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There have been 131 new polls released since the previous analysis just 3 days ago in the race between Former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump. The sheer volume of polls has let me tighten the “current poll” window to polls in the past two weeks. This has resulted in the race tightening a bit. Three days ago (with a 3-week “current poll” window, Biden averaged 373 electoral votes.
Now, 100,000 simulated elections later, Biden wins all 100,000 elections and receives (on average) 362 to Trump’s 176 electoral votes. In other words, Biden would almost certainly win an election held today. We’ll have to see what happens tomorrow….
What are the big shifts over the last three days? In Georgia, there are 13 polls total that are split six with Trump ahead, six with Biden in the lead, and one tie. Biden’s chances have dropped slightly from a 94% probability of winning three days ago to a 77 percent chance of winning the state today. In Iowa, five new polls were released and five aged-out for nine polls total. Biden leads in four and Trump in four with one tie. The net result is that Biden’s slight lead (56% probability of winning) has moved to Trump leading (53% probability of winning today). Basically, Iowa is a toss-up.
We lost one of the two polls in Nebraska’s second congressional district, so Biden’s chances have slipped from a 98% chance to a 70% chance of winning. This is, essentially, a situation of too little polling.
North Carolina is the state everyone is talking about. And there is lots of polling. I have 27 current polls, with six new polls added and a loss of 14 older polls. Biden leads in 18 of the polls and Trump leads in seven polls; there are two ties. These shifts in polls have caused Biden to slip slightly from a 99% chance of winning to an 87% chance of winning. Finally, in Texas we have 11 current polls, with 5 new ones and six old ones dropping out. Trump leads in seven polls and Biden in three, with one tie. The net result is Trump’s chances have gone up again from 59% probability of winning to a 76% probability of winning.
There are some states that went for Trump in 2016 but the analysis gives Biden a solid lead, including Arizona (96% probability of winning), Florida (>99.9% probability of winning), Michigan (>99.9% probability), Pennsylvaina (>99.9% probability) and Wisconsin (>99.9% probability).
The long term trends in this race can be seen from a series of elections simulated weekly for the past year, always including polls from the preceding two weeks (FAQ).
For an election held today, here is the distribution of electoral votes [FAQ] from the simulations:
Ten most probable electoral vote outcomes for Biden (full distribution here):