CNN’s Harry Enten Calls It ‘More Likely Than Not’ That There Will Be an ‘Electoral College Blowout’
CNN’s Harry Enten argued that it was “more likely than not” that the presidential race would produce an “electoral college blowout” on Thursday, explaining that it was not only possible but probable that all of the swing states would end up tilting toward one candidate on election day.
Anchor John Berman kicked off a segment with Enten by musing that “We’ve got less than two weeks to go in this election, and we’ve been telling you how close it is. Historically close, closer than ever,” before posing the question, “What if it’s not?”
From there, Enten took the floor to explain that his model suggests a “60% chance that the winner of this election gets at least 300 electoral votes versus just a 40% chance that the winner ends up getting less than 300 electoral votes.”
“So for all the talk that we’ve had about this election being historically close, which it is, chances are the winner will still actually score a relative blowout in the electoral college,” he said.
“If you look across the seven key swing states, the seven closest states, in all of them the margin right now is under two points,” continued Enten. “But keep in mind, polling ain’t perfect, my dear friends. On average since 1972 in the battleground states, in the key swing states, the average error in the key swing states is 3.4 points.”
“What does history tell us about the possibility of all these states moving in one direction?” asked Berman.
“History tells us that it is more likely than not that all of the swing state polling errors would move in one direction. So in 2012, 92% of the states moved in Obama’s direction. That is, the polls underdid Obama. In 2016, 83% of the swing states moved together because the polls underdid Donald Trump, of course, we all remember that,” answered Enten. “And how about in 2020, 100% of the swing state poll averages underestimated Donald Trump. And so he did better than a lot of folks thought.”
“So this time around, don’t be surprised if the swing state polls, when they underestimate one candidate, they underestimate all of them in the states. And that would lead to a relative electoral college blowout, with one of the candidates winning at least 300 electoral votes,” he concluded.
Watch above via CNN.
