Grace Overwhelmingly Believes Joe Biden Will Be Elected President. Will He Win?
Featured Image: Photo by Lawrence Jackson / Biden for President
As tens of millions of people have already voted with the presidential election just one day away, the Grace Gazette recently conducted a poll asking students and faculty, “Who do you believe will win in 2020.” Of the community members anonymously surveyed, 75.9 percent said they believe former Vice President Joe Biden will win the election, 19.5 percent said President Donald Trump, and 4.7 percent said they were unsure.
Do these results reflect the current election forecasts? According to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight 2020 Election Forecast, Biden has an 89 percent chance of winning, lowering their projections from 2016, which gave Trump a 30 percent chance—one of the most favorable forecasts for Trump. Even more favorable to Biden, The Economist gives Biden a 96 percent chance. Despite these pollsters overwhelmingly predicting Biden to win, some have offered predictions contrary to the polling orthodoxy. The Trafalgar Group, the only nonpartisan group to predict Trump’s victory in 2016, predicts another Trump victory. Robert Cahaly of the Trafalgar Group believes a silent Trump vote is being misrepresented in the polls. Cahaly claimed, “There are more [shy Trump voters] than last time, and it’s not even a contest.” However, both Silver of FiveThirtyEight and Dave Wasserman of The Cook Political Report expressed doubt about Trafalgar’s methodology. If Cahaly’s predictions are correct, the integrity of pollsters could have irreparable damage.
One anonymous member of the Grace community responding to the poll seemed to agree with those election forecasts saying, “I think Biden’s going to win, and I don’t think it’s going to be particularly close.” This person said that the polls would have to be more inaccurate than they were in 2016 for Trump to win, saying, “Biden’s lead in the polls in key swing states is robust enough to survive that kind of hit.” Another person claimed that a landslide victory for Biden would be possible, citing a rise in young voters who “despise” Trump. They continued, saying, “I do believe Biden can win and perhaps even by a landslide because there are so many young people/new voters that despise Trump and who are coming out in droves to vote against him.”
Another member of the Grace community believes Biden will win, saying, “he’s gaining support in states that voted republican in 2016,” which the polls indicate to be true. According to the RealClearPolitics average, Biden currently has a lead in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—all states that Trump carried in 2016.
Despite this, every state—with the exception of Wisconsin—is within a five percent range. Another person added that he believes Biden will win as “He only needs to win Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, and he is polling way ahead in those states.” While Biden is polling ahead in those states, it’s not by a significant amount, especially in Pennsylvania. Theoretically, even if Trump was to lose Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, he could still win the election by picking up Nevada and New Hampshire, which went for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016.
While the general consensus amongst Grace students and faculty is that Biden will come out victorious, not everyone agreed with this assessment—even as Biden supporters. Many of them shared a general skepticism about the polling, citing the 2016 results. While the polling was certainly off in 2016, the national polling had Clinton up by about four points, and she did win the popular vote by nearly three million votes. One person said, “I don’t trust the polls because of the 2016 election—they can be extremely misleading. I’m hoping Biden wins, although I am not expecting him to [win].” Another person cited the clear enthusiasm gap between Trump and Biden, saying, “If the democrat candidate was someone who people were more enthusiastic about, then I think Biden would win.” Drew Lerner ‘21, a Biden supporter, expressed a lot of reservations about the current polling, saying, “I think Trump will win because of silent voters. I believe you’ll see a repeat of 2016 in that there will be a ton of voters who are in support of Trump but haven’t made their voices heard in the polling. I have no doubt that Biden will win the majority, but unfortunately, that’s not how the electoral process works in this country.”
Due to the massive uptick in voting by mail, the result will most likely not be determined on Election Day. However, Americans should get a general idea of the trajectory of the election when the results begin to come in. The results in Wisconsin are expected at the latest by Wednesday the 4th. Meanwhile, Michigan and Pennsylvania expect results to be finalized by Friday, November 6th.
While it’s no surprise that the majority of the Grace community overwhelmingly supports Joe Biden—or at least—prefers him over Donald Trump, it was surprising to see that many Biden supporters believe Trump could win.