Biden Came This Close Losing !!
Jan 31, 2021 —
Three states pushed Biden over the line. If the right 22,000 people in those three states had flipped from Biden to Trump, Trump would have had four more years to subvert our democracy. I don’t think it would have survived.
Those states are Wisconsin, with 10 electoral votes, Arizona with 11, and Georgia with 16, for a total 37. Biden got 306. Had he lost 37 he would have had 269, with 270 needed to win. But Trump would also have had only 269. So how would that work?
In case of a tie, the House decides as soon as the electoral votes are counted — which was on Jan. 6 after the Capitol riot. That sounds good for Biden, but here’s the catch. The 12th Amendment says each state gets just one vote. The new Congress was sworn in on Jan. 3rd. And in this Congress, the Republicans have a majority of the seats in 27 states. So the vote would have been 27 to 20 (because DC gets no vote, and three states have equal numbers from the two parties, and they don’t get a vote either). With a tied electoral college, Trump would be President.
Thinking Nationally, How Close Was It?
There’s no chance that only the 22,000 key voters would switch, so we should ask what would happen if Biden had lost an equal fraction of voters to Trump in every state. If he had lost two-thirds of 1% of his voters to Trump, he would have lost his three closest states and hence, the election.
Biden won by just slightly less than Trump won by in 2016 (0.64% for Biden compared to 0.77% for Trump). To see the danger in that, we need to consider the magnitude of the forces at work in this election.
The Democratic vote grew 23% from Clinton to Biden, but it would have grown about 3% anyway due to population growth. So the real jump in Democratic turnout was a whopping 20%. If Biden’s turnout jump had been only 18.7%, due to stay-at-homes, Biden would have lost — even though that’s an unheard-of turnout success.
Why Biden Won: Negative Partisanship
Negative partisanship is the hate that now wins elections. Biden scored 52% of the major-party vote, while Clinton scored 51%. So almost none of Biden’s 20% leap in votes was due to his greater popularity. Instead, it was almost entirely due to Democrats hating Trump.
Biden understood that, which is why he won. But he actually focused more on reducing hate than increasing it (good for him). He knew that if Trump won it would be because Republicans hated the Democrats. So he did all he could to calm that hate and hold down Republican turnout.
He didn’t have to worry much about the Democrats hating Trump. Trump took care of that for him. Of course, negative partisanship is just as true of Republicans. The main reason they cling to Trump is that he constantly drives Democrats nuts, and they really hate and fear the Democratic Party.
The Danger in 2022 and 2024
But what if Trump goes away? That would deflate the Democrats’ negative feelings toward the Republicans. Not completely by any means, but think about how much you didn’t want Trump for another four years. That was a powerful incentive. We may lose that and lose turnout.
The Republicans may self-destruct as we’ve been hoping for five years. But with Democrats controlling all three branches of government and with the far-left getting stronger every year, the Republicans may well be gaining strength from increased fear and loathing of the Democrats. That would inflate their turnout.
As you can see. it would not take much of a shift in the two big turnout jumps (20% for Biden and 15% for Trump) to have thrown this election. Just a shift to a 19% jump for Democrats and a 16% jump for Republicans would have changed everything.
Ripped Apart
