US election minus six days

Biden’s national lead drops to nine points, but he gains in Wisconsin, while Trump gains in Florida. Biden holds a five-point lead in Pennsylvania.

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 six days left until next Wednesday’s AEDT election, the FiveThirtyEight national aggregate gives Joe Biden an 8.9% lead over Donald Trump (51.8% to 42.9%). Biden’s lead has decreased by 1.0% since last week. In the key states, Biden leads by 8.5% in Wisconsin, 8.1% in Michigan, 5.2% in Pennsylvania, 3.5% in Arizona and just 1.5% in Florida.

Pennsylvania is currently clearly 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 five in Pennsylvania while leading by nine nationally, the popular vote/Electoral College gap is nearly four points in Trump’s favour, the same as last week.

If Biden loses Pennsylvania, but wins Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, he would have 269 Electoral Votes, one short of the magic 270. Either Maine’s or Nebraska’s second Congressional District could in that scenario give Biden the narrowest of Electoral College wins.

In FiveThirtyEight’s aggregates, Biden also leads by 2.1% in North Carolina, 1.8% in Iowa and 1.5% in Georgia. He trails by 1.7% in Ohio and 1.8% in Texas. As I have said previously, if Biden wins all these states, he wins over 400 of the 538 Electoral Votes. The move to Trump in Florida puts it in with these states when it had previously been better for Biden.

The FiveThirtyEight forecast gives Trump an 11% chance to win the Electoral College, down 2% since last week. He only has a 3% chance to win the popular vote. The slight tightening nationally and in Pennsylvania is more than offset by time running out for Trump. Trump is likely to need a much bigger polling error than in 2016.

Trump’s net job approval ratings have improved over one point since last week after dropping the previous week. In the FiveThirtyEight aggregate, his net approval with all polls is -10.3%, and -9.4% with polls of likely or registered voters. The RealClearPolitics average has Biden’s net favourability at +6, while Trump’s is -13.

In the FiveThirtyEight Classic Senate forecast, Democrats now have a 79% chance to win control, up 1% 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.

With the US hitting a new record of over 80,000 coronavirus cases Wednesday, coronavirus is likely to dominate the headlines in the lead-up to the election. That is unlikely to help Trump.

Poll closing times

All times given here are next Wednesday Australian Eastern Daylight Time. Polls have suggested the early vote will be strongly pro-Biden, but the election day vote will be strongly pro-Trump. Early leads in a given state are likely to depend on whether that state counts election day or early votes first. Poll closing times are from The Green Papers.

Some states span two time zones, with voting finishing an hour later in the trailing zone. US media will not call states until all polls in that state are closed. The most important early state is Florida: if Biden wins, he’s almost assured of victory, but a Trump win means we could be waiting for mail votes from Pennsylvania and Michigan, possibly for days.

10am. The first polls close in the eastern time zones of Indiana and Kentucky, both expected to be easy Trump wins.

11am. Polls close in Georgia and most of Florida. In Florida, early votes will be released soon after polls close and election day votes are counted relatively quickly. Here’s the catch: polls in most of Florida close at 11am, but there’s a very right-wing part called the Panhandle. The Panhandle is in a different time zone, and closes one hour after the rest of Florida. In 2016 and 2018, the Panhandle caused agony for hopeful Democrats.

11:30am. Polls close in North Carolina and Ohia. I believe early votes will be counted first in both states.

12 noon. Polls close in Pennsylvania and most of Michigan and Texas (small parts of Michigan and Texas close at 1pm). I believe election day votes will be counted first in Pennsylvania and Michigan, while early votes are counted first in Texas.

1pm. Polls close in Wisconsin and Arizona. In Arizona, a large share of the overall vote will be mail, and that should be out for most of Arizona within an hour of polls closing. Mail received after election day can be accepted.

2pm. Polls close in Iowa, where I believe early votes will be counted quickly.

3pm. Polls close in California, Oregon and Washington. These are all Democratic strongholds that should be called immediately for Biden. If he’s already gained enough Trump 2016 states, this could be when he is declared president-elect.

5pm. The final polls close in Alaska’s western time zone.

167 comments on “US election minus six days”

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  1. Thanks Adrian! Fellow bludgers, since so many of us are already following and discussing the US election, I propose we hold two contests to predict the races for (1) US President and (2) US Senate. Congress looks a done deal.

    There are some handy on-line tools you can play with here:
    https://www.270towin.com/
    https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-biden-election-map/?cid=abcnews

    If I may lead off, my forecasts are:
    Presidency Biden 305 Trump 233
    Senate Democrat 52 Republican 48

  3. I will go for, 412 electoral collage votes for the democrats. Trump is running an amazing get out the vote campaign for Biden.
    Senate 50 to 50.

  4. Thanks AB.

    With the US hitting a new record of over 80,000 coronavirus cases Wednesday, coronavirus is likely to dominate the headlines in the lead-up to the election. That is unlikely to help Trump.

    On that point, these are the States with the highest deaths from covid yesterday.
    https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
    97 Texas
    64 Florida
    63 California
    51 Illinois
    45 Wisconsin
    36 Massachusetts
    34 North Carolina
    34 South Carolina
    34 Tennessee
    33 Indiana
    32 Georgia
    31 Pennsylvania
    I’ve included down to Pennsylvania because that State is getting a lot of attention right now.

  6. Trump will use every inch of his bellicose and belligerent behaviour to cry foul over mail-in ballots if results don’t go his way (they won’t).
    He’ll have a better chance ordering a supreme pizza in Wuhan from Xi than ordering the supreme court to overturn early vote mail-in ballots.
    Does he eat pizza with a knife and fork?

  7. WASHINGTON — Joe Biden holds a slight 4-point lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground of Florida, fueled by his standing among seniors and independents, according to the final NBC News/Marist poll of the state before Tuesday’s presidential election.

    Biden is supported by 51 percent of likely voters, while Trump gets 47 percent. Just a combined 2 percent of likely Florida voters are undecided or are voting for another candidate.

    Importantly, Biden’s lead is within the poll’s margin of error of plus-minus 4.4 percentage points.

    In September’s NBC News/Marist poll — conducted after the political conventions — the candidates were tied at 48 percent.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-biden-holds-narrow-lead-florida-n1245190

  8. Good news for Trump, but does it come too late?

    The United States economy grew at its fastest pace on record in the third quarter, rebounding at an annual rate of 33.1 percent, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said on Thursday.

    Though the headline number may be seized upon as a bragging point for President Donald Trump, it is unlikely to dramatically influence his reelection prospects, given more than 75 million Americans have already voted, according to the US Elections Project.

    https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2020/10/29/us-economy-turns-in-record-q3-growth-but-crisis-is-not-over

    Headlines are all that matters at this point, but with only 5 days to go and surely close to half of the votes already cast, you would have to think any impact is blunted. But still…

  9. “If Biden loses Pennsylvania, but wins Michigan, Wisconsin and Arizona, he would have 269 Electoral Votes, one short of the magic 270. Either Maine’s or Nebraska’s second Congressional District could in that scenario give Biden the narrowest of Electoral College wins.”

    Another moment to remember that there were a mere seven successfully faithless electors in 2016.

  10. Late Riser @ #8 Thursday, October 29th, 2020 – 10:51 pm

    Headlines are all that matters at this point

    Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

    The headline figure is impressive, however the 33.1% increase is off a hugely discounted base. So discounted, in fact, that even after rebounding 33.1% it’s still well behind where it was before the pandemic hit. Not that anyone’s going to take that amount of nuance to it. It’ll be all “best economic growth ever!” and such.

    Though of course, the headline will be of little comfort to anyone still out of work and/or watching their shares tank in the latest pandemic-related crash. The Dow seems mildly impressed by this “record-breaking growth”, at best.

  11. All signs point to a Biden win, even a landslide.

    The former vice president has an 8-point lead nationally and a significant edge in most battleground states. He campaigned in Georgia on Tuesday, reaching for victory in a red state that hasn’t been competitive for decades while President Trump is running around the country pretending it’s 2016 all over again.

    The election forecast couldn’t get much brighter for Democrats but instead of singing, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” most Democrats don’t want to even talk about the potential of a blowout approaching the scale of 1980, when Ronald Reagan came out of the West to bury Jimmy Carter.

    Forty years later, Trump’s base in rural America and in Southern states should protect him from a Carter-sized humiliation but a week out from D-Day, “it looks like a fairly sizable win for Biden” reports Dave Wasserman with the non-partisan Cook Political Report. He says Democrats were in denial about Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses four years ago. “Now Democrats are paranoid about polls that look good for Biden.”

    …One of the few Democrats willing to say unequivocally that victory is at hand is James Carville, who helped steer Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992. He says we will know by 10:30 pm Eastern time on Election Night that Biden has won. How can he be so sure? “First of all, every poll I’ve seen in Pennsylvania—and I’ve seen a lot of them—Biden is up 53 to 45,” he told The Daily Beast. “If Biden wins Pennsylvania, FiveThirtyEight gives him a 96 percent chance of winning (the presidency.

    Next, says Carville, is Florida, where “if Biden runs 5 points ahead of where Hillary was, I don’t have to look any further. And if he wins Georgia, which he could, it’s over.” Trump’s disapproval among white voters in Georgia is 32 percent, Carville says, a number that together with an energized Black vote puts the state and two Senate races within Democratic reach.

    Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg told the Daily Beast, “This may be the biggest landslide possible in this polarized country.” In 1980, Reagan won all but six states and the District of Columbia. How sweet it would be 40 years later to return the favor, but Greenberg says victory on that scale is unlikely given Trump’s job approval is still at 42 percent and his base in rural America and Southern states is still strong.

    The latest NBC map awards Trump just 125 red-state Electoral College votes, leaving open the possibility Biden could win over 400 EC votes, the biggest landslide since George H.W. Bush demolished Michael Dukakis in 1988.

    Instead of savoring the victory that lies ahead, “Democrats are just shaking and trembling and having conference calls,” says Carville, who doesn’t conceal his disgust with his party’s inability to accept what is staring them in the face. “The Democratic campaign culture is the whiniest, most feeble, most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen. Are we going to lose? No, we’re going to win!”

    If the data is that strong, why are so many pundits and pollsters reluctant to talk about what is shaping up as a big win? “Because people shift—and a one-in-10 event happened last time,” Carville replied.

    …Like Carville, Wasserman will be watching Florida’s Sumter County, home of the Villages, a strong Republican enclave that favored Trump 68 to 29 in 2016. “Trump needs at least 67 percent (in Sumter County) to win Florida,” says Wasserman. “If we see the first batch of votes from the Villages and Trump is leading 60 to 39, in my book, that would be catastrophic” for him.

    So all signs point to a Biden win, but will it be a blowout? “If he wins the states Hillary won plus the Blue Wall (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), that would be 278 votes, not my definition of a blowout,” says Bill Galston, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. “Will he do better than that? Will he win North Carolina, Florida, Arizona and Georgia in addition to the Blue Wall states, that would be a blowout. If he wins Texas, that would be beyond a blowout—it would be a wipeout.”

    Why isn’t he predicting any of that? “Because I don’t have the required level of confidence in the outcome. And I suspect in the last few days some wavering Trump supporters will return to the fold.” Galston thinks Trump will do a little better than the 43 percent some analysts are predicting, and he attributes his reticence about going further to the “tension between my head and my gut. My gut is queasy for reasons related to 2016 PTSD. We really got knocked off our pins emotionally and analytically.”

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/most-democrats-are-scared-to-say-so-but-joe-biden-is-poised-for-a-landslide-win

  12. One of the many rah-rah Republican memes is that votes on the day will swamp the early votes, more so since Dotard has dissed Mail-in voting consistently.

    But what if the vote on the day wasn’t so high? This from today’s Quinipiac poll…Florida numbers below, also has Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio numbers in the link..

    FLORIDA

    In Florida, Biden gets 45 percent support among likely voters and Trump receives 42 percent, matching the margin in early September when Biden was up 3 percentage points. In between those surveys, a poll earlier this month showed Biden with 51 percent and Trump at 40 percent, in what appears to be a polling bump following the first presidential debate and the president’s COVID-19 diagnosis.

    Likely voters in Florida are split in their opinions of both candidates. For Biden, 46 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of him and 44 percent have an unfavorable opinion. For Trump, 44 percent of voters have a favorable opinion of him and 47 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

    “Short on cash and locked in a tight race, the Trump campaign tries to find a foothold in Florida, a state that would likely close the door on his reelection if Biden prevails,” said Quinnipiac University Polling Analyst Tim Malloy.

    Compared to earlier this month, fewer likely voters say they will cast ballots on Election Day and more are opting to cast ballots at early voting locations. Today, 17 percent say they are voting in person on Election Day, 38 percent say they either have voted or plan to vote by mail or absentee ballot, and 43 percent say they have voted or will vote at an early voting location. This compares to an October 7th survey when 40 percent said they planned to vote on Election Day, 35 percent said they had voted or would vote by mail or absentee ballot, and 23 percent said they planned to cast a ballot at an early voting location.

    https://poll.qu.edu/florida/release-detail?ReleaseID=3682

  14. Another moment to remember that there were a mere seven successfully faithless electors in 2016.
    —————
    Mostly anti trump. Spurred on by a campaign aimed at them to vote for anyone but Trump.

    And there were a couple that took the opportunity to make a statement. Didn’t one vote for Bernie Sanders?

  15. 5 days to go: USA
    Real Clear Politics average Biden 7.4% and swing states 3.5%.

    538 Biden 8.8%
    Swing states: Michigan 8.1%, Minnesota 7.9%, Wisconsin 7.9%, Nevada 7.2%, Pennsylvania 5.1% (Biden wins election with those states) – then Arizona 2.5%, Florida 2.0%, North Carolina 1.9%, Georgia 0.8%

  16. Adding up the polls results on a state-by-state basis, the hierarchy of possibilities looks more like:
    1st) A clear victory for Biden.
    2nd) A smashing victory for Biden.
    3d) A narrow victory for Biden.
    4th) A victory for Trump.

    Remember, in 2016 Trump could advertise himself as the Washington outsider coming to drain the swamp. In 2020 he is a Washington insider who contributed to make the swamp even more smelly.

    BIG difference!

  17. “Late Risersays:
    Thursday, October 29, 2020 at 11:51 pm
    Good news for Trump, but does it come too late?”

    Your good news against these bad news: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits its lowest point since August…. and let’s not forget that Trump has always regarded the behaviour of the share markets during his presidency as one of his greatest “achievements”.

  18. Alpo @ #7 Friday, October 30th, 2020 – 8:18 am

    “Late Risersays:
    Thursday, October 29, 2020 at 11:51 pm
    Good news for Trump, but does it come too late?”

    Your good news against these bad news: The Dow Jones Industrial Average hits its lowest point since August…. and let’s not forget that Trump has always regarded the behaviour of the share markets during his presidency as one of his greatest “achievements”.

    I hope so. The problem with headlines is reading them in isolation. Bubbles and all that.

  19. Our great republican Party will win the us election by a landslide and four more years for Donald Trump and he will be the best President the USA have had……

  25. I do not understand why people think there is a “shy Trump” vote? Trump supporters are not shy, more like antagonistic. They readily self-identify in polls. The Trump base is smaller than the Democrat base, and Trump won in 2016 because Clinton failed to get out a lot of the Democrat base to vote in the numbers Obama did, especially among black voters, and the US system acts as a natural gerrymander in favour of small rural states. If turnout for both sides is the same %, Biden will win easily. This is why the Republicans focus so heavily on voter suppression. They know it is the only way they can win.

    My assumption of Biden winning 305 electoral college votes assumed Trump’s vote would not drop i.e. the Trump voters do not become shy. If they do, Trump will lose in a landslide.

  26. Mick Q

    “Florida is a must win for Trump but not so for Biden. Senate is likely for democrats….. 50 to 54 seats.”

    Right. One thing I take comfort in is that Biden only has to win any one of Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Texas and he has won. All are now within a few % in polls. Biden leads in two. Trump has to hold all of them to stay in office. Even then, if he loses North Carolina + Arizona + Maine districts Biden wins.

  27. I do not understand why people think there is a “shy Trump” vote?

    I agree. It has been mostly discounted.
    I think there are some of them occupying the “undecideds”. They sit in that column, waiting, looking desperately for any vaguely acceptable reason to vote for Trump so they can sleep at night. Comey and SCOTUS and ‘change’ was their ‘out’ last time.

  29. Donald Trump win the us presidential election on the 3 Nov and will be four more years for the Republicans in power

    He will wipe the floor with joe Biden

  30. Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leads President Trump in the swing states of North Carolina, Florida and Pennsylvania less than a week out from Election Day, according to a new Hill/Harris battleground poll.

    The data could serve as a warning sign for Trump, who won all three states in 2016.

    “Joe Biden’s position in key swing states going into the final week suggests that Trump has so far been unable to generate enough momentum to close the gap,” said pollster Mark Penn.

    “All three states remain in toss up range but increasing virus cases and massive Biden expenditures are making it hard for trump to gain traction,” he added.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/523477-exclusive-poll-biden-leads-in-florida-pennsylvania-and-north-carolina

  31. Total Early Votes: 81,159,473
    • In-Person Votes: 28,346,826
    • Mail Ballots Returned: 52,812,647
    • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 37,492,848

    https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html
    Well I got that wrong. Over 80M early votes. I had expected maybe 70M. And if I remember right (shaky) 538 predicted 155M to 165M votes in total. So I think it’s fair to say that half or more voters have already voted.

  32. At least one more day of early voting still. Looks like maybe 90M early votes. Plus however many of those 37.4M outstanding postal votes show up Saturday-Tuesday.

  35. Minnessota 8th Circuit court rules in favour of Republicans on counting late arriving mail ballots thanks to Trump and Bush appointees.

    We all knew the law is an ass. It is now a laughing stock.

  36. Simon Katich @ #35 Friday, October 30th, 2020 – 1:26 pm

    Minnessota 8th Circuit court rules in favour of Republicans on counting late arriving mail ballots thanks to Trump and Bush appointees.

    We all knew the law is an ass. It is now a laughing stock.

    I thought I’d check to see how many this might affect.
    https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/MN.html

    The data are 6 days old (US dates).

    Last Report: 10/23/2020
    Source: https://www.sos.state.mn.us/election-administration-campaigns/data-maps/absentee-data/

    Mail Ballots Requested: 1,765,327
    Total Early Vote: 1,186,522

    Minnesota does not distinguish between mail and in-person ballots on their state reports. The statistics reported here thus combine all in-person early and mail ballot votes.

    Looking at historical turnouts I would not be surprised it there is an 80% turnout this time round, which would be of the order of 3.2M voters. A lot of people either voted in this last week and haven’t been added to the public statistics, or there’s going to be a lot standing in line on Tuesday.
    https://www.sos.state.mn.us/election-administration-campaigns/data-maps/historical-voter-turnout-statistics/

  37. I don’t know why people use the term “shy Trump” voters.

    It would clearly be more accurate to refer to them as “ashamed Trump” voters.

  38. The Dems are desperately trying to get people to NOT mail in their ballots and instead now take them in in person. Klobachar is all over it.
    https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1322027420808024064?s=20

    What a joke. How they could have allowed this to drag on to now is beyond belief – unless it is deliberate. It is highly likely people who posted today and the last 2 days will not have their votes counted. The Repugs and their judges are autocrats who no longer hide it.

  39. Something else about mail in votes is that the USPS picks up your mail from your mail box as well as delivers it. Taking your ballot to a drop box might be second nature to someone living in Australia who is used to taking mail to a post box, but in the US this is rare. That might have a couple of effects. It makes it special and memorable, so you do it. But if you are stuck at home (as a carer or invalid) it makes it impossible. Perhaps you could get someone else to drop it off for you, if you trust them.

  40. A few predictions here are of a blowout win for Biden, but a very close Senate. This isn’t consistent with what’s happened in the recent past. Senate races have become increasingly close to the presidential outcome.

    If Biden wins a blowout with over 400 EVs, he would be winning in states like Georgia, Texas and Iowa. It’s likely that Democrats would ride his coattails and get a comfortable Senate majority.

  41. In NZ, two referendums were held concurrently with the Oct 17 election. Results were released today.

    A proposal to approve euthanasia for terminally ill patients won by a 65-34 margin. However, decriminalising cannabis was defeated by 53-46. 1% were informal in both referendums.

    https://www.electionresults.govt.nz/electionresults_2020_preliminary/referendums-results.html

    Final election and referendum results will be released next Friday.

  42. You guys are well off.

    The US polling data is skewed because of an essential question, being the weighting of registered republicans turning up. Even right-wing pollsters like Rasmussen are weighting this very low because early response data all indicated a very low republican turn out, at around 71%. That is two points lower than George HW Bush when he had Perot draining votes. In 2016, Trump actually pulled 84% of his own party. Worse, the number of registered party members has accelerated for the Republicans, and in some states like Florida, absolutely plummeted for the democrats.

    The long and short of it is that if the models are re-weighted for a usual republican turnout, or the “shy-voter” sentiment is properly weighted in, like Trafalgar do, then the EC is looking more like

    306 – Trump
    232 – Biden

    Which is bloody scary.

  43. I hadn’t heard of Trafalgar. Thank you. Some searching brought up lots of articles on them including this one.
    https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/politics/nate-silver-blasts-trafalgar-and-rasmussen-polls-as-crazy
    “Nate Silver Blasts Trafalgar Polls as “Crazy””
    “Watch any poker tournament and you will see 10% hands come in.”

    But the crucial difference is poker players play lots of hands, and the overall probability eventually asserts itself. An election isn’t like that. Only one outcome will happen. Which leaves me asking, what’s the point of polls?

  44. Adrian Beaumont @ #40 Friday, October 30th, 2020 – 3:49 pm

    A few predictions here are of a blowout win for Biden, but a very close Senate. This isn’t consistent with what’s happened in the recent past. Senate races have become increasingly close to the presidential outcome.

    If Biden wins a blowout with over 400 EVs, he would be winning in states like Georgia, Texas and Iowa. It’s likely that Democrats would ride his coattails and get a comfortable Senate majority.

    It just may be a lunatic you’re looking for.

    Have you posted your prediction yet?

  46. This shy conservative thing is definitely overplayed. When I hear vox pops on the ABC and other sources you would think 95% of people were conservative. I think people are afraid of the Conservatives and that the rich and powerful may somehow exact a Murdoch style revenge if you declare yourself progressive. I reckon a lot of people are shy progressives. The conservatives I’ve met are generally not very shy.

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