Trumps Odds Of Winning
Trump’s odds to win the presidency were at an all-time low of 32.8% on Oct. 11, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of several major betting services. Bovada, a major international betting service that constantly updates their numbers, pinned Trump’s odds at +125 at the time of publication, equating to a 44.44% chance of victory. If the 2020 election happened today, President Donald Trump would have, at best, a 1 in 5 chance of beating former Vice President Joe Biden, according to the three major models predicting the outcome. Conversely, Donald Trump’s odds have dropped to +680, putting his probability of winning a second term at 12.5%. ET There have been few updates in voting counts for the key swing states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona, so it’s not surprising that election odds have barely budged since 8 a.m. Trump has many paths to victory, enthusiasm on his side: Hannity. Sean Hannity weighs in on Trump’s reelection chances, slams Biden on policy proposals.
It seems safe to say that the 2020 presidential election did not turn out the way that President Donald Trump wanted. Since Election Day, Trump has spent his days tweeting about how he didn't actually lose the election, and if he did, it's because it was 'rigged.' Trump has attempted to mount legal challenges in states such as Pennsylvania and Georgia, while Trump's personal lawyer (and the last person in the world to discoverBorat) Rudy Giuliani has spent his days claiming without evidence that the election was marred by fraud.
Trump's tactics are unlikely to earn him any new supporters, nor are they likely to actually change the outcome of the election. President-elect Joe Biden will take the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2021, and his administration will begin. However, since Trump has only served one term, it is possible for him to run again in 2024. This possibility is not lost on No. 45, who, according to The New York Times, is considering announcing another run upon leaving the White House in January 2021.
If Trump did announce a candidacy for 2024, would he actually stand a chance of winning? Here's what political and corporate advisor Dr. Reneé Carr and other analysts had to say about it.
With Donald Trump involved, anything could happen
Odds
Only one president, Grover Cleveland, has been voted out of office and then gone on to serve another term, but Dr. Reneé Carr told The List that President Donald Trump may have a chance of becoming the second. 'Trump will continue to stoke the emotions and energy of his loyal voter base through claims of election fraud,' Carr said, adding that repeating claims of a stolen election could be effective. 'By his continued accusations of the election being 'stolen' from him, this prevents psychological closure of the election for both himself and those who voted for him,' Carr explained, saying it could 'intensify his voters' loyalty.'
That being said, the next four years are an open book, and the country has no idea what the political climate of 2024 might look like. Carr projected that 'if President-elect Biden can provide significant economic recovery to America — especially to families of auto industry workers and other blue-collar occupations — as well as provide meaningful and immediate tax cuts for small businesses' it could 'greatly decrease Trump's chances of being reelected.' If Americans have learned anything over the course of Trump's presidency, it's to expect the unexpected.
Donald Trump could run as a third-party candidate in 2024
Whether or not Donald Trump's hypothetical third run for president is successful or not, the very idea still presents challenges to his party. Writing for Newsweek, Joshua Spivak noted that while others have tried to run for president again after losing as the incumbent, only one, Grover Cleveland, has been successful. Oftentimes, they end up running as third party candidates, splitting the votes for their former party, Spivak noted.
In 1912, Theodore Roosevelt lost the Republican nomination to sitting-President William Taft. Roosevelt ran under the Progressive Party instead, soundly defeating Taft in both the popular vote and Electoral College, but still losing to the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson, according to Spivak's op-ed in Newsweek. Martin Van Buren reportedly tried a similar tactic in 1848, running as a candidate for the Free Soil Party, which helped carry Whig Party candidate Zachary Taylor into the White House.
The fear is the same for Republicans if Trump attempts another run in 2024. There are certainly other Republican candidates who are already eying the opportunity to run in the next election, and Trump would still have to campaign against them in the primary. If he did lose the primary and chose to run as a third-party candidate, whether as a Libertarian or something else, the fear for Republicans is that his supporters will still vote for him over the Republican nominee, essentially handing the election to the Democrats.
Another Donald Trump run could 'cast a shadow' over the primary
If Donald Trump chooses to run for president again, and makes that declaration years in advance, it could freeze the Republican primary from happening in any meaningful way. Alex Isenstadt of Politico noted that Trump's 'flirtation with a 2024 bid ensures he'll remain the dominant force in the party and cast a shadow over anyone looking to succeed him.' While not an official rule, the norm in modern party politics is to support the incumbent candidate if they choose to run for another term, especially when that candidate is the sitting president. For example, in 2020, there was no Republican incumbent in the White House to challenge Trump before he accepted the party's nomination.
Even if Republican candidates did attempt a run against Trump in 2024, it may be difficult to distinguish themselves and build a network of donors to stage an effective run. As Republican Sen. Marco Rubio (pictured right) told Fox News, 'If [Trump] runs in 2024, he'll certainly be the front-runner and will probably be the nominee.'
It's impossible to predict what's going to happen within the next four years, but one this is for sure: truly anything could happen.
Trump's Odds Of Winning
Matthew Cooper
If the election were held today, Joe Biden would probably win. But there are strong signs that the race is much, much closer than you’d think from the news coverage. Donald Trump has a real shot at being reelected.
First, the president is actually more popular now than on the day he was elected. Yes, that’s right. His personal favorability rating around election day in 2016 was37.5%.Now, it is43.2%.There are, in fact, hundreds of thousands of Americans (if not millions) who have grown fonder of Trump.
We all know it’s not about the popular vote so let’s disregard nationwide polls that have Biden ahead by double digits. Who cares if he’s going to win California by 20 percent or 30 percent? There’s been much attention paid to the former vice-president running strong in battleground states that Trump won in 2016. That’s true. But… Biden is leading in many of those pivotal contests by just a little bit. As of October 20, according to the Real Clear Politics average, Biden led in these potential red-to-blue flips:
Georgia — .09 percent
Florida — 1 percent
Arizona — 3.1 percent
Iowa — 1.2 percent
North Carolina — 2 percent
Texas — (-4.4 percent)
Yes, I’d rather be Biden than Trump, but Trump doesn’t need a shift of 12 points. The president needs a shift of about 3 points – or a group-think polling error of just a few points. If that happens, Biden could quite easily loseallof those (mostly sunbelt) states mentioned above, just as Hillary did in the last election. There’s reason to believe that the growing Hispanic population in those states and Trump’s anti-immigration obsession will propel Biden to victory. But Trump is polling surprisingly strongly with Hispanics, especially men and the growing number of Hispanic Evangelicals.
If Biden blows it in the sunbelt and Iowa, it will come down once again to the rust belt battlegrounds: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Remember: if Biden loses all of the above-mentioned states that he wants to flip from red to blue (which is quite possible) – then he has to sweep the Great Lakes battlegrounds. Not 2 of 3. 3 of 3.
Right now (as of 10/20), those three states are looking pretty good for Biden, especially Michigan and even Wisconsin, which once seemed like it might be the hardest of the three to get back in the blue column where it resided from 1988 to 2012. Somewhat surprisingly, Pennsylvania is still a dogfight for Biden despite nearly 50 years in politics in neighboring Delaware and multiple visits to the Keystone State this year:
Pennsylvania — +3.8
Wisconsin — +6.2
Michigan — +6.8
So, remembering that Biden might need to sweep all three of those, my main cautionary note is to look at the Real Clear Politics polling averages for those states way back on October 19,2016:
Pennsylvania: Clinton +6.2
Wisconsin:Clinton +7
Michigan:Clinton +11.6
As you can see, Joe Biden is doingworsein those state polls than Hillary was. And she, of course, lost them all.
Granted, some things are different now. Undecideds break towards the challenger, and that was Trump last time with Hillary as a quasi-incumbent. Now Trump is the status quo. And today’s polling is less likely to overstate black turnout. Some politicos question the Real Clear Politics average, saying it gives too much weight to lesser polls. But even other averages, such as FiveThirtyEight, aren’t radically different. On October 20, they had Biden up 7.3 points in Wisconsin. That’s better than RCP but not dramatically so.
But consider this: The one pollster that consistently has Trump doing better than the national average—well enough to win—is The Trafalgar Group. They are often discounted as being to the right of the average, which is true. The Atlanta-based firm also happens to be the only polling firm that accurately predicted Trump’s margin inPennsylvaniaandMichigan in 2016.So why are we so quick to discount the only pollster that got it right last time? (Right now, Trafalgar has Trump down 2% in Pennsylvania but up +1% in Michigan, and predicts to the Rich Lowry atNational Reviewthat the presidentwill be re-elected).
Some of the pollsters who got those state races wrong in 2016 have adjusted their methodology to account for a lower black turnout and so on—but some, apparently, amazingly—have not. “Since then, some of the most prolific state polls, including Monmouth University’s, have started to weight their samples by educational attainment to make sure they are not falling prey to survey bias based on voters with more degrees being more likely to answer their phones,” theWashington Postreported.“Yet several firms have not, including Marist College, Mason-Dixon, and EPIC-MRA, which conducts Michigan polls for the Detroit Free Press.”
Then there’s the mysterious matter of voter registrations.Tom Edsall inthe New York Timesquoted a Democratic consultant about what seems to be a spike in the voter registration of the demographic group toughest on Democrats– non-college aged whites: “Since last week, the share of white non-college over 30 [years of age] registrations in the battleground states has increased by 10 points compared to September 2016, and the Democratic margin dropped 10 points to just 6 points. And there are serious signs of political engagement by white non-college voters who had not cast ballots in previous elections.”
And here’s Edsall’s summary of the voter registration news:
“David Wasserman, House editor for The Cook Political Report. wrote on Oct. 1 that voter registration patterns over a longer period in key battleground states show that ‘Republicans have swamped Democrats in adding new voters to the rolls, a dramatic GOP improvement over 2016.’
Four of the six states Trump won by fewer than five points in 2016 allow voters to register by party: Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. In recent months, there have been substantially more Republicans added to the rolls than Democrats in each of them except for Arizona.
Wasserman’s data:
Florida, since the state’s March primary, added 195,652 Republicans and 98,362 Democrats.
Pennsylvania, since June, Republicans plus 135,619, Democrats up 57,985.
North Carolina, since March, Republicans up 83,785 to Democrats 38,137.
In Arizona, the exception, “Democrats out-registered Republicans 31,139 to 29,667” in recent months.”
I’d add one other factor. Even if no one engages in fraudulent voter suppression, it is the case that more absentee ballots are typically disqualified than in-person voters. And this year, Democrats are dominating the absentee ballot voting by more than 2:1 in many states.
Trump's Odds Of Winning Election
Sure, I’ve read various pieces about why Biden is in a stronger position than Clinton. There are fewer undecideds than last time. The third-party candidates are weaker. The numbers have been remarkably stable. Trump’s running a worse campaign. Oh, and there’s a pandemic. And unemployment is in the high single digits. That’s all true. And if the polls are accurate or widen, Biden could win in a blowout.
But the Biden edge is much smaller than most of the analysis has suggested. Yes, I’d rather be Biden than Trump as we approach the final days of the campaign. But Trump’s path to victory is, at this moment, only slightly less likely than it was in 2016 around this time.