We have a voicemail number, which is two one.
Nine to David P..
Here's a really good.
It really comes down to an issue of math.
Take a listen to this question.
Hi, David.
I was wondering if Trump loses the popular
vote, let's say, by a landslide or by like
a large amount.
Yes.
Still possible for him to win the electoral
vote and win the election.
And if you could explain that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So, listen, there's there's two answers to
this, right?
If you imagine that all 50 state elections
are completely independent of each other.
Right.
That there is no there.
They are uncorrelated then.
Yet there are actually models which show that
you can get only 27 percent of the popular
vote and become president and will win the
Electoral College.
So that's never happened.
That's an extreme example.
I believe that the biggest popular vote loss
where they still won the Electoral College
was 2016.
Trump lost by more than two points to Hillary
Clinton in the popular vote and still won
because of three states where his total margin
was about 75000 votes.
George W. Bush in 2000 lost the popular vote
by a tiny bit and won the Electoral College.
So the mathematical answer is you could win
the Electoral College with only 27 percent
of the popular vote.
It's never happened.
I imagine that if Trump loses the popular
vote by more than three, three or more, he
will lose the Electoral College because remember,
it was like two point two that he lost to
Hillary by and he he just barely squeaked
it out.
If the margin in the popular vote is three
or three and a half, the odds of Trump losing
the popular vote by that much and still winning
the Electoral College would be I don't want
to put a number to it.
A statistician could do it, but it's got to
be won in a very, very big, big number.
I would actually be interested to see data.
What are the odds of winning electorally?
If you lose by three, what are the odds of
winning, winning, winning electorally?
If you lose by four.
And the reason why it's so unlikely is that
elections are not uncorrelated.
Right.
If Donald Trump loses Florida by a big margin,
it is very unlikely that he's also not losing
other important states by a sizable margin,
which would make it extremely unlikely that
you would have like a seven point loss in
the popular vote and still somehow win electorally.
Doesn't mean it's impossible.
It's just never happened.
And I don't expect it to.
I believe that the sort of limit would probably
be spit balling here three or three and a
half, that if Trump loses popular by three
and a half, he's going to lose electorally.
If there is data on this, I haven't looked
for it.
I would love to see it.
Like maybe we would find out that, oh, you
know, if you lose by two, you still have a
25 percent of winning the Electoral College.
If you lose by three, it goes down to only
two percent.
And if you lose by four, it's only like one
in a thousand or something like that.
There's probably some curve which mathematicians
have figured out.
I would love to see it.
Send it to me if you're aware of it.
On the bonus show today, we will talk about
a situation in which election night in November
could really be election week or even election
month.
Some of you probably have an idea of how that
could be.
We're also going to talk about more statue
related drama.
This this is here in Boston that it's happening.
And lastly, in the context of discussions
about police protocol, we are going to talk
about no knock warrants.
We've talked about no knock warrants before,
but I want to devote a little more time to
it.
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And number three, tomorrow night, join the
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