Guest post by Adrian Beaumont, who joins us from time to time to provide commentary on elections internationally. Adrian is an honorary associate at the University of Melbourne. His work on electoral matters for The Conversation can be found here, and his own website is here.
With 13 days left until the November 4 AEDT election, the FiveThirtyEight national aggregate gives Joe Biden a 9.9% lead over Donald Trump (52.1% to 42.2%). Biden’s lead has decreased by 0.3% since last week. In the key states, Biden leads by 8.2% in Michigan, 6.3% in Wisconsin, 6.2% in Pennsylvania, 3.8% in Arizona and 3.6% in Florida.
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are virtually tied now as the “tipping-point” state that could potentially give either Biden or Trump the 270 Electoral Votes required to win the Electoral College. If Biden is only up by six in Pennsylvania while leading by ten nationally, the popular vote/Electoral College gap is nearly four points in Trump’s favour, the highest gap I can recall in these reports.
A concern for Biden is that his strongest Pennsylvania polls were either from pollsters with Democratic house effects this cycle (Quinnipiac had Biden up eight, but has been good for Biden all year), or showed an unrealistic gap in Biden’s favour between likely and registered voters (CNN had Biden up ten with likely voters but just five with registered voters).
In FiveThirtyEight’s aggregates, Biden also leads by 3.1% in North Carolina, 1.1% in Iowa and 1.0% in Georgia. He trails by 1.0% in both Ohio and Texas. As I have said previously, if Biden wins all these states, he wins over 400 of the 538 Electoral Votes.
The FiveThirtyEight forecast gives Trump a 13% chance to win the Electoral College, unchanged from last week. He only has a 4% chance to win the popular vote.
Trump’s net job approval ratings have dropped over one point since last week. In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, his net approval with all polls is -11.6%, and -11.2% with polls of likely or registered voters. The RealClearPolitics average has Biden’s net favourability at +9, the highest it’s been, while Trump’s is -11.
In the FiveThirtyEight Classic Senate forecast, Democrats now have a 78% chance to win control, up 2% since last week. The most likely outcome is a 52-48 Democratic majority. Unchanged on last week’s projection. The 80% confidence range is 48 to 56 Democratic seats, also unchanged.
Biden is in a stronger position than Clinton was in 2016
Comparisons are being made to 2016, when Trump unexpectedly defeated Hillary Clinton. There are two key differences from 2016. First, although Clinton was consistently ahead of Trump nationally in 2016, she never reached 50% of the vote, while Biden is currently at 52%. US polls include undecided in their main voting intentions tables, and this makes it more difficult to reach 50%.
In 2016, both Trump and Clinton were very unpopular. The James Comey letter reopening an investigation into Clinton’s emails just 11 days before the election was probably influential in swinging late deciders behind Trump. In exit polls, he won those that did not like either candidate by 47-30. This year, Biden’s big lead is partly explained by his own popularity.
Trump is trying to revert back to 2016, when he successfully attacked “Crooked Hillary” by going after Biden’s son, Hunter. But the increase in Biden’s net favourability and the lack of change on voting intentions suggest that most voters do not care about Hunter Biden. Still, I expect Trump to attack Hunter at Friday’s final presidential debate AEDT.
Voters are far more likely to care about coronavirus, and Trump is perceived to have handled that poorly. Over 70,000 new US cases were recorded last Friday, the highest since late July. Over 1,200 deaths were recorded Wednesday, the highest since August. Coronavirus continuing to be in the headlines is not good for Trump.
Here’s a coronavirus hypothetical: imagine if Trump had at least pretended to follow scientific advice on wearing masks, not holding big rallies and advocating social distancing. There’s currently also a massive spike in new cases in the UK, but the Conservatives lead Labour by 42-36 in the latest poll.
Left wins Bolivian election after re-run
After the October 2019 election, left-wing Bolivian president Evo Morales was forced to resign over claims of vote rigging. Owing to coronavirus, a new election was delayed until last Sunday. Luis Arce, who was Morales’ Minister of the Economy, won outright with 54.5%, avoiding a second round.
I’d like to see Joe Biden appoint Stephanie Kelton as Treasury Secretary, Warren Mosler as Chair of the Federal Reserve, Randall Wray as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Bernie Sanders as Labor Secretary, and Nina Turner as Housing and Urban Development Secretary. If he followed their advice the Democratic Party would gain seats in 2022 and he would win re-election comfortably in 2024.
It reflects very poorly on Joe Biden’s reliability in opposing Trump that he is vetting Republicans who voted with Trump 90 percent of the time as potential candidates for senior Cabinet posts.
Why would he even consider doing that if he were serious about enacting progressive policies?
Because he has no interest in advancing progressive policies, and he never has. He is basically a moderate Republican.
Young people, that is, voters under the age of 30 are voting in record numbers in the early voting. That does NOT bode well for Trump. In Florida alone an extra 200,000 young people have already voted when compared to 2016. If Trump can’t win Florida, he can’t win the election.
Nicholas @ #51 Saturday, October 24th, 2020 – 9:46 pm
There is a good debate on The Young Turks about Bernie as Labor Secretary, not on his merits, a given, but on the problems that leaving a vacant Senate seat might bring (Vermont requires a replacement election within six months), and also would Bernie be better off in the Senate where he could raise criticisms of the administration that he wouldn’t be able to do if he were within it (the administration).
(jump to 23 mins for the Bernie stuff)
https://youtu.be/s0Xb5zq2s2U
Perparim @ #52 Saturday, October 24th, 2020 – 11:00 pm
Also on Florida, it’s worth noting that:
More people have now early voted in Florida (4,771,956) than the number of people who voted for Donald Trump in Florida in 2016 (4,617,886).
https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1319639196252950533?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
The NYT has said that Joe Biden is building a fascinating new coalition of voters, the young and the old, that has never been seen before.
Also, the latest poll still has Biden ahead in Pennsylvania:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/presidential-polls-trump-biden#the-one-poll-to-care-about-today
“ I’d like to see Joe Biden appoint Stephanie Kelton as Treasury Secretary, Warren Mosler as Chair of the Federal Reserve, Randall Wray as Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, Bernie Sanders as Labor Secretary, and Nina Turner as Housing and Urban Development Secretary. If he followed their advice the Democratic Party would gain seats in 2022 and he would win re-election comfortably in 2024.”
Here’s another song for propellor cap boy:
https://youtu.be/2vTomEuuIZA
On the topic of the speculation surrounding Biden’s cabinet picks, I recall just a few months ago quite a number of rumours floating around about the leftists and progressives that he was likely to pick. This was at a time when Biden was moving rapidly to unite the party behind his candidacy.
I don’t think the Biden campaign is seriously targeting moderate Republicans by floating Republican nominees to his cabinet: I think they are targeting moderate independents who just love love love the fabled idea of bipartisanship & pulling together for the good of the country. Biden will win – if he wins – by getting out the centre voter (folk that Nicholas hates it seems) in large numbers. That means moderate democrats and independents. Everybody else is locked in (except there are some unicorns amongst the so called ‘moderate Republicans’ who may flip but more realistically will simply not vote).
After the election, and assuming Biden wins? I’d expect maybe 1 out of 20 cabinet picks to be a moderate, sensible and capable Republican, with the rest split fairly evenly between moderate and progressive democrats.
Of course, such a sensible approach would never appease Nicholas or Firefly: it’s a wonder they don’t insist on Noam Chomsky, Julian Assange and Cornell West as Defense Secretary, Attorney General and Treasury Secretary respectively. Maybe they could even exhume Che and have him sit as Secretary of Sate.
Noam Chomsky doesn’t suck up to Bernie enough so he’s out and Nina Turner is in. That’s the only requirement they have.
Thanks Itza, that’s an interesting report.
I wish that Bernie had made his support for Biden conditional on Biden making concrete commitments on personnel, executive orders, and legislative agenda items. Bernie as Labor Secretary would be better than nothing. I doubt that Biden will do it – but I guess there is some small chance that Biden will turn out to have an FDR-style conversion soon after becoming president.
Before he became president FDR was a conventional aristocrat-style politician who represented his own class and wasn’t especially interested in low-income people. Nobody would have predicted the New Deal and Social Security based on FDR’s political career prior to becoming president.
Maybe Biden will undergo a similar transformation while in office. The reason for optimism on that front is that Biden is not a committed ideologue. He is a bellwether for wider trends in economic thinking and political practice. He tends to adjust to whatever other people around him are saying and doing. There is therefore a small possibility that the current crisis, and the influence of people like Stephanie Kelton, will push him in a more progressive direction.
I suggested that one of Trump’s sons could run for pres in 2024 last week in comments. That could be on.
https://politicalwire.com/2020/10/24/trump-sons-hint-at-future-runs-for-president/
AB, I still think you’re joking. 🙂
https://www.pollbludger.net/2020/10/22/us-election-minus-13-days/comment-page-2/#comment-3500076
If Trump looses this time and is still alive and relatively well in 2024, he may well run in 2024 (although if they talked about that now).
Of Trump`s children, Ivanka seems the most likely to be a political success. Donald Jr would likely have more success than Eric.
Even Batman endorses Biden.
https://uproxx.com/movies/michael-keaton-batman-joe-biden-endorsement-video/
Greensborough Growler @ #63 Sunday, October 25th, 2020 – 5:26 pm
Thanks. Do you know on which day the 2020 column occurred? Can we assume the 2016 column is final (day before the election) number?
Eh, I’m not sure I trust his political instincts that much. He backed Harvey Dent in that DA election and we all know how that turned out…
A granular analysis of Early Voting in Florida:
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/24/republicans-florida-early-vote-democrats-432135
Adrian Beaumont @ #59 Sunday, October 25th, 2020 – 4:10 pm
Where does this silly dynastic as destiny idea come from? Just because the children express a desire to be POTUS, doesn’t mean it should be taken seriously as a matter of course.
C@tmomma @ #66 Sunday, October 25th, 2020 – 7:32 pm
Big caveat in that they’re counting the registered party of each voter, not who they actually voted for.
a r @ #68 Sunday, October 25th, 2020 – 8:42 pm
Yes I noted that myself, but former Republican polling guru, Mike Murphy, said that most of the non-aligned are breaking for Biden, and a not insubstantial number of Registered republicans are also voting for Biden this time. Not so much of a Democrat/Trump swing the other way.
Yeah, exactly that.
A GOP-registered voter who’s fed up with Trump is more likely to turn up and vote Biden than a Democrat-registered voter who’s not impressed with Biden is likely to vote Trump (people in that boat are more likely to just plain not vote, imo). Though for the purposes of analyzing early turnout they go into the “Republican voters” pile even though they didn’t vote that way.
Nicholas says:
Sunday, October 25, 2020 at 2:30 pm
There is a good debate on The Young Turks about Bernie as Labor Secretary, not on his merits, a given, but on the problems that leaving a vacant Senate seat might bring (Vermont requires a replacement election within six months)
Thanks Itza, that’s an interesting report.
I wish that Bernie had made his support for Biden conditional on Biden making concrete commitments on personnel, executive orders, and legislative agenda items.
This would have given the entire faux a whole list of reasons why they could intensify their campaign against Biden. The faux need no encouragement to support Trump. The faux want to hold the rest of the electorate to ransom.
Nicholas says:
Saturday, October 24, 2020 at 7:11 pm
Perhaps because doing that won’t help him peel wavering Republican voters off of Trump?
There aren’t any “wavering Republicans” at this point who will vote for Biden if only he suggests he will appoint some conservative Republicans to his Cabinet.
On the other hand there ……
…..on the other hand there is no end to the rationalisations devised by the faux for their pro-Trump impulses.
The faux take for granted the support of all the millions of voters who show up for Democratic candidates. The faux refuse to join them. They take themselves as being rather too good for that.
This guy?
Jeepers. MasonDixon poll (B+) in SD has Trump up by 11.
Trump won it by 30 in 2016.
Not good enough. The whole thing is way too close.
538 has Trump and Biden tied on 47.5% in Texas. 538 still favours Trump winning the state (62% vs 38%).
Re the 18-29 age stuff, I think the 2016 figure is probably the number of 18-29 yo who had voted at this point in 2016.
One thing about timeline comparisons with 2016 is that the 2016 election was held Nov 8. So we’re five days closer to the 2020 election.
Just eye-balling it, the early voting trends have peaked. The S curve might flatten out at about 65M. That’s a big number, but I expect it will be a less than half of the total votes. (The number in 2016 was 139M, at 55.5% voter turnout.)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/early-voting-numbers-so-far/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voter_turnout_in_the_United_States_presidential_elections#Turnout_statistics
Understand the skittishness about polls given 2016 but boy wowee the latest NYT/Sienna poll has Trump up by just 7 in Kansas and 6 in Montana. He won those two states by 20 and 21 respectively in 2016. The poll also has Biden up by 3 in Iowa.
Beto O’Rourke talking about Texas with Brian Tyler Cohen, and the Power by People (PowerxPeople) hard slog of personal contact with Voters, noting the large cohort of young Latinos in Texas, as the prospect of Texas flipping Blue looks ever more promising, and just what that would mean, not for the next four years, but for the next decade.
30 mins
The interview just went up, but he mentions 11 days till election day, so I’m not certain just when it was recorded.
https://youtu.be/Chpj0MP_Guc
Polling and Pollsters under the spotlight, with Harry Enten
https://www.axios.com/the-art-and-business-of-political-polling-47a3bce2-980a-4078-983a-82f6b95d79de.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiospm&stream=top
(axios)
Looking at today’s early voter data I’m going to have to adjust my eye-ball up a little. This site reports 62.7M early votes with 7 days to go. So on that trajectory maybe early votes will eventually total 70M. Also in the battleground states, only Nevada and Florida are yet to exceed 2016 totals. And Texas is the head and shoulders stand-out.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/early-voting-numbers-so-far/
Does this account for the possibility of a surge in voting (relative to the preceding weekdays) on the final weekend before election day?
Just me looking at a graph. 🙂
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/early-voting-numbers-so-far/
Amy Coney Barrett has today been confirmed to the Supreme Court in a 52-48 Senate vote, replacing the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. That gives conservative appointees a 6-3 majority.
Further to the confirmation, here’s The Atlantic: calling it out as a desperate last stand by the Republicans as they stare defeat in the face, and calling out ‘originalism’ for what it is – a confection designed to cloak the spectre of regressive conservatism.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court/616865/
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/10/amy-coney-barrett-supreme-court-gop/616727/
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/originalism-barrett/616844/
I admit this is psychology not polling, but the smugness of Republicans in passing Amy Coney Barrett through the Senate is pretty galling. If you believve the Greeks, hubris comes before a fall.
https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/us-election-2020-live-updates-trump-continues-rallies-across-america-as-new-coronavirus-wave-ravages-nation-20201026-p568r9.html
It’s not just smugness. Don’t forget that they’re doing the confirmation instead of pandemic response or economic relief.
Socrates @ #88 Tuesday, October 27th, 2020 – 12:07 pm
If you want to motivate someone, piss them off. As I think a r said on another thread, this is a tactical error.
If you want to motivate your base to come out, perhaps dont give them what they want just before they vote. Instead, promise it for after. This worked for them in 2016.
So get ready for the scare tactics of court packing.
Progressives shouldn’t accept the term “court packing” – this term reinforces the incorrect frame that the current number of justices is sacrosanct and must not be changed.
Instead progressives should say simply that they will expand the Supreme Court and all other federal courts to reflect the facts that 1/ Those courts have been under-resourced for a long time and really do need more judges to get through the workload. 2/ Republican-appointed judges are there to weaken workers’ rights, weaken voting rights, and enhance the power of corporations and oligarchs. Americans cannot ever become truly free with the federal judiciary the way that it is. So a large expansion of all of those courts is necessary.
Agreed
But (posted on another thread)
Would the Lincoln Project have supported Bernie Sanders?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufFHqzp33Y4
6 days
5 hours
20 minutes
The momentum is all in the wrong direction. Biden falling further behind in Texas, Trump closing the gap in Florida.
Momentum my arse. Another poll today says Biden leads by 17% in Wisconsin, and FiveThirtyEight has Biden’s win probability at a new high as time-related uncertainty dimishes to zero. If Trump wins, it will mean the polls were wrong all along.
William yes there is poll with Biden ahead by 17 in Wisconsin. But overnight there are two other polls with Biden leading by 1 and 5 in Wisconsin. Someone here is miles out. Plus in the early voting turnout percentages by party, in Pennsylvania Biden is killing Trump there but in all the other states its pretty close. I thought Trump would get slaughtered, I am not as confident at the moment now.
The are only three factors that make this election seem even remotely close a) the poor swing-state polling in 2016 b) the number of Trump Pence yardsigns in the industrial heartland and c) the maniacs turning out for Trump’s ‘Superspreader Tour’. Other than those Trump is in a world of pain and knows it.
@michael – you are discounting the possibility that everyone is half a mile out, and Biden’s lead is in 7-10 range.