I was right to take yesterday off from looking at the election. Absolutely nothing happened that affects the vote today.
If there's a Trump victory, every mainstream pollster is going to have to abandon that profession and get into something that has more public confidence…like sending out those e-mails that claim a Nigerian prince wants to wire millions of dollars into your bank account. I don't see a major, non-partisan pollster who thinks Biden has less than a 7.5 point advantage. Analyst Charlie Cook, who has been fairly accurate and respected in the past, thinks Biden's lead is between 9 and 10 points.
These paragraphs from Mr. Cook's closing forecast are worth quoting here because I think this is pretty much the conventional wisdom…
Joe Biden's path to 270 electoral votes seems pretty straightforward: Hold all 20 states (plus the District of Columbia) that Hillary Clinton carried four years ago, which total 232 electoral votes, just 38 short of the majority threshold of 270. Then win each of the three states that Clinton lost by eight-tenths of a point or less: Michigan (0.2 percentage points) Pennsylvania (0.7), and Wisconsin (0.8). That gives him 278 electoral votes, eight more than needed. Biden will likely also carry two congressional districts that eluded Clinton in 2016, Nebraska's 2nd District and Maine's 2nd, giving him 280 electoral votes. That would represent a "skinny" Biden win.
A big Biden win would bring in Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina, and might also include one or two states from the next tier, mostly likely Georgia or Iowa, although don't count out Ohio or Texas. Generally speaking, Trump is underperforming his 2016 pace by 3 to 8 points, depending upon the state or district.
Of course, the conventional wisdom has been wrong before and it will be wrong in the future. Believing in it is like splitting eights in Blackjack. It's the right move most of the time but don't be surprised when it doesn't work.
Earlier this year, I decided to include The Economist among the poll aggregating/analyzing sites I consulted. It's been invaluable for tracking the many pollsters but its "model" — weighting certain polls more than others and factoring in other indicators — has been increasingly outta line with most others. This morning, they put Trump's chances of winning the electoral college at 3%. Some of the folks who are behind it have apparently expressed some doubts about their own model.
Seeing Trump's chances in the low single-digits has eased a lot of worries but a more accurate measure is probably at Nate Silver's 538 where they say 10%. And they see a final total of the popular votes as 52% for Biden/Harris, 43.2% for the guys who claim the virus is just about over. The Fox News Poll — which is a pretty good poll as polls go, and a tough one for Trump supporters to claim is biased against them, though some do — has the race as 52% for Biden, 44% for Trump.
And almost all the polls see Democrats as picking up more seats in the House and taking control of the Senate. Charlie Cook says, "The Senate is increasingly less a case of whether Democrats will take a majority, but how large will it be."
Do I believe all this? I'd like to but I believe in not celebrating, even in your own mind, until you actually win. It lessens the pain when you don't.