As I was going to bed last night, I was trying to make peace with the likelihood that Donald Trump had won re-election as President of the United States. And then Fox News called Arizona for Biden. (They retracted it, but it looks like Biden has indeed flipped a key state that went for Trump in 2016.)
When I woke up this morning, there were some more signs that Biden may eke out a narrow victory. He won Minnesota, which Trump had high hopes of turning red, and leads in Nevada and - more importantly - Wisconsin. He’s still behind in Michigan and Pennsylvania, but the mail-in ballots yet to be counted should favor him. And in a very pleasant surprise, Georgia, which I had pretty much written off last night, remains very much in play.
There’s no silver lining without a dark cloud, of course. It looks like the GOP will hold on to the Senate, so the United States is in for four more years of gridlock no matter who is elected President. And Trump, true to form, is already declaring victory and saying the election is being stolen from him.
I think Biden is still favored. If he holds Arizona, Nevada and Wisconsin and takes Michigan, it’s over. But like everything else in this misbegotten year, we’re getting the worst possible scenario, at least short of a Trump landslide.
Keeping in mind that it’s hard to trust the polls after their 2020 belly-flop, this would go a long way toward explaining why Trump has kept it so close:
NBC reported on the Trump campaign’s outreach to Latino voters, which apparently saved Florida for them:
From the time President Donald Trump took office, he focused on the Latino vote in Florida, and according to figures coming out of the state, it paid off on Election Day, especially in Miami-Dade County, the most populous in the state.
Around 55 percent of Florida's Cuban-American vote went to Trump, according to NBC News exit polls, while 30 percent of Puerto Ricans and 48 percent of "other Latinos" backed Trump. Trump won the coveted battleground state with its 29 electoral votes.
Trump drastically improved his support in Miami-Dade County, going from 333,999 votes in 2016 to at least 529,16 votes this year. Biden, however, wasn’t able to grow Democratic support in the county. Clinton got 624,146 votes there in 2016 and with 95 percent of the vote tallied, Biden had 613,086.
[…]
Cuban Americans make up the largest share of Latino voters in Miami-Dade, and also have a strong turnout rate, at 58 percent, compared to other Latino groups.
Obama won the Cuban vote in 2012, but after the 2018 midterm, it was clear the tide had turned when Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a protégé of Trump, garnered 66 percent of the Cuban American vote.
But it wasn’t just Cuban Americans that helped tighten the gap in Miami-Dade County. Venezuelan Americans, although smaller in numbers, shifted toward Trump, and Nicaraguans and Colombians, two important voter blocs, also had increases in support for Trump.
“We knew about Cuban Americans because we were studying them so intensely,” said Florida International University professor Eduardo Gamarra. “But we also have a 5 to 10 percent swing among all South Americans, even smaller groups like Peruvians.”
“Trump showed up in Florida. He asked us what our issues are and he addressed them. He didn’t take us for granted,” said Bertica Cabrera Morris, a longtime Republican strategist and one of the 20 board members of Latinos for Trump.
There’s a lesson here about taking the Latino vote for granted and assuming all Hispanic-Americans have the same political views. And you can be sure the Democratic Party will not learn it.
This was entirely foreseeable. When faced with a situation where the outcome really matters, it pays to follow up on all aspects that can be covered and close all gaps, because last-minute problems are inevitable and taking proper care of everything that can be handled in advance helps to mitigate that.
It’s true for critical life situations such as medical issues or court action, and it’s doubly true for an election, where millions of people will suffer the consequences of a bad outcome.
If you want people to vote for you, you have to get your message to them, or your opponent will do it for you. This failure may yet cost Biden the presidency (let’s hope it doesn’t...).