President – Ike’s Anvil

November 3, 2020February 21, 2023

Decision 2020: Trump vs. Biden in Pennsylvania

Giovanna Komst ’24

As the general election approaches, most eyes lay on the key battleground states in the U.S. to predict who will be the next United States President. Pennsylvania is notorious for being a toss-up red or blue state in the general election. Joe Biden and Donald Trump have spent much of their campaign directed toward winning Pennsylvania to sway their twenty electoral votes. For the previous six elections, Pennsylvania voted for the Democratic Party, but in 2016, they turned red and supported Donald Trump leading him to a victory campaign. Each year, the race was a close call with almost a fifty-fifty split in electoral votes for each political party. This year, Pennsylvania is seen as a tipping point in the election and it is said by most that the fate of who wins the election will be entirely dependent on the winner of Pennsylvania.

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November 3, 2020February 21, 2023

Decision 2020: Trump vs. Biden in Florida

Miranda Zamora ’23

President Donald Trump cast his ballot in Palm Beach County, Florida, on October 24. As we know, winning Florida is crucial for a presidential candidate in the election, yet it has always been difficult to determine how Florida will vote. The state does not typically show a strong loyalty to either political party and has often been called the “bellwether state” for accurately predicting the national moods of the presidential elections. In fact, since 1928, Florida has only twice voted against the winner of the presidential race.

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November 2, 2020February 21, 2023

Decision 2020: Trump vs. Biden in North Carolina

Will Firman ’24

The state of North Carolina can pride itself on their barbecues, their beaches within the Outer Banks and their status as an election battleground. The future of the presidency of Donald Trump will be on the ballot tomorrow: whether voters approve of his unorthodox handling of key issues enough to give him a second term may be decided by North Carolina, a must-win state for the Republican incumbent. If judging his chances based on past elections – including in 2016 when he carried North Carolina by 3.7 percentage points – this shouldn’t be an extremely difficult task. In the last 50 years, only two Democrats have managed to carry the Tar Heel State on the presidential level – Jimmy Carter in 1976 and Barack Obama in 2008. That said, even as the President carried this state four years ago, it is not a guarantee that he can hold onto this state again.

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October 31, 2020February 21, 2023

Decision 2020: Trump vs. Biden in Arizona

Sean Thompson ’20

The presidential battleground state of Arizona has been a highly contested swing state in this upcoming election. Republicans have been the state’s dominant party as residents align with more conservative ideologies; every Republican candidate since Dwight D. Eisenhower, except for Bob Dole, has won the state of Arizona. In 1996, Bill Clinton won Arizona over Dole. The state has had over 72 years of Republican voting. In the 2016 presidential election, Trump beat Hillary Clinton with 48.1 percent of the votes. In the current election, Biden is leading with 48.2 percentage points over Trump, who has 45.5 percent. Biden could be the first Democratic candidate to win this state since 1996. The change in this voting most likely has to do with the demographic of voters. It has been reported that more people have moved in and out of Arizona, either due to professions or other reasons. There is also a growth in the Hispanic population, which leans more democratic. There are more democratic residents moving to Arizona as well. Republican voters are also shifting more democratic as they are not pleased with Trump’s current administration. The result of this election will be tough for Arizona. Political scientists predict that the state could go blue, but it could go either way.

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October 29, 2020February 21, 2023

Decision 2020: Trump vs. Biden in Wisconsin

Patrick Mahoney ’23

2016 Presidential Election Results by County. Ali Zifan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

When Donald Trump won the presidency over Hillary Clinton in November of 2016, many pollsters and political pundits were shocked at the outcome. Clinton had been favored in many national and battleground state polls, and yet she found herself conceding the election the next day. One key reason for this political phenomenon was that many states that had reliably voted blue in recent decades, specifically in the Midwest, swung towards Trump, enabling him to secure the 270 electoral votes needed for the presidency. Four years later, one of these states, Wisconsin, once again finds itself in the midst of a tight and all-important presidential election. As Joe Biden and Donald Trump enter the final week of the presidential election, Wisconsin has entered the national spotlight as a critical swing state.

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