My final answer. Get your charity in line for my donation

Here’s my final handicapping of the 2020 presidential election. Remember my offer: I will donate $100 to a non-political charity of your choice if you come closest to identifying what I got wrong.

Here are the 50 states and the District of Columbia and their electoral votes that I expect to go to either President Donald Trump or to former Vice President Joe Biden. Take a look at them and tell me what I got wrong. List my mistakes and tally how many I had incorrectly.

You have to respond in a comment to this post before midnight (PST), Monday, Nov. 2. That is, before election day starts here in Seattle.

When the electoral votes are all counted, we will determine who has correctly — or is closest — to the number of entries I got wrong. That person can name a non-political charity, and I will send it $100.

If I am perfect,  and you were all wrong, I will send $100 to Seattle Compassion Services, a group formed by Seattle Seawolves rugby player Eric Duechle to help people who are homeless in Seattle find a place to live.

Let’s talk about this: “When the electoral votes are all counted.”

That could be some time in the future – after a civil war some people are predicting, after the Supreme Court has its way with the election results or if the Congress gets in the way. The winner of this election will not be formally known until Jan. 3, 2021, according to the Pew Study linked above – and here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/22/election-night-marks-the-end-of-one-phase-of-campaign-2020-and-the-start-of-another/ (Thanks to Drew DeSilver, a Seattle Times alum, for a clear explanation of the U.S. presidential election process.)

We may have to wait until then to send the money to the chosen charity, but I hope not. And no matter what war, the courts or the Congress do on this election, the winner here will be based on the assigned electoral votes to each state. So your answer could be:

“4 incorrect: Ohio, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. What were you thinking? Dated, July 15, 2025.”

Or,

“4 incorrect: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada. You’re under arrest. Jan. 4, 2021.”

Find my mistakes, win $$$ for your charity

By noon Friday, Oct. 30, 2020, I will post my final handicapping of the 2020 presidential election. And then it is your turn to see what I got wrong and win some money for your non-political charity.

I will assign 50 states and the District of Columbia and their electoral votes to either President Donald Trump or to former Vice President Joe Biden. Take a look at them and tell me what I got wrong. List my mistakes and tally how many I had incorrectly.

You have to respond in a comment to my Friday final post before midnight (PST), Monday, Nov. 2. That is, before election day starts here in Seattle — although those on the East Coast will be three hours into election day.

When the electoral votes are all counted, we will determine who has correctly — or is closest — to the number of entries I got wrong. That person can name a non-political charity, and I will send it $100.

If I am perfect,  and you were all wrong, I will send $100 to Seattle Compassion Services, a group formed by Seattle Seawolves rugby player Eric Duechle to help people who are homeless in Seattle find a place to live.

Taking into consideration what people have told me in the past day, this is the latest tally — Texas back to Trump, Ohio goes to Biden.

Are my readers all socialist? Biden 362, Trump 156, Maybe 20

One rule in betting horses that I have tried to follow is “Never change your mind at the window.” Don’t overthrow all the handicapping you have put into this race by listening to those in line around you or succumbing to your own inner doubts.

More times than I can count, I have lost a bet because of changing my mind at the window right before laying down my money. Only one time can I remember when it worked out OK. That was in the 1960s at Beulah Park, which closed in 2014. It was my first visit to a Thoroughbred track (after a youth brought up on Standardbred horses and sulky racing), and the guy behind me said he was betting the 5-4 Quinella. I had never heard of a Quinella, but I said “5-4 Quinella” to the teller and won 50 bucks.

And that was the last time that ever worked.

But right now I am listening to those commenting on my handicapping efforts:

Mark says, “I thought Pennsylvania was still up for grabs.” It is, and it goes into the “Maybe” stack.

David says, “Ok, I’ll take Florida and NC as Biden. And Michigan and Wisconsin.” That’s a lot of electoral votes for Biden, which would give him the win unless there is an October surprise that people can actually believe. As George T. Conway III said in an article this week in the Washington Post, who could believe that “Hunter Biden flew from his home in Los Angeles to Philadelphia, and then took a train to Delaware, because he needed a legally blind repairman there to fix his laptop.” Gotta do better, Rudy.

Charley says, “When people vote without the ability to do critical thinking, it is impossible to guess how they would vote. That said, what the hell – Florida votes for Biden. viola – Biden is President.”

Laura says, “I’m not so sure about *gasp* Texas. According to NPR, Texas: Trump 47.6%- Biden 47.5% (Trump +0.1)
https://www.npr.org/…/5-things-to-watch-in-the-final…” So Texas moves to Biden, even though Laura is actually doing research and journalism, which has not shown itself previously in my handicapping the presidential race.

Here’s the result:

Obviously, I have been hanging around with left-wing, socialist Democrats, many of whom live in an anarchist jurisdiction. I have a feeling that my final WAG will not look quite as rosy for Biden.

Win money for your charity

My final handicapping will be posted by noon (PDT) on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. I will assign 50 states and the District of Columbia and their electoral votes to either President Donald Trump or to former Vice President Joe Biden. Take a look at them and tell me what I got wrong. List my mistakes and tally how many I had incorrectly.

You have to respond in a comment to my Friday final post before midnight (PST – Daily light Savings Time ends at 2 a.m. Sunday), Monday, Nov. 2 — that is, before election day starts.

When the electoral votes are all counted, we will determine who has correctly — or is closest — to the number of entries I got wrong. That person can name a non-political charity, and I will send it $100.

If I am perfect,  and you were all wrong, I will send $100 to Seattle Compassion Services, a group formed by Seattle Seawolves rugby player Eric Duechle to help people who are homeless in Seattle find a place to live.

“Do not compute the totality of your poultry population until all the manifestations of incubation have been entirely completed.”

William Jennings Bryan

Handicap my handicapping and win $$$ — for your charity

At noon (PDT) on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020, I will post my final handicapping on the 2020 presidential election. I will assign 50 states and the District of Columbia and their electoral votes to either President Donald Trump or to former Vice President Joe Biden. You take a look at them and tell me what I got wrong. List my mistakes and tally how many I got wrong.

You have to respond in a comment to my Friday final post before midnight, Monday, Nov. 2 — that is, before election day starts.

When the electoral votes are all counted, we will determine who has correctly — or is closest — to the number of entries I got wrong. That person can name a non-political charity and I will send it $100.

Eric Duechle

If I am perfect (Ha!) and you were all wrong, I will send $100 to Seattle Compassion Services, a group formed by Seattle Seawolves rugby player Eric Duechle to help people who are homeless in Seattle find a place to live.

But before you look at my electoral WAG, please do this: VOTE!

Here’s where I am now in considering the election results:

What was I thinking last night: 308 to 221 Biden

To quote Charlie Rich, “I woke up this morning and realized what I had done.”

Hoping that “my world is not slipping away from me,” I talked to Fred and Kathy, who said I had it all wrong. I was counting words and not listening to what they said. And as Maureen pointed out, Kristen Welker did not have the mic kill button. That was manned by the Debate Commission in a control booth where they must have been conducting a sleep experiment.

Here’s how the morning after crew would arrange the coming votes:

“That was my first exposure to politics, but in a way it wasn’t even politics. An election is a sports event, and I think I really saw it as a ball game then.”

Jerry Rubin, quoted in J. Anthony Lukas’ article in Esquire Nov. 1, 1969: “The Making of a Yippie.”

Debate moderator puts tRump up, 299 to 240

NBC’s Kristen Welker didn’t do much to shut up Dr. Quack tRump in the third and final debate before election day on Nov. 3. Did she have a mic kill button? Did she ever use it? I thought she let tRump ramble on and always gave him the last word on every exchange.

While I don’t think you win debates by saying the most words, there are those who do. And they saw tRump winning the debate. He might have told one lie after another, but there wasn’t anyone there to say they were lies. Except Biden, and he didn’t do that enough.

So Stable Genius rattles off a bunch of numbers, repeats his favorite insults and makes sure he overrides the moderator to put the finishing touches on the end of his rant. Or so I say. The most-words-win person would say he overpowered his opponent and the moderator with words that flowed from his mouth and never gave them a chance.

I moved all the “maybe” votes to tRump, gave Missouri over to the red pile and put South Carolina in that stack as well. I may have moved S.C. earlier. Next I’ll move to Canada.

Biden’s SCOTUS picks: Anita Hill, Merrick Garland

Handicapping the 2020 presidential election based on states and their electoral voters could be like betting on a horse race where the starting gates open and there’s no one there. Or, at least not the runners you had expected. With that kind of a race, the stewards would probably take things into their hands and decide the race themselves. For the presidential race, that could end up looking like this:

That would piss off some of the bettors in the stands – wait, there’s no one in the stands thanks to coronavirus. But to those of us peeking through the fences, it looks as though those wearing the black silks would give the race to a dark horse, like they did in 2000.

Or, Biden might win by a landslide, tRump could slink out the back door of the White House and the winner might think about changing some numbers – like nine on the Supreme Court and 50 states in the United States.

I have become used to nine on the court and the nice even number of 50 states and would hate to see them changed. But it could go a long ways to upsetting the “minority-rules” tactics of Moscow Mitch von Hindenburg McConnell. Right now the Grand Old Peckers represent 153 million of the United States population in the Senate while the “minority” represents 168 million. With Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the Supreme Court next week, three of the justices will have been nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by three million votes. W. Bush lost the popular vote in 2000 but did not nominate his justices (Roberts and Alito) until after John Kerry was Swiftboated in 2004 and Bush won by more than three million votes.

So should Biden pack the court? Put two more chairs on the left side of the bench? Nope, and I don’t see any reason of him to say whether he will or won’t before the election. Run his own campaign and not let the opposition call the shots.

My plan would be for Biden to name his potential Supreme Court replacements before Nov. 3. First on the list: Anita Hill. Biden owes her one. Clarence Thomas and Bret Kavanaugh would flee, and Biden could send in his next sub: Merrick Garland.

When 82-year-old Stephen Breyer retires, Biden would have to supply his own list of replacements, because I have exhausted mine.

So then the handicapping for Kamala Harris in 2024 would look like this:

About 50 states. I like 50. But if you can make Hawaii, a set of islands 2,500 miles from the West Coast, a state, why not Puerto Rico, only 1,800 miles from Florida? And the 700,000 people living in Washington, D.C., ought to get the same representation of the almost 600,000 living in Wyoming. Puerto Rico and D.C. going Democratic? That would be a problem for Mitchie and his gang. So sad.

“Mr. President” game might be better than my handicapping

You never know what might show up when you put something on your blog. For instance, I got a nice note from Mark, a rugby-playing teammate about a game he used to play called “Mr. President.” He’s younger than I (we are both past our prime playing days). But his teens were in the 1970s, and he became quite familiar with games of that era as you can see from what he wrote:

“Made me think of a game I used to play in my teens in the 70’s.

It’s called “Mr. President.” It’s a 3M Bookshelf game.

Using cards to campaign around the states, the two candidates blind balloted them into state slot boxes. Once the campaign ended, the boxes were opened, ballots counted and winner declared.

I no longer own a copy of the game, but I sure learned a bit about the chore a presidential campaign entailed.”

That might be a better way of figuring out who is going to win the 2020 presidential race than my guessing, I mean, handicapping, that I am doing in this blog. Although the game seems somewhat complicated.

The only 3M games that I know is “Facts in Five,” but Mark is a more enthusiastic gamer than I am.

“I was a big-time gamer in me youth. Me & my two brothers and about five neighbor kids would play games over and over, and if they ever got boring because we figured them out, we’d play them oppositely: we’d play them to LOSE. The biggest loser was the winner. 

Playing a game opposite, to lose, does not always work, but it is a fun exercise and keeps your brain on its toes.

There is a published game called “AntiMonopoly,” though I have not played it.

Monopoly was a favorite. We’d link two boards at one of the corners, usually Free Parking, and play a double game in a figure 8. One neighbor had a machine shop and we would create our game pieces on their metal lathe and hand-paint faces on them. Hardcore.

Two neighbors and I got into Avalon-Hill war games. There’s a whole family of them — huge thick cardboard game boards with cardboard armies and armored square pieces (and navy and aircraft pieces, too). These match-ups took 16 or more hours to play the full game. Tricky rules. You make battles with adjacent stacked up units and use a dice or two to figure out the attrition.

I own a few of these still. I assume I’ll never play them again as they take so long to play, and I only have one or two pals who would ever invest the time.

Anyhow, those 3M bookshelf games were different and fun. “Stocks and Bonds” got heavy play. Also “Acquire,” which was about hotel chains. “Quinto” and “Facts in Five” were played, too.

Here’s the full lineup and the history of the 3M line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3M_bookshelf_game_series

You would enjoy Mr. President. Maybe I’ll search it out and pick it up for “someday” playing.

Truth is, Mr. P and “Stocks and Bonds” would both lend themselves to an online version pretty easily, I think.

There is a vibrant sub-culture in Seattle and most cities of board-game playing that picked up in the last decade or so. Germany is the source of hundreds of new board games, a magnet for designers.

New top games like Settlers of Cattan and Ticket to Ride are doing well, and I have gone through the fad of “Ticket to Ride” with at least a dozen friends and family. TTR lends itself to an online version, which you can purchase for very cheap via the platform Steam. I recommend TTR –there are over a dozen versions with slight rules twists and geography settings beyond the basic USA game.

War games thrived in the 70’s & 80’s, Avalon-Hill even had a club where they would mail you monthly a new game: on a paper board of a historic battlefield with the true-to-life assemblage of army and armored division cardboard units.”

Mark says it’s OK to give out his email, although “the most I can offer is to talk about games, not really looking for play “dates” as I know where to go to find players.”

mark_my_words_again@yahoo.com

Thanks, Mark, for a look inside the gaming world. Now back to deciding if South Carolina really belongs in Biden’s camp.

What if tRump won California? Steady Joe can’t win

October 17, 2020 update: Responding to comments on California going to tRump:

“Not gonna happen!! Biden all the way!”

Moving California back to Steady Joe.

Also this comment:

“Please get your mind right on Arizona. Demographics push it big and blue. I take a $2 punt on it…”

Moving Arizona to Biden, which would give him 279 electoral votes, enough to win even if tRump got all my “maybe” votes:

What if tRump won California? I got an email from someone in that state giving his reasons for why he is voting for tRump. He’s convinced and can’t be dissuaded. Are there enough like him to give California’s 55 electoral votes to the Republicans? This despite it being Kamala Harris’ home state?

Best thing in handicapping is to take all pieces of information into consideration. To not do so would be like thinking you know all about Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania without visiting them. That could turn out badly.

I can never understand why pundits say “he can’t win without” California, Florida, Texas or some other individual state as if all other states are going to line up as expected. That seems as crazy to me as what I am doing here.

However, Steady Joe can’t win without California. If all states did as I have predicted – Ha! – tRump would be over the top with 290 electoral votes, 20 past the 270 needed to win. Even if Biden got all the states I have left under “Maybe,” he would lose 290 to 249.