by N. Peter Kramer
A surge of unexpected votes for Donald Trump has confounded the forecasters, again! Whether it’s enough to carry him to victory in the Electoral College, as it did in 2016, was still uncertain at this publication Wednesday 2pm. But by making the 2020 race close, and perhaps taking it into overtime, Trump has pulled off a second huge political surprise. At least some pollsters might be looking for a new line of work.
The analysts called Florida for President Trump as he outperformed his numbers from 2016. Georgia and North Carolina were trending Republican, but Arizona seemed to have flipped to Democrats. The revenge of the John McCain Republicans? Decisive states in the Upper Midwest, including Wisconsin and Michigan, are -at the moment – too close to call. Pennsylvania, as expected, is an electoral mess. Some counties didn’t even start to count votes.
Either candidate had still a path to win by our deadline. But is it already clear that the biggest losers are he pollsters. The mainstream media had Biden winning in a walk with a popular vote margin with double digits. They were off in particular in Florida. Another surprise was President Trump’s apparently strong performance among minorities especially among Hispanic-Americans, especially with these voters in Florida.
The tight race reminds us that democracy can be surprising!
