Famed Polling Analyst Downgrades Biden's Chances of Winning at the Last Minute
One polling analysis website has downgraded Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s chances of winning the 2020 election at the last minute.
FiveThirtyEight, a data-driven analysis website, said Biden was “favored” to win rather than “clearly favored” in its final polling analysis.
According to the analysis, Biden is favored to win the election in 89 out of 100 scenarios, while Trump would only win in 10 scenarios.
FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver pointed out prior to the final polling results, Biden oscillated between 89.9 percent (“favored”) and 90.1 percent (“clearly favored”).
Silver said of the final “favored” result: “10% chances happen, but it’s a certainly a very solid position for Biden.”
Biden ends at 89.2%. So “favored” rather than “clearly favored”.
10% chances happen, but it’s a certainly a very solid position for Biden. More to come.https://t.co/aEBz22RXEs
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 3, 2020
The forecast is final and will no longer be updated.
Pennsylvania is the “most likely tipping-point state” in the final presidential forecast.
Biden currently leads President Donald Trump in the Keystone State by about 5 points in FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.
“Biden’s easiest path to victory would be to win back three of the so-called ‘Blue Wall’ states that Hillary Clinton lost: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania,” Silver wrote in his analysis of the forecast.
Biden is narrowly ahead of Trump in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia, but he trails Trump in Ohio, Texas and Iowa.
Silver noted that there is a lot of background to keep in mind while election results come in.
In 2016, 18 percent of voters in national exit polling disliked both Trump and Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, according to CNN.
“Many of those voters actually like Biden, though, who has much better favorability ratings than either Clinton or Trump,” Silver wrote, citing RealClearPolitics favorability ratings.
“Meanwhile, the election comes at a time where a 2:1 majority of voters are dissatisfied with the direction of the country amid a COVID-19 pandemic that [has] killed 233,000 Americans — and which has gotten worse in recent weeks — along with high (though improving) unemployment, a summer of racial protests, and continuous erosions of democratic norms by Trump and his administration.”
A disproportionately high Republican turnout could help Trump overcome the conditions going in.
“Our model projects overall turnout in the race to be a record setting 158 million, with an 80th percentile range between 147 million and 168 million,” Silver wrote.
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