The Three C’s of The 2020 Election: Counting, Counties and Coattails

Democrats in 2016 and Republicans in 2020 each accused the other of illegal activity to explain  losses by their presidential candidates. .Democrats maintained Hillary Clinton lost because of Russian interference. This charge was based on apparently solid information of collusion between Russia and  Trump  that was provided by former British intelligent agent   Christopher Steele. His “Dossier” was used by the FBI  to launch an investigation of the Trump presidency leading to the Mueller commission.That accusation has now fallen apart:  Steele’s key source has testified under oath that  the defamatory information  he passed to Steele was false.

Republicans claimed Trump lost because of voter fraud. People went to bed  Election night with Trump enjoying a comfortable lead. When they awoke, Biden had won. The terms “conspiracy theories” and “baseless”were coined by Democrats and the media to reject Republican claims of voter fraud.  Here are  just three of the reasons Republicans believe Trump won.

With Trump winning late on November 3^rd, counting was halted in major urban areas, and observers sent home. Video evidence showed counting then resumed.Thousands of mail-in ballots were counted which had no creases, indicating they had not been placed in an envelope, an integral part of the mail-in ballot process.If there was cheating by the Democrats, it was done skillfully and surgically. A post vote analysis of the election showed that of the 150 million votes cast, a shift of only 42, 000  in four battle ground states would have caused  an Electoral College tie, resulting in Trump’s election by the Republican-controlled House..

Micro level : There are nineteen bell weather counties in the US that for forty years (1976-2016) have had a 100% accuracy in predicting the winner of the presidential vote. . In 2020, Trump won eighteen of these counties by an average of fifteen points. Biden won  one, by 3 points.

Macro level: Trump won 80% of the counties in the United States. Biden did, of course,  win the large urban areas. So did Hillary Clinton. Her 1.9 million plurality in 2016 was due entirely to the cities of New York and Los Angeles. This may mean the Unites State is no longer “United.” We are now two countries, one urban, one rural.

When a presidential candidate garners a large number of votes, he almost always has “coattails” that bring more members of his party into Congress.  Not so with Biden in 2020.  The Democrats  lost so many seats Pelosi now has the smallest majority in about a century.  Republicans need to flip only five seats to gain control in 2022.

In closing, may I request Democrat readers to engage in a mental exercise.  Imagine Trump had won the election, while losing 80% of the counties, including those  predictive bell weather counties. Imagine as well  a Trump victory,  but Nancy Pelosi gains a larger  majority. Would you willingly accept that outcome, or would you embrace  a “conspiracy theory” that there was voter fraud?