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. It is interesting to read some legal views on how nakedly self-serving and legally dubious US court decisions have been over elections. These two stories deal with the recent Minnesota posted vote appeal (by a stacked circuit court) and refer back to the 2000 Bush v Gore decision, which was almost as bad. If you thought the decisions were bad, you should see the “reasoning” they used to justify them. This is a real cancer on US politics.
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/purge-the-courts
    https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2020/10/they-were-practiced-at-the-art-of-deception

    The comments are quite revealing too.

    Let us all give thanks for the (generally competent and) independent AEC.

  2. C@tmomma @ #100 Saturday, October 31st, 2020 – 4:05 pm

    Late Riser @ #98 Saturday, October 31st, 2020 – 5:01 pm

    a r @ #97 Saturday, October 31st, 2020 – 3:55 pm

    With 538 now on 90 / 10 I’m willing to allow some slight optimism. Still closer than I’d like though.

    We get one roll of this dice every 4 years. Right now the dice is shaping up to have Trump’s face on one side in every 10. Or if that’s a difficult analogy, how about picking a card. The deck has Aces through 10s. Pick the Ace and Trump wins.

    Only because Trump hides the ace up his sleeve.

    Jon Rosenberg is of the same opinion. https://amultiverse.com/

  3. A lot of suburban mothers who haven’t voted yet are going to be having a heartbreaking conversation with their children this weekend on why they can’t go trick-or-treating. Likewise, there will be no Halloween Party or Haunted House Tours this year. COVID is going to be on a lot of people’s minds next week.

  5. I would find it deeply ironic if Biden is winning by the end of Tuesday night (US time) and Trump has pray that the mail in votes go his way. I would love to see his lawyers in court trying to reverse all the restrictions they put on counting mail in votes.

    I know it won’t happen, but I would love to see it.

  6. Thank you, Late Riser. There’s no one, except maybe Ivanka, that Donald Trump wouldn’t throw under a bus! Even Handmaiden, Kayleigh.

  7. If it came down to him or her, he’d throw Ivanka under that proverbial bus too. Narcissists only truly care about one person: themselves.

  15. Michael Moore as in the Michael Moore who makes documentaries and always backs the Democrat? Don’t see how that can be newsworthy.

    Besides, Trump’s got Kanye and Lil Wayne, or something.

  23. Latest WaPo-ABC poll.

    Among likely voters in Pennsylvania, Biden is at 51 percent to Trump’s 44 percent, and Libertarian Jo Jorgensen is at 3 percent. Biden was leading by 54 percent to 45 percent a month ago. While the shift is slight, Biden no longer holds a statistically significant advantage, given the four-point margin of sampling error that applies to each candidates’ support. Among all registered voters in the Keystone State, Biden is at 49 percent to Trump’s 45 percent, with Jorgensen at 3 percent.

    In Florida, Trump is at 50 percent to Biden’s 48 percent among likely voters. Jorgensen registers at 1 percent. Last month, Trump was at 51 percent and Biden at 47 percent. Among registered voters in Florida, Trump stands at 49 percent with Biden at 47 percent. Last month among registered voters, Biden was at 48 percent and Trump at 47 percent. Those month-to-month shifts are not statistically significant.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/01/post-abc-polls-biden-has-slight-lead-pennsylvania-florida-toss-up/?arc404=true

  24. If I understand it correctly the type of modelling done by 538 involves “running” 40,000 scenarios to get 40,000 results and then using those results to calculate overall probabilities. That’s fine. But there is a further step in this type of modelling, namely adjusting your model parameters and re-running all your scenarios. This gives you the sensitivity of the result to each parameter’s value. In this context I assume county and state level polls are the parameters. Some won’t influence the outcomes much at all, and others will matter a lot. Do we know if 538 have done this? If so, to which parameters or states are the results most sensitive?

    (The next step is to prioritise attention to the parameters that matter most, to reduce their error. But it’s probably a bit late to do that now.)

  26. Thanks Confessions. I might take a look. It’s the sort of modelling I was involved in 25 years ago in designing nuclear waste repositories. The idea is to uncover and then focus on the important unknowns.

  27. Late Riser @ #124 Sunday, November 1st, 2020 – 4:33 pm

    If I understand it correctly the type of modelling done by 538 involves “running” 40,000 scenarios to get 40,000 results and then using those results to calculate overall probabilities. That’s fine. But there is a further step in this type of modelling, namely adjusting your model parameters and re-running all your scenarios. This gives you the sensitivity of the result to each parameter’s value. In this context I assume county and state level polls are the parameters. Some won’t influence the outcomes much at all, and others will matter a lot. Do we know if 538 have done this? If so, to which parameters or states are the results most sensitive?

    (The next step is to prioritise attention to the parameters that matter most, to reduce their error. But it’s probably a bit late to do that now.)

    You can email them and ask them.

  28. Thanks for the link Confessions. I’ve listened to some of it and, from what I’ve heard so far, I think 538 implicitly acknowledge parameter sensitivity as a concept by labelling “key states” and “tipping point states”. For Trump to win his “key states” are PA, NC, GA, FL, AZ and of those PA is a tipping point state. So those are the states where an inaccurate poll has the most effect, and will be the states to watch. I expect Biden will have an overlapping set of key states.

    Thanks again.

    …back to the podcast. 🙂

  29. With the usual Sunday arvo interruptions I’ve now listened to the podcast. I like these guys. They do have all those wrinkles in their modelling that I wondered about. They use terms like “voter power” and “swing state” to describe what I would think of as “parameter sensitivity”. One encouraging thought is that the most recent voter suppression undertaken by the Republicans could actually hurt the Republican vote, in as much as late ballots are likely to be from Republican voters.

    The bottom line for me though is that this is still a 40 card deck. (That is there are no Js, Qs or Ks.) Pick an Ace and Trump wins.

  37. Self doubt is the issue now.

    I think it should be a landslide to Biden but I just can’t get rid of 2016 out of my head.

    Need one of North Carolina or Florida to flip to Biden early then I will be able to relax. Pennsylvania then no longer becomes the issue. That is the state that gives me the worry.

  38. Kirky @ #137 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 8:24 am

    Self doubt is the issue now.

    I think it should be a landslide to Biden but I just can’t get rid of 2016 out of my head.

    Need one of North Carolina or Florida to flip to Biden early then I will be able to relax. Pennsylvania then no longer becomes the issue. That is the state that gives me the worry.

    Dr Blind Freddie of the Tommy Istitute, Dept of the Bleeding Obvious, is still calling it for Dotard.

  39. a r @ #135 Sunday, November 1st, 2020 – 11:20 pm

    It’s weird that everybody pretends like he’d have a choice in the matter.

    Do you mean if Trump has a choice whether or not to accept the outcome? I am no expert, and I don’t know how much truth there is in these, but I have read various articles that claim there are at least four possible mechanisms Trump could use to retain the presidency:

    (1) the various emergency powers Trump can invoke;
    (2) the supreme court invalidating some of the results;
    (3) the republican state governors shutting down the vote counting while Trump is ahead or even simply not submitting their state results;
    (4) the electoral college being “faithless” and not delivering the votes they are supposed to.

    I suppose you could add (5) armed insurrection, but I think this would result in Trump using his emergency powers, so it may be the same as (1).

  40. mundo @ #138 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 8:47 am

    Kirky @ #137 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 8:24 am

    Self doubt is the issue now.

    I think it should be a landslide to Biden but I just can’t get rid of 2016 out of my head.

    Need one of North Carolina or Florida to flip to Biden early then I will be able to relax. Pennsylvania then no longer becomes the issue. That is the state that gives me the worry.

    Dr Blind Freddie of the Tommy Istitute, Dept of the Bleeding Obvious, is still calling it for Dotard.

    Bookmarked.

  41. Late Riser @ #136 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 12:26 am

    sonar @ #134 Sunday, November 1st, 2020 – 10:09 pm

    What happens if Trump loses and won’t go……

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZWRhLW7Y8w

    I don’t know who this guy is, but if he’s right, the outcome of the election hinges on Trump’s concession speech. For the life of me though, I can’t hear Trump conceding graciously. Bullies don’t do that. Trump’s defeat has to be crushing.

    Van Jones, Obama’s former Education Secretary.

  45. I don’t know who this guy is, but if he’s right, the outcome of the election hinges on Trump’s concession speech. For the life of me though, I can’t hear Trump conceding graciously. Bullies don’t do that. Trump’s defeat has to be crushing.

    OK. Van Jones. Thanks c@t. He seems sincere. But knowing his name is only part of it.

    That said, this morning I’m reading headlines that Trump will declare victory before the count is finalised. That’s a tactic fraught with danger. All those strutting gun toting supporters will come out. It’s the exact opposite of what Van Jones is saying needs to happen if democracy is to continue in the US.

    When the count eventually concludes it will be ‘fake count’, or something. Lying Democrats want to steal the presidency, or something. And so on.

  46. Player One @ #139 Monday, November 2nd, 2020 – 7:55 am

    Do you mean if Trump has a choice whether or not to accept the outcome?

    No, I mean whether Trump has the ability to arbitrarily keep being president on the basis of his not accepting the outcome of the election. He can of course choose to not accept the outcome, but that choice is functionally irrelevant.

    As in, the election is over, votes have been counted, and Trump has lost the electoral college (which tends to mean scenarios 2, 3, and 4 are already passed). Biden gets sworn in as president whether Trump accepts that result or not. And then whatever powers Trump thinks he has lapse and are vested in Biden, who can one minute after being sworn in order the military or the secret service or whomever else to escort Trump out of the White House.

    Trump can bitch and moan and refuse to accept the outcome all he wants. At the end of the day if the outcome is clear and Biden has fulfilled the requirements for being elected president for the next term then Biden is president for the next term. Trump’s protestations and refusal to concede notwithstanding.

    Not saying Trump won’t try every dirty trick possible to hold onto power. Just that, assuming those fail, Trump can’t keep sitting as president simply by refusing to concede defeat. The loser conceding defeat isn’t part of the Constitutional process for electing the next president.

  47. The loser conceding defeat isn’t part of the Constitutional process for electing the next president.

    I’d have to listen to it again, but I think this is exactly what Van Jones is saying. Conceding is important to defuse post-election anger, and that’s all. But it’s important. He goes on to say that the steps in the constitution allow for decisions about the presidency to be made without referring to or honouring the vote of the people. His point is that the constitution allows this, and if the post election anger isn’t quickly defused it is possible those mechanism will be applied.

  48. Technical question. With state polling such as these Pennsylvania polls:

    …are pollsters reporting the overall sentiment across the state at the moment in (or rather, range of) time the poll is conducted, or are they reporting a forecasted final tally that accounts for things like ballots already cast, etc.?

    Just wondering if we should be expecting the final count to be better for Biden than current polling indicates due to Biden polling more strongly through the bulk of the early voting process, or if this is already being rolled in by the pollsters.

  49. Just wondering if we should be expecting the final count to be better for Biden than current polling indicates due to Biden polling more strongly through the bulk of the early voting process, or if this is already being rolled in by the pollsters.

    Short answer is I don’t know. But a longer answer is that a pollster could simply ask if the person had voted and if so how, and include that in the poll with the same weighting as a person still to vote. The effect would be a gradually decreasing number of undecided and a reducing volatility in poll results as the election date approaches. (Credit to Briefly for pointing this out.)

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