Uncle Joe is gonna run

Donald Trump's worst electoral nightmare is coming to a state near you. Buzz has been crunching data with the Univac 3000, and the results are in:  Joe Biden will run for President in 2020.  Biden needs to win the Democratic nomination first, but the blue-collar, "ordinary Joe" is just the type of candidate who has the best chance of putting Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin back in the Democratic column and sending Trump back to New York City and his "friends" at the Southern District of New York's prosecutors' office.

2016 Election was not a landslide but any stretch of the imagination

The 2016 election of Donald Trump was the perfect storm that cracked the vaunted Democratic Blue Electoral wall.  Let's look at the numbers first.

Trump did not win the popular vote, in fact, he lost it by almost three million votes, 62,980,160 to 65,845,063.  With regards to the electoral vote, he narrowly won that --- 304 to 227.  (There was an unusually large number of faithless electors --- those who vote for a candidate other than the one who won their respective states.  Colin Powell got three, and John Kasich, Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Faith Spotted Owl each received one vote.)  For those of you scoring at home, you need 270 to win.  Without the faithless electors, Trump still wins 306 to 238.

The election came down to Trump's narrow victories in three of the blue wall states --- Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.  Those 46 electoral votes went to Trump, but without them, he loses 278 to 260.  The popular vote victories in those states were Pennsylvania (44,292), Wisconsin (22,748, and Michigan (10,704), for a total of 77,744.  The victories in these three states were powered by first-time or first-time in a long time voters who overwhelmingly voted either for Trump or against Hillary Clinton.

Changing demographics put Arizona (11 electoral votes), Georgia (16), and Texas (36) into play for the Democrats in 2020, so Trump will no only have to hold the three rust belt states he won in 2016 but will have to play defense in these three soon-to-be Purple states.

Why Joe's gonna run

Joe Biden would be President now if he ran against Trump in 2016.  He did not enter the race, primarily because of the tragic death of his son 46-year-old son Beau in 2015 from brain cancer.  It's a decision that we believe he regrets greatly. 

Biden ran for President twice before (1988 and 2008), but both times did poorly.  The difference this time started when he got the call from candidate Barack Obama in 2008 to be Obama's running mate.  This changed everything.  He was instantly transformed from an also-ran to a somebody.  His tenure as the "stand-by-your-man" Vice President only enhanced his stature.  He has been involved in politics for over 50 years, having been elected to the Senate from Delaware at just prior to his 30th birthday in 1972.  The political bug is in his blood and it will never leave him until the day he dies.

Being the political animal he is, Biden certainly sees the poll numbers.  Biden either leads or is at the top of every Democratic Presidential preference poll and leads Trump in every electoral state that is going to make the difference in 2020.  Yes, a lot of this has to do with name recognition, but Biden is not only well known, but he is very well liked, despite his propensity to make a major gaffe now and then.  Actually, his gaffe-making adds to his genuineness.

Biden also polls very well with the blue-collar workers (the Reagan Democrats) who got up off their couches and cast a vote for Trump in the crucial states.  Hillary never made a connection with these voters in 2016.  They were never enthused enough and Trump seemed like someone who felt their plight.  Biden has the same effect on these voters, albeit not as strong as Trump did in 2016, but enough to make the difference in 2020.

For these major factors, Biden will run, and why not --- he loves the political arena, and for the first time in his political career (2016 doesn't count,) he actually has a pretty clear path to the White House.  As far as the age issue, Trump will be 74 on election day 2020 and Biden turns 78 17 days after election day 2020.  Biden is in good health, and besides, they say that 70 is the new 50, so Biden is only 56 years old right now.

So Biden's options are to sit on the sidelines and rue the 2016 decision not to run or follow the political animal blood in his veins and jump back into the political arena with much more than a Don Quixote chance at becoming President.  The Univac 3000 says he's in and so do Buzz and I.