Tag: Montana

Trump Collapse? Or Not?

As always, if you are impatient for one of these updates, the 2020 pages on Election Graphs are updated every day as new polls come in. Or you can follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter to see all the polls as I add them.

The last blog update here was 11 days ago on September 29th. Here are the high-level changes since that last post:

Model Metric 29 Sep 10 Oct 𝚫
Probabilities
(Indep States)		 Trump 2σ
Median
Biden 2σ		 Biden +46
Biden +144
Biden +256		 Biden +78
Biden +174
Biden +276		 Biden +32
Biden +30
Biden +20
Trump Win
Tie
Biden Win		 0.1%
0.0%
99.9%		 0.0%
0.0%
100.0%		 -0.1%
FLAT
+0.1%
Probabilities
(Uniform Swing)		 Trump 2σ
Median
Biden 2σ		 Trump +84
Biden +168
Biden +312		 Trump +12
Biden +176
Biden +326		 Biden +72
Biden +8
Biden +14
Trump Win
Tie
Biden Win		 7.5%
0.0%
92.5%		 5.2%
0.0%
94.8%		 -2.3%
FLAT
+2.3%
Categories Trump Best
Expected
Biden Best		 Biden +8
Biden +168
Biden +294		 Biden +20
Biden +212
Biden +288		 Biden +12
Biden +44
Trump +6
Tipping Point Biden +5.4% Biden +6.2% Biden +0.8%

To summarize before we get to review all the current graphs:

These 11 days have been very good for Biden in the polling. He hasn't moved past his all-time best marks, but he is once again near the top of the range we have observed over the last year. The flip side of course is that Trump is near the bottom of his range.

The key metrics right now show that if the election was today (it is not) Trump's chance of winning is no more than 5.2%, probably less, and Biden's tipping point is up to a 6.2% lead, which is the best it has been since mid-August, and which is better than Clinton saw any time in the last 100 days before the 2016 election.

But I wouldn't call this a Trump collapse quite yet. He has returned to the low end of the range we have been seeing for months. We are not breaking new ground, seeing things worse for Trump than we have ever seen. At least not yet.

From here it is quite possible that we get a reversion to the mean, with Trump improving a bit, rather than seeing further Trump deterioration. Does it look bad for Trump? Yes. Certainly. But not in an unprecedented way, and he could still make up ground before the end.

OK, now for the parade of graphs…

As usual, we'll look at the critical states, then the nationwide electoral college trend charts, the win odds graphs, the spectrum of states, then finally close it up with the comparison to 2016 and a map. Here we go.

This time there were 9 states that moved in or out of the "Weak Biden" or "Weak Trump" categories since the last blog post:

Biden's lead in Florida very briefly popped over 5% into the "Strong Biden" zone, but then dropped back down again into "Weak Biden". So no net change to the category. Biden remains strong in Florida, but not so strong that it is completely out of Trump's reach.

Biden's current 4.2% lead maps to an 84.9% chance of winning the state given the previous accuracy of Election Graphs averages.

Ohio is pretty much as close to a tie as possible. Since the last update, it moved briefly from the Biden side to the Trump side, and then back again. No net change.

Because of the order of the polls, the brief trip across the line isn't visible on the chart anymore, but it did happen. Either way though, Ohio is too close to call.

Looking at the specific margin, Ohio is actually in an oddball zone. Biden leads by 0.1% at the moment, but our win odds are based on the results in 2008 through 2016, and looking at those years, a Democratic lead this small actually means the Republican is still slightly favored. We currently have Trump at a 53.2% chance of winning Ohio based on this poll average.

At the time of the last blog post, Georgia had moved to be just barely "Weak Trump". It is now "Weak Biden" again, where it has been most of the time since July. Biden now leads by 2.0% in the average, which we have as a 67.9% chance of winning.

Only one is left visible on the graph, but since last time Michigan went from Stong Biden to Weak Biden, then Strong then Weak, then finally Strong again before Biden's lead increased up to 8.6% as we write this, firmly within the Strong Biden zone. This corresponds to a 99.1% chance of a Biden win. If nothing changes before election day of course.

Wisconsin is another back and forth with no net category change. It dipped into "Weak Biden", then moved back into "Strong Biden" where it has been most of the time since July. Biden currently has a 6.2% lead, or about a 94.8% chance of winning.

Since the last update, Trump's lead in South Carolina very briefly dipped below 5%, then went back up again. Once again, this is a chance that was actually erased by subsequent polls. Right now, Trump leads by 5.3%, which means about a 97.3% chance of winning.

Biden's lead in Nevada grows to 5.3% or a 91.7% win chance, pulling it out of the "Weak Biden" zone.

For the second time in the last few months, Iowa slips to the blue side of the line. Barely. The poll average has Biden at a 0.4% lead, which would be a 50.8% chance of winning the state. This is clearly a toss-up, but also given the history, it would not be surprising at all to see Iowa slip back into the red with the next polls that come in. The "usual" situation for Iowa seems to be just barely Trump, and it is way too early to make any determination that there has been a lasting change.

Last time we had Montana move into the "Weak Trump" category. A series of poll updates covering older time periods, including a correction to one outlier data point, completely erased that change. And by the time of this post, Trump's lead was actually up to 10.1%, putting the state not just into "Strong Trump" but all the way into "Solid Trump". Trump's chance of winning the state is now 99.9%.

So yeah, the Democrats probably won't be flipping Montana this time around.

Beyond the states that changed categories, here are the rest of the states that are currently in the "Weak" categories, but did not shift their classifications at all this time around. With no additional commentary.

With all the state views out of the way, time for the three different models for the range of electoral college possibilities.

The centerline of this chart is at a 212 EV Biden win, the best it has been since mid-September, but overall, this shows the steadiness of the race. The ups and downs we are seeing are a small handful of very close states going back and forth across the zero line as the polls jitter.

Looking at the best cases… where one candidate or the other wins ALL of the close states… Biden's best-case very rarely moves at all. Trump's best-case moves a lot more. This is a factor of there being a lot more states close to a 5% Biden lead than there are states close to a 5% Trump lead. But even there, the Best cases have just bounced in a range since July. There is no clear trend.

Next up, the probabilistic view using "uniform swing" where we force all of the states to move up and down together. This gives both the maximum chances of an upset and the maximum chances of the current leader getting a landslide.

And we see the same thing. Yes, improvement for Biden lately, but well within what has been the normal range of possibilities lately.

The only place where you can claim a breakout is the top of Trump's 2σ (95.45%) range, which is down to a 12 EV Trump win. That is indeed the worst we have seen for Trump on that line in this election cycle.

This range does still include Trump winning, but barely. This version of the model currently gives Trump a 5.2% chance of winning.

And then the "Independent States" view. This does a simulation assuming what happens in each state is completely independant of what happens in all the others. So if the polls underestimate Trump's support in Ohio, it means nothing to what may happen in Pennsylvania, etc. This results in the tightest range of possible results.

On this view as well, Trump has declined the last few weeks, but we aren't breaking new ground.

We are however in the territory where even the 3σ (99.73%) range does not include the possibility of Trump winning. In fact, the standard display on the 2020 Electoral College page now rounds Biden's win odds to 100%. Looking at the unrounded simulation results, we actually have 99.996% Biden wins, 0.0027% Trump wins, and 0.0013% ties.

Both the "Uniform Swing" and "Independent States" represent the extremes of how correlated or not state results are to each other. The truth is somewhere in between, but where in between is not predicted by these models.

So the Election Graphs statement on odds right now is simply that Trump's odds of winning are between 0.0027% and 5.2%.

So let's look at the odds charts.

So, uh, yeah. We probably won't show this one much unless Trump starts spiking and there is something to see. In the Independent States view, Trump has been so close to zero for so long that you can't even see any red on this chart.

On uniform swing, there is at least something to see. But again, we are bouncing around in a well-trod range. We're currently at a 5.2% Trump win probability in this view. The range on this chart (currently showing the race since July 12th) is from a 4.6% to a 16.9% chance of a Trump win.

Now, to be clear, there is a big difference between a 4.6% chance of winning and a 16.9% chance of winning.  But that seems to be the range we have been living in for Trump's maximum odds of winning. We are still in that range, although near the low end.

And now the tipping point. This represents how much the national popular vote would need to move… assuming a uniform swing of states… in order to flip the overall result. Once again, we see us near Biden's best, but not quite setting records. Right now the 6.2% is the best Biden has seen since August 11th. But he was close to this level as recently as September 19th.

Unless there is a breakout, this is once again a picture of a steady race. Yes, Biden is near the top of his range, but basically, things have been flat for months. There is no overarching trend.

And there is the center of our spectrum of states. There are a LOT of close states right now. Trump winning all of them isn't enough. He has to also pull in Nevada and Wisconsin. Or some of the states where he is behind by even more.

The RCP average of national polls currently shows a 9.6% Biden lead. Comparing to the 6.2% tipping point, this implies that the structure of the electoral college is currently giving Trump a 3.4% head start. This is up from 0.7% in the last update.

The increase in this delta since last time would indicate that a lot of Biden's gain in the national popular vote is coming from states that don't matter. Biden winning by a bit more in New York, or losing by a bit less in West Virginia is simply irrelevant given how we actually choose presidents.

Finally, let's do the 2016 comparison.

Reader Ali D recently asked in the post comments if I could do 2016 comparisons based on the probabilistic views in addition to what I have been doing here. He wasn't sure the expected case was a good comparison since it could change so much based on close states crossing the centerline.

The short answer is no. The probabilistic views are all new for 2020, so I have no 2016 line to compare to. Sorry!

Going into more detail, the estimates of how close to reality the poll averages end up that drive the probabilistic analysis are based on looking at the 2008 through 2016 results, so even though I once did it as a one-off, applying that analysis to 2016 would not be valid since you are essentially using the 2016 results to predict 2016.

It theoretically would be possible for me to generate separate state win odds using only 2008 and 2012 data using the same method I used, then retroactively generate a full probabilistic trend for 2016, but even doing this with only 3 election cycles of data seemed a little iffy, doing it with two really would be. Plus, realistically, I'm not going to have time to do anything like that before election day.

So once again, sorry!

Ali D is also correct that JUST looking at the expected case doesn't give you a good sense of how close things really are since you don't know if the states making up the winning margin have the winner ahead by 0.1% or by 1% or by 10%.

This is why we look at BOTH the Expected Case and the Tipping Point to understand the comparison…  I guess we could expand this to also compare the best cases for both candidates, but things are already complicated enough… so we'll stick to just these two.

Here we go…

In the expected case, Biden has been doing better than Clinton ever since we hit the 76 day out mark. We are now past Clinton's last surge, and into the part of the race where her lead had started to slip.

So far, Biden's lead is not slipping. It is increasing.

But let's look at the tipping point comparison:

In this metric, between 37 and 29 days out, when Clinton was at a high point and Biden was at the low end of his range, Biden was actually doing worse than Clinton was at the same point. But that Clinton peak is over, Biden is gaining, and so Biden once again is stronger than Clinton was at this point.

We certainly can't say it is impossible for this picture to change before the election. But for Trump to actually be FAVORED to win, Biden needs to start collapsing soon, and he needs a bigger and faster collapse than Clinton suffered in 2016.

Unlike Clinton, who regularly fell to levels where the race was tight and she was favored but Trump clearly had a very good shot, Biden has been consistently strong all the way along. So to let Trump take the lead, he would have to do significantly worse than we have ever seen, not just a little bit worse.

Or course Trump doesn't have to be favored in order to win. With existing polling, the Uniform Swing view gives Trump a 5.2% chance of an upset. And 5.2% is NOT ZERO.

Embedding the most recent XKCD because it is directly relevant:

XKCD Prediction

Of course Election Graphs is actually saying that the chances of a Trump win are LESS than 5.2% if the election was today. Even so, it is STILL NOT ZERO.

Plus there is still time for things to change. Over 9 million people have already voted. Voting is well underway. But as I write this we have a little over three weeks until the the end of voting and most people haven't voted yet. While it seems increasingly likely that it will be hard for Trump to actually get to a position where he is the favorite on election day, he may very well improve his odds in that time.

There still could be an October Surprise that makes a difference!

We shall see.

Finally, the map as it stands right now:

Everything above represents the situation as of when I started writing this blog post. Looks like at least two new polls have been published while I have been writing. So time to close this out and start updating the site again…

But first, the usual closing with the countdown:

24.1 days until the first results start coming in for Election 2020.

Tune in for the inevitable ups and downs that happen in those days…

For more information:

This post is an update based on the data on the Election Graphs Electoral College 2020 page. Election Graphs tracks a poll-based estimate of the Electoral College. The charts, graphs, and maps in the post above are all as of the time of this post. Click through on any image for current interactive versions of the chart, along with additional details.

Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates. For those interested in individual poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as I add them. If you find the information in these posts informative or useful, please consider visiting the donation page.

The Situation on Debate Day

It is a few hours before the first Presidental debate, and I am overdue for another blog update.

As always, if you are impatient for one of these updates, the 2020 pages on Election Graphs are updated nearly every day as new polls come in. Or you can follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter to see all the polls as I add them.

First of all, let me highlight that prompted by some questions about the site sent to me by reader Wim M., I realized that while I had produced one in previous election cycles, I had completely forgotten to create a Frequently Asked Questions page for 2020. That is now rectified.

Here is the new FAQ for this website. If you have questions that aren't included there, please contact me and let me know what you want to know, and I may add the question.

With that out of the way, the last update here was 12 days ago on September 17th. Here are the high-level changes since that last post:

Model Metric 17 Sep 29 Sep 𝚫
Probabilities
(Indep States)		 Trump 2σ
Median
Biden 2σ		 Biden +44
Biden +152
Biden +256		 Biden +46
Biden +144
Biden +256		 Biden +2
Trump +8
FLAT
Trump Win
Tie
Biden Win		 0.1%
0.0%
99.9%		 0.1%
0.0%
99.9%		 FLAT
FLAT
FLAT
Probabilities
(Uniform Swing)		 Trump 2σ
Median
Biden 2σ		 NEW
NEW
NEW		 Trump +84
Biden +168
Biden +312		 NEW
NEW
NEW
Trump Win
Tie
Biden Win		 NEW
NEW
NEW		 7.5%
0.0%
92.5%		 NEW
NEW
NEW
Categories Trump Best
Expected
Biden Best		 Biden +6
Biden +240
Biden +288		 Biden +8
Biden +168
Biden +294		 Biden +2
Trump +72
Biden +6
Tipping Point Biden +5.6% Biden +5.4% Trump +0.2%

Hey! There is a whole new section. And it shows Trump with a much better chance of winning! Where did that come from? What is that?

After the last blog post, I had a question from reader Jason H. asking why our Biden win odds were so much higher than a lot of other sites showing odds for the election and if this was related to treating the results in states independently. I answered that for the moment, the biggest difference is that this site only does "if the election was held today", not an actual forecast that tries to how things may change in the remaining days before the election, but that indeed, our simulation did consider the states to be independent, and if there was still a big difference by the time we got to the election, that would be why.

But frankly, it is getting close enough to the election to know that a 99.9% chance of a Biden win is too high. Sure. He is a favorite. But 99.9%? Nah. That can't be right. Even if the election was today.

Around the same time, there was a blowup on "Election Twitter" around the same issue, roundly criticizing models that treated the states as if they were uncorrelated. I am too small to have been mentioned by name, but this criticism very much applied to this site too. So I needed to do something.

The new FAQ has some additional info, but the bottom line is that while I don't have a good way at the moment to predict the degree of correlation between states, I can put bookends around the possibilities.

What I have shown in the past in the probabilistic model is the completely uncorrelated case. It assumes that what happens in one state has no predictive value toward the other states at all. Because an upset in one state can be compensated for by an upset in another, this results in a much tighter range of possibilities overall.

I have now added a "uniform swing" view that assumes essentially that all the states always move together. This is the other extreme. If you know how far off one state is from the poll average, you can figure out where all the other states will be. It results in a wider distribution, with larger chances for upsets (or landslides).

Looking at the historical "envelopes" I produce, the difference looks like this:

You can clearly see that Uniform Swing produces a much wider range of possibilities, even in the central 1σ (68.27%) band. Basically, forcing the states to move in lockstep results in a much more uncertain view of the race.

In terms of win odds, while the "Independent States" graph is now just a solid block of blue with Biden's win odds pinned near 100% since June, the Uniform Swing view looks like this:

Biden is still heavily favored across this whole time period, but Trump has spiked as high as an 18.7% chance of winning. That is much much better than 0.1%.

These two views are the extremes given the polling averages I have, and the state margin to state win odds mapping I calculated using the historical 2008 to 2016 data on this site.

The truth is somewhere in between these two views, but my methods don't pinpoint an exact value for that "true" value.

So this means that Election Graphs right now thinks that Biden's chances of winning are somewhere between 92.5% and 99.9%, while Trump's chances of winning are between 0.1% and 7.5%.

This is still based ONLY on poll averages, it is not a model that factors in all kinds of other things like some other places do.

And critically, this is still "if the election was today". It doesn't become a prediction until we add the last polls right before the election. Because of this, you'll notice that we still have higher win odds for Biden than some other famous places. They are trying to factor in the chances that Biden's current lead disappears between now and the election. I still don't do that.

But this seems more intuitively reasonable than the near 100% Biden lock we have been showing.

The main 2020 Electoral College page has now been updated to include these new views along with everything that was shown there before. Sorry I didn't add all this earlier!

With all of that out of the way, time for all the things we usually highlight in these update posts:

This week's TL;DR: Biden is still significantly ahead. The race is mostly stable. A few states that were just barely on one side or the other of the centerline switched sides. But either way, they are really too close to call. So even though the "Expected Case" in the Categorization view moves a lot, the actual state of the race isn't much different.

Let's look at all the places that shifted in or out of "Weak Biden" and "Weak Trump" since the last update.

First up, Texas. Biden was up by a little bit for a while, but no longer. It is still a close race though, with Texas actively in play.

Pennsylvania has mostly been "Strong Biden", but for a brief time, Biden's lead slipped under 5%. Then Biden strengthened again, and it is back where it usually is… just out of Trump's reach.

Ohio has been just barely Trump for awhile. The latest average moves it to just barely Biden. But the "just barely" part of that is more important than the candidate's name you put after that. Ohio is on the edge.

Georgia is also right on the edge, but because it has been polled more often, it appears more volatile. In the 12 days since the last update, Georgia flipped over the center line in my averages seven times. But it was Weak Biden 12 days ago, and it is Weak Trump now, so the net change is for Trump this time. But given the history, it would not be surprising for it to flip dozens of times before the election.

Like Pennsylvania, Biden's lead briefly dipped under 5% in Michigan. Unlike Pennsylvania, the timing of the polls was such that the brief foray into "Weak Biden" was actually erased from the graph once all the data was in.

From the other direction, the addition of some older polls from June, July, and August actually pulled Trump's lead in South Carolina under 5% for much of the summer. That older poll data wasn't available when we posted 12 days ago, so it only reflected as a switch to "Weak Trump" when we added those polls a few days back. But then a few polls from September quickly pulled the state back into the "Strong Trump" zone.

Exactly the same thing happened with Alaska. The addition of older data from June and July briefly pulled the average under 5%, but then it popped back up again.

Montana on the other hand did actually move from "Stong Trump" to "Weak Trump. That one data point showing Biden actually leading Montana sure looks like an outlier though. So don't be surprised for this to jump back to "Strong Trump" when that poll rolls off the average. (Assuming there are at least 4 more Montana polls before the election, which there may or may not be.)

And Nebraska's second congressional district, where the average finally catches up with the individual polls, which have been showing 6%+ Biden leads since the spring.

And then the "Weak" states and CDs that did not switch categories this time, without commentary:

Add up all of these changes, the categorization view now looks like this:

Note because we backfilled a lot of June, July, and August numbers that became available last week, some of the older part of the chart moved around a bit as well as just the newer weeks.

But the picture here is pretty static for August and September. The middle line bounces around a bit as the close states cross back and forth over the centerline. But basically, there isn't much consistent movement one way or another. Where we are now is very close to where we were two months ago.

Normally at this point, we'd show the probabilistic view and talk about it a bit, but that was covered at the beginning of the post this time with the addition of the Uniform Swing view. If you scroll back up and look at the probabilistic charts, you'll see they also show a pretty steady picture. Sure, there is some movement up and down as polls come in and out of the averages. But there is no clear directional movement. Neither candidate is breaking out of their "normal" range.

Is it any different for the tipping point?

Aside from some very short-lived spikes, the tipping point has been between 4% and 6% Biden since mid-June. And most of that time has been between 5% and 6% Biden. While as always, there is noise, this also shows a very stable race.

As a reference, in the three elections I have tracked, the biggest difference between the tipping point based on the final averages here and the actual tipping point based on the election results was 3.45% in 2008. Biden's tipping point lead is currently 5.4%.

The RCP average of national polls currently shows a 6.1% Biden lead. Comparing to the 5.4% tipping point, this implies that the structure of the electoral college is currently giving Trump a 0.7% head start. This is up from 0.3% head start in the last update.

The spectrum of states where the margin is less than 10% now looks like this:

Now time to compare to 2016:

In the expected case, Biden is down from where he was, but he is still doing better than Clinton was at a comparable time. This time in 2016 was a peak for Clinton, but Biden still beats it. Barely. But this is the high end of Clintons range, while it is the low end of Biden's.

But let's look at the tipping point comparison:

Clinton's early October peak was pretty substantial. While Biden's "expected case" is still better, in terms of the tipping point, he actually slightly lags where Clinton was at the same point. Biden is at 5.4%. Clinton was at 5.6%

So in terms of how much of a swing in nationwide polling would be needed to change the outcome, Biden is essentially exactly the same place Clinton was at this point in terms of the tipping point margin. And Clinton collapsed.

Quoting from the last post, since this hasn't changed?

What's different this time?

Aside from the big movement toward Biden in June, Biden's tipping point has been more stable than Clinton's. Clinton's line swung back and forth wildly. Biden is certainly jittering around a bit, but the magnitude of the movements is a lot smaller.

Election Graphs focuses on margins, but looking at the details of the polling and the actual absolute amount of support for each candidate, one big difference in 2020 vs 2016 is that we have a significantly smaller set of undecided voters now than in 2016. So the group who are available to "slosh around" and shift back and forth over time is a lot smaller.

Does that exclude the possibility of a Clinton style collapse?

No. It does not.

But it probably does mean you need a pretty huge news event to cause that kind of movement.  It would not only have to make the undecideds break strongly toward Trump but also keep some current Biden supporters from voting for him, either by actually flipping or just by staying home.

Clinton's tipping point at this point in 2016 was one of the highest levels she ever hit on this metric. Biden is about where he usually has been. This does seem to make the kind of collapse Clinton saw less likely.

But we are about to enter October. Will we get "October Surprises" this October that match the impact of what happened in 2016?

We only have a few weeks left to find out.

Finally, the current map:

Like everything else in this post, the map shows where things stood when I started this blog post. But we have entered the part of the season where new polls are being released nearly constantly. There have been several during the time I have been writing this update. Time to go and start adding them in…

For now though, the usual closing with the countdown:

35.2 days until the first results start coming in for Election 2020.

Hold on tight.

For more information:

This post is an update based on the data on the Election Graphs Electoral College 2020 page. Election Graphs tracks a poll-based estimate of the Electoral College. The charts, graphs, and maps in the post above are all as of the time of this post. Click through on any image for current interactive versions of the chart, along with additional details.

Follow @ElectionGraphs on Twitter or Election Graphs on Facebook to see announcements of updates. For those interested in individual poll updates, follow @ElecCollPolls on Twitter for all the polls as I add them. If you find the information in these posts informative or useful, please consider visiting the donation page.

Slow Week

Since last week's update, there have been new polls in Montana, Connecticut, and North Carolina.

Warren vs. Trump is now the "best-polled candidate combination" based on the metric I use, so it is now the default when you go to the Election Graphs 2020 Electoral College page, displacing Biden vs. Trump.

Overall this week, Biden weakened a little bit versus Trump, but he is so far ahead at the moment it doesn't make much difference. All of the other Democrats tracked here get a little bit stronger against Trump with this week's polling.

Looking at the categorization model first, only North Carolina made a difference:

Biden's lead decreased a bit. Sanders and Harris improved a lot. Warren and Buttigieg got a little stronger.

So how did this impact the national picture?

Let's look at some graphs to illustrate the changes.

  • Biden vs. Trump tipping point change: Biden by 5.1% in NC -> Biden by 4.4% in WI
  • Warren vs. Trump tipping point change: Trump by 0.1% in FL -> Trump by 0.1% in NC

  • Biden vs. Trump state category change: NC has moved from Strong Biden to Weak Biden
  • Trump best case vs. Biden has changed: Biden 283 to Trump 255 -> Biden 268 to Trump 270

So the categorization model once again has the "best case" in Biden vs. Trump include a Trump win if he wins ALL of the swing states because Biden's lead in North Carolina slipped to below the 5% mark, bringing it back into play.

  • Sanders vs. Trump state category change: NC has moved from Weak Trump to Weak Sanders
  • Sanders vs. Trump expected case change: Sanders 370 to Trump 168 -> Sanders 385 to Trump 153

In terms of the expected case, where everybody wins every state where they lead the average, with Sanders now taking the lead in North Carolina, he would win by 232 electoral votes, nearly matching Biden's 242 electoral vote margin in this scenario.

In this expected case, Biden and Sanders have substantial leads over Trump. Harris and Buttigieg have very narrow edges. (As does Sanders against Pence.) Warren loses to Trump.

The picture from the tipping point is very similar.

Time to flip to the probabilistic model. How do things look this week?

Since we were looking at the "expected case" in the categorization model, let's look at the median Monte Carlo result first:

Dem 6 Oct 13 Oct 𝚫
Biden +170 +166 -4
Sanders +114 +124 +10
Warren +28 +30 +2
Buttigieg +22 +24 +2
Harris +18 +20 +2

All of the above vs. Trump. Sanders vs. Pence flat at +28.

Unlike the categorization view, all of the Democrats lead here, although we once again see a situation where Biden and Sanders have very substantial leads, while Warren, Buttigieg, and Harris have very narrow edges.

Biden slips just a little this week, while Sanders has the biggest gain in terms of the median electoral vote margin.

And now the odds:

Dem 6 Oct 13 Oct 𝚫
Biden 99.9% 99.9% Flat
Sanders 97.3% 98.3% +1.0%
Warren 68.9% 70.6% +1.7%
Harris 64.0% 68.0% +4.0%
Buttigieg 66.5% 66.8% +0.3%

All of the above vs. Trump. Sanders vs. Pence flat at 72.8%.

Biden has a substantial enough lead that the little change this week doesn't have a notable impact on his percentage chances.

As Sanders' position in the various state polls continues to improve, he is rapidly catching Biden in terms of how solid his lead over Trump looks.

Harris improves the most this week, but Warren, Harris, and Buttigieg remain stuck in the high 60's, low 70's. Certainly favored to win over Trump, but by no means sure things.

To date, the most common explanation for this division has been name recognition. People know Biden and Sanders. Aside from political junkies, like anybody who might be reading this, "normal" people still aren't paying attention yet, and when polled about these other names may not have a good idea who they are.

The further along we get though, the less likely that is to explain things thoroughly. Now, some national polls have started to show that the gap between Warren and Biden in their performance vs. Trump has been decreasing as Warren gains in the Democratic primary competition. If so, this has been a relatively recent change, and will still take a while before we can see this in the state-level polls we look at here at Election Graphs.

If these kinds of differences persist when we get to actual caucus and primary voting in February, however, then it might be time to acknowledge that there could be real differences in how well the various Democratic candidates could be expected to fare in a general election.

386.6 days until polls start to close on Election Day 2020.

For more information:

This post is an update based on the data on the Election Graphs Electoral College 2020 page. Election Graphs tracks a poll-based estimate of the Electoral College. The charts, graphs, and maps in the post above are all as of the time of this post. Click through on any image to go to a page with the current interactive versions of that chart, along with additional details.

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