The Election is Coming

Any speculation about the November election seems a bit premature but the current situation is clearly going to influence it.

We live in a country where barring a major upheaval, there are Red States, Blue States and Battleground States.

In forming the country, we set up the Senate and the Electoral college to protect what were the slave states from the more populous and industrial states.  This has carried forward and gives our more rural states a disproportionate voice in many ways.

So instead of just the popular vote there has to be an electoral college strategy to achieve victory.

So what does this mean?  Last election, despite losing the popular vote by a significant margin, Trump managed to carry a small number of battleground states by extremely slim margins and win the electoral college vote.

He won those states for two reasons.  Much of his base was energized to vote since they believed he represented a significant change from "normal" politics and the democratic candidate failed to turn out or energize much of her base.

It turns out the three states that swung the election, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin did so by the slimmest of margins.

The factors that led to that are varied but perhaps the biggest one was the dislike many voters felt for the Democratic candidate, whether merited or not.

In addition, since the polls indicated she would win, many felt free to not vote in protest or to vote for a third party candidate.

If you consider the candidates from the last election, the two parties managed to nominate two candidates that had very unfavorable ratings.  It was one of the quirks of our system that an unpopular candidate can win in a crowded primary if they have a dedicated group of followers.

The next election is likely to be very different for a lot of reasons.  It is of course too early to predict but we are unlikely to hear many chants of lock him up, at least directed at the Democratic candidate.