Notes on the Front

This is the third Sunday summary of US state-wide polls, focusing on the ‘competitive’ states in the US Presidential election.  The race will be determined by the Electoral College which is based on who wins at state level.  Most states are fairly predictable.  However, there are 12 ‘competitive’ or swing states with 189 electoral votes (about 35 percent of all electoral votes) where the race will be won or lost. Of these 12 states, Trump won 10 with the Democrats winning two.

In 2016 Trump won 304 Electoral College votes to Clinton’s 227.  Actually, the count should have been 306 to 232 but seven electors voted for minor candidates.  So Biden needs to win 38 more electoral votes to be elected President.

I will use two polling aggregators:  FiveThirtyEight and the Economist’s Forecasting the US Elections.  Here’s what they are telling us on September 27^th.  This uses the US electoral colours – blue is Democrats and red is Republican.

(a)          FiveThirtyEight

This third summary week is seeing a number of stories:

• Biden’s lead in Arizona and Florida is softening

• Trump’s lead in Georgia and Iowa is similarly shrinking

• However, Ohio has produced a big turnaround with Biden now in a marginal lead, after two weeks of Trump leading

• In the other key Mid-East states – Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – Biden’s lead is holding up.

• And in the two states that the Democrats are defending – Nevada and New Hampshire – Trump is not gaining ground. It’s hard to see him winning ‘new’ electoral votes.

Remember, Biden needs 38 electoral votes to win.  If he takes Florida with its 29 votes, he’s well more than half way home.  If he simply takes the three Mid-East of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin where he already has a lead – he gains 46 votes and the Presidency.  Biden has other fall backs – Arizona and North Carolina – with 11 and 15 votes respectively.  And if he can turn Ohio with its 18 votes, we could be looking at an Electoral College landslide.

 (b)         The Economist

The Economist tells pretty much the same story as FiveThirtyEight; in particular, Biden’s lead in the three Mid-East states.  While Trump is still in the lead in Ohio, his lead has shrunk considerably over the last two weeks.  And Trump is widening his lead in Texas – though it was always a long-shot that Biden would take the Lone Star state.

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All in all, if you’re a Biden supporter you should be relatively happy – in particular the continuing strong trends in the Mid-East states with the potential to grab a couple of others.

Taking the polls today, this is the Electoral College count.  With 270 votes needed to win, in FiveThirtyEight Biden leads by 164 votes.  In the Economist, Biden leads by 128.  The difference lies in the split between the two aggregators over where Ohio’s electoral votes will go.

As we keep saying, it’s still early days.  But less and less so.  Early mail-in voting is already taking place in a number of states.  And according to most polls, the overwhelming majority of Americans have already made up their mind.  Still, the first of the Presidential debates will take place on Tuesday and that could swing the few undecided or soft supporters.  Even a fractional shift could make all the difference in the key swing states.