A new analysis by a group funded by Michael Bloomberg is predicting that President Donald Trump could take a commanding lead in the vote tally on Election Day before ultimately losing to Joe Biden after mail-in votes are counted.
Hawkfish, started in the spring of 2019 by Bloomberg prior to his brief presidential run as a Democrat, crunched the data and concluded that Biden may be victorious — just not on Election Day itself.
"We are sounding an 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," Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn told "Axios on HBO."
"When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be someday 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."
One of Hawkfish's scenarios says that Trump could have a projected lead of 408 electoral votes to 130 on election night with just 15% of mail-in ballots counted. Roughly four days later as Americans' mailed ballots are tallied, the final vote could swing left in favor of Biden.
That scenario predicts that Biden will garner 334 electoral votes to Trump's 204.
Trump and other Republicans have criticized the practice of voting by mail, claiming it will lead to voter fraud. With the coronavirus pandemic still affecting Americans' daily lives, however, Democrats are pushing for this option.