Benefit a charity of your choice by handing in by midnight today your list of how screwed up my presidential election handicapping is. Check my final electoral vote, list the number of my mistakes and what states I got wrong. Send your entry in a comment to this post.
Once all the electoral votes are counted – who knows when? – I will donate $100 to a non-political charity of your choice to the person who identifies or comes closest to the number of states I got wrong.
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.
So your entry could look like this:
“4 incorrect: Ohio, Texas, Florida and Pennsylvania. What were you thinking?”
Or,
“4 incorrect: Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina and Nevada. Proud Boys coming for you.”
I won’t post the entries until Tuesday morning because I don’t want to give away any secret knowledge some of you may have. But I will share some of the comments I have received so far in emails and on different posts on Facebook.
Let’s start with Mark, who always was a troublemaker on and off the rugby pitch and learned his politics through “Mr. President”:
Hey John-
to give you something to do today,
you’ll wanna think about a hitch in your pick chart.
Maine & Nebraska – will very possibly be split electoral votes.
Maine has 4 in total, Nebraska has 5 in total.
Maine has 2 distinct electoral voting districts plus another 2 electoral votes based on total popular vote. Me2 is a tossup, but the other 3 electoral votes are likely Biden’s.
Nebraska has 3 distinct districts, each gets one electoral vote plus another 2 votes based on total popular vote. Ne2 will likely go to Biden, the other 4 to trump.
I think it fair for you to give the win to whoever picks and gets a majority of those two states’ electoral votes. (Ed. Note: Which is what we will do.)
Maybe not important to clarify that ahead of time.
(more comments below)
And from Chris:
John Boy – I appreciate the effort and thought that went into your analysis and tally. (Ed. Note: Effort and thought?) I am tempted to say it looks and then have horrifying flashbacks to the last election when I, like most everyone, was convinced that Hillary was a shoe in only to be gobsmacked by the outcome. With that in mind . . . I say Florida needs to come off your board as they seem deeply committed to screwing up every election and have some deeply incompetent republicans running the state and Texas goes into the maybe category. The voter suppression campaign that the republicans are running there is breathtaking in its scope and obvious intent. With an all republican state supreme court it will all be found to be legal . . . and thus my assessment. There will be a huge blue wave in Texas but it will likely crash on the rocks of the voter suppression. The republicans today filed suit to toss out over 120k ballots
that were cast in drive in voting as they think the counties went beyond the law to permit it. You see if you think the virus is a hoax then there is no need for drive through voting . . . you can just risk your life and do it in person!!!!
And Lee is still trying to convince me that Ohio can go to Biden:
As your classmate of 1966, (Ed. Note: Go, Tigers!), and lifelong adult resident of Franklin County, Ohio, COVID-19 will be what is at stake for the urban and suburban areas, even in the wealthy suburbs. In 2016, I saw tons of Trump signs in the wealthy suburbs. This year, yard signs for Trump are few and far between throughout Central Ohio. Yard signs alone are not strong enough evidence to predict a race. Hoping that the believers in science and the incredible losses so many Ohioans have and will endure, the better angels will prevail.
But Pam writes:
All I see in NW Ohio is Trump signs and flags EVERYWHERE!!!
😩
Speaking of signs. . . here’s one in my neighborhood:
