Hoist on his Own Petard
The Biggest Reason Trump Lost
Well, maybe the second biggest reason, after COVID-19.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_elections_by_popular_vote_marginBelow is a table showing the percentages of the registered voters who entered a vote in the Presidential election over the last forty years:
1980 54.2
1984 55.2
1988 52.8
1992 58.1
1996 51.7
2000 54.2
2004 60.1
2008 61.6
2012 58.6
2016 60.2
2020 66.7
There was a big bump in the percentages in 2020. An increase of 6.5% over 2016. The next highest percentage was for 2008, but the 2020 percentage was still 5.6 % higher than that. 2020 was the first time the percentage of eligible voters voting reached two thirds, 66.6 % or higher in 120 years, since 1900. What was the difference?
Mail in voting. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the reasonable step of opening up mail-in ballots was taken. This had a huge effect because in a small percentage of cases, voters who intended to vote on Election day don’t, for a variety of reasons. They get sick. They are held up at work. A child or someone gets sick. The car breaks down. Both the Republicans and Democrats got a record number of votes because of this.
So, what was Trump’s big mistake? Discouraging mail-in ballots. He told his voters to vote in person. While Biden told his voters to make use of mail-in ballots, to reduce the risk of COVID-19. And this was decisive.
Yes, Trump still get a good deal of mail in ballots, because some supporters ignored his suggestion. But he would have gotten more votes if he did not discourage mail in balloting.
Biden was consistent in his message. He cancelled the tradition big party rallies, to drive up enthusiasm for the vote. This, no doubt, cost him some, but the danger of the virus was a bigger issue, in his mind. For that alone, he deserved my vote and I’m glad I gave it to him. And along with that, discourage in person voting while encouraging mail in ballots. Again, this helps slow the spread of the virus.
It seems to me that Trump became convinced that he would lose a fair election, not just in the popular vote count but in the Electoral College as well. So, he focused on various ways to steal the election.
1. Rush through the appointment of a Supreme Court justice. Which he succeeded in doing. Now there was a strong conservative majority on the Supreme Court, three of them being his appointees. Along with the other judges in the Federal court system that he appointed, he thought this might do it. He was wildly wrong.
2. Discourage mail in ballots by his supporters. He thought he could suppress the mail in ballots. Getting the courts to reject them. Or having the various states reject them. If this work, this will seriously cost Biden a lot of votes, since Biden was encouraging mail in ballots. Trump thought he was really pulling the wool over Biden’s eyes on this one.
3. Rely on the Republican governors, Secretary of State and other high officials in the various swing states to help him out. Another case where he was wildly wrong.
4. As a last resort, call on the Proud Boys and their allies, mixed in with some of his ‘regular’ supporters to cause a riot that will somehow get him the win.
If he forgot about all this nonsense, just concentrated on getting out the maximum number of votes, which means encouraging mail-in balloting, he almost certainly would have won in the Electoral College, though probably not the popular vote. But it doesn’t matter. He would have won. And it would give him more time to think about what could go wrong when the vaccines become available.
There was an increase of voting percentage from 60.2 to 66.7 percent. That means that with the use of mail in ballots a candidate will increase the number of votes they get by 10.8 %.
; from: 100 *(66.7-60.2)/60.2
Clarification. The is not the per cent increase compared to the total number of eligible voters. This is the per cent increase from the number we would expect if this was a regular election, without mail in balloting being opened up. So, this per cent increase was not 66.7-60.2 or 6.5 %, but is an increase of 10.8 %.
If Trump just increased his own votes by just 2.5 %, he would have won Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, giving him an extra 57 Electoral College votes, an increase from 232 to 289, above the 270 he needed.
Trump was hoist on his own petard. 
