The Six Vote Swing

No…it is not a new dance craze; set off by some viral video on YouTube.  It is the difference between 275 and 269.  It is also the possible conclusion to a Presidential Election that would somehow seem so appropriate in this bizarre year of 2020.  It is a prescription for perhaps the biggest convolution of American government in the history of our nation.  It is the Hawkeye Trail to a stalemate in the quest for the Presidency.  Just what can 6 votes do?

There are 538 electoral votes to be counted in the upcoming Presidential Election.  It appears that with the exception of perhaps half a dozen states, the verdict of who will be credited with the bulk of those electoral votes in this epic political contest is pretty well decided.  The tally from that handful of undecided states may very well determine who our next President will be. 

Those states are Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and….Iowa.  Some might include other states such as Minnesota, Georgia, and Florida in this list.  But the likely reality is that if Trump does not win Georgia and Florida, or Biden does not win Minnesota, then it is game over anyway.  These 6 states constitute the true battlegrounds upon which the presidential victor will be determined.  And one of these states could very well throw the entire process into utter chaos.

Each of our fifty states is granted a number of electoral votes based upon their combined total of U.S. Senators (two apiece for a total of 100) with their number of U.S. Representatives (allocated on population counts for a total of 435).  That gets us to 535.  We add 3 electoral votes allocated to the District of Columbia through the 23rd Amendment (ratified in 1961) and that gets us up to our overall total of 538.

In order to be elected President, a candidate must acquire at least 270 electoral votes.  If they hit that number on the head, their opponent will have 268.  A moment’s reflection on this fact reveals the possibility that each candidate could conceivably receive 269 electoral votes and the electoral count could result in a tie.  If there is a tie, a contingent election is conducted in the House of Representatives, whereby each state receives one vote apiece. 

Although it is expected that the electors representing each state in this contingency election would cast their votes based upon which candidate won the plurality of votes in their home state, there have been rare instances where there have been faithless electors who deviated from this norm.  In the case of a 2020 electoral count tie, the dynamic of faithless electors would no doubt receive much attention; but the end result would be the expectation that each group of electors would ultimately be true to their home state vote count. 

There are procedures in place in case the House fails to resolve the question and there is also the fact that the Senate will choose the Vice-President in a separate vote.  We will place those questions off to the side in order to focus on the main issue before us.  One quick note: The 2021 session of Congress will begin on January 3, 2021.  Therefore, the people making the decisions we are discussing here will not necessarily be those currently in office.  The candidates elected in November of 2020 will be ones making the call.  That opens up a whole new universe of possibilities; even one where we could have a President from one national party and a Vice-President from the opposite national party.  Think about that one for a moment.

This official electoral count for President will occur in the House on January 6, 2021 at 1:00 pm under the auspices of Vice-President Mike Pence.  The new President will assume his office on the following January 20.  The Bush vs. Gore winner was announced on December 12, 2000.  If an Electoral College tie occurred this year, one can only imagine the absolute madness that would ensue between Election Day of Tuesday, November 3, 2020 and the final count date of January 6, 2021.  What do you suppose the prospects are of such a tie becoming a reality?

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OK…Let’s play.  Biden will win 233 electoral votes from 20 states and the D of C as follows: CT, NJ, IL, ME, WA, OR, CA, NV, NM, CO, MN, NY, VA, MA, RI, DE, MD, HI, NH, VT, and D of C.  Trump will win 227 electoral votes from 24 states as follows: ID, MT, WY, VT, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK, TX, MO, AR, LA, IN, OH, KY, WV, TN, MS, AL, GA, FL, AK and SC.  That leaves 6 states (electoral votes in parentheses) to settle this election as follows: AZ (11), MI (16), PA (20), NC (15), WI (10) and IA (6). 

The election now hinges on the outcome from 6 undecided states.  Let’s give Biden WI and PA for a total number of 30 more votes.  He is now up to 263.  Let’s give Trump AZ, MI, and NC for a total number of 42 more votes.  He is now up to 269.  Neither candidate has reached the 270 required to win.

Where is the missing piece?  Iowa is sitting there with 6 electoral votes.  If Iowa breaks for Trump, the election is over and Trump wins with 275.  If Iowa breaks for Biden, then each candidate is sitting at 269 and all hell breaks loose.  That, my friends, is the six vote swing. 

Now we can quibble over the initial allocation of 44 states; but the reality is that each candidate pretty much needs to win those states in order to get to the 270 mark and the projection of those states to those candidates is certainly within reason.  When we look a bit closer at the 6 wild card states, you could see Trump maybe adding PA and winning pretty comfortably with 295 votes…or…You could also see Biden also taking MI and NC and winning large with 294.  Hey, all things are possible.  Who knows?

It is interesting to note that in the case of the 269/269 tie, the number-of-states-won tally leading to that conclusion would show Trump with a majority of 27 states.  That fact would be significant when the contingent election convened and each state was awarded one vote apiece.  This could open the door to the aforementioned scenario where Donald Trump is elected President in the House and Kamala Harris is elected Vice-President by a Senate with a newly-determined Democrat majority.  And you thought 2020 was as strange as it gets?

There has likely never been a national election in America with more uncertainty surrounding it than the one approaching us later this year.  That uncertainty is beginning to clear up as the clock ticks down to November 3.  Look at the numbers for yourself, consider all the possibilities that exist, and then wonder with me how anyone in their right mind could speak with any degree of confidence about how this election will turn out.  Buckle up; it is going to be one wild ride.