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| Vice President Joe Biden (D-DE) |
The Problem: Most elections are called on election night-we're used to that giant checkmark next to the victor's name, and seeing concession/acceptance speeches from both sides. However, there are situations where it can take a day or several days to declare a winner. This happened in 2016, where Hillary Clinton didn't concede until the day after the election, or in 2018, when the Arizona & Florida Senate races were called several days after the election. The concern from both sides is that a presidential candidate would declare victory early, and then once all of the ballots were counted might be proven wrong, causing their supporters to allege election rigging, an increasingly common accusation.
How It Would Happen: The biggest issue here is not the closeness of the election, though if it is close it's unlikely we'll know the winner on Election Night. The larger issue is around absentee balloting. It appears that a disproportionate number of Biden supporters will cast their ballots by mail, while Trump supporters are more likely to vote in person. Many states, specifically Arizona, Michigan, & Pennsylvania, have historically been slower at counting ballots, and more mail-in ballots makes that process longer-this could result in neither candidate reaching 270 electoral votes on Election Night. Additionally, with seven key swing states only requiring a postmark by Election Day or the day before (Minnesota, North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, & Texas), but still allowing ballots received afterward (in some cases up to a week afterward), if the election comes down to one of these states & election night is close, it may take a week for us to even know how many ballots are actually being cast.
How Likely Is it?: This is probably going to happen, but not in the way you're thinking. While it is unlikely that (short of a blowout for either candidate) one party is going to hit 270 on election night, we'll have a strong idea of where this is headed. North Carolina & especially Florida are very good at counting ballots quickly. While technically neither candidate has to win one of these seats (Biden in particular), if one of the candidates is doing unusually well in one or both of these states, we will have a strong idea of where the election is headed. It's possible that these states are nailbiters or that they won't be good at predicting the direction of the country (Florida in 2008, for example, would have indicated a much closer race than actually happened), but they will be canaries in the coal mine for the losing side if they are underperforming expectations. It's worth noting that the Senate majority is more likely to cause a delay because of absentee balloting, as the margins there are slimmer and seven states (North Carolina, Georgia, Iowa, Texas, Minnesota, Alaska, & Kansas) also have more competitive Senate races that could turn on late absentee ballots, and if one of them is the decision for a Senate majority, would cause a delay.
The Problem: We saw this on Veep, and it's something that could happen. For some inexplicable reason, we have an even number of electoral college votes, and thus a 269-269 tie is possible. If that were to happen, the new Congress (not the current one) would get to decide the presidency (in the House) and the vice presidency (in the Senate). While it's not clear who would control the Senate, Trump would almost certainly win the House because each state gets one vote, and therefore a state like Wyoming (with only one House member) would count the same as a state like California (with 53 House members).
How It Would Happen: The most likely scenarios that would entail a tie vote are either Biden only picking up MI/WI/AZ (and keeping all the Hillary states) or Biden winning PA/MI/NE-2 (and keeping all of the Hillary states). In both these cases Biden is going to have to lose at least one state he's currently favored in, but if Trump picks up ground (but not too much ground), they aren't illogical.
How Likely Is it?: It's unlikely. Ties in presidential politics are unusual for a reason-they're very hard to pull off. Throwing out the fact that a close election would put enormous pressure on the 538 people selected to be the electors to change their ballot, it's unlikely, for example, that Pennsylvania or Nebraska-2 wouldn't go blue in the first scenario or that Biden couldn't take Arizona or Wisconsin in the second. As a result, I'd say this is something that could happen, but not something you should be concerned about as the likelihood is pretty low that it would actually translate into reality (maybe a 1-2% chance).
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| Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) |
The Problem: Maine currently decides its elections based on Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), and that could potentially translate into the presidential race. It remains to be seen whether or not this will actually occur (there is litigation over whether or not this will happen in the presidential race, though the Senate race is certain). Essentially with RCV, you have to achieve 50% of the vote in order to get the office or the electoral votes-if you don't, you would automatically go to a second ballot where the plurality winner might be different than the majority winner. This happened in 2018 for a US House seat, and may have happened in 2016 (neither Clinton nor Trump achieved 50% statewide in Maine).
How It Would Happen: There are three circumstances this could happen. The first, and most likely, would be that the Senate race goes to a second ballot. Susan Collins & Sara Gideon are both polling, generally, below 50% of the vote, and thus it's probable that neither hits 50%, particularly with voters aware of the RCV process from 2018. The presidential race could either go with statewide Biden wins but not at 50% (this happened for not only Clinton, but Al Gore in 2000), or the second congressional district (since Maine apportions its seats by congressional district) doesn't get to a 50% majority for either candidate (this happened in 2000 as well), and as a result heads to a second ballot.
How Likely Is it?: I would wager that a second ballot is likely to happen, but that it won't matter, certainly for the presidential race. Biden should be able to clear statewide relatively easily, even with RCV, and it's unlikely that his win is so close that Maine will matter. Conversely, it's more likely that Trump is able to slip below 50% (he won ME-2 by 10-points, but he did so with only 51% of the vote), but while that could reverse (third party voters seem to favor Biden), it's really doubtful that the white, rural Maine's 2nd district goes blue in any circumstance where it would matter in the math to get Biden to 270-more likely if he's a threat to win there, he's already at 320 or so. Collins/Gideon, however, could easily decide the majority, though it's unlikely right now that we'd have a repeat of 2018, where one party leads the plurality but loses the majority (I'd favor Gideon for both), and so it'll be less of an eyebrow-raise than it was in 2018, or in terms of the Senate majority math. However, it could lead to us not knowing who won the Senate until days after the election.
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| Jon Ossoff (D-GA) |
The Problem: Georgia also has a unique election law, but unlike RCV in Maine, it could require to separate elections. Georgia requires its senators to achieve 50% of the vote, either in November or in a January runoff (they don't require the presidential candidate to achieve 50%, and so Biden/Trump won't have to worry about this). If either the regularly-scheduled Georgia Senate race or the special election doesn't have a candidate hit 50%, they will advance to a runoff, and if that seat matters to the Senate majority math, could mean we won't know who controls the Senate until at least January 5th.
How It Would Happen: Essentially we know one of the seats will go to a runoff. While Sen. Kelly Loeffler has recovered well enough to ensure a spot in the runoff, it's not clear if Rep. Doug Collins (R), Rev. Raphael Warnock (D), or Matt Lieberman (D, son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman), will be in the second slot. Unless it's Collins, the partisan makeup of that seat will be unknown. Additionally, with a couple of minor third party candidates competing against Sen. David Perdue (D) and Jon Ossoff (D), that race could also go to a runoff. One or both of these seats would put the Senate majority (if it hadn't already been achieved elsewhere into question) in play.
How Likely Is it?: Here's the deal-the runoff feels certain, and while Warnock has run a terrible campaign, I feel like he will probably be the second against Loeffler. At this point, I also feel like an Ossoff/Perdue runoff is more-likely-than-not (both are polling in the low 40's, and while one could get a break, a runoff feels like a coin toss rather than an unlikely scenario). The Democrats' easiest math to a majority is NC/AZ/ME/CO pickups, lose AL, and elect Kamala Harris as VP-none of that includes Georgia, and that's what I'm currently predicting, so I don't think this will matter for the majority (right now). However, if the GOP held either ME or NC, then I do think we're in a scenario where Georgia matters a lot, particularly since the Loeffler seat is certain to be a runoff. It's impossible to see a Republican majority without Loeffler & Perdue, and so basically McConnell either needs Collins to advance, or else he'll risk a Senate majority being on the ballot if he still has a chance at one after November 3rd. One thing worth noting-while I would favor the Republicans in a runoff, the Senate majority being on the ballot would change that completely (more people would be aware of the special), and another factor in turnout would be if both races advance (Warnock certainly has to be hoping that Ossoff goes to a runoff in terms of having two GOTV operations, particularly considering he'll make his runoff by a slim margin if he does).
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