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An analytic firm is warning that the presidential election may experience a wide swing. And why? Because of the dramatic increase of absentee and mail-in ballots.
Josh Mendelsohn, the CEO of Hawkfish, appeared on “Axios on HBO” on Tuesday. During the clip, he explained how a “red mirage” might happen on election night. What might appear to be an overwhelming victory for Trump may quickly turn into a win for Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“The reason we talk about a red mirage is in fact because we believe that on election night, we’re going to see Donald Trump in a stronger position than the reality actually is,” said Mendelsohn. “We are sounding an alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility. That the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump.”
“That is likely to be what we see when every legitimate vote is tallied, and we get to that final day which will be Sunday after Election Day, it will, in fact, show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage,” he continued. “It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted.”
Mendelsohn’s firm estimates that 40% of registered voters will vote by mail this election cycle. That is roughly double the number of mail-in ballots from 2016. This is largely due to the coronavirus pandemic, which puts some of the population at high risk. Such as those who might suffer from afib strokes.
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Several states who have held primaries have struggled because of the increase of mail-in ballots. As a result, this might be a clue about what we can expect during the presidential election.
For example, in New York City alone, over 84,000 ballots were discarded because of defects. Defects can include things like a missing signature or a late arrival. Many election results were delayed for well over a month because of this.
Mendelsohn warned that the upcoming election might be a repeat of what happened between President George W. Bush and former Vice President Al Gore during the 2000 election. A recount of votes in Florida resulted in a 36-day delay in results. However, this year’s election may involve multiple battleground states instead of just the one.
“So a state like Pennsylvania or Florida, it’s in play by just a couple points, and that’s what tips it in one direction or another,” said Mendelsohn. “If you were to essentially average battleground state polling, Joe Biden appears to be ahead by about 8%. And so if you have a number of ballot challenges in a state like that, as big as it is, as large as the population is, as diverse as the population is, it could make a really big difference over those next ten days.”
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