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What the Early 2020 Forecasts Tell Us

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FiveThirtyEight: “There are two main components to handicapping a presidential election: (i) predicting what the national popular vote will be (in other words, the political environment) and (ii) predicting how states will deviate from that baseline.”

“It’s hard for anyone to make confident forecasts about the former this early… But the second type of forecast — predicting the relative partisanship of the states — can be made with a reasonable amount of confidence, even this far out from the election. Many states are consistent in their relative partisanship from presidential election to presidential election… And the states that are less consistent — think Hawaii, which was 11 points more Democratic-leaning than the nation as a whole in 2004 but 39 points bluer in 2012 — tend to be firmly entrenched in one party’s camp, so they are safe to handicap for a different reason.”

“The problem is that this second type of prediction may be easier, but it’s also less valuable.”

Use the interactive Electoral Vote Map to test your own assumptions.

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About Political Wire

goddard-bw-snapshotTaegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites. He also runs Political Job Hunt, Electoral Vote Map and the Political Dictionary.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

Goddard is the owner of Goddard Media LLC.

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