Biden’s Impressive and Substantial Win - Rob Horowitz

Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

 

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President-elect Joe Biden

Contrary to the impression formed by the counting of mail ballots in many states after election day, perceptions have not caught up to the scale of Joe Biden’s win.  Not surprisingly, the unprecedented number of mail ballots resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic overwhelmingly were cast for the former vice-president.  When all is said and done, the presidential election will turn out to have been not all that close.

Nate Silver projects conservatively that Joe Biden will end up winning the popular vote by about 7 million, 81.8 million to Trump’s 74.9 million.  This means Biden’s winning percentage will be about 53%.  He is also likely to end up winning the electoral college by the comfortable margin of 302 to 236.  The former vice-president rebuilt the blue wall, winning back Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, added Nebraska CD 2, nearly certainly has added Georgia, and most likely Arizona as well. Biden accomplished all this in an otherwise pretty good year for the Republicans, where they have gained seats in the House of Representatives and only lost, one net seat in the US Senate so far.

Biden won this race by substantially cutting into Donald Trump’s monster -- even for a Republican -- percentages of non-college white voters, while at the same time boosting turn-out among minority and younger voters who continued to vote overwhelmingly for a Democratic presidential candidate. 

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Biden cut Donald Trump’s percentage of non-college white voters by 8 percentage points—from a 37 percentage point margin in 2016 to a 29 point margin this year. This was a major key to Biden’s victories in the mid-western battlegrounds of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin—all states where a disproportionately high share of the electorate are non-college whites. The potential to perform better with non-college whites than most of his primary opponents was one of the major electoral selling points of the Biden candidacy; the former vice-president turned this potential into general election votes.

At the same time, Biden with an assist from the continued growth of the nation’s minority population boosted minorities’ share of the electorate from 30% to 35%, while receiving roughly the same high percentage of support from minority voters as Hillary Clinton. In other words, the substantial increase in turn-out among minorities, appears to have exceeded the substantial increase in turn-out of white voters. The former vice-president also had an 8 percentage point higher margin among young voters between 18 and 29 than Clinton.  Some of this was a result of third party candidates receiving far fewer votes in 2020 than in 2016.

The basic underlying fundamentals drove Biden’s impressive performance. President Trump’s job approval among voters as measured in exit polls was 47% and that will be about his final percentage of the vote.  That is because this election stayed mainly a referendum on the incumbent.  It stayed this way, in part, because unlike Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden was favorably perceived by the electorate; 52% of voters indicated a favorable opinion of the former vice-president, while 46% indicated an unfavorable one.  This compares to 45% of voters who said they had a favorable opinion of Donald Trump, as opposed to 53% of voters who expressed an unfavorable one.

 Another key to the Biden win is that he maintained his advantage over Trump on who could better handle the coronavirus pandemic; 51% of voters thought the former vice-president would do a better job, as compared to 43% who thought the president would. Tellingly, 51% of voters said it was more important “to contain the coronavirus now, even if it hurts the economy,” while 42% of voters thought it was more important “to rebuild the economy now, even if it hurts efforts to contain the coronavirus”.

And Biden substantially narrowed Trump’s advantage on the economy with 48% of voters thinking Biden would do a better job as opposed to 50% who thought Trump would.

 Additionally, on qualities that voters think are important in a president, such as temperament, judgement and who can unite the country, by substantial majorities 2020 voters thought Biden would be better than Trump.   Biden’s repeated refrain that the election was a battle for the soul of the nation struck a responsive chord.

Joe Biden’s impressive nationwide win—the size and scope of which will become clear in the next week or so-- positions him well for the daunting task ahead.

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Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.

 

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