Excerpt from the Wright State Guardian
The 2020 election is Nov. 3, which is less than a month away, and after the recent presidential debate, voters are making their final decision on which candidate they are voting for.
Wright State University (WSU) political science professors Dr. Edward Fitzgerald, Dr. Sean Wilson and Dr. Lee Hannah have weighed in on the election, the issues voters are concerned about, and what may occur after the winner is decided.
Predictions for the election
Fitzgerald, Wilson and Hannah all agree that Democratic candidate Joe Biden has a strong chance of winning the 2020 election.
“I think hope always exceeds reality in these cases,” Fitzgerald said. “At this point, if you were to read the polls, Biden is up by 8-10%. Even in a lot of the battleground states, he’s either up or within the margin of victory.”
Hannah explained that Trump’s electoral college victory in 2016 was due to narrow wins in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, and that one of Biden’s strategies was to gain voter support in Midwestern states.
“Joe Biden’s entire candidacy has been based on a theory that he can win back those states and perform better in the Midwest more broadly,” Hannah said. “Based on the results of the 2018 midterms and the current polling, I would say that Joe Biden is in a strong position.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic and voting complications surrounding it, along with other factors, the professors find this year’s election difficult to predict.
“[Biden] probably is more of the favorite, but we don’t know who is going to win,” Wilson said. “We certainly had egg on our face in 2016. I thought Hillary was going to win for sure, and that turned out not to be true.”
“This could be a very almost unprecedented election because there’s so many contingencies that could possibly occur here,” Fitzgerald said.
