Democracy Deferred: End of 2020 Election Prediction Thread

[Simple Torture]

Still waiting for ST's rationale before I post my guess. This is really hard--I have a good idea of how long the various logistical/legal challenges could take and what I think is most likely but "concession speech" could easily just *never* happen even under a peaceful transition of power. It's not hard to imagine Trump being like "you know they were very unfair to me" for the rest of his life.

So, really briefly, I picked November 20 to cover two different scenarios:

(a) Biden handily wins, but Trump hems and hollers about how unfair things are, but the states realize he has no legs to stand on, so they reject calls for recounts and other state-level challenges. Trump doesn't give a traditional concession speech, but he drops all challenges and starts to speak of his campaign in the past tense come 11/20. Maybe he holds one last rally to air his grievances on the last Friday before Thanksgiving.

(b) Trump wins a close election--if this happens, I don't think the race is called by anyone on election night. We probably won't even really know who won. But Trump claims victory, and Biden says he wants all the votes to be counted. By 11/19, it's clear Biden doesn't have the votes in the close states. He gives a traditional concession speech.

[Mickey]

Makes sense. If we're counting "dropping challenges" as implicit concession, I think we're looking at easily having an undecided race into December, but I'll come back with a solid date.

Also, insane that this is less than three months away now.

[Simple Torture]

I think it's also worth noting that we might not know the result until well after it's happened. For example: there could be all sort of challenges before the Electoral College votes, but once those votes are cast in December, that should put an end to things (if there hasn't been a concession yet). But there's a non-zero chance that Trump will try something after that, isn't there? Try to delay the counting of the votes? The 12th Amendment says that the "President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." That's Pence--could he not show up? Could some states refuse to send their ballots? Anything's on the table, baby (even if the likely result is just business as usual).

It's funny that Jorge chose Christmas. When I asked my wife what she thought, she said she didn't expect Trump to concede, but that if he lost, some day when there was no attention on him, he would leave the White House and refuse to serve the rest of his term--some day like Thanksgiving or Christmas. It could happen!

[BurtReynolds]

I don't think Trump would fight very hard unless it was really close. He'll just claim he was cheated (which might be true) and exploit it for his next venture. I don't think being prez is nearly as important to him as people seem to think. He's arguably more powerful as ex-president.

[Mickey]

I don't think Trump would fight very hard unless it was really close. He'll just claim he was cheated (which might be true) and exploit it for his next venture. I don't think being prez is nearly as important to him as people seem to think. He's arguably more powerful as ex-president.

Yes but that would require a rational, dispassionate, and calculated assessment of things. I don't think he enjoys being President but he definitely doesn't want to be a "loser" under any circumstances, and at a certain point, whether he wants to be President anymore or not doesn't matter so long as he's going around saying that he didn't lose, he won't concede, he was treated very unfairly, there was a conspiracy, etc. such that other parts of the Republican party are given cover to stall, delay the results, or otherwise undermine Biden's mandate the way they did with Obama. To a certain extent, the GOP ability to do that depends on it being close--if Biden takes Texas (which I don't think will happen) it's going to be hard to argue for a recount in Wisconsin or whatever--but Trump is going to deny that he lost till the day he dies, so it's a question of where those two things meet in the middle. Ironically, there will be more incentive to amplify Trump's claims and undermine Biden's victory if he does win in a landslide, so again, I think this is really hard to predict.

[blueviper]

November 12th

[Bi_3]

15.Nov.

My first through 5th choices are taken.

[Simple Torture]

Donny knows what's up:

[Mickey]

Relevant to this thread

[tree_]

November 7th. My birthday.

[96583UP]

November 3

As usual trump talks a lot of shit - but handily loses, and because there’s nearly no campaign money or personnel left and Biden calls him and basically says ‘I won’t investigate you if you just concede’ Trump will catch a glimpse of uninterrupted life on the golf course and flee following a very brief crybaby speech where he bashes obama and promotes his forthcoming podcast

[Simple Torture]

November 3

As usual trump talks a lot of shit - but handily loses, and because there’s nearly no campaign money or personnel left and Biden calls him and basically says ‘I won’t investigate you if you just concede’ Trump will catch a glimpse of uninterrupted life on the golf course and flee following a very brief crybaby speech where he bashes obama and promotes his forthcoming podcast

The absolute most boring guess. It'd be great if you were right!

[Mickey]

By far the most bold and daring selection yet.

[tragabigzanda]

FUCK ICE

[epilogue]

Can definitely get on board with Biden making that deal for concession. Where I get hung up is the idea that Biden is the clear winner and Trump handedly loses.

[BurtReynolds]

Its happening already guys!

[4/5]

Oh God.

[Green Habit]

I can pretty easily see a scenario in which Trump loses and yet never concedes. If I was a gambler, I'd bet on never hearing a Trump concession speech.

This, and as such I can't believe no one has claimed December 14, 2020, so I'm grabbing it right now. Trump continually whines as a sore loser on Twitter, but once the Electoral College actually votes on this day, we'll know who the next president will be.

[Simple Torture]

Glad I made a thread that broke 4/5.

[Norah]

I can pretty easily see a scenario in which Trump loses and yet never concedes. If I was a gambler, I'd bet on never hearing a Trump concession speech.

This, and as such I can't believe no one has claimed December 14, 2020, so I'm grabbing it right now. Trump continually whines as a sore loser on Twitter, but once the Electoral College actually votes on this day, we'll know who the next president will be.

I picked Dec 11th thinking we might hear from SCOTUS on the Friday before the EC vote.