Will Donald Trump or Joe Biden Win? This Website Lets You Decide.
This year, under one highly unlikely scenario modeled by 270toWin, the nation’s 538 electoral votes could be an even split if swing states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia vote for Joe Biden, while Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio go for Donald Trump.
We all know that it will take 270 electoral votes to win the 2020 presidential election. But how will your favorite candidate achieve that all-important number?
If you head over to the 270toWin website, you can run through hundreds of different simulations to see how the White House will be won this year.
All you have to do is click on the states on the interactive map, which will create your personalized 2020 election forecast in a snap. Know that this site can work as an amazing educational tool as well, helping your son or daughter learn more about the electoral college process and the political system.
Getting a history lesson is also a click away, as presidential electoral results dating back to 1789, voting histories, pundit forecasts, and state trends can be retrieved with ease. There are even blogs and quizzes to always keep you interested.
If you think that using the interactive electoral map will be a complicated, time-consuming ordeal, then think again. The states that you click on will rotate between the active colors in the color palette unless you specify a specific color. The electoral counter that is located above the map will adjust automatically as you go along. Then the easy-to-see arrows adjacent to the counter will turn blue or red if either candidate reaches that magic number of 270.
You also have the option of replacing “Democrat vs. Republican” with “Biden vs. Trump”—and vice versa—by clicking on the down arrow near the total electoral votes for each party. And if you want to share your personalized 2020 forecast via social media or email to others, all you have to do is hit the Share Map button.
This year, under one highly unlikely scenario modeled by 270toWin, the nation’s 538 electoral votes could be an even split if swing states Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Colorado, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Virginia vote for Joe Biden, while Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, and Ohio go for Donald Trump.
In this particular scenario, Biden must nab four out of a possible nine combined votes from Maine and Nebraska’s unique “congressional district method,” in which those two states each distribute two electoral votes to the overall state popular vote winner and one electoral vote to the winner in each congressional district.
According to 270toWin, if neither candidate wins the electoral votes outright, “the election for president is decided in the House of Representatives, with each state delegation having one vote. A majority of states (twenty-six) is needed to win. Senators would elect the vice president, with each Senator having a vote. A majority of Senators (fifty-one) is needed to win.
Furthermore, “State House delegations can cast their vote for president from among the three candidates receiving the most electoral votes, while Senators are limited to the top two candidates in their vote for vice president.”
Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.
Image: Reuters