[03 November 2020]
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It is election day! I’ve added a couple dozen more polls since The yesterday analysis, but the results have not changed much. Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden was leading President Donald Trump with an average of 362 to 176 electoral votes.
Today, I tightened up the “current poll” window to 10 days. This has the effect of adding uncertainty in under-polled states like Washington and Oregon. But doing this should better capture late trends in hotly contested states.
Today, after 100,000 simulated elections, Biden wins 100,000 times. Biden received (on average) 360 to Trump’s 178 electoral votes. The election is today and this model predicts Biden will win with near certainty. The most likely outcome (14.6% probability) is 351 electoral votes. Biden’s worst outcome in the simulated elections was 308 electoral votes, suggesting that Biden has almost no chance of an outcome below 308 votes. The highest electoral vote total was 418.
Here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
The trajectory of this race over the past year can be seen from a series of elections simulated every week including polls from the preceding ten days (FAQ).
Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Biden (full distribution here):
- 351 electoral votes with a 14.63% probability
- 350 electoral votes with a 8.32% probability
- 352 electoral votes with a 6.84% probability
- 389 electoral votes with a 4.08% probability
- 357 electoral votes with a 3.95% probability
- 335 electoral votes with a 3.62% probability
- 354 electoral votes with a 3.24% probability
- 356 electoral votes with a 3.11% probability
- 353 electoral votes with a 2.80% probability
- 336 electoral votes with a 2.16% probability
After 100,000 simulations:
- Biden wins greater than 99.9%, Trump wins less than 0.1%.
- Average (SE) EC votes for Biden: 359.6 (18.9)
- Average (SE) EC votes for Trump: 178.4 (18.9)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Biden: 353 (334, 403)
- Median (95% CI) EC votes for Trump: 185 (135, 204)
Each column of this table shows the electoral vote total aggregated by different criteria for the probability of winning a state (Safe=100%, Strong=90%+, Leans=60%+, Weak=50%+):
| Threshold | Safe | + Strong | + Leans | + Weak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Safe Biden | 248 | |||
| Strong Biden | 85 | 333 | ||
| Leans Biden | 18 | 18 | 351 | |
| Weak Biden | 0 | 0 | 0 | 351 |
| Weak Trump | 0 | 0 | 0 | 187 |
| Leans Trump | 66 | 66 | 187 | |
| Strong Trump | 58 | 121 | ||
| Safe Trump | 63 |
This table summarizes results by state. Click on the poll count to see the individual polls included for the state.
| 1 | 1 | EC | # | Total | % | % | Biden | Trump | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 2 | Votes | polls | Votes | Biden | Trump | % wins | % wins | |
| AL | 9 | 4 | 2385 | 40.0 | 60.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| AK | 3 | 1 | 731 | 45.3 | 54.7 | 3.5 | 96.5 | ||
| AZ | 11 | 17 | 11877 | 51.0 | 49.0 | 93.7 | 6.3 | ||
| AR | 6 | 1* | 573 | 33.0 | 67.0 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| CA | 55 | 2 | 1362 | 65.3 | 34.7 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| CO | 9 | 4 | 2486 | 56.7 | 43.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| CT | 7 | 1 | 359 | 65.5 | 34.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| DE | 3 | 1* | 737 | 62.0 | 38.0 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| DC | 3 | 0* | (100) | (0) | |||||
| FL | 29 | 30 | 31682 | 51.5 | 48.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| GA | 16 | 13 | 9325 | 50.7 | 49.3 | 82.3 | 17.7 | ||
| HI | 4 | 1* | 880 | 68.5 | 31.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ID | 4 | 1* | 565 | 36.6 | 63.4 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| IL | 20 | 4 | 2425 | 57.7 | 42.3 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| IN | 11 | 3 | 1640 | 44.1 | 55.9 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| IA | 6 | 8 | 6405 | 49.4 | 50.6 | 22.1 | 77.9 | ||
| KS | 6 | 1 | 1077 | 42.7 | 57.3 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| KY | 8 | 1 | 370 | 43.0 | 57.0 | 2.9 | 97.1 | ||
| LA | 8 | 1 | 362 | 40.9 | 59.1 | 0.7 | 99.3 | ||
| ME | 2 | 3 | 2476 | 56.5 | 43.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ME1 | 1 | 3 | 1266 | 61.6 | 38.4 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| ME2 | 1 | 3 | 1207 | 51.1 | 48.9 | 69.4 | 30.6 | ||
| MD | 10 | 1 | 493 | 68.4 | 31.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MA | 11 | 1 | 836 | 68.9 | 31.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MI | 16 | 22 | 16332 | 53.8 | 46.2 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MN | 10 | 8 | 5922 | 54.9 | 45.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| MS | 6 | 2 | 1026 | 42.7 | 57.3 | 0.1 | 99.9 | ||
| MO | 10 | 3 | 2492 | 45.8 | 54.2 | 0.3 | 99.7 | ||
| MT | 3 | 2 | 1724 | 48.1 | 51.9 | 13.5 | 86.5 | ||
| NE | 2 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NE1 | 1 | 1* | 376 | 48.9 | 51.1 | 38.4 | 61.6 | ||
| NE2 | 1 | 2 | 1322 | 51.4 | 48.6 | 76.4 | 23.6 | ||
| NE3 | 1 | 0 | (0) | (100) | |||||
| NV | 6 | 5 | 4439 | 52.6 | 47.4 | 99.4 | 0.6 | ||
| NH | 4 | 3 | 2398 | 55.9 | 44.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NJ | 14 | 3 | 1129 | 60.4 | 39.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NM | 5 | 1 | 1133 | 56.2 | 43.8 | 99.8 | 0.2 | ||
| NY | 29 | 2 | 908 | 65.9 | 34.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| NC | 15 | 26 | 21488 | 50.7 | 49.3 | 94.5 | 5.5 | ||
| ND | 3 | 1* | 405 | 42.0 | 58.0 | 0.7 | 99.3 | ||
| OH | 18 | 13 | 11478 | 49.3 | 50.7 | 13.5 | 86.5 | ||
| OK | 7 | 1* | 5193 | 38.5 | 61.5 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| OR | 7 | 1 | 317 | 61.8 | 38.2 | 99.7 | 0.3 | ||
| PA | 20 | 30 | 27038 | 52.5 | 47.5 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| RI | 4 | 0 | (100) | (0) | |||||
| SC | 9 | 6 | 4744 | 46.5 | 53.5 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| SD | 3 | 1 | 460 | 42.2 | 57.8 | 0.8 | 99.2 | ||
| TN | 11 | 1 | 477 | 41.5 | 58.5 | 0.5 | 99.5 | ||
| TX | 38 | 8 | 8407 | 49.4 | 50.6 | 22.3 | 77.7 | ||
| UT | 6 | 2* | 1507 | 44.5 | 55.5 | 0.1 | 99.9 | ||
| VT | 3 | 1* | 549 | 65.9 | 34.1 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| VA | 13 | 4 | 2237 | 56.1 | 43.9 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| WA | 12 | 1 | 477 | 60.4 | 39.6 | 99.9 | 0.1 | ||
| WV | 5 | 1* | 522 | 39.5 | 60.5 | 0.0 | 100.0 | ||
| WI | 10 | 13 | 8594 | 54.4 | 45.6 | 100.0 | 0.0 | ||
| WY | 3 | 1* | 552 | 34.4 | 65.6 | 0.0 | 100.0 |
* An older poll was used (i.e. no recent polls exist).
Details of the methods are given in the FAQ.
