Red mirage: no, Donald Trump is NOT ahead in Wisconsin, Michigan or Pennsylvania
Here’s how the race is shaping up: Joe Biden has to win Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, and keep all the 2016 states. If he picks up Arizona, which the numbers suggest is likely, that’ll give him a cushion.
Here’s the thing. We were all repeatedly warned that the initial vote counts in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania would be gibberish, because they would consist mainly of same-day voting, and that the early votes and mail-in votes wouldn’t start being properly counted until later. The experts even gave this phenomenon a name: the “red mirage.” Now we’re seeing it in action.
So if you’re looking at vote totals that show Trump way ahead in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, those numbers are essentially imaginary. This isn’t my opinion; it’s a statement of fact. If you really want to try to parse how those states are going, you can dig into the county level and district level numbers and try to extrapolate, like Kornacki does, but that requires quite a bit of complex math.
Here’s the thing: the polls always said that Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, North Carolina, and Arizona were going to be toss ups or lean Trump. It’s not surprising that Biden has failed to pick most of them off.
But in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, Biden has had large and consistent polling leads, meaning there’s absolutely no reason to look at them the same way you’d look at them like a Florida or a Texas.
All the available evidence suggests that Biden is likely to win this election. It’s just going to take some time for the mail-in votes to be counted, and we’re going to need patience.
