Trump may win on election night but Biden will be president after mail-in votes, says Bloomberg-funded group
President Donald Trump may appear to win the 2020 presidential elections on November 3. However, former Vice President Joe Biden will actually win the presidency days later due to mail-in voting, according to an analytics firm. The company, Hawkfish, funded by Michael Bloomberg, is reportedly working on multiple pro-Biden super PACs.
Hawkfish CEO, Josh Mendelsohn, while talking to Axios, said that his company predicts a "red mirage" where Trump will win on election day, however, Biden will be the ultimate winner days later when mail-in votes are counted. "The reason we talk about a red mirage is in fact because we believe that on election night, we are going to see Donald Trump in a stronger position than the reality actually is. We are sounding the alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump. That is likely to be what we see," Mendelsohn told the outlet. The CEO also added that according to his firm's analysis, it would take weeks for Biden to be projected as the ultimate winner.
Hawkfish's model has reportedly predicted that at least four in ten voters this year will vote by mail. The company's models have also predicted that electorally, Trump could win 408 electoral votes on election night to Biden’s 130 if at least 15 percent of total mail-in votes are counted by then. When at least 75 percent of the mail-in votes are eventually counted, weeks later, the election race could flip in Biden's favor putting him in the lead, the model predicted.
"When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be Sunday after election day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage. It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted," the CEO said.
President Trump, who is staunchly against mail-in voting on July 30 had suggested that this year's presidential elections should be delayed. The unprecedented suggestion from the Republican came while he was complaining about universal mail-in voting amid an ongoing pandemic. The president, however, does not have the power to delay the 2020 elections unilaterally.
Trump tweeted: "With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???"
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
With rising calls for mail-in voting in the country amid the coronavirus crisis, Trump has been opposing the idea of voting by mail, stating it would not be an ideal democratic exercise and would lead to fraud. There is no evidence to support the president's idea that either absentee or mail-in ballots contribute to voter fraud. The Trump campaign, in August, had filed a lawsuit against Nevada for their universal mail-in voting plans that would allow votes submitted after election day to count for the election.