2020 Presidential Prediciton Part I

When I look at the presidential elections, I always look at it more of a chance to see how far off I am from the opinion of the nation. I have been paying attention to elections since I was 8 years old. I remember watching the debates between Bush and Dukakis and feeling like I understood that the nation had high expectations for George HW. Four years later I remember feeling a ground swell for Perot, but also a heavy backlash for the then President Bush as we heard over and over his “no new taxes” quote that went unfulfilled. I remember feeling that Dole represented an angry group of people and didn’t have any true support behind him and I was unphased when Clinton got his second term.

The year 2000 was a strange year. It was the first year I paid attention to the primaries. Seemed like it was McCain’s year to win it all, but he didn’t get the nom. After that I felt it would be Bush that took office, but I also felt like the two options were so similar that either choice would be unsurprising. Four years later I could see the general unhappiness with the wars we were entering, the expansion of the government and the intrusive new bills, but with the shadow of 9/11 still looming over the surge to replace Bush was weak. The Democrats choice of John Kerry was the least likely candidate to force Bush out and no big surprise he didn’t. I actually thought that John Edwards seemed like the perfect candidate to unseat a fun-loving George Bush and Wesley Clark could have been the VP nominee to bring the military expertise to the ticket.

I remember having a conversation in 2005 about the next election and I felt at the time the choices were either Rudy Giuliani, Hilary Clinton, or Barrack Obama who I had taken notice of during his Senate acceptance speech in 2004. Once Giuliani did nothing in the primaries, I was not surprised to see Barrack take the white house. In 2012 the enthusiasm for Obama had faded some and many disliked much of the healthcare repercussions, but there was no Republican that could be a contender. Mitt Romney again had no real support other than he wasn’t Obama and only appealed to a specific group.

In 2016 I was out on a ledge feeling that Trump was the obvious winner. I felt Jeb was the man who the media wanted on the right, but no one was going to support another Bush V. Clinton race and Cruz wasn’t likeable enough to face Hilary. I actually felt Trump was going to be a landslide victor due to the general feeling that Hilary was more being crowned because she was owed it rather than inspiring people like Bernie had in the primaries. A Trump V. Sanders race I would have had no idea who would come out on top of that one. On that night in 2016 I was not surprised to see Trump win, but I was surprised to see him lose so many states and it made me wonder if I was losing touch with the sentiment of the country.

Now it is time to see if I understand the will of the people again. My initial thoughts are that the far right sees Trump as a savior, the far left sees him as a demon and those in the middle see him as a man that is constantly berated by the media. I feel that most people think he has done a decent job that has had little effect on their daily life, they won’t blame him for Covid I think the average person sees that as a global issue, and all the talk of Russia, spying, impeachment… are all going to somewhat backfire as reasons to hate the man.

As I have somewhat come to realize, the election is won and lost in the primaries. And as much as about half the country doesn’t want to hear this, I think the Democrats lost in the primaries. Although many would hope we would have had Sanders finally get to the big show, but I think his support from the middle of the road public would have dwindled into nothingness. I feel the only person who stood any chance against Trump was the only one who didn’t try and completely demonize the president, Tulsi Gabbard. Rather than trying to embrace the farther left that supported Obama I believe the way to victory was through wrangling everyone back towards the center.

So, if you can’t tell, I think it is Trump again. And I think he wins by a larger margin than before. I see him with 335 electoral votes and 51% of the popular vote overtaking Biden’s 203 electoral votes and 46% of the popular vote. I understand many people will disagree with me and I may be proven seriously wrong, but this is how I think the populace is feeling this year.