The erroneous claim that Trump would've gotten 400 plus electoral votes against Biden

[Self Esteem]

15. The final internal polls that were shown were catastrophic.

I never did the EC math but the week before Biden dropped out, the internal polling shared to the state parties and congressional Democratic campaigns showed him on track to lose by the largest margin of any candidate since Dole in 1996.

I don't know if it ever added up to 400 electoral votes but it didn't matter.

Their polling had him down in every state that Harris eventually lost, plus Illinois, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Virginia.

Other states were within four points, including Connecticut and New York.

Do I think Biden would have lost all those states? No. But the campaign conceded the final Monday that the math was hard. They still tried to push the narrative that over time, the map would revert back to where it was prior to the debate (essentially the map we got) but the mood was decidedly not confident in Biden winning.

There's a reason he dropped out. He was flatly told by his own staff he was not likely to win.

He saw the writing on the wall and accepted that the election had gotten away from him.

Ultimately, what did Harris in (overall weakness of Democrats showing up) would have been multitude times worse with Biden, as he had very little enthusiasm surrounding his campaign after the debate.

Like I said, I think most those states come back but Biden was down 6-10 points in the campaign's internals in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He was absolutely on pace to lose to Trump by a landslide, both in the popular vote and the EC.

It wouldn't have been by 400 EV but it was shaping up to be similar to 2008.