In late October of 2016, I hung up the phone with one of my political consultant buddies who told me, “Scott, Trump is going to win.” I had already checked out of the race, as I was an OG NeverTrumper and was sickened by the fact that Clinton and Trump were the best we had to offer.  I had already voted, pulling the trigger for Gary Johnson.  I didn’t have a dog in the race.

My buddy said, look at the data and tell me what you think.  At first, I thought he was crazy.  Trump can’t win, can he?  I mean, what state is he really going to win by a big margin?  I began toying with modeling and my sample before I found a blended sample that combined elements of the 2000 and 2012 elections.  Once I popped that turnout into my spreadsheet, the classic battlegrounds shifted from Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, to Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan.  Suddenly, what was a lock for Clinton, became an all but solid for Trump.  As I had been posting updates on Facebook as to what I had learned through additional analysis, I posted the map to Facebook on November 7th, 2016.  I had Trump winning Nevada and Clinton winning Wisconsin, but the rest of the map proved to be accurate the next day.  My post that night on Facebook? “Clinton had called Trump. It’s Over.  My Map from this morning? Off by two states.  Flip Nevada and Wisconsin. I seriously can’t believe this is happening.”

But it did.  And after months of digging through data and hundreds of hours of research I am going to tell you, it is going to happen again. Trump will win reelection.

“How?” you may ask.  At this point, I think it is the fact that Trump won over former NeverTrumpers like myself, drew more minority voters, and created an invisible electorate that could neither be polled nor identified.  Democrats led potentially the biggest failure of a campaign since Hillary Clinton, in what I anticipate will be eulogized for years to come.  Democrats put all of their eggs in the mail and early vote basket.  They dumped millions into media and created a virtual campaign only to show up at election day with less of the margin of lead than they had in 2016 in many battleground states.  Now, they’ve burned through their high propensity voters and Republicans are just jogging out of the starting line.  This is very much the story of the tortoise and the hare.  Slow and steady wins the race.

On Tuesday, November 3rd, 2020, Donald J. Trump will win reelection by pulling 295 Electoral Votes. He will win Arizona, Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and NE2.  I think that Minnesota is the only real reach in there, with Trump trending towards a win there.  Even if Trump loses Minnesota, he still wins with 285 Electoral votes and doesn’t have to win Pennsylvania to get there.  Should PA follow, he will beat his 2016 Electoral Vote count.