Here is the list of all of the polls listed for 538 since October 17 :
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5 , 6 , 6 , 5 , 7 , 5 , -1 , 6 , 7 , 5 , 7 , 6 , -1 , 4 , 7
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.The polling without the outliers 76/13 = 5 and 11/13 or about 5.8 , nearly 6 points.
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Can you spot the two polls that are not like the others ? The polling without the outliers adds up to Biden + 76 over 13 polls, giving us 5 and 11/13 or about 5.8 points. So, nearly a 6 point lead and at 50%. Hillary was at 46.8% and had a 2.1% lead according to real clear politics. And when I tell you that neither of them are highly rated and one is known to be a partisan republican pollsters which are regarded very poorly by Nate Silver, would that surprise you? Atlas Intel and Trafalgar are the twp polls showing a lead for Trump. Note that all of the other Pennsylvania polling has a lead of at least 4 points for Biden and even the 4 points is registered voters, not likely voters. The two A plus pollsters and the B plus pollster and B pollster have 7 LV, 4 RV, 5 , 7 and 7 . So, ABC / Washington Post has Biden +7 for LV and Biden + 4 for RV and they are rate A plus in historical accuracy. Muhlenberg College is rated A plus for historical accuracy and has Biden + 7. Quinnipiac has Biden + 7 and is rated B+ for historical accuracy and PPP is rated B for historical accuracy and has Biden +7. The rest are rated below B. I follow polling closely and am not familiar with Atlas Intel. Nate noted on a podcast recently that republican partisan pollsters with no history tend to try to flood the polling to try to influence the narrative in hopes of influencing reality. Nate is notoriously non partisan and bends over backwards to include even every 2 bit pollster even with flawed methodology like Trafalgar which adds points to Trump AFTER gathering the data and weighting it.
. Regarding Trafalgar (described by WSJ as the pollster who thinks that Trump will win ) , we read the following from wikipedia about Trafalgar:
Trafalgar Group adjusts its polls for a "social desirability bias" effect, the hypothesized tendency of some voters to …
Unfortunately, it gets worse.
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Trafalgar is a Republican pollster whose goal is to pretend that Donald Trump is ahead of Joe Biden in every single important state. Trafalgar relies on the fact that they were accurate in Michigan in 2016.
But Rasmussen, which was accurate in the 2016 popular vote (Hillary +2), wrongly predicted a GOP victory in the 2018 generic ballot. Rasmussen actually the worst polls car in 2018.
In fact, Trafalgar already fucked up (on purpose) in the 2018 Georgia governor race, where the pollster had Kemp cruising to a 12% victory over Stacey Abrams. He ended up almost losing the race (Kemp won by only 1%, resulting in a whopping 11% error for Trafalgar).
Trafalgar appears to have been approached y Donald Trump himself, who has reportedly been approaching pollsters to tell him what he wants to hear. Dismiss Trafalgar.
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So, whatever the actual results that they obtain are, they then add points to Trump depending upon how much they need to in order to help make Trump look better. That is clearly illegitimate and a demonstration of bias. The fact of the matter is that anybody who does that is no longer conducting a legitimate poll with a result based purely upon a random sample weighted to represent the electorate. Nate knows that they are illegitimate, but has decided to accept the results of every two bit pollster even those with a ridiculous methodology so that he can’t be accused of bias. . These two are not merely closer, but actually have a Trump lead.
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.Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania tend to move together. All three were won by less than one percentage point in 2016 by Donald Trump. So, let’s look at the other two and see what they have to say about the matter. Well, Biden is at +8.2 in Wisconsin with 51.9% of the vote, well over 50% . That’s completely out of reach considering that Biden is well above 50% and since Biden is well over 50%, then there are, of course, of logical necessity, fewer undecided and third party voters than last time. How about Michigan ? Biden is leading by 8.9% and at 51.5% of the vote in Michigan. Even with the junk polling included in Pennsylvania, 538 sees Biden with an 85% probability of winning Pennsylvania. Biden has more than a 90% probability of winning each of the other two; there is a 93% probability of Biden winning Wisconsin and a 96% probability of Biden winning Michigan. The economist has Biden with better than a 90% probability of winning each of the three states. They don’t accept junk pollsters, only those with high quality methodology (regardless of the outcome of the poll- if they are high quality live interview pollsters with strong historical accuracy they are included no matter who the poll says is leading).
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Even if Trump were to win Pennsylvania (which seems highly unlikely given the astronomical early voting and the high quality pollsters’ results ) , Biden is easily able to replace Pennsylvania and still get to 270 electoral college votes. Always remember and never forget that Barack Obama won more votes in each of the 3 states in both 2008 and in 2012 despite population growth than Donald Trump did in 2016. There simply are not enough republicans if we turn out our vote. Mitt Romney who lost Wisconsin by 7 points won more votes in Wisconsin in 2012 than Donald Trump did in 2016. So, in a large turnout election, Donald Trump simply cannot win these states. We just did not turn out our vote in 2016 and Hillary Clinton was well below 50% in all 3 states unlike Joe Biden this time around. Hillary Clinton was at 46.8% in the average of the polls in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and at 47.0% in the average of the polls in Michigan. She won 47.5% of the vote in Pennsylvania in the election and 46.5% of the vote in Wisconsin in the election and 47.0% of the vote in Michigan in the election. So, her topline share of the vote numbers in the average of the polls were all very close to what she actually won in the election ; thus, the polling was accurate in this regard. Biden as I noted above is at or above 50% in all three states. With the 92 million votes cast early (compared to 47 million early votes cast in 2016) , this is clearly going to be a high turn out election. That means that these three states are going to Joe Biden.
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.Still, let’s explore the other states. Hillary Clinton 2016 states + NE 02 and + Maine’s 02 rural congressional district + Michigan + Wisconsin puts Biden at 260 electoral college votes. That’s without Pennsylvania. Now, Texas has more early votes than other state besides California and has already exceeded its turnout for 2016. We are likely to see at least 11 million votes cast in Texas. This means that the turnout models which are based upon the past are highly likely to be too republican. Remember, we are nearly at twice the early vote of 2016 already ; 92 million early votes this year vs 47 million early votes cast in 2016. In 2016, 90 million votes were cast on election day. This time around, passion and intensity, especially on the Democratic side, is much, much stronger. Therefore, it is not likely that we will see a huge drop off in voting on election day. Still, let’s suppose that there were a 30% dropoff which hardly seems likely. Then, we would have 63 million votes cast on election day and that combined with the 92 million votes already cast early gives us 155 million votes cast in this election. That kind of turnout means Biden is exceptionally likely to win any of the swing states, even those which traditionally have gone for republican candidates. So, Biden is likely in that kind of election to win each of the following states, any of which would put him over 270 electoral college votes: Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Ohio. Biden is already either leading or competitive in each of those states and huge turnout will move those states to his column. Biden is trailing in Texas by 1 percentage point, Biden is down by .7 % (seven tenths of one percent) in Ohio , Biden is leading by 1.6 points in Georgia (the fact that Georgia is competitive is indicative of an election in which the republican is in massive trouble — same thing is true in Texas) , Biden is trailing in Iowa by 1.8 points , Biden is up 3.2 points in Arizona , Biden is up 2.6 points in North Carolina , and Biden is up 1.7 points in Florida. These are all based on the average of the polls, not simply one individual poll. Thus, they are more likely to be accurate and they are including all of the junk pollsters too.
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Let’s take a quick look at Florida. Florida will be close. There is no doubt about that. Florida is Florida. However, Biden is leading among seniors nationally and in Florida and this means he is in a strong position in Florida. It is true that there is an A + pollster with high quality methodology that puts Trump up 2, ABC / Washington Post . However, the rest of the high quality pollsters with sound methodology and strong historical accuracy all give Biden the lead. That’s a fact and it is an important one. The most recent poll was an A plus pollster, Sienna College / NY Times and they give Biden the lead by 3. PPP is a B rated pollster and they give Biden the lead by 7. This is unlikely to be true. Unfortunately, Biden is not leading by 7 in Florida. Yougov has Biden up by 2 points. Monmouth University is an A plus pollster and they have Biden up 4 or 5 or 6 depending upon the turnout model . Marist is an A plus pollster and they have Biden up 4 or 5 points . Quinnipiac is a B plus pollster and they have Biden up 3 points. Those are all the results from pollsters with a B rating or better. So, in B rated or better pollsters we have: -2 , 3 , 7 , 2 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 4 , 5 , 3 . That’s ten polls with a total of Biden plus 37 . So, among those pollsters rated B or better, we have Biden + 3.7 . That’s pretty good in Florida . We counted all pollsters with a B rating. Florida will be close. Biden will probably only win it by about 4 points.
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.For many reasons which I have already documented, Trump is unlikely to exceed 65 million votes. He won 62.9 million votes in 2016. He has never expanded beyond this base. In fact, he has not even tried. He is now trying to cast aspersions upon physicians regarding the novel coronavirus which will not ring true to any but the most hard care conspiracy theorists among us, the same people who will tell us that carbon dioxide does not trap heat even though we can prove in reproducible experiments that it does trap heat. The fact is that under Trump’s presidency, there are fewer republicans because of the electorate’s dislike of Trump and the republican’s obsequiousness to him. The fact is that for the first time, there are more independent voters than there are registered republicans. The fact is that Trump has had between 42 and 43 % approval ratings mostly and always on average below 45% his entire presidency. The fact is that Biden is leading among a majority of seniors (linked above) and normally seniors not only always vote but they always vote republican. This loss or defection of voters hurts Trump tremendously. The fact is that the novel coronavirus is what is driving this election which was starting to become evident in May and now has taken over and Trump rightly has been given poor marks for his mishandling of it. Clearly some seniors who supported Trump have passed away. All of this tells us that Trump would be lucky to match his 2016 vote total. Assuming that he will add two million more votes to it is being more than generous to him. So, 65 million votes is his likely hard cap limit.
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And 4 million votes is likely to be the hard cap limit for third party / write in votes this election. There are fewer such voters in polling compared to last time. Biden has a positive favorable rating. Can you name the 2016 third party candidates ? I can off the top of my head: Gary Johnson the libertarian and Jill Stein the green party candidate. Other than Kanye who is not on the ballot and polling at 1%, can you name any other third party candidate ? Nope. So, the unusually high third party vote total of a little less than six million votes will in all probability be capped at 4 million votes this time.
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But in an election with 154 + million votes with only 65 million votes going to Trump and only 4 million going to third party candidates, then that leaves Biden with 85 + million votes, a 13% win. A 13% win brings all of the swing states to Biden.
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I am going to make a comment here to address something. I was a republican up until graduate school and I don’t need to read Breitbart to prove impartiality. It has been documented that people who watch Fox News are less likely to have accurate knowledge about provable facts than those who don’t watch cable news at all. Fox News is a propaganda media source just like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh. And I used to listen to them all hours of the day and watch only Fox News. So, I know what these people say. I have already been exposed to it. I am a critical thinker who is selective in what sources I trust and they are mainly non partisan sources although I do like MSNBC (I don’t watch it very much — I probably should but the fact is I hardly watch it). Mainstream media is not out to get anybody and those who think they are and rule them out of bounds are the ones who are not being objective.
Again, we already have had over 92 million votes cast early. Last time, there were only 47 million votes cast early and 90 million votes cast on election day. 538 like other forecasters is predicting an election with 154 million votes cast. We are looking at 65% of registered voters casting their ballots, the greatest percentage since 1908.
Bottom line, Biden is fine in Pennsylvania . He won’t win by less than 4 or 5 points. He could win it by more. In Florida, Biden is likely to win it by about 4 points. I suspect an 8 point or bigger win in both Wisconsin and Michigan. I think a 3 or 4 point win in Arizona is likely. I think a 3 or 4 point win in North Carolina is likely. I think a narrow 1 point win in Ohio is likely. Iowa may be the one exception, but Obama won it twice handily. So, perhaps Biden wins Iowa narrowly by a point or less. I think Biden wins Texas by 1 to 2 points and Biden wins Georgia by about 1 point. The reason I am giving these traditionally republican states to Biden is because polling has consistently shown that they are close and because of the tremendous voter turnout. I think that pollster are screening out voters because they simply didn’t vote before. They are also weighting in a way that is more republican than the actual electorate. Again, this is the greatest percentage turnout since 1908 ! 154 million votes. That is a completely different electorate and it is going to strongly favor Democrats. That’s why the republicans are trying so hard to suppress the vote. But 92 million early votes have already been cast and it is, therefore, very difficult or even impossible to see how we don’t get to 154 million votes since in 2016 90 million votes were cast on election day and even 62 million votes on election day proper gets us to 154 million votes this time. Pollsters have to try to model the electorate. Their models are based upon the past. However, we have people who have never or only rarely voted voting in this election. That’s why there would be nearly 20 million more votes this time than last time (137 million votes in total were cast last time). Since these 20 million people didn’t vote last time, then it is understandable why pollsters would not include them in their modeling. However, they are clearly going to vote based upon the turnout we have already seen. At this point, we know that we will have at least 154 million votes. Democratic intensity is greater than republican intensity and that can’t be a surprise.
With 154 million vote election, the republicans are going to lose control of the US Senate which is understood by all non partisan analysts (Charlie Cook , 538 , economist, … ) and this kind of turnout means that Democratic challengers are likely to exceed their polling.
Major MJ Hegar had one and only one realistic path to defeating John Oxford Cornyn and that is Biden winning Texas and all Biden voters (which include former republican voters who hate Trump and his republican senate enablers) voting for Major MJ Hegar. I would say that it is more likely than not that Biden wins Texas and based upon that, I actually think she will by the most narrow of margins after all the votes are counted win. I know that this may be a shock to some and I do not go out on limbs, but this is not going out on a limb. Texas already has more votes cast this time than it did with all votes cast in Texas in 2016. And it is not even election day. This is not happening because of some great love for the incumbent and the status quo. Republicans who dislike Trump are voting for Biden and since they dislike Trump, it is as clear as it could possibly be that they dislike those who like John Cornyn have enabled him. If only 1.5 million voters cast a vote on election day, we are at 11 million votes cast this time around. There is no way that we don’t hit that mark. And that is enough votes to put Biden over the top and the people who voted for Biden are essentially certain to vote for Major MJ Hegar . It may take a while before all of the votes are counted, but , in the end, after they have all been counted, that’s what I think we will find. Again, the turnout points to this and the average of the polls has him only down 1 point and we all know that an incredible turnout can boost a candidate 2 to 3 points. And there it is . And that is what is happening. Amazing really.
Governor Hickenlooper will clearly defeat Cory Gardner in Colorado, a state that Biden will win by 10 points and which Hickenlooper has won twice to be governor of the state. Lt Cal Cunningham should squeak out a narrow win against Thom Tillis. He is ahead in the average of the polls. Captain Mark Kelly is clearly going to defeat Martha McSally who has lost statewide before. He has a substantial lead in the polling. Biden will win Arizona. Theresa Greenfield will defeat Joni Ernst who has upside down approval ratings. Between the novel coronavirus handling and her backing of Trump’s mishandling of that and the debate debacle and the trade war, Ernst is done. Susan Collins’ reputation as a moderate has been exposed to be fraudulent. She voted for the rapist and to acquit the clearly guilty Trump and she is in a state that Biden will win by at least double digits. Speaker Sara Gideon will defeat Susan Collins.
All of those I am pretty well convinced of. It also appears like there is a very good chance that we win at least one of the two Georgia senate seats. It is possible that both could go to runoffs. However, Ossoff has a good chance at getting to 50% and Ossoff kicked ass in the last debate, exposing Perdue’s racism and failure to protect those Georgians with preexisting conditions. Even in a runoff, Ossoff is the favorite in that race. Reverend Raphael Warnock will either face Doug Collins or Loeffler who is embroiled in an insider trading scandal. She publicly minimized the novel coronavirus while knowing better because of the intelligence information she had and she invested in zoom which was likely to do very well since more meetings would be virtual. Warnock has consolidated Democratic support and even in a runoff is the favorite. Collins could lose some of the incumbent Loeffler’s supporters and Warnock is leading both when polled one on one. Jaime Harrison is an outstanding candidate and has worked hard to get to a tie. Lindsay Graham set himself up with an own goal by saying, “ I want you to use my words against me “ regarding his egregious hypocrisy. Governor Steve Bullock is down slightly in Montana to Steve Daines. Still, Bullock has won statewide office twice to be governor in Montana and polling has this very close. So, it is possible that Bullock could win even if Daines is the modest favorite. Dr. Al Gross has a chance to defeat Dan Sullivan given yet another republican scandal regarding influence on an important local issue. Dr. Gross may be a slight underdog, but it is well within the realm of possibility that he will win. Dr. Barbara Bollier is likely to be boosted in her race against dr ydroxychloroquine freak Marshall due to Marshall being exposed as the receipts were produced. She probably has a 30 to 35% probability of winning, but it could be more.
These are all of our senate candidates who have a reasonably good chance (some are not the favorite) to win. Espy may come up a little short. I like Adrian Peters a lot, but in Louisiana it just proved that the voters were not worthy of him. Senator Doug Jones was an assistant US attorney who successfully prosecuted the bombing of a black church in Birmingham that killed four little girls. He had a strong background to be a US Senator. Last time, Senator Jones ran against a child molester. Yet, the vast majority of republicans voted for the child molester over the Democrat and that’s why Senator Jones only won by 2 percent. This times, Senator Jones is facing a completely unqualified football coach, the coach of Alabama’s chief rival, Auburn, and football is huge in Alabama. Tommy Tuberville is not at all qualified for this position. However, Tuberville is likely to win. Lt Col Amy McGrath was a strong if not perfect candidate but in an election in Kentucky for a race in the US Senate, McConnell was going to win no matter how much they don’t like him there. They hate Democrats more than they hate McConnell.
I think we net 6 to 8 US Senate seats, winning between 7 and 9 new US Senate seats and losing one seat. We should probably narrowly expand our congressional majority in the US House of Representatives.