It’s been fun using maps to track current polling for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election. But there’s a lot more to our democracy than just the President. Because each state’s electoral votes are equal to the number of senators plus representatives, it’s easy to go to from elected legislators to Presidential electoral votes. Or the other way around. And so it’s easy to turn a map of electoral votes into a map of Senators.
And so. The map below is organized roughly-geographically, and shows the Senators from each state by name. Roses Republican Senators are red, violets Democratic Senators are blue, and light bluie shows the two independent Senators, Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Angus King (I-ME), both of whom caucus with the Democratic Senators.
It’s hard to see the names in the regular-size map below, so click on it to see a larger version.
Map of U.S. Senators, two per state. Red hexagons show Republican senators, dark blue hexagons show Democratic senators, and light blue hexagons show independent senators who caucus with Democratic senators. Each hexagon is labeled with one of the Senators who represents that state. Click for a larger version.
Looking at Senators displayed on a map like this, with equal importance given to all states and thematic geography, shows how the rules of the Senate exacerbate the urban/rural differences that keep us divided.
Every state has both urban and rural areas, but states with similar urban/rural percentages tend to cluster together: more urban on the east coast, west coast, and the western side of the Great Lakes, and more rural everywhere else. That, combined with the traditional yet 1000% arbitrary red-and-blue color scheme results in a map with large stretches of red and large stretches of blue. Look how lonely Doug Jones (D-AL) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are as the sole members of their parties for miles around.
I’ll be using this map for many purposes in the future, starting with making predictions for the 2020 Senate election… soon. I need to look at the polls in a lot more data. That was a typo, I meant “look at the polls in a lot more detail,” but honestly “look at the polls in a lot more data” is way better. But first…
You can probably guess what’s coming on Friday, and why it’s 4.35 times more work.
One year ago, this virus only infected bats and pangolins. Today, the President of the United States.
Well that was unexpected.
We got our October Surprise (TM) early this time. Just 25 hours into the month of October, at 1 AM ET on Friday, October 2nd, President Donald Trump announced on Twitter that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
Later the same day, he was reported to have started showing symptoms, although it is unclear when his symptoms began. By that night, he had been moved to Walter Reed Medical Center and placed on supplemental oxygen.
Today at 6:30 PM ET, Trump left Walter Reed Medical Center. I don’t think he’ll be back – not because he won’t need to go back, but rather because his medical staff is busy installing whatever is required to turn the White House into a hospital. If Trump’s condition worsens, the hospital will come to him.
And unfortunately, the typical trajectory of COVID-19 is for patients to improve for a few days and then get worse again. The up-and-down cycle continues until either the patient is healthy enough that they no longer need acute care, or they die. Obviously I hope for a quick, steady, and painless recovery for him and for everyone he may have infected – but I fear that is unlikely at best.
How this will affect the presidential election depends on how quickly Trump recovers, and how effectively his doctors can hide any relapses. We are seeing data only from the very first polls since Trump announced his diagnosis, and they seem to be heavily critical of Trump. For example, in a new Ipsos poll, 67 percent of registered voters agree with the statement, “If President Trump had taken coronavirus/COVID-19 more seriously, he probably would not have been infected with the coronavirus/COVID-19.” Considering how incredibly difficult it is to get 67 percent of people to agree on anything in today’s partisan environment, that’s a strong signal.
Similarly, polling data is starting to turn more strongly in favor of Biden, and that is reflected in the updated prediction map below. I realized that linking directly to the 270towin geographic map means that I can’t link to a larger version of the prediction map. So below is the prediction map, and if you’d like to try it for yourself, see the link below it.
As always, I try to report the data as clearly as I can. I care more about the truth than I care about what I think.
My predicted election results as of today, October 5, 2020
The final score prediction is the same: Biden 320, Trump 218. But some of the predicted confidence levels have changed:
Probably most importantly for determining the outcome: with Biden opening up a six-point aggregate polling lead there, I have switched Pennsylvania from “tilt Biden” to “lean Biden”
And similarly, I have changed both New Hampshire and Nebraska’s second congressional district to lean Biden
Don’t be surprised if some of these states tilt back toward Trump now that the President is out of the hospital. But still, time is running out for Trump’s re-election chances – many people have already voted.
Including me – I dropped my ballot in the city lockbox on Saturday afternoon, and I got confirmation today that it has been received and counted. My voice has counted, and I hope yours will too. Vote!
The two candidates take the stage in front of moderator Chris Wallace
Twelve days ago, I launched my first prediction of the results of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, far too early, before even a single debate had happened. Last night, we had our first debate (pictured to the right). I have downloaded a transcript of the debate (sixty-five single-spaced pages, so help me God). I’ll have a lot more to say about it over the next few days – but for tonight, it’s time for another premature prediction.
Usual disclaimer for all my election predictions: I know who I am going to vote for and I don’t see any reason to keep that secret – but I’m not a pundit, I’m a scientist, and this isn’t a blog about my opinions, it’s a blog about scientific thinking. So I’m trying my best to stay objective and predict who will win, not who I think should win.
But before I get to the premature predicting, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to visualize these predictions for you. The thing that matters in these predictions is what candidate, if any, reaches the magic threshold of 270 electoral votes to be elected President. Showing the states on a map helps give you a sense of what candidate is likely to win, but ultimately the specific states don’t matter – only the total count matters. And here’s an illustration of that.
Use the slider below to compare two states from my previous prediction map, each of which I cut out and de-labeled. I was careful to show the states on the same scale at exactly the same size.
Think fast – which state is worth more electoral votes, red or blue?
The states, of course, are Montana and Rhode Island, worth three and four electoral votes respectively. Showing their shapes makes it appear that Montana is far more important – but remember, specific states don’t matter, only electoral votes matter. Even if you know that Montana is worth three and Rhode Island is worth four, it’s hard to look at the map and not feel like Montana must be more important. Look, it’s so much bigger!
A map to tell a clearer story would show the sizes of each state based not on their land area, but on the number of electoral votes they offer to the candidate who receives the most votes from those states. Like this – again, the images are exactly the same size and you can swipe to compare them.
The best map to tell this story, then, would have every state sized according to its number of electoral votes, from the eight with three electoral votes each to California’s fifty-five. And ideally it would do this while preserving the outline and position of each state so that the map is still recognizable as a map of the United States. Many other people have created such maps (examples from Engaging Data and Daily Kos and Medium and FiveThirtyEight), but I wanted one that I could freely use and easily modify. So, armed with my data visualization skills and considerable stubbornness, I made my own.
And behold, my current-as-of-today prediction for the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, presented on my shiny new electoral college map. Click on the picture to go to a more traditional view at 270towin.com, which you can then use to build your own prediction.
Electoral vote map of my predictions of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results, as of right now. Predicted final score: Biden 320 Trump 218
I could go on for pages and pages about how I created the map and the various decisions that went into it, but I’ll save that for another time and just explain the prediction. As usual, states marked in blue are the ones I am predicting will vote for Biden and states marked in red are predicted for Trump – although never forget that those colors are completely arbitrary. Darker shades of either color indicate I am more confident about the prediction for that state. Oh, and the map also includes the malarkey in Maine and Nebraska.
I’ve made a few changes from my last set of predictions, nearly all in Biden’s favor.
I can no longer ignore the latest polls in Arizona that show Biden holding steady with a 2 to 3 percentage point lead. It’s too narrow a lead to be very confident, but I think it’s clear that I have to declare Arizona a tilt for Biden rather than a tilt for Trump. If that prediction is right, adding Arizona’s 11 electoral votes to the ones he has already would give Biden a commanding lead.
I almost can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’ve moved Virginia from lean Biden up to likely Biden, because he is holding steady with a 5 to 12 percentage point lead in statewide polling. We may be seeing the end of Virginia as a swing state, just as we saw Missouri go from swing to solidly Republican between 2004 and 2016.
The race has tightened considerably for the 15 electoral votes in North Carolina, enough that it’s basically a 50/50 tossup. I still think Trump will do well there, but the race is close enough that I’ve moved North Carolina from Leans Trump to Tilts Trump.
Trump is toast, covered with green chile, in New Mexico. I’ve moved New Mexico from Likely Biden to Safe Biden.
The move in Trump’s direction is in Indiana, which I moved all the way from Leans Trump to Safe Trump. I think I was distracted by Obama winning the state in 2008 and forgot to think about the actual polling data. Given how much the political landscape has changed since then, that might as well be when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
So here are the predictions again, shown on my new electoral college map – which I am damn proud of creating. Click on it to go to a more traditional map from 270towin.com. Click on that 270towin map to try it yourself!
Electoral vote map of my predictions of the 2020 U.S. presidential election results, as of right now. Predicted final score: Biden 320 Trump 218
What do YOU think the final results will be? Let me know in the comments!
We’re still 46 days from Election Day 2020, there haven’t even been any debates, and there’s plenty of time for an October Surprise (TM). So it’s waaaaay too early for a prediction.
The hottest toy of the 1985 Christmas season was an Extraordinary Video Robot that could play games through your television.
Except it wasn’t.
The “robot” in that 1985 commercial was R.O.B. (Robot Operating Buddy), which shipped with early copies of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) to test markets in New York and Los Angeles. The NES proved to be a big hit in those test markets, and so the console rolled out throughout the U.S. over the next year – but without R.O.B. Why?
The best way to explain R.O.B. is to show him in action. It’s a collector’s item today, available on eBay for anywhere from $20 to $500 depending on its condition. To use R.O.B., power it on, plug in the second NES controller into the base unit, and load onr of the two games that works with it, Gyromite or Stack-Up.
The youtube channel videogamecollector shows what it looks like running, and it’s very cool:
R.O.B. in action
…but beneath all the spinning and blinking and robot noises, here’s what R.O.B. was really doing: pressing the select button on the second controller. Which means that you could play the same two games much more easily without R.O.B., simply by pressing the select button on the second controller.
Except They Weren’t: An occasional series about people who are Not What They Seem Part 1: Joe Magarac
Why would Nintendo design something so complicated and so utterly pointless? It wasn’t a robot, it was a trojan horse. R.O.B.’s entire purpose was to hide the fact that the NES was a video game system.
And why would Nintendo of America want to hide the fact that their beautifully designed video game system was a video game system? Remember that this was fall 1985, before the wild success of the NES. But for a full answer, we need to look back even farther into the history of video games.
The first commercially successful video game was Pong, released in 1972 and still bizarrely addictive today. Following Pong, many other of these new “video games” were released to the new video arcades that were springing up all over the United States. As arcades became more and more popular, video game makers began to wonder how to bring the experience into their customers’ homes. After a few false starts, the first massive hit was the Atari 2600, released in 1977.
Manufacturers created hundreds and hundreds of games for the Atari system – and that was the problem. With so many titles clogging store shelves, and with a medium so new that there were not yet any reviews, customers had no way to tell good games from bad games.
The final indignity was the officially licensed E.T. video game, released in time for Christmas 1982. Atari spent millions to acquire the rights to what was at the time the highest-grossing movie of all time, and millions more on marketing, but left the game to a single developer to rush out in six weeks. The results were famously terrible:
A playthrough of the famously terrible E.T. game for the Atari 2600, from J.C.’s Channel on YouTube
Millions of American children woke up on Christmas morning to a shiny new copy of Atari’s E.T., only to have their joy turn to despair within minutes of starting up the boring, bug-filled mess above. Word quickly spread, sales dried up, and retailers were stuck with millions of unsold copies sitting on shelves. They sent the cartridges back to Atari, who had no choice but to take the loss and bury them in a New Mexico landfill.
It wasn’t just E.T.; every other game and even every other video game system completely dried up. Atari nearly went bankrupt, staying in business only by reorganizing and selling off its software division. Industry analysts declared that the fad was over; there was no more consumer demand for video games. That state of affairs continued for years. And that was the situation that Nintendo of America found itself in in fall 1985.
Nintendo had good reason to believe that video games would take off again – there was no video game industry crash in Japan, and their Famicom system had sold steadily there since 1983. And they thought they knew the cause of the crash and what to do about it. They would have strict quality control over all the games on their system, made possible by a licensing agreement and enforced by a lockout chip preventing unlicensed games from playing. They would create an in-house magazine to offer reviews, previews of future games, and strategy information to players. But even with all these efforts in place, they still had a major hurdle to overcome to get their new system to consumers.
This was 1985, years before online shopping was even a dream. To even get the chance to sell to customers, Nintendo knew it first had to sell to retailers who were understandably skeptical of video games after the crash of 1983.
So how do you sell a video game system to people who don’t like video games? Tell them it’s totally not a video game system! It’s an ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM! And R.O.B. was a key part of that strategy. It looked like a toy, so retailers concluded that it must be a toy – and they marketed it like any other toy. Nintendo proved to be absolutely right about the NES. And as you can see below, thirty-five years later: the rest is history.
The new world speed record for completing Super Mario Brothers, 4 minutes 55.64 seconds, by YouTube’s Kosmic.
Click the map to create your own at 