This is the fifth Sunday summary of US state-wide polls, focusing on the ‘competitive’ states in the US Presidential election. What a contest this is turning into. First, Donald Trump gets infected with Covid-19, calling it a ‘blessing from God’; then the FBI thwarts a far right kidnapping plot against the Michigan governor. Can’t wait for next week.
The race will be determined by the Electoral College which is based on who wins at state level. Most states are fairly predictable. However, there are 12 ‘competitive’ or swing states with 189 electoral votes (about 35 percent of all electoral votes) where the race will be won or lost. Of these 12 states, Trump won 10 with the Democrats winning two.
In 2016 Trump won 304 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 227. Actually, the count should have been 306 to 232 but seven electors voted for minor candidates. So Biden needs to win 38 more electoral votes to be elected President.
I will use two polling aggregators: FiveThirtyEight and the Economist’s Forecasting the US Elections. Here’s what they are telling us on October 11th. This uses the US electoral colours – blue is Democrats and red is Republican.
(a) FiveThirtyEight
- Biden now leads in all the competitive states, bar Texas. Back in mid-September, Trump led in four of them. In the last week Iowa has turned from red to blue.
- Biden is building on his leads in the key Mid-East states of Michigan (8.2 percent), Pennsylvania (7.2 percent) and Wisconsin (7.2 percent). If Biden wins these and all other states hold to the 2016 pattern, then he wins the election.
- Biden is also pulling ahead in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina – though not to the same extent as in the Mid-East states.
- Trump has almost no chance in picking up new states (i.e. states that voted Democrat in 2016). Biden leads by 6.9 percent in Nevada and nearly 11 percent in New Hampshire.
(b) The Economist
The Economist tells pretty much the same story as FiveThirtyEight; in particular, Biden’s lead in the three Mid-East states. The only difference is that they are calling the races in Iowa and Ohio an effective tie.
As it stands, Biden leads in nine of the 12 states with one a virtual tie.
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There are now 23 days left in the US Presidential race. While no one would call it yet, it is looking strong for the Democrats. The number of undecided voters is very small and most voters are highly committed to their candidates. From the very beginning of the campaign, Trump maintained a strong base but couldn’t reach out beyond that. As for Biden, no one gets very excited about him. As one commentator put it, this isn’t a race about ‘change’; it is about ‘putting an end to crazy.’
That being said, Trump will be returning to active physical campaigning. Has Biden peaked too early? Will voter repression measures being taken in a number of Republican-held states make a material difference? Will far-right groups try to disrupt voting in strong Democrat areas (I never imagined I would be writing a sentence like that)?
But taking the polls today, it would be an Electoral College landslide for Joe Biden.
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