Looking Beyond Polls to Understand This Election

The 2020 national election cycle has already proven highly complex, and it’s important to go beyond conventional analysis to understand how things might play out.

That’s the emphatic opinion of Jim Ellis, Senior Political Analyst for BIPAC, the Business-Industry Political Action Committee. BIPAC has been a valuable resource for American Bakers Association in helping to guide its decisions on political strategies over time.

Ellis said understanding the possible outcomes from this most unusual year — which has included a pandemic, recession, national protests, and now a Supreme Court seat battle —  requires a multi-level analysis.

“Particularly in 2020, we've seen so many polls out there,” he said on the ABA podcast, Bake to the Future. “And I laugh because if you want to see a particular outcome in a state, I can probably find you a poll that will tell you what you want to see right now. So you really have to get beyond the polling and look at voter behavior and voter trends and voter history.”

Ellis was interviewed on the podcast by ABA’s Lee Sanders, Senior Vice President of Government Relations and Public Affairs, and Kelly Knowles, Vice President of Political and State Affairs.

Five States That Really Matter

One of the biggest topics in any presidential election is which states will be most influential in the result.

“The major media outlets tend to point to Great Lakes-area states — because this was the area that made the difference last time,” Ellis said. Those states referred to this year include Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.

However, he added that five other states will likely be more important this time around than the Great Lakes states. Those are the southern tier states of Arizona, Texas, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina.

“President Trump has to win all of those,” he said. “And if Joe Biden cracks into any one of them — and Arizona appears to be the most precarious of those five for Trump right now — then Biden's probably going to win the election.”

Court Seat Represents Big Wild Card

The surprise vacancy of a Supreme Court Seat — and President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett — is a wild card "that has the potential to change the election,” depending on how campaigns leverage it, Ellis said.

A case in point is gun control. Republicans in certain competitive states have the opportunity to build momentum for their candidacies by raising the profile of the Second Amendment in the wake of this court nomination battle. This issue has great potential to drive voter turnout, he said.

Mail-In Ballots Bring New Complexities  

One of the biggest disruptors in this year’s election is the impact of mail-in ballots, which have gained in use during the pandemic. Ellis said some states were challenged during the primaries to handle the processing of these ballots in a timely manner. The mail-in ballot topic has led to concerns that the integrity of election results might be questioned.

Analyzing Presidential Election Scenarios

Ellis pointed to great uncertainty over how the presidential election process will play out and outlined a number of possible scenarios:

• President Trump could win on election night and then find that Joe Biden wins via mail voting — through ballots postmarked by election day that arrive later.
• If the presidential election outcome drags on indefinitely, then it’s possible that neither candidate wins enough electoral votes. That would place the outcome in the hands of the House of Representatives — that is, the version of the House elected in November.
• Putting the vote to the House might seem to favor a Democrat like Biden, but that’s not necessarily the case. This procedure would allow just one vote for each state, regardless of the size of its delegation.

What’s Ahead for the House and Senate

Looking at the Congressional elections, Ellis said Democrats “are in a good position to hold onto the House, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.”

What about the Senate? Ellis expects that body to swing in the same party direction as the Presidential race.

Meanwhile, don’t expect to relax from all the frenzy in 2021. That’s when the nation will have to deal with redistricting under the new census numbers, Ellis points out.  

Probably the best advice is to hold on tight and stay tuned.