I’m not getting into the mental acuity of President Biden because it’s clear he continues to be an excellent president and he can clearly handle the duties of the presidency. He also has an excellent record to run on. Anyone bringing up a few verbal gaffs here or there can take a hike.
I want everyone to be crystal clear though, on what the real issue is and what we as a party are facing.
To win the presidency, the Democratic ticket needs to win 270 electoral votes in November.
Electoral votes are won state by state and they’re the only thing that matters (barring a soft coup in Congress on January 5th-ish). Popular vote totals _do_not_matter._ National polls _do_not_matter._
Gore won the popular vote by half a million votes and still didn’t win. Hillary won the popular vote by 2.8 million and still didn’t win. As great as the moral victory of winning the popular vote is, the thing that matters is winning the presidency. Moral victories aren’t going to protect our democracy from the 1930’s Germany situation that we’re currently in.
So how is the EC vote race looking? BEYOND FUCKING SCARY and THAT is the reason we’re in the 3rd week of post-debate party freakout, and why it’s not going away, even after an ok press conference.
Here’s what actually matters:
Here’s the 2016 presidential election map from trump’s win:
Here is the 2020 map from Biden’s win:
And here is the 2020 margin of victory map for Biden:
These are the 6 close states that enabled a trump win in 2016 and/or a Biden win in 2020:
Wisconsin — WI — 10 EV
Michigan — MI — 15 EV
Pennsylvania — PA — 19 EV
Georgia — GA — 16 EV
Arizona — AZ — 11 EV
Nevada — NV — 6 EV (yeah yeah, I know trump never won NV)
(EV’s listed are for the 2024 cycle)
According the the Cook Political Report, which was updated after the debate, this is where things stand:
Total likely Dem votes: 226
Total Solid and Likely Dem EV: 211
Leaning Dem: 15 EV: (MN, NE, NH)
Total likely Rep Votes: 268
Total solid and likely Rep EV: 219
Leaning Rep: 49 EV (AZ, GA, NV, NC)
Total tossup states: 44
Tossup states: 44 EV (MI, PA, WI)
So let’s take a closer look at those 6 states:
In 2020, Biden won WI by 21k votes out of 3.2 million cast.
(similar margins for trump in 2016)
Biden won MI by 154k out of 5.4m cast.
(11k out of 4.5m for trump in 2016)
Biden won PA by 80k out of 7m cast.
(45k out of 6m for trump in 2016)
Biden won GA by 11k out of 5m cast.
(211k out of 3.4m for trump in 2016)
Biden won AZ by 10k out of 3.4m cast.
(91k out of 2.4m for trump in 2016)
Biden won NV by 33k out of 1.5m cast.
(Clinton won by 27k out of 1m cast in 2016)
The Math That Should Scare Everyone:
I’m going to be super positive and say that NV and AZ are actually still tossups and I’m going to be realistic and say that GA is definitely in the Rep column this cycle.
That gives 226 Dem votes, 251 Rep votes and 61 tossup votes.
IF Dems hold NV and AZ, then we MUST sweep PA & MI — states that have flip flopped in the past 2 elections.
If we win NV but lose AZ, which we only won by 10k votes, THEN WE NEED TO SWEEP PA, MI & WI — all states that trump has won in the past. The smallest Biden victory of the three was WI with only 21k votes ahead of trump.
The math is BRUTAL and still moving towards trump in these 6 states. All 6 of them are currently rated as tossup or lean rep.
The Real Issue:
The numbers above are the root of the argument of why Biden should step down.
The debate was held super early in the cycle at Biden’s request because the Biden campaign wanted to show everyone how great Biden is and how horrible Trump is, in order to pull some of those tossup states back into his column. His reelection campaign isn’t about policy it’s about ”trump is a disaster and I’m not.”
The debate was a disaster for Biden. Not because of Biden’s mental acuity, but because Biden failed to forcefully make the case that trump is a disaster. Now the focus is on him, not trump.
We’re now into the 3rd week of people calling on Biden to step down from the race, and it’s a valid and necessary request at this point. He has had 2 weeks to change the narrative and failed to do so, despite all of the resources at his fingertips.
And for those saying that he’s only had 2 weeks, or the media is piling on, or elected Dems are damaging him — I want you to remember that the debate itself was Biden’s Hail Mary to get the race back on track. He failed at the debate, he failed at week 1 after the debate and he failed at week 2 after the debate, and he’s currently failing week 3. And even worse, I haven’t seen him basically parking it nonstop in AZ, NV, PA and MI where he needs to be spending every waking hour.
That is why you see continued calls for Biden to step down, even after his NATO press conference. The press conference itself was not enough to change the EV math. A few small, managed campaign stops were not enough to change the EV math.
Switching candidates at this point is very doable, and very necessary. A different candidate has more time and energy to be out there campaigning. They can pull AZ and NV solidly back in our column and get MI, PA and WI leaning back our way. Harris could potentially put GA back on the map (difficult, but doable).
So you can guess where I’m leaning at this point. You may disagree, but this is supposed to be a reality based community and the numbers are the numbers. And they’re what’s driving the behind the scenes calls from the higher-ups for Biden to release his delegates.
Update: There is another post with a link to this 538 article, claiming good news for Biden. 538 shows a likely loss in AZ, NV and GA, which means Biden must sweep PA and MI. In 538’s own simulations, Biden only wins PA 52 out of 100 simulated rounds. That’s a coin flip.
We should not be in a coin flip situation against a convicted rapist with 34 felony convictions, who overturned Roe, overturned the concept that the rule of law applies to everyone, and who tried to literally overthrow the government. Anyone celebrating that article needs a reality check about where things actually stand.