2020 candidates. Strengths and weaknesses. Next Week.

With the 2018 election fading from view, the focus is quickly shifting to 2020. Most of us know who the main presidential candidates will probably be, but how likely is each and every one of them to win? What is the ranking?

Harry Enten and Chris Cillizza rank the potential 2020 democratic presidential candidates in this article and, while I think they are doing great work, I can’t help but feel like they are missing a couple of things. Why is Harris so high up? Why is Bernie so low? I will try to answer these questions in a section I’m opening next week called «The case for», in which I will try my best to explain every potential candidate’s strengths, and also some of the hardships that they may face during the campaign. Initially, I will do this for 1 week, and if I feel the need to do any more I will do so over the week after that. I also intend to release my ranking of top contenders whenever this is all said and done. In the meantime, I think this other article from Aaron Blake at The Washington Post is better, although it still has its flaws. We will see what those are over the coming week.

Disclaimer: I do not claim to be better than any of the analysts mentioned above. I’m just expressing my own opinion.

The 2018 races that are yet to be called.

While I’m sure a lot of people wish the election could be done and dusted right the day after, this is really never the case. Sure, most of the races get called the day of the election (even when they shouldn’t have been) and most of the closely watched elections get called without all of the returns being in. However, every election cycle there are always a couple of races that have to go into overtime. Be it mail-in ballots, of which there are a lot of in California and Washington, recounts or provisional ballots. Here are the races that are yet to be called as of November 17th.

CA-21, David Valadao (R). 538 rating: Toss-up. Valadao has looked safe for most of the cycle, even as he got outraised in the last quarter (Valadao still led in overall fundraising). This held through election night, although the margin was, perhaps, closer than it should have been. Some may have called it too close for comfort. Since then, the race has substantially tightened. Valadao now leads Cox by 1%, or ~2,000 votes. Cox has closed the margin by winning more ballots that were counted after election day, and by a substantial margin at that. It’s still unclear if TJ Cox has enough votes in the counties where he’s favored to overturn Valadao’s lead, but this is worth keeping an eye on.

UT-04, Mia Love (R). 538 rating: Lean R. After election night, it seemed Love had been defeated by Ben McAdams (D) by a margin of about 3%. However, Love has made up that difference by getting massive amounts of non-election day votes in Utah county and substantially chipping away at McAdams’ lead in Salt Lake county. She’s actually in the lead now by ~400 votes. Not an impossible comeback, but challenging to be sure. How does one turn that around? Provisional ballots. There are about 35,000 provisionals that are left to be counted, and we have no idea where they may be coming from. If Dems can win this batch by a big enough margin, they may be able to turn this one around.

GA-07, Rob Woodall (R). 538 rating: Likely R. Republican Rob Woodall is ahead of Democrat Carolyn Bourdeax by ~420 (heh) votes, and I don’t think there are any ballots left to count. It is moving on to a recount. It’s unlikely that Bourdeax could end up winning after the recount is done, but it’s close enough that it deserves to be considered competitive.

NY-27, Chris Collins (R). 538 rating: Likely R. Not sure what to think here, actually. Seems like Collins should be safe, but there are enough uncounted provisionals that it’s not impossible for McMurray (D) to turn that around.

I guess that we’ll just have to see how these unfold to get a clearer idea of where these races stand. However, not counting state legislatures, once these races are done the election will finally be over.

Starting out.

With the 2018 midterms wrapping up (it will end any day now, I swear) and the 2020 campaign shifting gears (it will start any day now, I swear), I feel like it is imperative that quality reporting is issued about the trends of individual races and the likelihood of different outcomes.

Hi, I’m Alex and this is my blog.

I’m a 15 year-old kid from Spain who passionately follows American politics, and I think that, after closely following 2 election cycles, I have a good hunch of how an election is going to turn out by looking at the data. Of course, I’m not the only one who does this, but I think I can contribute to the overall conversation by bringing a new perspective to the table. If you enjoy the works of Nate Silver, Charlie Cook, Larry Sabato and others I think you’ll enjoy your stay here.

Here’s to a couple of years of (hopefully) good predictions!