Texas is close. Trump won there by 8.99%. Several factors are in play there. One is an increase in Latino voters. It seems a matter of time before the state turns blue unless Republicans know how to appeal to Latinos. I rather like George Prescott Bush who is Texas Land Commissioner and active in trying to attract Latinos to the Republican Party. Ha, his mother was born in Mexico. He speaks Spanish fluently of course. Trump is making his job harder. . . .
What happens with the price of oil will probably also affect the outcome of the election in Texas. Trump was quick to announce the "deal" he got Russia and Saudi Arabia to agree to; but it was not that great of a deal. The cuts agreed to were enough only to stall things. People were still producing too much oil. Trump had to bribe Mexico into agreeing to cut its production by promising them a loan. Good luck trying to get that paid back if indeed Trump saw they got the loan. Mexico had already hit its highest debt ever -- over 50% of its GDP. Now the price of oil hit negative territory for a while. Producers had so much oil, they were briefly paying people to take it off their hands. I think it safe to predict bankruptcies in Texas. Trump says he's working on it to arrange loans. Some companies say they couldn't repay loans.
Trump calls for U.S. oil industry bailout as prices plunge
As revenue has plummeted and assets have declined in value, some companies are saying they may be unable to repay.
Whiting Petroleum Corp became the first major producer to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on April 1. Others, including Chesapeake Energy Corp, Denbury Resources Inc and Callon Petroleum Co, have hired debt advisers.
I guess his next step may be to ban importing any foreign oil.
That 2.6% advantage he has in Texas could melt away. If oil workers are laid off, it will affect other businesses. One poll in February had Biden ahead by 1%. Trump got a boost from another February poll which had him up 4%. It will be interesting to see later polls for Texas when RCP. posts them.
As the polls stand today, Biden is ahead in six swing states that Trump won in 2016. Trump is not ahead in any states that Hillary carried except in New Mexico where he's doing a paltry 0.22% better than in 2016. He's still behind there by 8%, so I don't expect him to win there even if he could shift it more.
My calculations are preliminary of course; but the tally in electoral votes shows Biden winning with 331 electoral votes to Trump's 200. Trump has logistical problems in some of those swing states that are leaning now to Biden.
Florida could go either way. Trump won there by 1.2% and Biden's current lead is 0.2%. It might depend on who can get voters to turn out better.
Trump won Wisconsin by 0.77%. Biden is ahead there by 2.7%. I think it looks grim for Trump in Wisconsin. Those 13,000 jobs he promised never happened. (Story here: Foxconn Promised 13,000 Jobs To Wisconsin. Where Are They?) His assurances to dairy farmers didn't pan out either with some smaller farmers going out of business. That happened before the coronavirus hit.
https://www.dairyherd.com/article/wisconsin-loses-818-dairies-2019-largest-decline-state-history
As of Jan. 1, 2020, Wisconsin had 7,292 licensed dairy farms. On Jan. 1, 2019, the number stood at 8,110. In the last decade, the state lost 5,637 dairy farms, a decrease of 44%. That also suggests the rate of dairy famer loss has more than doubled the last few years.
The number of Grade A dairies in Wisconsin is now 6,574; the number of Grade B dairies is 718 which includes 470 farms still shipping milk in cans.
Cow numbers have also declined slightly. In November of this year (the latest numbers available), the estimated number of dairy cows stood at 1,265,000, or 7,000 head less than a year ago. Cow numbers, however, had been fairly stable over the past decade. Ten years ago, Wisconsin reported cow numbers at 1,258,000.
In other words, Wisconsin farms have grown fewer but larger. Using these numbers, the average herd size in Wisconsin is about 170 cows per herd today. In 2009, it was roughly 100 cows per herd.
Total milk production has also soared some 20%. Numbers have not yet been totaled for 2019. In 2018, Wisconsin produced 30.6 billion pounds of milk. Ten years ago, the state produced just over 25 billion pounds of milk.
The shift has been greater in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Michigan. I'd say Ohio and Pennsylvania are hopeless for Trump. He won Ohio by a decent margin of 8.13% but Biden is ahead there now by 8%. That's a big shift that tells me sentiment's changed a lot. He won Pennsylvania by a whisker --0.72% -- with Biden ahead now by 3%. Arizona is grim where he won by 3.54% but is lagging behind Biden now by 4.4%.
Biden however is running a campaign that looks more inept to me than Hillary's in 2016. He was further ahead but has been slipping lately in several states, slipping here a little and there a little. Biden and Trump both look like Alzheimer's patients to me but Trump still has more energy. I'm beginning to think Biden may be on some medication we don't know about. Maybe he should get on Sudafed -- as some say Trump is. I also am beginning to doubt the competence of Biden's campaign staff. I realize it's hard to get publicity when Trump gets free television time almost every day; but I don't hear anything from the Biden camp that is worth making the news. On the contrary, when they do issue statements, we find out later some were wrong factually. Good grief! Some people do care about accuracy. Trump supporters may not care if he makes outrageous inaccurate statements; but I think many people do care and they'd like to vote for someone who doesn't make misleading or outright untrue statements. Biden should be campaigning as "the honest alternative" to Trump. He doesn't seem to know that. He also seems to lack imagination to be able to come up with new ideas to solve the current problems. He's stale.
In a way, the election may become a referendum on Trump. People who vote for Biden may be voting more against Trump than voting for Biden.
It's early. Things can change. One thing that could develop into an important factor is how Trump is encouraging protests now. He did that by calling for "revolution." (What is he now, a Communist or something?) He mentioned three states in his "revolution" comments -- and he's behind Biden in all three. Michigan 4.4% Minnesota 12% Virginia 7.3% There appears to be a few hidden forces behind these groups of protesters that are popping up. Trump may not know who's behind them.
In Pennsylvania, some of the protesters thought it a good idea to bring their guns to protest the stay-at-home orders. Story here: See what the Harrisburg protest over Pennsylvania stay-at-home order looked like.
Maybe the protesters don't care if they get infected. They didn't seem to care how close they got to other people. T Trump may be creating a problem for himself by encouraging such protests. Trump seems to be trying to undermine the authority of the governors. He may think it clever to annoy Democratic governors, but I think some Republican ones are also annoyed. Republican Governor Dewine of Ohio has my sympathy. He's trying his best to do what he thinks is right for Ohio while not getting into a public fight with Trump.
I'm not predicting a civil war; but things could get ugly if Trump keeps encouraging protests. It could also mean Biden wins in a landslide.
Wow very in-depth detail there, you sure know American politics.
Hmm it's not really the right time to be encouraging protests in my opinion.
I voted not sure. I really think anything could happen, even though Biden is really smashing it in the polls lately.
