This isn’t about Florida
Florida isn’t looking good for Joe Biden. He made gains in numerous counties and demographics across the state, but he got terrible numbers in Miami-Dade County. Here’s the thing, though: unlike a lot of recent presidential elections, 2020 was never about Florida.
How do we know this? Joe Biden wasn’t even in Florida during the final few days. He’s clearly looking to win this race by winning elsewhere.
There’s some reason to believe that the numbers in the suburbs in Florida could be a predictor of suburban gains for Biden in other swing States. We’ll see if that holds up, but thus far the super early numbers in places like Texas and Ohio look like they could be good for Biden (we’ll see).
Here’s how I’m looking at things tonight. Joe Biden’s core path to victory has always consisted of flipping Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, and keeping all the states that Clinton won in 2016. If that happens, it’s all he needs, and he wins. If Biden also flips any one out of Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Texas, North Carolina, or Arizona, that’ll be icing on the cake.
One thing I touched on earlier, which may be more relevant now: in the 2018 election, Democrats met or exceeded expectations just about everywhere, except Florida and Georgia. There was no correlation in 2018 between what happened in those two states and what happened in the rest of the nation. There is no reason to expect there to be one in 2020. So let’s keep a level head, stay in the game, and see where this goes. Biden is likely to win.
