Take a look at these maps from 270ToWin.com that I gathered:
Except in 1988 and in 2016 Pennsylvania goes blue. Ohio is a tight race at the moment between Biden and Trump. And Florida has been a hanging chad for some time.
As of October 31, 2020 (12:38pm Central Time) Total Early Votes: 90,055,033 • In-Person Votes: 32,698,826 • Mail Ballots Returned: 57,356,207 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 33,674,445
It is Republicans to gain at this point. The Polls are showing Biden leading in WI, MI, and PA. Unless Michigan goes Red again, history tends to favor Biden in this election. Ohio is a strange state, but I believe it will fall in Trumps favor. This race will be determined by Pennsylvania. So without any more waiting here is my final unbiased guess on the matter (for what it is worth):
2020 Presidential Election Prediction(s)
Winner: Joe Biden.
OR
Winner: Tie (Goes to Supreme Court)
Update: I wanted to add that the Silent Majority is a real group and people feel threatened in casting their vote for Donald Trump. So this group stands as a real option for Trump to win the election in WI, MI, and PA. And I do think Nevada is in Trumps favor due to the fear of more lockdowns and impact on tourism for a state that lives off of it.
Russell Kirk (Left) Edmund Burke (Center) Roger Scruton (Right)
Legends, a description often given to myth like characters to impart a quintessential ethos concerning their respectability; Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk, and Roger Scruton are not myths but living souls who reserve legendary status in way of their writings and actions concerning conservatism.
Edmund Burke (1729-1797) can only be regarded as the Father of Modern Conservatism; an Irishman whose testimony against the French Revolution became the standard bulwark against sudden, revolutionary rather than evolutionary change. Prior to Burke there are philosophical and political thinkers since ancient times that conservatives consider as great minds of conservatism including Plato, Cicero, and Adam Smith. Yet Burke is reasonably the source by which a clear movement out of the Enlightenment sprung forth called conservatism. Controversially Burke showed favor, at least privately, toward the American Revolution because in his mind the Americans were seeking more than “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” that the French Revolution squandered through means of a gut wrenching bloodbath, godless laws, and uprooting centuries of tradition without any consideration of its effects. These Americans however still had respect for the laws and traditions of Great Britain while tout à fait différent due to distance and time in a far away land. Nevertheless, Burke taught us the necessity of respecting our institutions even when those institutions may require reform. Hardly blind to injustice, Burke grasped the nature of human needs and wants including our ugly side; a side often ignored when it comes to personal desires over the common good requirements to maintaining political stability, law, and order. With that in mind Burke reminds us of the need to move steadily when making great social changes, something the French failed to do.
Burke taught us the necessity of respecting our institutions even when those institutions may require reform.
Russell Kirk (1918-1994) was a man of class. Kirk grasped the good life by eventually placing it on the rock of the Christian faith and eternal moral truths. Described as a “Stoic Pagan,” he consumed Roman and Greek philosophy to the point of taking Stoicism as a central tenet of being. Ancient thinkers had spoken, Kirk was there to listen. However, Kirk slowly converted from quasi-protestantism and unchristian spiritualism toward a christian humanism and finally Catholicism after decades of studying, pondering, and a willingness to surrender his own presuppositions. St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas would eventually share his mind, heart, and soul as much as Irving Babbitt, Marcus Aurelius, or F.A. Hayek. Preposterous to some Kirk’s grasp of the real inheritance of conservative thought would shine brightest in his Magnum Opus, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Santayana (1953) (by its third edition Santayana was replaced with Eliot). A book that re-sparked an intelligent, compassionate, imaginative, and moral conservatism; a true conservatism beyond the left versus right politics that presently distorts modern hearts and corrupts modern minds found deep within modern cultures. Never afraid to espouse the vitality of ideas when properly rooted in principles and in God, Kirk was a man of mystery and awe fighting tooth and nail for what was seen by many as his quirks including a distrust of technology or that conservatism was not an ideology rather its anthesis. Kirk established that history, philosophy, literature, and religion hold greater deference than mere economics and dumbed down politics that modernity has wrought. We are to be a people of sacrifice, committed to a greater good, proclaimers of faith, and protectors of private property as laid out in his Ten Principles of Conservatism. Sir Roger once described Russell Kirk as “the last word or a court of appeal against which all the quarrels of his disciples would be finally settled.” A remark that grasps Kirk’s immense influence toward the imaginative, transcendent, and romantic mind that conservatism brings to the world.
Kirk established that history, philosophy, literature, and religion hold greater deference than mere economics and dumbed down politics that modernity has wrought.
Sir Roger Scruton (1944-2020) If Burke is the Father of Conservatism; Kirk the Father of Imaginative Conservatism; Sir Roger is the Father of Living Conservatism. Scrutonian conservatism, a philosophy as a way of being, never ignored reality as it confronted society with a higher culture in mind. Roger unabashedly grounded conservative thinking. Sir Roger realized that ignorance of the present will doom the future if conservatives remain only in the clouds. Sex, law, wine, politics, food, aesthetics, religion, music, nature… all hold value for upholders of tradition. These are not simply consumer products but a prescribed essence to the good life. Life described by Scruton requires Oikophilia, a devout love and duty to the family, locality, and nation by which you are a member, a rejection to misplaced multiculturalism but hardly a disrespect to all cultures. Cultures are to be respected in their context, learning beyond our own world but still holding dear to your tribe. Combined, life is a symphony by which we find its quintessential notes to taste, pluck, and appreciate at their highest existence while humbly submitting ourselves to the good, the beautiful, and the true. Scrutonianism equips by delicately grappling issues seemingly thought far and wide yet are practical in every way. Practicality is the centrality of a Living Conservatism, it not only demands a good head but one well planted on the ground. Sir Roger never let his readers forget it. He portrayed the sacred amongst the living while carrying it to its highest experiences such as music or art or the aesthetics of a Cathedral. An Anglican who loved his England and its Church, Roger lived what he professed as a farmer who believed in environmental protections, an active dissenter of Communism in Czechoslovakia, and a housing advisor for England. To profess yet never to live out what you profess is as the Disciple James warns in the Holy Scriptures, faith without works is dead (James 2:17). A capital reminder for all conservatives.
Sir Roger realized that ignorance of the present will doom the future if conservatives remain only in the clouds. Sex, law, wine, politics, food, aesthetics, religion, music, nature… all hold value for upholders of tradition.
Altogether the future holds bright for conservatism when linking together a respect for the past, the present, and the transcendent; a trifecta built on integrity versus a lesser sensibility. This is the conservative legacy for the 21st century.
Although more people voted than ever before, the actual voting rate in the 1976 Presidential election was lower than in any Presidential election since 1948. The ratio of official votes cast for President to the voting age population was 54 percent, down from 55 percent in 1972 and a high of 63 percent in 1960.
Below are the years 1960 to 2016 election percentages of VAP, REG, and Turnout (Chart 1):
By 2016 according to reported exit polls, the African-American group percentage was at 12% with 89% for Hillary Clinton (D) and 9% for Donald Trump (R). The White group percentage was at 70% with 37% for Hillary (D) and 57% for Trump (R). And additionally:
Compared internationally by members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) the United States has a low voter turnout rate at 26 out of the 32 member states; a phenomena that appears to be the new normal for the U.S. since 1972 at a consistent range of 50-58% of VAP except in 1996 when that percentage dipped below to 49%.
Reviewing the U.S. population today by 2019 Census data, Black/African-American’s population has reached 13.4% while a census dilemma concerning what constitutes white and whiteness continues. At present, hispanics can either file as hispanic or hispanic white along with groups of European, Middle Eastern, and North Africa descent. Yet, Arabic groups along with other decedents dispute the association. The “white alone” population increased to 76.3% yet “white alone, not latino or hispanic” is at 60.1%. Part of the problem relates to who is counted as white and specific groups that choose to call themselves white.
In the decade before 1948, black Americans identified as Democrats about as often as they did Republicans. In 1948, as Real Clear Politics’ Jay Cost wrote a few years ago, Democrat Harry Truman made an explicit appeal for new civil rights measures from Congress, including voter protections, a federal ban on lynching and bolstering existing civil rights laws. That year, the number of blacks identifying as Democrats increased.
The second big jump is the one that you likely thought of first: The Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its passage in July of that year was the culmination of a long political struggle that played out on Capitol Hill. When he signed the bill, President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said that Democrats would, as a result, lose the South for a generation. It’s been longer than that.
While it may be true that great gestures were made by the DNC, a party the prides itself on being the party of minorities, it would be untrue to say that the RNC has entirely ignored or lacked in its attempt to reach minorities including their support of The Civil Rights Act of 1964:
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the Senate on a 73-to-27 vote. The Democratic supermajority in the Senate split their vote 46 (69%) for and 21 (31%) against. The Republicans, on the other hand, split their vote 27 for (82%) and 6 against (18%). Thus, the no vote consisted of 78% Democrats. Further, the infamous 74-day filibuster was led by the Southern Democrats, who overwhelmingly voted against the act.
An examination of the House vote shows a similar pattern. The House voted 290 to 130 in favor. Democrats split their vote 152 (61%) to 96 (39%) while Republicans split theirs 138 (80%) to 34 (20%). The no vote consisted of 74% Democrats. Clearly, the 1964 Civil Rights Act could not have been passed without the leadership of Republicans such as Everett Dirksen and the votes of Republicans.
Like all matters of history can become the details are complicated. Same principle applies to U.S. voters. Steven Phelps from the American Center for Progress noted during the 2016 election: “The majority of whites have voted Republican in every election over the past 50 years, but a meaningful minority of whites support the Democratic nominee every election. The latter fact raises yet another question: Just how many—or how few—Democratic white voters are there? The answer has implications not just for 2044 but also for the outcome of the 2016 election. The historic evidence suggests that Democratic whites comprised 34 percent to 48 percent of all white voters—and that 34 percent number is a floor.” Phelps is correct, the Democratic vote remains reliant on white voters, but Hillary lost because of the electoral votes taken by Trump in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin whose populations are all overwhelmingly white but also under economic and social distress.
Equally important is the clear, distinct connection and even ownership African-Americans have with the Democratic Party, though clearly not entirely as there are black republican voters. What that may indicate and how it impacts Identity Politics at large between minority groups (not just racial but also women or LGBTQ) and older social identities (not just whites but the religious and more traditionally minded) could explain the growing political tensions seen in present American politics and the rise of mob mentality seen in all identity-based groups. While demographics have a role in their connection to each political party due to historical events, it is also geographical (See: Brookings Six Maps of Racial Diversity for example) and ideological (See: 5 facts about black Democrats for example). Ignoring those two factors are detrimental to the truth as well.
While this analysis is not exhaustive there are indicators suggesting that the GOP is shrinking, but it is also very likely the United States is moving politically left and/or a greater pendulum swing of attitudes in relation to the uneasiness of social, economic, and political shifts of the last twenty years that pushes ideological leanings further from one group or another. Studying the long-term moral and normative practices of citizens along with their beliefs concerning healthcare, jobs, immigration, and religion are all helpful indicators as to what the future holds for America and American political parties.
Truth In Focus 