Political prognostication is an arcane art, with many practitioners ranging from Nate Silver to Sabato’s crew at U. of Virginia. So who is Helmut Norpoth of Stony Brook University? He’s the fellow who predicted Donald Trump’s win in 2016 eight months before the election. A win most others missed, badly.
Norpoth’s model is based on which major party nominee gets the most votes in the early primaries, and it ignores opinion polls. He argues polls no longer tap into what those who vote actually believe. See an article in The American Spectator for details. For 2020, what does he predict?
Professor Norpoth just as confidently predicts that Trump will trounce Joe Biden in November. Specifically, he gives the president a 91 percent chance of winning the election with an unambiguous 362-176 Electoral College margin.
The outcome he predicts won’t hurt my feelings. Will Norpoth be right again? We’ll know in 3 months or less, assuming the courts don’t throw out the election returns as hopelessly compromised.
