The Electoral College: What If?
While unlikely, the chances of a no candidate getting to 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency are surprisingly high, including a 269-269 tie. Is a "Trump-Harris" election possible?
If you’re a Trump supporter, things look pretty good right now. Polls consistently have him leading or tied in the six most competitive states, from Nevada (as much as a 13-point lead) to the “big three” in the Midwest, Wisconsin (tied), Michigan (slight Trump lead), and perhaps the biggest prize in 2024, the Keystone State.
This is your reminder that a lifetime or two in politics separates us between now and “election season.” November 5th is now just another date on the calendar. Voting will start in late September in Virginia, and some states, especially Pennsylvania, will keep accepting mail-in ballots several days after “election day,” and California won’t stop counting ballots until December. How does that inspire confidence in our elections?
Trump has surprisingly solid leads in Nevada and Arizona and seems to have a grip on Georgia, where the GOP-controlled state legislature has done yeoman’s work to improve election integrity while protecting access for all voters. Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona, each with Democratic governors, not so much.
And if you’re a Biden supporter (why, really?), you’re probably confused and frustrated. The economy is doing so well (for you)! The legal “lawfare” campaign against Trump was supposed to drive support away from him. It’s done just the opposite, but you’re breathlessly holding on hope to get those photos of Trump in handcuffs, in an orange jumpsuit, or even behind bars. The hysterical claims of everyone from Ken Burns to Robert DeNiro that the “end of democracy” is nigh have become ubiquitous, predictable, and even laughable. No normal person believes it except the True Believers.
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”
― Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements
We’re more likely to see Anthony Fauci in handcuffs than Donald Trump. Heart be still.
There’s simply no credible evidence of Trump trying to “end democracy,” including the January 6 gaslighting. But there is plenty of evidence that Democrats have and continue to weaponize government, and especially the judicial and intelligence communities, to “get Trump” and keep him and others (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) off the many state ballots. While Trump has talked sloppily about “revenge,” he’s dropped that lately.
Yes, he’s a disruptor, a threat to an established political order where vested interests benefit at the expense of disenfranchised working families, blue-collar workers, small businesses, and struggling younger workers and entrepreneurs, many of whom are a paycheck away from disaster.
After all, democracy didn’t “die” when Trump was President. If it had, he wouldn’t have lost in 2020 (yes, I know). Instead, we had no wars in Ukraine or Israel, $2 (or less) per gallon of gasoline, and, other than the pandemic, a pretty good economy with 1.4 percent inflation, no matter what Joe Biden says. Trump never disobeyed a single court order when they found his policies inconsistent with existing law. You can look it up.
Things were, well, normal. At least more normal than they are now. The massive realignment many of us who have toiled in GOP electoral vineyards for decades continues to evolve, and now appears unstoppable.
Donald Trump might have been unpredictable, and his comportment sent us into occasional (okay, frequent) facepalms. Still, voters are looking back wistfully after 3+ years of disaster since the 2020 election with an infirm fool nominally in charge with Obama Administration third-stringers running things. Laken Riley is dead at the hands of an illegal immigrant and beneficiary of Biden open border policies, while the repeat criminal and fentanyl-laced George Floyd is deified despite $2 billion in damage and deaths from the damage resulting from 500 or so riots that ensued in 200 towns and cities. And how is the “expert-led” management of the Covid pandemic playing out?
Normies see through all this, and we’ve had enough. Still, it’s obvious neither candidate is popular; this is a choice voters wish they didn’t have to make, and our tribal media culture has too many people living politically within bubbles devoid of reality. Many suburban, more moderate voters dislike Trump enough that Biden remains competitive. And speaking of delusional bubbles, the media’s shilling for Biden intensifies.
“If the 2024 U.S. Presidential election is a referendum on Joe Biden, he’ll lose. If it’s a referendum on Donald Trump, he’ll lose.” — Bruce Mehlman
People know they were better off during the Trump years than now. And speaking of the pandemic, we are seeing now how wrongly we were served by the health infrastructure that arrogantly lied to us, harmed children by demanding lengthy school lockdowns and useless mask mandates, and abused its powers. They used government resources to censor respected scientists with differing opinions and hide the cause of the pandemic (a lab leak in China) along with dubious, even unethical research practices (“gain of function” research on deadly viruses).
The fact is that this is going to be a close election. How close? Look at the Electoral College map above. Based on polling, Trump would win as of today. Many of those polls in the five key swing states—Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia—are within the margin of error or just outside.
But it is also true that the ground game in these and perhaps other states will affect the outcome in ways polling might miss (most pollsters have to guestimate the demographics of the voting population, which is one way that more malevolent pollsters push polls designed to favor one candidate or party over another, often to depress the other side—“suppression” polling).
Here’s a scenario that looks increasingly plausible. Trump wins three states he lost last time - Nevada, Arizona, and Georgia. But he narrowly loses Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. Two states, Nebraska and Maine, divvy up their electoral votes by congressional district. What if Nebraska stays red, but Trump picks up Maine’s rural, working-class Second Congressional District?
The map suddenly looks like this, with 270 electoral college votes needed to win.
Oops. The “shades” of red or blue are designed to guestimate how close the tally will be in each state. All it will take is for Nebraska’s swing district around Omaha, currently held by US Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), to go for Trump as it did in 2016 but not in 2020. Same with Maine’s Second District, held by US Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME). But there’s no doubt his largely rural district is slowly trending “red.” It is more likely to go for Trump than Nebraska’s swing district is for Biden—just my opinion.
What if this happens? It’s not likely, but more likely than in previous years, consistent with a deeply divided electorate.
Under the Constitution’s 12th Amendment, the US House would pick the President, and the US Senate would choose the Vice President. The House would choose among the top three electoral count winners, while the Senate would choose only among the top two Vice Presidential candidates. Since I do not believe Kennedy will win a single electoral vote while capturing 10-15 percent of the popular vote, the House would choose between Biden or Trump. Biden probably narrowly wins the national popular vote under this scenario, while Trump wins a majority of states.
But in a House election of the President, each state would get one vote—a majority of each delegation would have to agree. This is not a problem in most states, especially those like Wyoming or Delaware, where there is just one House Member, but a handful have either equally divided House delegations (North Carolina, Minnesota) or are very closely divided (Pennsylvania, Michigan). The new 119th Congress will choose, so pay attention to competitive House elections in those states.
That will make for conflicts between the candidates voters elect in some states, and the Presidential candidate their delegations will choose. Recent redistricting in Trump-leaning North Carolina makes it highly likely that the delegation will be majority Republican come next January. But Alaska’s lone Member of Congress is a Democrat; might Rep. Mary Peltola (D-AK) vote her state’s preference or her party’s choice, if she’s reelected? Same with Wisconsin’s delegation, which includes five Republicans and two Democrats.
Again, the November elections could change things. Today, Republicans hold majorities in 26 states - just enough for Trump to win in the US House. Will that be true in January? What if there are enough disputed close House elections that neither candidate has a 26-vote majority? Then, the Vice President-elect serves as Acting President until the House resolves the matter.
What about the Vice President? Could you imagine a scenario in which Kamala Harris is reelected by the US Senate as Vice President, as she votes to break a tie as the incumbent to elect herself for a second term?
Republicans are favored to gain anywhere from one to nine seats currently held by Democrats. They control the Senate with 51 votes to the GOP’s 49. None of the 13 GOP Senate seats on the ballot this Fall are currently endangered, despite Democrats focusing their guns on Texas’ Ted Cruz. But if the GOP wins only West Virginia from Democrats, it’s a 50-50 Senate. And yes, Vice President Harris could vote for herself to break a tie to serve as Donald Trump’s understudy. It won’t matter as much if contested Senate elections are still undecided by early January unless it tilts the playing field.
Go ahead, reach for your heart medicine. That would put the unpopular Kamala Harris in something of a catbird’s seat as the queen of her political party and keep Chuck Schumer as the Senate’s Majority Leader, with Democrats holding the committee chairs and making presidential nominations, especially for Supreme Court vacancies, interesting. You could also have a scenario where Democrats win a House majority - a slim one. Yet, Republicans still hold sway over the Presidential vote because they have majorities in at least 26 state delegations.
It’s a little early to reach for that bottle of Maker’s Mark, right? Maybe I can create a new genre of political horror books—fiction or otherwise. You can certainly count on the same election deniers to come out of the woodwork as they did after the 2000, 2004, and 2016 elections. Remember this ad, where Democratic celebrities encouraged GOP electoral college “members” to switch their votes from Trump to Clinton, in some cases illegally? It’s just a little taste of what might come. “Election denier” is usually an ad hominem tossed at Republicans, but this is okay, it seems. Muh democracy, and all that.
Let us take breaths into a paper bag to help stop our hyperventilating.
This is unlikely to happen. Swing or “undecided” voters tend to flop to one candidate or another as the election nears. This happened in 1980. Polling throughout that year showed a very competitive race right up to the final debate in late October, some even showing Jimmy Carter ahead. A boffo final debate performance by challenger Ronald Reagan gave him a massive Electoral College landslide. It won’t be that dramatic this year, but it should be enough for one candidate or another to capture north of 300 electoral votes. Control of Congress remains up for grabs, with the GOP likely to win the Senate, no matter who wins the presidency. The House is a jump ball at this point.
But think about the things likely to develop over the summer and fall. There will be more Trump trials, but this time, including colorful trials for presidential son Hunter Biden and US Sen. Bob “Gold Bars” Menendez (D-NJ), who is circulating petitions to get on the ballot this fall as an independent candidate. Two other House incumbents face legal troubles. House GOP investigators continue to find embarrassing things about the Biden crime family. Who knows what economic news is around the corner or can predict continued events in Ukraine or Israel with a Biden Administration desperate for good news and victories somewhere? And then there are things like ads, debates, opposition research unearthing things, and media coverage of it all.
Buckle up. Halloween’s coming early and often this year. And maybe next year, too.
Articles like this will make boredom a virtue. I recall the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”
"January 6 gaslighting".
Describing January 6 as anything but an attack on democracy is indeed gaslighting, as is most of your setup.