  What is less well known is that according to the election results at Wikipedia, a slight plurality more Americans voted for conservative candidates — Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, and Evan McMullin — than voted for candidates of the left — Hillary Clinton and Jill Stein.  (There were a scattering of votes for other candidate that are less easy to categorize, and for that reason, I will ignore them.)

The discussion that follows implicitly takes the view that President Trump will be better able to attract the conservative voters in 2020, as a known quantity, running for re-election than he was able to in 2016 as a political unknown.  Also, the Libertarian party 2020 nominee is not a former statewide office-winner like Johnson in 2016, but someone with less political experience.  Additionally, one might argue that the limited foreign entanglements, reduced government regulation, lower taxes, criminal justice reform Donald Trump is the best Libertarian candidate on the ballot in 2020, but that could be a topic and an essay for another day.

When one looks at the conservative minus liberal vote in 2016 on a state-by-state basis, the biggest surprise is that there were four states where more voters voted for conservative presidential candidates than liberal candidates, yet President Trump did not win their electoral votes.  Those states are Maine, with two electoral votes decided by the statewide vote; Minnesota, with ten electoral votes; Nevada, with six electoral votes; and New Hampshire, with four electoral votes.  That totals 22 electoral votes that President Trump did not win despite more voters in those states voting for right-leaning candidates than left-leaning candidates.  

[SeekAndFind]

2016 Close State Vote and Percentage Differences

State	Conservative-Liberal Votes	Conservative-Liberal Percentage
Colorado	-30,702	-1.1%
Florida	276,571	2.9%
Maine (at large)	1,712	0.2%
Michigan	131,377	2.7%
Minnesota	-31,222	-1.1%
Nevada	10,182	0.9%
New Hampshire	21,545	-2.9%
New Mexico	-905	-0.1%
Pennsylvania	141,066	2.3%
Virginia	-121,394	-3.1%
Wisconsin	98,350	3.3

Notice that President Trump won 4 of these 11 states while losing the other 7, including the 4 states where more voters voted for candidates of the right.  The closest state, surprisingly, was New Mexico, where voters voted for candidates of the left by one tenth of a percentage.

[SeekAndFind]

Other Key State 2016 Trump-Clinton Percentage and Conservative-Liberal

State	Trump – Clinton Percentage	Conservative – Liberal Percentage
Arizona	3.6%	6.4%
Georgia	5.1%	8.0%
Iowa	9.4%	15.5%
Missouri	18.6%	21.3%
North Carolina	3.7%	6.1%
Ohio	8.1%	10.5%

As you can see, these states were mostly outside the 5% threshold for the Trump less Clinton measure and well beyond it for the conservative minus liberal measure.  Of course, the media will tell you they are toss-ups, but Colorado and Virginia are solid Democrat states.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

None of these forecasts and stats matter regardless of how factual due to the variable presented by the Democrat schemes to rig and steal. That is the real concern.

[Meatspace]

Biden has to win every one of these so called Swing States if he has any hope of winning, and there is no way Biden can win any swing state much less every swing state.

[olivia3boys]

My CA HS senior son is now applying for colleges next year, focusing on all the Western states (”that aren’t too cold”).

My theory on which of these Western battleground states will go red or blue in 3 weeks is this: are the colleges open to in person learning, in general, or not?

New Mexico is closed up tight. I think NM will vote Biden. Unless they are tired of their tyrannical governor which apparently they are not.

My other son drove across the US last month from CA to NC, and said NM was by far the most closed up.

Dems fear the virus. The more a state fears the virus, the more likely that state is a Dem blue state in 3 weeks.

We will see.

[july4thfreedomfoundation]

Maine splits it’s electoral votes. Same with Nebraska.

Candidate Trump carried Maine CD 2.....80% of the land area of Maine....by 10 points in 2016.

Candidate Trump won one electoral vote as a result.

Our GOP congressman....Bruce Poliquin....lost his House seat to a RAT challenger, even though the GOP incumbent had 2,200 MORE votes!

Why? The cursed system called rank choice voting.

[calenel]

Johnson flipped at least 5 states to Clinton - NH, NV, CO, MN(!) and at least one more I don’t recall at the moment. Those were states where Trump+Johnson votes beat Clinton+Stein votes. Let’s hope they don’t do any damage this cycle.

[calenel]

Maine.

[Coop]

Bump

[WKUHilltopper]

This.

[Don Corleone]

Colorado and Virginia are solid Democrat states.

As is the island vote on Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Wake, Easter (The Moai vote) and Midway not to mention Long Island,Coney and Ellis Island plus Blue Island and Goose Island (Chicago). Solid locks. Go Joe!/sarc

[11th_VA]

Good find !

[PeteB570]

I know a number of Libertarians.

None that I know are changing their votes to Trump. They would rather vote L and pat themselves on the back.

Would be a better bet on some of the Constitution Party breaking for Trump.

[Mozzafiato]

Gary Johnson (Libertarian) took nearly 4% in Michigan and Wisconsin. The Libertarian vote cost President Trump the victory in Muskegon County (Michigan) where he is visiting this weekend. With a weaker Libertarian Party candidate this year, if Trump can siphon even 1% of their vote this year it could be huge in MI/WI/PA/MN/NH.

[SeekAndFind]

I question your including Long Island, where I live on your solid blue list.

Suffolk County went for Trump in 2016 and will do so again.

[Conserv]

I still say we take Virginia this time around.

[enumerated]

“Dems fear the virus. The more a state fears the virus, the more likely that state is a Dem blue state in 3 weeks.“

Democrat leaders have fear-mongered the virus to tank Trump’s election year economy.

The fact that a state has a Democrat governor or Democrat city mayors could imply it is a “blue“ state - but the fear-based shutdowns of campuses and in person campaigning, GOTV and voting may backfire on Democrats and turn the state red.

[Campion]

I’m afraid a whole lot of people who should know better have drunk the TDS Koolaid.

[olivia3boys]

There is a theory in Political Science that third party votes don’t directly cost the major parties anything because if that third party candidate weren’t on the ballot, those voters would just stay home.

Not sure that was true the Ross Perot year.

[TheConservativeTejano]

My CA HS senior son is now applying for colleges next year, focusing on all the Western states (”that aren’t too cold”). My theory on which of these Western battleground states will go red or blue in 3 weeks is this: are the colleges open to in person learning, in general, or not? New Mexico is closed up tight. I think NM will vote Biden. Unless they are tired of their tyrannical governor which apparently they are not. My other son drove across the US last month from CA to NC, and said NM was by far the most closed up. Dems fear the virus. The more a state fears the virus, the more likely that state is a Dem blue state in 3 weeks. We will see.

Partner, the Gov'nor of NM not last too long after this COVID Blown=up crisis.

The Gov'nor of NM is so dumb that she did not even know that NM has a lot of Oil and Gas underneath its soil.