Two weeks from tonight I will sit down at this desk and type out my final election prediction for 2020. Then I will go to bed and be hit with a wave of nervous anticipation that I have not felt since my last Santa Claus Christmas.
For now, Joe Biden leads by nine or ten points. He has leads in the pivotal states and has a few routes to running up the score. Ohio and Georgia, two states that Biden does not need to win, are true coin-flips.
There is only one debate remaining. Perhaps most importantly, President Trump seems to be incapable of changing his course. He lives in the Fox News Bubble and he seems determined to campaign there as well. The election is more likely to be ugly and scary than it is to be close.
But this project is a commitment, so I crunched the numbers again. There was some modest movement towards Donald Trump in some of the betting markets for individual states. But the polling data remains pretty stable. Biden's numbers improved slightly in Arizona and North Carolina, but remained where they were last week in most other places.
I. The Taxonomy Down the Stretch.
Last week I introduced a new way of thinking about the election, dividing all of the remotely competitive states into six categories. I'll walk through each of those tiers here. The chart this week includes changes from last week for the prediction market prices and the 538.com forecast.
A. The Nightmare scenario: The States Biden Defends.
There is no sign that NH, MN or NV have become competitive in the polling data. Nate Silver has all three of these states trending towards Biden. It must be noted that the betting markets for these states have drifted slightly toward Trump. I think that is mostly profit-taking. People sold their shares in the 80s to buy more competitive states in order to collect more on election night.
B. The Tight Scenario: The Rust Belt Hillary Killer States.
Very little movement in these states. Trump got one good poll from a Republican pollster called Trafalgar that had him up by one. The other polls this week had Biden winning by at least eight points.
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Nebraska-2nd congressional district are basically unchanged from last week.
There was some Trump movement in the prediction markets here, but less pronounced than in the long-shot states.
C. The Good Scenario: Sun Belt States.
Here is a certified quirk of October. Florida's in-person early voting began today. About 50 of the 67 counties released data on the party affiliation of ballots returned. It was just about a draw, with the Republicans netting about 4K votes. That margin was more than made up for in today's vote by mail numbers. Most importantly, Miami-Dade did not release numbers by party affiliation but will do so tomorrow. Today, the betting markets moved to Trump by about seven points, based on this data. But I expect we will see a correction tomorrow when the Miami numbers are released.
Arizona and North Carolina have both trended towards Biden this week, but not dramatically.
I still like Biden to run the table up to this point. That would get him up to 334 Electoral Votes.
D. The Great Scenario: The Map Expands.
Georgia and Ohio remain true toss-ups. For most of the week Nate favored Biden slightly in GA and Trump slightly in OH. But neither is more than a 52/48 proposition. We are expecting a high-quality New York Times poll of Ohio tomorrow. I expect it will be very close, and that is consistent with my overall theme-if Ohio is close, Joe Biden is winning the election.
I am starting to think of Ohio and Iowa as a 7-10 split for Biden. He probably can't win both so he might as well focus on winning one of them. With two competitive senate races, Georgia is the logical place to put more resources. To be sporting, I'm moving Georgia into Biden's column tonight. But it is a true coin toss.
Trump remains a modest favorite in Iowa.
E. The Dream Scenario: A Blue Texas
Fun little data point here. In both the Economist and FiveThirtyEight models, the most common EV total for Joe Biden is 413. That means running the table in all of the above states plus adding Texas.
But don't get carried away. It's "the mode" but it only happens 3.8% of the time. There are a lot of combinations in a race that has 56 jurisdictions A lot has to go right for Biden to get to this point. I think it's unlikely.
This week, Texas moved slightly to the left in the models and slightly to the right on Predictit.com. The fundamentals are this-Trump is the favorite but Biden doesn't need to win there.
F. The Blow Out Scenario.
Biden has remote shots of winning Alaska, South Carolina and Montana. You can probably add Kansas to that list, but none of these states will decide the election and the movement this week was modestly towards Donald Trump.
All margins and prices are for Biden/Democrat. Changes from last week are shown in parenthesis.)
II. The Forecasts.
1. FiveThirtyEight. Biden is at 88 percent, up slightly from 87 percent a week ago.
2. The Economist. The most aggressive forecast in the field inches up again-moving Biden up to 92% from 91% a week ago. He seems to be determined to stay one step ahead of Nate Silver so he can yell "First!" when the networks call Florida or Pennsylvania on Election Night. His tally right now is Biden 350, Trump 188, which means that like me he moved Georgia into Biden's column this week.
3. Sabato Crystal Ball. Biden 290, Trump 163, Toss-up 85. No changes from last week.
4. 270toWin. Biden 290, Trump 163. Toss-up 85. No changes from last week.
I think Sabato and 270 are both being too conservative with their toss-ups. Biden leads in FL and NC. Trump leads in IA. OH and GA are the only true toss-ups at the moment.
5. JHK Forecasts. Biden 88.3%, up slightly from 87.7% They have Biden slightly favored in Georgia and Iowa with Ohio as close to a dead-heat as possible. They give Trump the edge there, 50.1% to 49.9%. That makes 357 Biden, 181 Trump.
They are a little bullish on Biden in Texas, with him winning there 38.8% of the time.
6. Plural Vote. Biden has a 73.1% chance of of winning, down slightly from 74% last week.
But they have Biden 332, Trump 206, which is up from 323 to 215 last week. And they are even more bullish on Texas, giving Biden a 44% chance of winning there.
Right now this forecast feels the shakiest. They give Biden the lowest chance of winning the election but the best chance of achieving a blowout.
7. Betting Markets. Predictit.com gives Biden 61.9%, up slightly from last week's 61.1%. That is consistent with other betting markets, that give Biden a slightly better than 3 to 2 chance of winning.
There was state-level movement toward Trump this week but that hasn't moved the big board. It also didn't change any states in their overall forecast, which remains Biden 334, Trump 204.
8. Spider Stumbled.
I remain confident but the state-level betting markets have me slightly more concerned than I was the last two weeks. I will move Biden from 91% down to 89%. He was at 91% two weeks in a row.
He didn't have a bad polling week, but he did have a stable polling week, after several consecutive weeks of gains.
But I do move Georgia into his column-by an inch. That leaves my official prediction at Biden 351, Trump 187.
And as I started last week, I will take a crack at the popular vote totals again.
Biden 52.36% (-0.19)
Trump 45.02% (+0.17)
Jorgenson (Libertarian) 1.76% (+0.1)
Hawkins (Green Party) 0.65%
Others: 0.2% (+0.1)
Looking at all of the date-polls, forecasts, betting markets, there is simply no reason to doubt that Joe Biden remains on a path to 270 and beyond. We got this week and then next week. Then it will be Monday. Then it will be game day.
Keep the faith.
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