As you may recall, after the 2016 election, Democrats and the activist left demanded the dismantling of the Electoral College system. Some of them even harassed electors, demanding that they not cast their votes for Trump.
Now that Biden is polling well in some swing states, that sentiment is suddenly changing.
Geoffrey Skelley writes at FiveThirtyEight:
New Polling Shows Trump’s Electoral College Advantage Is SlippingA new batch of polls released by The New York Times Upshot/Siena College this morning has caused a stir as they gave former Vice President Joe Biden leads ranging from 6 to 11 percentage points in six key battleground states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Yet these surveys largely reinforced what our polling averages already showed: Biden has a sizable edge over President Trump in the states that are most likely to be the tipping point in the Electoral College, and he leads or is running even with Trump in some states that leaned Republican in 2016. As a result, Trump’s much-ballyhooed Electoral College advantage doesn’t look strong enough to save him — for the moment, at least.The Times/Siena is one of the most highly-rated pollsters in FiveThirtyEight’s Pollster Ratings — one of six with an A+ mark — so these new surveys did adjust our averages a bit, most notably in Pennsylvania. There had been few high-quality polls conducted in the Keystone State, so our polling average did shift roughly 1.5 points in Biden’s favor because of the Times/Siena survey, which found Biden up by 10 points.
Leaving aside Biden’s obviously diminished mental capacity, he has promised policies which would destroy jobs in Pennsylvania’s energy industry, so I’m not sure why anyone there would support him.
At CNN, Chris Cillizza can barely contain his glee over the possible shift:
The electoral map just keeps getting worse for TrumpIt’s easy to get lost in the sea of national polls — all of which show former Vice President Joe Biden with high-single digit lead over President Donald Trump.But as we learned in 2016 (and 2000!), the only count that really matters is the Electoral College.Unfortunately for Trump, his chances of getting to the 270 electoral votes he needs to win a second term are looking, at least the moment, quite dim.Over the past week, two major political prognosticators — Amy Walter at the Cook Political Report and Nate Silver of 538 — have released updated looks at the electoral map. And the picture they paint for Trump is dire.”With just under five months until the election, President Trump is a severe underdog for re-election,” writes Walter, who puts 248 electoral votes solidly or leaning to Biden and 204 solidly or leaning to Trump.
Bloomberg News is also happily repeating this news. Gregory Korte writes:
Biden Now Leads in Six States Key to Trump’s 2016 VictoryJoe Biden leads Donald Trump in every one of six key battleground states, all but erasing the advantage with White voters that Trump used to put together a razor-thin victory four years ago.The New York Times/Siena College poll of swing states, together with national polls showing Biden with a double-digit lead, helps to draw an Electoral College map that will be increasingly difficult for Trump to win.Biden leads Trump by 10 percentage points in Pennsylvania and 11 in Michigan and Wisconsin, potentially reclaiming the three “blue wall” states that Trump broke through to beat Hillary Clinton in 2016.
It’s important to remember that if the Electoral College delivers a win to Trump in November, all of this current excitement will evaporate and the left will immediately resume calls for the system to be dissolved.
The message is clear. If the system elects Democrats, it’s fine. If it elects Trump, it is obviously flawed.
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