US election 2020: Analysis

The 2020 election was closer than polls ahead of November 3rd anticipated, with many very close races in key battleground states. It took several days for most media outlets to call the races for the Presidency and the House of Representatives, while the Senate still hangs in the balance.

Here's a broad overview of what happened: how Joe Biden won, the ways coronavirus affected vote counts, and what the next Congress will look like.

What happened in the Presidential race?

The Presidential race wasn't called by most of the media until November 7th, four days after election day. As of November 23rd, Trump has finally agreed to let his team begin the transition for Biden to take office. But the same day he reiterated his claims of electoral fraud, tweeting "we will keep up the good fight", and later "we will never concede to fake ballots & 'Dominion'".

But while Biden didn't get the landslide that many polls predicted ahead of the election, he has won a convincing 306-227 victory in the electoral college.

Biden won the electoral college and the popular vote

In a year of record turnout, Biden has won more votes than any presidental candidate in history at 79.9 million as of November 25th. Trump won the second highest vote count ever close to 74 million.

In 2016, the importance of the electoral college in winning the Presidency was brought to attention when Hillary Clinton won almost three million more votes than Trump, but failed to surpass the crucial 270 majority of electoral votes.

Winning without the popular vote is something that only five Presidents have ever done, including Trump in 2016 and Bush in 2000.

Biden has won convincingly in both the popular vote and the electoral vote, with margins of 3.9% and 13.8% respectively as of November 25th.

Popular vote vs. electoral vote margins in recent elections

Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 19:00 GMT. Popular vote includes votes counted up to this point.

The Democrats flipped the former Republican strongholds of Georgia and Arizona

Georgia
Georgia margin history 1992-2020
Arizona
Arizona margin history 1996-2020

Sources: Federal Election Commission; Decision Desk HQ. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 22:00 GMT. These charts were inspired by an article from FiveThirtyEight.

The electoral map looks different in 2020. Classic swing states like Florida, Ohio and Iowa have more decisively shifted left, but Biden won the former Republican strongholds of Arizona and Georgia.

The Democrats were optimistic about their chances of taking Georgia, with Barack Obama and Kamala Harris visiting Atlanta days before the election.

Many have also put the Democrats' success in Georgia down to grassroots campaigns, like that run by Stacy Abrams. Abrams lost out on the position of Governor in 2018 but has continued to fight against voter suppression alongside organisations like the New Georgia Project, helping to register hundreds of thousands of new voters in the lead up to this year's election.

In Arizona, changing demographics are helping shift the state blue, with an overwhelming number of internal migrants into Arizona coming from Democratic states like California and Washington.

In 2020, Georgia and Arizona have both been won with margins of less than half a percent. They could well be the new swing states to watch in elections to come.

Sources: Federal Election Commission; Decision Desk HQ. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 22:00 GMT. These charts were inspired by an article from FiveThirtyEight.

America's electorate is increasingly divided by area type and education

Did the wide map help Biden?

Biden had many paths to victory...

Recent elections have generally come down to a few crucial swing states. Opinion polls ahead of the 2020 election suggested a much wider electoral map, in which previously reliable Republican strongholds were more competitive.

Biden had the opportunity to win through various combinations of these ten battleground states. Meanwhile, Trump's path to victory was almost certainly through states with the most electoral votes like Texas and Florida.

swings states won by Trump in 2016
swing states won by Trump in 2016

...he ultimately won by rebuilding the "blue wall" of Michigan, Wisconsin & Pennsylvania

Under the electoral college's 'winner-takes-all' system, the candidate who wins the majority of votes in a state takes all of that state's electoral votes (besides the exceptions of Maine and Nebraska).

Early on in election night, it looked as though Biden was making significant gains in several of these states, but not quite enough to gain majorities.

As vote counts progressed, Biden managed to surpass Trump in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin & Georgia.

While his narrowed margins in Texas, Ohio & North Carolina provided Biden with no electoral votes, he'd already secured enough to win the Presidency.

Most battlegrounds shifted towards Democrats...
...providing Biden with 73 more electoral votes
Most battlegrounds shifted towards Democrats...
...providing Biden with 73 more electoral votes

Source: Federal Election Commission; Decision Desk HQ. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 20:00 GMT

How the votes were counted

A recent study showed that normally, mail-in ballots don't particularly favour one party. But 2020 is no normal year.

Absentee ballots played a much larger role in 2020 than in previous elections, with coronavirus preventing many people visiting polling places safely.

Though some skewness was expected - mail-in ballots favouring Biden and on-the-day votes favouring Trump - the extent of this bias wasn't realised until election night.

When can states start counting mail-in ballots?

States have different rules on when they can start counting mail-in ballots. Some changed the rules this year, some allow processing of envelopes and verification of signatures ahead of time, but still the majority of states must wait until election day to start counting.

This led to all kinds of different shifts in lead appearing across the country on election night, with partial counts being less reliable as indicators of which way a state would go.

mail-in count rules

Sources: NCSL; Ballotpedia; NPR.

mail-in count rules

Sources: NCSL; Ballotpedia; NPR.

The "blue mirage" and the "red mirage"

As states released initial counts soon after their polls closed, those that started counting weeks before saw a "blue mirage" with stronger leads for Biden from a large proportion of absentee votes.

Meanwhile, states that started counting on the day initially looked strong for Trump - the "red mirage". With a wider map and lots of very close states, who would win where changed a lot throughout the night.

Arizona & North Carolina both saw early leads for Biden as counts of mail-in ballots start two weeks ahead of the election.

Gradually, on-the-day votes pulled these races back towards Trump.

Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin can only start counting mail-in ballots on election day.

This meant early surges for Trump with on-day-votes counted, but Biden pulled back as mail-in counts caught up.

Source: NYT. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 18:30 GMT

Arizona & North Carolina both saw early leads for Biden as counts of mail-in ballots start two weeks ahead of the election.

Gradually, on-the-day votes pulled these races back towards Trump.

Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin can only start counting mail-in ballots on election day.

This meant an early surges for Trump with on-day-votes counted, but Biden pulled back as mail-in counts caught up.

Source: NYT. Last updated: 25 November 18:30 GMT

What happened in Congress?

Much of the focus on election night is on the Presidency, but control of the two houses of Congress - the House and Senate - is what ultimately decides who has power in Washington.

Only 35 of the 100 Senate seats were up for election, while all 435 seats in the House of Representatives were up for grabs.

The "blue wave" is yet to emerge...

The Democrats were hoping for a "blue wave" - Biden winning the Presidency, taking back control of the Senate and retaining - or expanding - their majority in the House.

While they did retain control of the House, the Democrat's majority actually narrowed, Republicans flipping back several seats from the 2018 midterms.

The Senate is still up for grabs, but having failed to win some crucial toss-ups, the Democrats need both of Georgia's undecided seats to reach a 50-50 split which would be broken in their favour by new VP Kamala Harris.

...but we won't know for sure until January because of Georgia

georgia senate results

Source: Decision Desk HQ. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 22:00 GMT

In Georgia, a candidate must win at least 50% of the vote, to win their Senate seat. No candidate in either of Georgia's seats up for election suceeded in doing so.

The top two candidates in each race will now face a "runoff" election on January 5th to decide the new state senators and, crucially, control of the Senate.

There hasn't been a Democratic senator in Georgia since 2005, but with Biden winning the state for the first time in almost 25 years, there could still be hope for the Democrats yet.

What does this mean? A historical look at power in Washington

Since 1953, Presidents have only had full control of Congress about a third of the time, and divided governments are becoming more common.

Increasing polarisation between Democrats and Republicans means there is less bipartisanship, with representatives generally voting in line with their leaders. Therefore, it is much harder for a President without control of some - or all - of Congress to pass legislation.

Sources: Senate.gov; House.gov. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 21:00 GMT. Where third party candidates caucused with Republicans or Democrats, they have been added to major party totals. In the 107th Congress, majority control changed three times over the course of the year. These charts were inspired by this graphic from the Wall Street Journal in 2017..

Sources: Senate.gov; House.gov; Decision Desk HQ. Where third party candidates caucused with Republicans or Democrats, they have been added to major party totals. In the 107th Congress, majority control changed three times over the course of the year. Last updated: Sunday 15 November 12:30 GMT. These charts were inspired by this graphic from the Wall Street Journal in 2017..

If Biden fails to win both Georgia's seats and Republicans get their majority in the Senate, he will struggle in a political gridlock. Some of his big plans, like increased investment in clean energy, could be stopped by a Republican Senate.

However, Biden has already promised to rejoin the United Nations' Paris Agreement, which aims to keep global warming below two degress celsius. Biden has stated he will do so on day one of his Presidency - a move he can make without the Senate.

According to the Brookings Institute, legislative moves against Big Tech, infrastructure investment, and trade policy with China could be areas in which Democrat and Republican interests are more aligned.

Democrats held the House as expected, but did not expand their majority

November 3rd was not a great day for Democrats in the House. Several toss-up seats went to the Republicans, and they are on track to win most of the remaining six seats still to be called.

Democrats still hold the majority with 222 seats and counting, but the 2020 election could indicate a momentum shift towards the right, and the potential for Republicans to take back the House in 2022.

Sources: Federal Election Commission; Decision Desk HQ. Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 22:00 GMT

The 117th Congress will be the most diverse ever in terms of sex and race

Last updated: Wednesday 25 November 21:00 GMT. The charts on women in Congress were inspired by a project by The Pudding.

Methodology

State-level results for the Presidency, Senate & House are sourced from Decision Desk HQ.

Historical election data is sourced from the Federal Election Commission.

County-level 2020 election results are sourced from Fabio Votta's GitHub repo which scrapes data from the New York Times' live results page.

County-level urban/rural definitions are determined by Census.gov's 2010 urban/rural classification, while county-level educational attainment data comes from the 2018 American Community Survey 5-year estimates.

Rules on when states can start counting mail-in ballots were sourced from the National Conference of State Legislatures, Ballotpedia and NPR.

Time series data on how the vote counts progressed were sourced from the New York Times' live results page.

Data on historical control of Congress was sourced from Senate.gov and House.gov.

Data on diversity in Congress by gender and ethnicity was sourced from the Brookings Institute, Senate.gov and the Congressional Research Service.

If you have any questions or would like more information about this project, please contact me at h.robertson@icloud.com.
Visit my portfolio website to view more of my work: h-robertson.github.io