In 50 days, Americans will go to the polls and determine whether Donald Trump should continue living in the White House, or decide to turn to Joe Biden for a different direction.
Little has changed in the polling since our last analysis fifty days ago, and as we get closer to the election, our forecast is even more confident Joe Biden will win.
We are not alone in our assessment.
FiveThirtyEight now has Biden with a 75% chance he will prevail, and The Economist gives Biden an 86% chance.
We currently project Joe Biden with 209 ‘likely’ electoral votes and other 110 ‘leaning’ his way for a total of 319.
It takes 270 electoral votes to win.
Trump has 107 ‘likely’ electoral votes with another 112 ‘leaning’ his way for a total of 219.
The map below shows current polling and trends that shows Biden leading in states Trump barely won in 2016, including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
In addition, Biden continues to lead in Florida and Arizona, while Trump is leading nowhere that he lost four years ago.
Trump’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, along with the shaky economy, has contributed to Biden’s steady lead all year.
There is also deep racial unrest in the country that Trump has misread throughout the year, leading to higher progressive activism.
While Trump struggles in traditionally Republican states like Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, his key to turn this trend around starts in Florida and across the Rust Belt.
There really is no way Trump can reach 270 electoral votes without Florida, so expect hundreds of millions of dollars to be spent by both sides over the next seven weeks.
In fact, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg today pledged to spend $100 million in Florida to back Biden.
Assuming Trump gains back enough moderate-leaning voters in the Sunshine State, and Biden struggles to win the support of Latinos, he must then stop Biden from reclaiming the blue firewall in the Midwest.
Polls in Michigan shows Biden putting that state away, leaving Pennsylvania as a key battleground.
Both Wisconsin and Minnesota could become toss-ups by election day, but Biden has been leading in both consistently all year.
If Biden has difficulty in the upcoming presidential debates, or if a vaccine is discovered for the coronavirus, Trump’s favorability may rise, leading to a potential ‘worst case’ scenario.
Imagine what Trump would do if the election were deadlocked, with neither candidate reaching 270 electoral votes for the win.
This is what the map could look like if both Trump and Biden end up with 269 electoral votes.
While that would be a nightmare, there is no data suggesting the election is headed in that direction.
Biden is holding strong in the Keystone State, and Trump has been unable to gain any traction in Michigan.
He is spending millions of dollars in states like Ohio, which at this point he had hoped to put away.
The Trump campaign has also stopped advertising in Arizona, giving Biden the edge in a state that hasn’t gone blue since 1996.
So, as we see it right now, this is the way election night 2020 will look:
Biden wins with 318 electoral votes to Trump’s 220.
NOTES:
A New York Times/Siena College poll taken from September 8 to 10 shows Biden retaining his lead with likely voters in four important states: Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin.
Likewise, a CBS News/YouGov survey conducted from September 9 to 11 gives the former vice president the edge among likely voters in both Minnesota and Arizona.
His 9 point lead in Minnesota is noteworthy as the Trump camp has insisted they can flip that state red.
There is a bright spot for Trump in Nevada, where Biden has a narrow lead.
Chuck Rocha, a former adviser to the Bernie Sanders campaign, says that Democrats have not been sensitive enough to the economic hardship that has affected Las Vegas.
Next door, changing demographics in Arizona, with many recent immigrants and Americans from other parts of the country moving there in recent years, account for the shifting priorities of the southwestern state’s voters.
After decades of having two Republican senators, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema won in the 2018 midterm, and Mark Kelly has dominated in the polls this year against Trump-supporting Martha McSally.
We show a substantial electoral vote advantage for Biden 50 days out, and are calling this election LIKELY BIDEN in both the electoral college and popular vote.
