Respected Prediction Model Shows Donald Trump Will Lose Reelection In 2020
According to a respected prediction model, Donald Trump is poised to lose the election in 2020. According to The Hill, the model that accurately predicted the Democratic wins in the House during the 2018 primaries now shows the president losing the Electoral College 278-197.
Rachel Bitecofer, the assistant director of the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University, created a “Negative Partisanship” model that predicts whether or not the current president will re-take his office. According to the projections, things aren’t looking good for Trump.
“The complacent electorate of 2016, who were convinced Trump would never be president, has been replaced with the terrified electorate of 2020, who are convinced he’s the Terminator and can’t be stopped,” she explained. “Under my model, that distinction is not only important, it is everything.”
Bitecofer specifically called out Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin as key states where he would lose ground in his 2020 bid. On top of that, she also said that his low approval among independents will hurt him.
Bitecofer’s model gained wide respect after it was used to predict that Democrats would pick up 42 seats in the House in 2018. Democrats eventually took 40. Many other predictions were further off the mark.
Critics point out that her model doesn’t factor in the impact of the Democratic challenger, who hasn’t been selected, yet. She says that it isn’t vital who the nominee ends up being because what matters is the role that fear and unification will play in the election.
Trump predicted to lose reelection in model that forecast Dem takeover of House https://t.co/mOUY8LzOb2 pic.twitter.com/ma7p6ceQry
— The Hill (@thehill) July 1, 2019
“[T]he Democrats are not complacent like they were in 2016 and I doubt there is any amount of polling or favorable forecasts that will make them so. That fear will play a crucial role in their 2020 victory,” she wrote. “We will not see a divided Democratic Party in 2020.”
She added that the Democratic nominee does have an impact, particularly if that person is a woman or a person of color, so the party may see an increase in turnout. She also said that if Biden ends up being the party’s nominee, he should put a focus on energizing voters to turn up at to cast their votes, a move that Hillary Clinton failed to make in the 2016 election.
Recent polls have shown Trump behind several of his Democratic opponents, and particularly Joe Biden. Some polls show Biden winning by a “landslide,” with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders not far behind. Trump’s own internal polling has indicated that the president might lose re-election.
