After months of campaigning and four long days of counting the projected 161 million votes cast, the 2020 presidential race reached its dramatic (possible) conclusion Saturday with major news outlets projecting Joe Biden as the next president over incumbent Donald Trump. Mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania proved the death knell for Trump as his lead there slipped and then flipped over the course of the week as more votes were counted, eventually putting a Trump win in the Keystone State out of reach, along with his hopes of a second term. Yet, Trump has made it clear that he has no plans to concede at this time as his team mounts legal challenges in states where mail in ballots gave Biden the edge—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, and Arizona—claiming voter fraud. He has also demanded a recount in Wisconsin where the margin of Biden’s victory is within 1%.
The map is not in Trump’s favor. As of Monday morning, three states remain too close to call—AZ, GA, and North Carolina—with Biden holding the slimmest of leads in each. Still, even if Trump were to end up winning all three (plus Alaska), he would need PA to flip back his way to reach the 270 electoral votes required to clinch the presidency. Trump has called for the Supreme Court to get involved like they did during the 2000 presidential election where Al Gore rescinded his concession to George Bush after Florida became too close call, followed by numerous lawsuits and recounts that held the nation in limbo for 36 days. In the end, it was still Bush who emerged victorious. With no evidence of fraud so far, though, the chances of Trump’s legal challenges changing the outcome seem slim. For insight, we asked Americans about their views on how the past week has played out and if they think Trump still has a chance. Here are three key takeaways:
Despite nearly all decision desks calling the race for Biden, a significant portion of Americans (36%) of Americans still believe that it’s premature. That number is mostly made up of the 75% or Republican respondents who say they aren’t yet convinced, while nearly all (97%) of Dems believe their candidate has prevailed. Independents, though, overwhelmingly (64%/28%) believe that the writing is on the (magic) walls.
Conceding is a time-honored tradition, not required by U.S. law or the Constitution. In fact, no modern presidential candidate has refused to do it. Still, only a narrow majority of Americans (52%/44%) believe that Trump should concede at this point in time, though that gap expands for Independents (50%/36%). Republican and Democrat respondents are almost completely diametrically opposed on the issue with 90% against and for concession, respectively. Along gender lines, though, women were much more in favor of concession (60%) than men (43%).
On Saturday, Trump said “Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for recounts, or states where our campaign has valid legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor." Though technically correct (voter certification for most states will occur over the next month), a majority (52%/43%) of Americans say there’s not enough evidence to support Trump’s legal challenges, and a plurality (38%) say Trump will not win any cases and lose the election. Another 36% believe Trump will win cases, but they are split—20% yes, 16% no—on whether it will result in Trump winning the election. Independents disagree down the middle on the merit of Trump’s cases, but a clear plurality (36%) agree with Americans as a whole that there’s no legal path forward to a Trump victory.
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Last Dance
A day before the election, we asked Americcans to predict the accuracy of several 2020 election polling averages. Currently, Biden is projected to win the popular vote by 4-6 points, the second-largest popular vote margin since 2000. On Monday, pollsters predicted a roughly 7.8 point margin, with an “accurate” result if Biden won by 5.8 to 9.8 points. A plurality of Americans were correct in figuring 7.8 was overstating Biden, though it's possible the final result will fall into the “accurate” margin. As for the Texas and PA results, though, respondents were correct in believing that the polls for both states—Texas was seen as a toss-up but easily went for Trump while PA was seen as clear for Biden and just barely did—were overstating Biden.
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Election 2020 Nov 4
On Election Day, we asked Americans to predict who would win each of the seven battleground states. Though three have yet to be called, respondents were correct in predicting that Biden would rebuild the Blue Wall in the upper midwest (Michigan, Wisconsin) and flip AZ and NV. The biggest surprise? 70% of respondents figured Georgia, which voted blue for the first time since 1992, would be solidly for Trump.
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Election Selection
On Friday before the race was called, 60% of Americans said that whether it was Trump or Biden who won, they would like the other to concede. Once Biden was projected to win, that number decreased to 53% and the portion of people who said they would like Trump to NOT concede if Biden was declared the winner jumped from 25% to 44%.
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Election Week