Now that Trump’s defeat and Biden’s win have all but practically sealed (See NYT for instant updates on the battleground states and analyses on why Biden is only inches away from becoming the president-elect), it’s time to look back at what change or changes have really happened prior and/or during this election.
The Magic Words: Mail Ballots
Trump was wrong (and stupid because it only shows how desperate he is now) to blame the fraud counting of ballots for his projected loss, but was right to encourage his base to vote in person. He was also smart enough (which does not require much intelligence, only intuition and instinct) to feel the threat of mail ballots to his bid for a second term.
Why?
Because mail versus in-person voting has become the watershed point for a Democratic versus a Republican victory this time. It is not exaggerating to say we have just witnessed one of the largest natural experiments in the world — with profound consequences — where the pandemic has provided the most legitimate (and, to a large extent, popular) reason to allow voters to send in their ballots by mail rather than waiting in long lines on the election day.
But why are mail ballots in favor of the Democrats? The reason is simple and pretty obvious — if we get our heads around it: Comparing with Trump’s base (mostly white males without college education and living outside big cities), many, if not most, Democratic voters have had a lower level of commitment (or loyalty) to their leaders or representatives. Lowering the threshold or making it easier for everyone to cast his or her ballot through mail therefore fits best to this lower level of commitment. “Mail ballots = Democracy made easy = Democrats win!”
Biden team clearly has seen it all along and has not been shy for leveraging it.
Who can blame them? After all, leveraging mail ballots happens to be in the interest of preventing the covid-19 from spreading. Biden can easily claim that he and his team deeply care about the welfare and safety of ordinary voters. It does not matter what their real motivation is behind pushing for mail ballots. What does matter is that the pandemic has lent them the perfect excuse for increasing votes in their favor! This has been proven in all battleground states (i.e., Georgia, Penn, Arizona), where the mail ballots all tend to help Biden more than Trump.
In other words, this is another perfect example of game resources! More specifically, the part of game resources that the agent does not own but can definitely use for his /her own gains.
No Need to Lose Professional Confidence of Polls
I cannot find the piece where a well known polling expert said, before the election day, that if this time proves that the polls were wrong again like in 2016, it would doom his profession. Not really or not necessarily! The polling industry just have to adapt to the new reality and add items to their surveys, like whether the respondent would likely to vote only in person. Another way is to weight each individual based on the party affiliation (Democrats weighing down and Republican weighing up for possibility of voting in person), location of living (big cities weighing down), education (college weighing down and no college weighing up), and race (Whites are more likely to vote than minorities in general, perhaps with the exception of blacks).
Time Is With the Democrats
In the long run, the trend is to make democracy easy and lower the cost of voting. In the future the technologies will do a better job identifying each individual voter and allow him/her to vote remotely rather than in person.
If you believe in fate or destiny, Trump’s destiny is one term presidency! The reason I say that is the pandemic has also done its trick against him. Mail ballots along may not suffice to get him out, but mail ballots + covid-19 have done it! Low income voters have more idle time now to fill out the long and confusing ballots at home and then drop them at the official places.
On the other hand, after this natural experiment, the Democrats are far more likely to persist on mail voting, given the advantages they perceived this time.
But the motive is bipartisan: Whatever makes democracy easy will (and should) win. This goes above and beyond which party gains from it in the short run.