The Coming Election

 Only two more days now till the country reverses course and starts the healing process from the four-year disaster it embarked on in 2016.  

In the presidential race, Hillary won 232 electoral votes last time, so Biden needs to add 38 to reach the magic number of 270.  His leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania are all outside the margins of error, and these states will give him 46 votes, more than needed.  The closest of the three is Pennsylvania, where Biden leads by only six; hence, both candidates are concentrating mainly on this state in these final days of the campaign.

In addition to the three rust belt states just mentioned, Biden also has slim leads in five other states--Arizona, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, totaling 77 electoral votes.  Ohio is currently tied.

CNN's John King presents a plausible scenario that has the final result tied 259-259 without PA, and whoever wins PA then becomes the winner.  Hence the importance of PA, where legal teams on both sides are ready to pursue challenges in that state.

In the Senate races, eight races are close, with the rest splitting 49-43 for the Democrats.  I have to believe Susan Collins is toast in the Maine race.  Her masquerade as a moderate in a blue state has worked for her for 24 years, but it has fallen apart for her in 2020.  She has alienated liberals by her votes for Kavanaugh and on other matters on which she has either toed the Trump line (as with impeachment) or remained silent.  And of course her moderate approach on other issues has alienated conservatives.  Adding in this race gives the Dems 50 seats.

I also think David Perdue in Georgia is toast.  Jon Ossoff simply destroyed him in their last debate, so badly that Perdue canceled their last debate which was scheduled for today.  Ossoff called him a crook to his face for insider trading, and criticized him for doctoring a photo to make Ossoff look more Jewish, making fun of Kamal Harris's first name, minimizing the virus (even as he was making stock transactions based on his inside info that it was bad), and voting four times to do away with protection for pre-existing conditions.  Ossoff stayed on message and was quite focused, while Perdue flailed away, repeatedly using the phrase "radical socialist agenda" (I counted five times in the part of the debate I watched).  This puts the Dems to 51.

Even if the GOP wins all of the remaining six close races, the Dems will control the Senate, with a total of somewhere between 51 and 57 seats.