The below Twitter thread is by Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report. For those interested in the horse race of the presidential campaign—and who isn't?—I think it's generally interesting: Wasserman is astute and, whatever you may think of his analysis, he knows the numbers. I bet if you asked him about the 2016 outcome in Kenosha County, Wisconsin, he'd be able to tell you, without tapping on a screen, that Trump won the county by 238 votes, 36,037 to 35,799. It's quite possible that of Wisconsin's 72 counties Kenosha most nearly modeled the statewide result, which favored Trump by 0.7 percent. If it is, Wasserman would know, and if it's not he'd know which one was. I'm not looking it up.
The thread was of particular interest to me on account of his last point, concerning the prospect of a 269-269 tie in the Electoral College. This has long been on my radar, but since you never read about it in the press, or hear about it on cable news despite the constant need to fill air time, I was beginning to think that I must be worrying too much and that the pros know the likelihood of a tie is negligible. But here is Wasserman, someone at the top of his profession, pegging the chance of a 269-269 electoral college tie this year at about 1-in-25. The likeliest route would be for Biden to hold the Clinton states (232 evs), flip Pennsylvania (20 evs) and Michigan (16 evs), and, in Nebraska, which awards electoral votes by congressional district, gain one additional ev by flipping the district centered on the city of Omaha. If Trump then repeated his 2016 wins everywhere else, the Electoral College would render no judgment: 269 for each candidate.
The tie-breaker, as Wasserman indicates, is the House of Representatives. Since if you've read this far you probably know that Democrats are the majority party in the House, you might be puzzled why Wasserman thinks it "would likely decide in Trump's favor." It's because each House member does not have a vote. Instead, under the Constitution, each state's delegation has one vote. After California had weighed in for Biden and Wyoming for Trump, the vote that mattered would be tied at 1 for each candidate, and there'd be 48 more state delegations to hear from. It's the House elected in 2020 that would decide, but currently Republicans, despite holding 34 fewer seats than the Dems, are a majority within 26 of the 50 state delegations. That isn't expected to change. In 2018, for instance, the Democrats' gains were largely in California and Texas, which of course did not make them a majority within a single additional state.
If Biden were to increase Clinton's electoral vote tally from 232 to 269, he would almost certainly also increase her popular vote margin. Wasserman thinks Biden could win the national vote by as many as 5 million—Clinton won it by nearly 3 million—and still lose the Electoral College. A 269-269 tie would probably align with a popular vote margin of more than 4 million for Biden, maybe 51-47 in terms of percent, an absolute majority that would then be overturned by a minority of the House membership representing a minority of Americans. (I did the math and the 26 states with a Republican majority in their House delegation have just under 47 percent of the country's population; you could check my work with the data found here and here.)
Trump, with his attacks on voting by mail, plainly intends to contest a loss. He's gone so far as to say that he can only lose if the election is "rigged"—his word. That is, the proof that the Dems harvested mailed ballots will be if Trump loses. It's not any crazier, arguably less crazy, than his claim that in 2016 he lost New Hampshire only because "busloads" of people from neighboring Massachusetts descended on polling places in New Hampshire to vote for Clinton. The result of his refusal to exit the stage after a loss could trigger a crisis of legitimacy. I mean to say, however, that a Trump victory could also trigger a crisis. Imagine, for example, Trump, having been "reelected" under the circumstances described above, appointing another Supreme Court justice, probably Ruth Bader Ginsburg's successor, to a lifetime term. His power to make the appointment would derive from what? Seems that gerrymandered congressional districts is the best available answer. He would have just been outpolled in the country. He also would have failed to win a majority of electoral votes. A majority of the House membership prefers his opponent, as did a majority of voters. His power would derive from having been the choice of a majority of the state delegations to the House of Representatives, which is not, to my knowledge, a voting unit for any other purpose. The individual members comprising that majority would be a minority of the full House representing a minority of the people of America. Why is this just and wise? As a threat to stability and political legitimacy, it probably rivals Trump's irresponsible claims about rigged elections.
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