And Now, The Rest of the Story

Something happened in last night’s Presidential debate that most people probably missed, but that is crucial to understanding what happens after November 3.

Pennsylvania is moving away from Trump and toward Biden. Fivethirtyeight.com’s models now show that Biden wins the state 79 times out of 100. If you look at the electoral map, Pennsylvania is the ballgame. Here’s why:

The states of the upper Midwest—Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania—all have similar demographics and similar economics. This was the “blue wall” that Hillary Clinton famously and erroneously counted on in 2016. Biden leads in every one of those states, but it’s closest in Pennsylvania. That means that if Biden wins Pennsylvania, he probably wins the others as well. If that happens, Biden does not need to win a single swing state to win the election. He doesn’t need Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Iowa, Georgia, or even Arizona (where he currently leads).

Trump needs to win every swing state and take one or more of the upper Midwest states. Pennsylvania is his best shot, and it’s slipping away from him.

Early voting has already started in Pennsylvania. Last night Trump claimed that his poll watchers were excluded from polling places in Philadelphia because “bad things happen in Philadelphia.” That’s false. In fact, there are no polling places open. Trump’s poll watchers were refused entry to the offices of election staff because they are not registered as poll watchers. Nothing inappropriate happened.

Not that that matters. Trump is laying the groundwork for disputing the election results in Pennsylvania. He is teeing up the argument that he lost the state because shady things happened in Philadelphia, and the “proof” of that is the fact that his non-registered poll watchers were denied access to election staff. The fact that it’s all hooey doesn’t matter. What matters is that he has just given us a preview of the justification he will assert for refusing to accept the results of the election.