Stipulated that the 2024 vote totals are incomplete, will take perhaps considerable time to become finalized, and will yield larger totals for both D and R in 2024 than shown here. Ultimately, I think it is reasonable that Trump will wind up with a fair increase in votes over his 2020 total. The D number will certainly increase also, perhaps by a lot.
However, I don’t think the final D total will be anywhere near 81+ million shown for Biden, which means we have a case of missing (D) voters. Sure, Harris is a crappy candidate, and there was no wedge issue like Dobbs to drive the blue turnout this time around. But, what I’d like to see is a spatial map of D vote differences between 2024 and 2020. Are the differences fairly diffuse across the country? Or are they concentrated in certain areas with issues with voting machines and bathroom plumbing? This map might rather stimulate the imagination.
Elections should be like Caesar’s wife – above suspicion. Apparently, Botswana can manage that; the good old USA can not.
“Joe Biden’s” astonishing unprecedented vote total in 2020 deserved a thorough investigation, to assure all citizens that elections in the US are honest. Most DC Swamp Demoncrats were simply happy to have won (or to have pulled it off?), and had no interest in proving that the 2020 election was above reproach. The real disappointment is that elected Republicrats also showed no interest in demonstrating that the 2020 election had integrity. The phrase “I’m all right, Jack” comes to mind. Perhaps that is why The Donald’s magnificent win this time had relatively little coat-tails for the grossly unpopular (~10% approval rate) denizens of CONgress.
This more-stable/realistic representation would seem to suggest that the relative spike in 2020 was more-or-less proportionally shared by both candidates.
Here is a list of winning margins (in terms of popular vote percentage) for U.S. presidential elections from 1960 to the most recent available data in 2020. The winning margin is expressed as the percentage difference between the votes received by the winner and the votes received by the runner-up.
Winning Margins in U.S. Presidential Elections (1960–2020)
Year
Winner
Party
Losing Candidate
Winning Margin (Popular Vote %)
2020
Joe Biden
Democratic
Donald Trump
4.42%
2016
Donald Trump
Republican
Hillary Clinton
-2.1% (Clinton won the popular vote, Trump won Electoral College)
2012
Barack Obama
Democratic
Mitt Romney
3.86%
2008
Barack Obama
Democratic
John McCain
7.3%
2004
George W. Bush
Republican
John Kerry
2.46%
2000
George W. Bush
Republican
Al Gore
-0.5% (Gore won the popular vote, Bush won Electoral College)
1996
Bill Clinton
Democratic
Bob Dole
8.53%
1992
Bill Clinton
Democratic
George H. W. Bush
5.56%
1988
George H. W. Bush
Republican
Michael Dukakis
7.72%
1984
Ronald Reagan
Republican
Walter Mondale
18.21%
1980
Ronald Reagan
Republican
Jimmy Carter
9.74%
1976
Jimmy Carter
Democratic
Gerald Ford
2.06%
1972
Richard Nixon
Republican
George McGovern
23.15%
1968
Richard Nixon
Republican
Hubert Humphrey
0.7%
1964
Lyndon B. Johnson
Democratic
Barry Goldwater
22.58%
1960
John F. Kennedy
Democratic
Richard Nixon
0.17%
You said:
from the data presented, calculate the average winning margin for republican winners and for democratic winners
ChatGPT said:
Average Winning Margin for Republican Winners (1960–2020): 7.34%
Average Winning Margin for Democratic Winners (1960–2020): 6.81%
Republicans have, on average, won by a slightly larger margin (7.34%) compared to Democrats (6.81%) over the past 60 years.
the relative spike in 2020 was more-or-less proportionally shared by both candidates.
Sure, but to reiterate @cyrano’s point, wouldn’t it be interesting if the voters who constituted the “spike” happened to be concentrated in specific counties as opposed to spread evenly across the country?
I am looking forward to exploring these election data, once complete and available. Reminds me of the thread on Ratburger we had with John after the 2020 election — Benford’s law and the like.
My expectation is there will be no convincing evidence of 2020 foul play. But, still, this image is intriguing… bellwether counties worked again…
Not sure how interesting it would be given that the spike seems to be fairly-distributed between the candidates.
That would leave me to conclude that it was just a (uniformly) high turnout rather than voting machines and bathroom plumbing. I would expect something more nefarious to be more disproportionate.
What I will say is that the graph that’s been ‘making the rounds’, appears to be intentionally-distorted. You can’t crop a bar graph (which conceals relative differences) without defeating its basic purpose (visualize relative differences).
Hardly! President Trump got 18% more votes in 2020 than in 2016 (74.2 Million vs 63.0 Million).
“Joe Biden” got 23% more votes in 2020 than the much more popular Barry Obama got in 2012 (81.3 Million versus 65.9 Million). The much less popular Hillary! Clinton also managed to get 65.9 Million votes in 2016.
That means “Joe Biden” got almost 60% of the additional votes in 2020 (or should we say “votes”?). Not really proportional – and given “Joe Biden’s” campaign from the basement, not really credible either.
Your point is predicated on the flawed idea that all of the extra votes should’ve been split perfectly down the middle 50/50. I wouldn’t expect that, and I wouldn’t call 60/40 lopsided. In this case, I would define disproportionate to be 80% or more.
Winning margins are in part driven by voter turnout. More votes can lead to a higher winning margin.
And that still begs an explanation of why Trump got 40% of the additional votes, and looks more like a denial of the suggestion that voters may have just preferred Biden to Trump. Not everyone is anxious to vote. Some need motivation, like a widespread dislike for/disapproval of Trump at that point in time.
60% of the spike can have many explanations, but of course, the obsessed will always gravitate to the nefarious ones. If Biden got > 80% of the spike, I would agree that something smells, but I can’t agree that 60% infers anything unusual.
Winning margins have been much higher than 4.42%, and largely depends on voter sentiment, but I don’t recall any such claims when they were > 20%.
I don’t believe the 60/40 point passes the smell test.
Statistical analysis applies to large numbers, and the larger the better. In 2016, President Trump and Hillary! got about 129 Million votes between them, split almost 50/50. That is certainly a large enough population to satisfy most statisticians, and the split is consistent with the general observation that the US is politically an almost evenly balanced 50/50 nation.
That being so, a reasonable initial assumption would be to expect that the 26 Million extra “votes” cast in 2020 would have been split 50/50. It would be even more reasonable to expect that the extra votes would have been biased towards President Trump, given the phenomenon of the Contingent Voter – the citizen who will never vote for a Demoncrat or an Institutional Republicrat but who will occasionally come out to vote for an iconoclast like Ross Perot or President Trump. Unfortunately, the only plausible explanation for “Joe Biden’s” extraordinary 81 Million “votes” is that lots of the additional “votes” were fabricated.
Figures on this year’s election are still preliminary, but it looks like President Trump’s vote total is again in the 70 Million+ range while Ms. Harris’s total has slumped back to the Hillary! 2016 range of 60 Million+. And that is despite 4 long years of Demoncrat/Lawfare/Media efforts to frighten undecided people to come out and vote against President Trump.
The bottom line is that “Joe Biden’s” 2020 margin of victory was highly suspect at the time, and now looks even more improbable in the light of Ms. Harris’s performance.
46 states made changes to mail voting procedures for the 2020 election in response to COVID-19
Mail-in ballots increased from 28.8 million in 2016 to 65.6 million in 2020
Early in-person voting rose from 24.1 million in 2016 to 36.6 million in 2020
These and other rule changes made voting more convenient for many people
While that goes a long way in explaining a spike, I fully expect the typical election-denier will just spin these facts as simply ‘more ways to cheat’.
Where does it say that Biden got 60% of the ‘extra votes’ in 2020? AFAIK, any suggestion that he got 60% of the so-called ‘extra’ votes is a distortion.
The winning margin was ~4.4% and no one can identify the margin of the ‘extra votes’ since no one can identify what votes constitute an ‘extra vote’, as you seem to be characterizing them.
There are no ‘extra votes’, There’s a higher turnout and a winning margin.
See above regarding COVID’s impact on 2020 (I can understand why a denier might prefer to overlook that, as I almost did).
COVID affected not only the turnout, but the dynamics. Comparing the 2020 outcome to other outcomes will require you to find another election conducted amidst a global pandemic. So let’s see… we have the Hong Kong Flu, Asian Flu, Spanish Flu… The problem is, there was no internet in their day, and they didn’t allow vote submission via carrier pigeon.
During the 2020 U.S. election, various reports of voting irregularities emerged from Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, although most were found to lack sufficient evidence for widespread impact or were resolved by election officials and courts. Some of the notable allegations and issues included:
Ballot Processing Transparency: Concerns were raised about transparency in ballot counting, with observers claiming restricted access to view the process at the Philadelphia Convention Center. A court ruling briefly allowed for closer observation, but election officials maintained that the process followed legal guidelines.
Mail-In Ballot Procedures: With Pennsylvania’s large increase in mail-in voting, there were questions around verification procedures and deadlines. Some concerns focused on the potential for improperly dated or unsigned mail ballots, though the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowed ballots received up to three days post-Election Day to be counted if postmarked by Election Day.
Alleged Double Voting and Dead Voter Claims: Allegations surfaced suggesting instances of double voting or voting by deceased individuals. However, investigations by Pennsylvania officials, including the Pennsylvania Department of State, generally debunked these claims, finding no evidence of substantial voter fraud or significant double voting cases.
Software and Counting Issues: Some rumors suggested issues with Dominion voting systems or irregularities due to software glitches, but Pennsylvania’s election infrastructure did not report systemic failures, and post-election audits showed consistency with the initial counts.
“Cured” Ballots: In Philadelphia, election workers allowed voters with mail ballots containing minor issues (e.g., missing signatures) to “cure” or correct them. Some contested this process, but Pennsylvania courts upheld that counties could decide whether or not to allow ballot curing.
In the end, Pennsylvania’s courts and election officials, as well as independent audits, did not find evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities that would have altered the election outcome in Philadelphia or statewide. The results were certified, and subsequent lawsuits did not succeed in overturning any reported results.
I think by “extra votes” we mean those votes in excess of the trend line, i.e. votes that made up the significantly higher turnout observed in 2020 compared to prior years and 2024.
Perhaps the spike in total votes is not as anomalous as it seems. To be sure, the bar graph in the original post is a distortion because the y-axis starts at 50 million.
‘Extra votes’ seemed to be reference to what was originally referred to as ‘missing votes’.
That bar graph in the OP is most-likely the one cited in the AP news article I linked to above.
I also think it’s important that any serious evaluation of a perceived spike needs to take into account that 2020 was an election that was anything but ordinary.
Let’s look at the situation from the other direction. Estimates are preliminary, but it appears that this year around 143 Million votes were cast – substantially lower than in 2020, when the total was around 156 Million. 13 Million missing votes this year – and apparently 100% of those missing votes were on the Demonrat side. Very improbable!
The Demonrats & their media & their lawyers ran a 4-year campaign against President Trump. They did everything they could to make their supporters terrified about the prospect of a second Trump term. Yet, despite all that, 13 Million people who voted against Trump (and for the Demonrat) last time could not be bothered to get out of bed & vote this time? Very improbable!
The most likely explanation remains that a significant number of the 81 Million votes recorded for “Joe Biden” in 2020 were fabricated. Would “Joe Biden” have won in 2020 without those fabricated votes? We will never know.
