Vote Roundup at Congress Gap
Vote Roundup at Congress Gap
The odd case of key state totals in 2020.
With major midterm elections almost here, it’s probably time to ask, “will there be fraud in this election”?
The answer is, “Absolutely.” There’s fraud in every election. But the real question is, will there be enough fraud committed to change the outcome of some major races?
In 2020, Donald Trump had big leads in four key states—Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and Georgia—after midnight of Election Day. But somehow he magically lost them all as counting continued over the next couple of days. Joe Biden won these states, occasionally by very small margins.
In Pennsylvania, Trump led by 600,000 votes on election night, but lost by 80,000.
In Wisconsin Trump lost by 20,000 votes despite leading by 109,000 on election Night.
In Michigan Trump led by 300,000 votes on election night but lost by 150,000.
In Georgia it was fewer than 12,000 votes in the final count, though Trump led by a quarter-million on Election Night (at 1:47 am, according to the Associated Press).
You might expect the votes for Congressional seats—the US House—would follow pretty closely. A Trump supporter wouldn’t have been very likely to vote for a Democrat and vice-versa. Perhaps years ago, but the polarization of political thought was far more severe by 2020. Also generally, slightly fewer people vote for candidates as you get toward the bottom of the ticket. That is, more people will vote for president than congressional candidates, more for Congress than county supervisor.
PENNSYLVANIA:
So let’s look at Pennsylvania’s congressional races. There were 18 of them in 2020. Republicans won nine, Democrats won nine. That seems almost as close as the presidential race. But check all the votes in those 18 districts. According to CNN’s website, he number of Republican votes in all those races added up to 3,433,595. (Trump’s vote was 3,378,623)
In general, the top race dominates in elections. People come to the polls to vote for or against a governor, senator or presidential candidate, but the falloff is usually small. Oddly, more Republicans voted for congressional candidates in Pennsylvania two years ago than voted for Donald Trump. Trump got 98.3% of the congressional vote in Pennsylvania.
But Joe Biden far outperformed Democratic congressional candidates, getting 109% of their total vote. (Democrats got 3,188,822 votes for Congress in Pennsylvania, but Biden got 3,459,923.)
So in Congressional races, Republicans won Pennsylvania by 244,773 votes—a quarter of a million. But Trump lost the state by 80 thousand votes.
GEORGIA:
The vote in Georgia wasn’t exactly as sweet-smelling as a Georgia peach.
Georgia had 14 congressional districts in 2020. There, Republican candidates received a total of 2,490,398 votes.
Democrats received a total of 2,176,314 votes.
Yet, as if by magic, Joe Biden got 2,473,633 votes, almost 300,000 more votes than Democrats running for Congress. So Biden received 114% of the votes of his congressional candidates in Georgie.
Donald Trump received 2,461,854 votes, 30,000 votes fewer than Republican congressional candidates. He received 98.8% of the congressional vote.
Why would Joe Biden who spent most of the campaign in his Delaware basement, get far more votes than Democrat congressional candidates while Donald Trump couldn’t quite match Republicans? Hmmm.
WISCONSIN:
In Wisconsin, Republican candidates for Congress got 1,661,399 votes while Trump’s total was 1,610,184. Trump got 97% of the Republican congressional vote. So did 50,000 people in Wisconsin go to the trouble of voting but didn’t cast a vote for president?
Dems got 1,566,671 while Biden received 1,630,866, 104% of the Democratic congressional vote.
2020 TRUMP BIDEN
PENNSYLVANIA 45,000 LESS (fewer) 271,000 MORE
MICHIGAN 23,000 MORE 118,000 MORE
GEORGIA 29,000 LESS 297,000 MORE
WISCONSIN 51,000 LESS 64,000 MORE
So it was an interesting outcome. In Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin, Donald Trump couldn’t get quite as many votes as the Republican congressional candidates who were below him on the ballot. Yet Joe Biden easily outperformed the lower-ticket candidates, getting 109%, 114% and 104% of their total votes. The totals suggest some serious differences. In Georgia, would nearly 300,000 people have voted for Biden and not Democratic congressional candidates, while Republican candidates outdrew Donald Trump by some 30,000 votes?
This looks suspicious, but let’s check what happened in 2016 to see how it compares. Here’s how the presidential candidates compared to the congressional candidates.
2016 TRUMP CLINTON
PENNSYLVANIA 126,000 LESS 300,000 MORE
MICHIGAN 36,000 MORE 75,000 MORE
GEORGIA 132,000 LESS 278,000 MORE
WISCONSIN 135,000 MORE 2,000 MORE
Once again, the Democrat always received somewhat MORE votes than the congressional candidates. That’s to be expected to a certain extent. However, 300,000 more in PA and GA?
Trump got both less and more votes in different states, which seems less “arranged.” But in 2020, the complete and consistent swamping of Democratic congressional candidates’ numbers by Joe Biden seems odd indeed.
So this is what to look for in next month’s elections. In Pennsylvania, if John Fetterman gets many more votes than the congressional candidates below him while Mehmet Oz does not; in Michigan, if Gretchen Whitmer gets far more votes for governor than her congressional candidates while Republican Tudor Dixon does not; and in Wisconsin, if Senator Ron Johnson ends up with substantially fewer votes than Republican congressional candidates while far-leftie Mandela Barnes does much better than Dem congressional candidates, then there’s reason to think something is rotten in Denmark (or Harrisburg, Lansing or Madison).
It will be interesting. Or outrageous, depending on your viewpoint.