Faint Signs of a Bounce (The Road to 270, Take 7)

This post is a day late and it will also be very brief. Since the Republican convention ended, the mood in the media has been an anxious anticipation of a tightening race. But 5 days after the Republican convention ended, we are seeing only a modest bounce for the incumbent. Biden's lead in the Real Clear Politics polling average dipped from 7.8 points to 6.2 points. It currently stands at 6.5. And Biden's chances in Nate Silver's forecast dropped slightly from a high of 73% down to 68%. It currently sits at 70%. Trump has gotten a couple fo decent polls. One poll of Michigan by a Republican pollster had him up by two. And a national poll conducted by Emerson right after the convention showed Biden's lead down to two. But the cross-tabs on that poll showed some screwy results, like Biden winning the suburbs but losing the cities. More importantly, Morning consult released a new round of battle groun polling yesterday tha showed Biden up in every swing state except North Carolina, where he was two points behind. The only state that showed significant movement was Arizona, where Biden's lead went up to 10 points. Two new national polls are out this morning, showing Joe Biden up by seven and eight points, respectively. So with both conventions behind us and Labor Day upon us, Joe Biden maintains a clear lead in national polls. He also has the upper hand in the electoral college and just announced a massive haul of $300 million dollars raised in August. His campaign is doing great. The biggest news fo the week might be that Donald Trump has embraced the notion that recent violence in Kenosha and Portland is a harbinger of things to come in Joe Biden's America. It has apparently not occurred to him or his senior staff that these events have happened in Donald Trump's America. No matter. If this gambit was going to work, we would be seeing more movement in his direction. There will be a flurry of polls in the next week or so. But for now, I remain confident that Biden is the heavy favorite. And I'm not sure what moves Trump can pull to change that dynamic. 

I. The Forecasts. I'm shaving one point of my forecast. I now give Biden and 83% chance of winning. I'm not flipping any states, so my official forecast is still Biden 319, Trump 219. Here is a look at how others see it:

II. The Paths. As the election gets in full swing, I thought it might be helpful to write a bit about what the most important states mean to the Biden campaign.

 

a. The Straightest Line. Hillary Clinton won 232 electoral votes. Her closest path to victory would have been to carry Pennsylvania (20), Michigan (16) and Wisconsin (11). Those three states would have gotten her to 278, but she lost each of them by less than one point. So the most obvious path for Biden is to do one point better in each of those states. 

But if something goes wrong, here is how he can make it up by winning something in the sun belt. 

b. The make-ups. 

If Biden loses Wisconsin (or Minnesota) he can make up for it by winning AZ, NC or FL.

If Biden loses Wisconsin AND Minnesota he needs to win FL or AZ AND NC. 

If Biden loses Wisconin (or Minnesota) and Michigan, he needs to win FL or AZ and NC. 

If Biden loses Michigan, he needs to win AZ, NC or FL. 

If Biden loses Michigan and Wisconin (or Minnesota), he needs to win any 2 among NC, AZ and FL. 

If Biden loses Michigan and Pennsylvania, he needs to win FL or NC AND AZ. 

If Biden loses Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, he wold need to win FL plus NC or AZ. 

c. The quirks. 

For all of the above scenarios, GA could do the job of NC. I think Biden is more likely to win NC, but this could be a year that rearranges some things. Also must note that NH could throw a monkey wrench in some of these secnarios, but it's only 4 electoral votes and I think Biden will do well there.

A Lot Has Happened But Nothing Has Changed. (The Road to 270, Take 6)

The election is 10 weeks from today. It has been exactly 30 days since my last forecast. In those 30 days, the Joe Biden selected kamala Harris as his running mate and the Democrats held their modified mostly vitual convention from a small arena adjacent to a minor league baseball stadium in Wilmington, Delaware. Both Senator Harris and the convention have been well-received. The polls have been pretty steady. Biden's average in the "poll of polls" has been somewhere between seven and nine for most of the summer. At the moment it's about eight. The Republican convention started last night to decidenly mixed reviews. The early speakers were Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, who got mostly good reviews but the night ended with bizarre speeches by both Donald Trump Junior and his girlfriend, who appeared not to notice that she was addressing an empty room. For reasons unkown to this correspondent, they both finished their speeches several minutes faster than planned, leaving seven minutes of dead air time for the networks to fill with pundits desperately trying not to speculate about what caused that. The other item of interest to readers of this blog that happened since our last forecast is that Nate Silver finally published his forecast. The headline is that he gave Biden a 71% chance of winning, the exact same percentage that he gave Hillary of winning going into Election Day 2016. But I hvae to mention that the new website is an ugly, awful mess. The graphics are busy and stupid. It is difficult to get important information such as what polls have been added to the forecase recently. I'm still not sure why he took so long to publish, but we can safely rule out a desire to improve the viewing experience of his audience. I. My Forecast. I have not changes to announce. My previsou forecast had Biden at 334 and Trump at 204. I see no reason to change that. Last week I was wavering on putting North Carolina in Trump's column but we have seen gotten two polls that show Biden up by 4 and 3 points, respectively. That race will be close but Biden is the narrow favorite for now. II. Other Forecasts. Now that Nate Silver has joined the fray, I think we can make a chart to track where everyone stands.

With 70 days to go, there is something of a consensus-Biden is the favorite. He will probably win with a state or two to spare but things could get close. I am having a hard time seeing Trump make up all that ground though. The American people know him and they don't like him. The message of the Democratic convention was both straight-foward and true-the President is an asshole and maybe that shouldn't be so. The Republican convention seems to be a mixture of scaring people into thinking that their way of life is imperiled and that only Donald Trump can save them. That would have a lot more plausibility if we weren't still living in a pandemic as the rest of the world gets back to normal. Trump has a big enough base that he won't be blown out like McGovern or Mondale. He should even avoid Duakakis like numbers. I intend to update this blog every Tuesday between now and November 3rd. At some point, things will probably be close than they are right now. Maybe Biden will have a bad debate. Maybe the deaths from and new cases of COVID-19 will plummet enough to create a sense of relief. But it sure seems more likely that we'll thrash about with something like a 50 to 42 split for most of the coming months.

The Road to 538-Just for Fun

Not much has happened in the past week. Biden retains a large lead and Trump continues to shoot himself in the foot with incompetence and unforced errors.  Biden is not making any waves, which is starting to frustrate the Republicans.


There has been some speculation about Biden's running mate but there is no time table for announcement. I think there are four contenders left.  This is how I rank their chances.

Kamala Harris	50%
Val Demmings	20%
Susan Rice	18%
Tammy Duckworth	8%
The Field	4%

I leave a few percentage points for the field, because crazier things have happened. But he doesn't really need to pick a long shot so I suspect his short list is indeed short. Ambassador Rice is still my personal favorite, but I know her lack of electoral political experience is a big handicap.

The other forecasts continue to be bullish on Biden. Nate Silver has not released a forecast but JHK forecasts now have Biden as the favorite in contests worth 356 points.  (Both Iowa and Georgia are extremely close but Biden has tiny edges in both. He's also gaining traction in Ohio.)

So it might be time to start imagining a blowout. I know that's cocky but with 18 weeks to go, why not have a little fun.  And in that spirit, I'm going to rank all 56 electoral college contests in order of Biden's likelihood of winning.

Jurisdiction	Electoral Votes	Running Tally	Milestone
DC	3	3
Delaware	3	6
New York	29	35
California	55	90
Hawaii	4	94
Vermont	3	97
Massachusetts	11	108
Connecticut	7	115
Maryland	10	125
Illinois	20	145
New Jersey	14	159
Washington	12	171
Oregon	7	178
Rhode Island	4	182
Virginia	13	195
Colorado	9	204
New Mexico	5	209
Maine 1st CD	1	210
Maine	2	212
Minnesota	10	222
Nevada	6	228
New Hampshire	4	232	The Hillary States
Michigan	16	248
Pennsylvania	20	268
Wisconsin	10	278	The Tipping Point
Arizona	11	289
Florida	29	318
North Carolina	15	333
Nebraska 2nd Cd	1	334	My Best Guess of Final Result
Iowa	6	340
Georgia	16	356
Ohio	18	374
Maine 2nd CD	1	375
Texas	38	413
Montana	3	416
South Carolina	9	425	Not Going to Happen
Missouri	10	435
Indiana	11	446
Alaska	3	449
Mississippi	6	455
Kansas	6	461
Nebraska	2	463
Nebraska 3rd CD	1	464
Nebraska 1st CD	1	465
Tennessee	11	476
Louisiana	8	484
South Dakota	3	487
Utah	6	493
Alabama	9	502
Kentucky	8	510
Oklahoma	7	517
Arkansas	6	523
Idaho	4	527
North Dakota	3	530
Wyoming	3	533
West Virginia	5	538