Welcome to another 2020 Presidential Election prediction, updated for early September. Since the last prediction in mid-August, there have been a number of changes on the national scale, most notably a bombshell story from The Atlantic about Trump’s comments to veterans. (In case you’re not familiar with how the U.S. presidential election process works, click here for a more detailed explanation.)
As per usual, we will focus more on the swing states, so let’s classify all the safe states and get them over and done with. I’m trying to get the map to more accurately reflect winning margins (>15% safe, >5% likely, >1% lean, 0-1% tilt), so this map may look different from August’s.
These safe states don’t require much discussion: they are practically going to go for their respective parties no matter what. Many states that you may consider safe haven’t been classified, but that’s because those states are unlikely to vote for their respective candidates by a margin of larger than 15 percent, so they go into the likely column. We’ll classify this group of states next. These are the “likely-safe states”: states that are almost guaranteed to go to their respective parties, but by margins of less than 15 percent.
It should come as no surprise that Indiana, Kansas, Alaska, Mississippi, South Carolina, Missouri, Montana, and Utah belong here for the Republican column. Though Indiana has flipped once in 2008 for Barack Obama, that was most likely a fluke and will probably not happen again.
I’ve explained Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada, Maine At-large, and Virginia numerous times before: similarly to those Republican states, these states have virtually not become swing states anymore. They are likely to go to the Democrats at this point. All of them went to Hillary Clinton in 2016 by at least a lean margin, and in what is expected to be a Democratic wave year, they will probably vote by a likely margin. The polls are significantly favoring Biden in these states too: Biden is up 12, 13, 6.4, 1o, and 11 in these states, respectively. Polls tend to overestimate Republicans in Nevada.
The rest of the likely states are characterized as follows:
Michigan and New Hampshire belong in this category, and Michigan is also the first state to flip so far. In 2016, Donald Trump barely won the state by a margin of 0.27 percent, and it looks unlikely that he will carry the state again in a Democratic wave year. Historically, Michigan (along with the rest of the Rust Belt) has always gone to the Democrats, so 2016 was likely a fluke. Based on the polls, Biden is 6.7 points up in this state.
New Hampshire will again go to the Democrats by a likely margin due to this year being expected to be a Democratic wave year. It went to Hillary Clinton in 2016, and so is not expected to flip. Biden is eight points up in this state according to the polls.
That leaves us with 10 competitive states and two competitive districts, accounting for a total of 175 electoral votes. For any candidate to win, they must carry at least a portion of these states. Let’s now classify all the lean states.
With the characterization of lean states, Biden has won the election. In fact, he could even afford to lose Florida and either Arizona or Wisconsin, and still win the election. States (and districts) that are lean for Biden include Arizona, Florida, Minnesota, Nebraska’s Second District, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
Minnesota went to the Democrats in 2016, so it’s pretty likely that Biden will retain the state. The rest of these are flips. Arizona is almost certain to flip this year, due to demographic shifts (the state overwhelmingly voted Democratic in the 2018 midterms) and down-ballot Democrats helping Joe Biden. Mark Kelly, the Democratic candidate for the Senate in Arizona, is up 17 percent in the latest Fox News polls, compared to just 4.6 points on the presidential level. Mark Kelly is undoubtedly going to help Biden in the state, simply due to the unpopularity of Republican candidate Martha McSally. In fact, the Trump Campaign has already withdrawn ads from the state. That’s pretty significant considering he chose to do it before the Labor Day weekend.
Polling data is also helping Biden in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, too. He is leading by 7.2 and 4.5 points, respectively. Again, it really does seem Trump’s Rust Belt flip in 2016 was a fluke. The race in Florida has narrowed up, and Biden is only leading by 2.8 points, but that could just be due to a lackluster amount of good polls coming out from the state. Biden has led in every reliable pollster’s poll in the state since April.
Iowa, Ohio, and Maine’s Second District are the lean Republican states I have characterized. All three of them went to Trump in 2016, and by fairly large margins at that. Despite poll data showing the races narrowing, with Trump only leading by 1.6 and 1.8 points in Iowa and Ohio (there have been few polls of Maine’s Second District), the states still seem favored to go to Trump. This is agreed upon by most forecasters, too. In addition, because Trump flipped Maine’s Second District, a very rural district, for the first time in 2016 and it went to him by such a large margin, it seems likely to retain its conservative qualities from 2016.
That leaves us with some of the most competitive states of this year’s election: Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina, and they are all tilt states. They are classified as follows. (This makes the map below my final prediction as of September 2020.)
Although Texas and Georgia could probably go into the lean columns along with Ohio and Iowa, the states are in fact narrower than Ohio and Iowa. In Texas, Trump is leading by just 0.5 points, and in Georgia, 1.4 points. That is very significant since these are typically considered conservative strongholds, but again, due to demographic changes, these states are trending leftward (Ohio and Iowa are trending rightward). The two races are definitely going to be close, and they could all flip—the polling average is well within the margin of error for polls. Click here for an in-depth analysis of the politics of Texas. If Trump loses Texas, it will be virtually impossible for him to score a victory, even if he wins all the other swing states.
North Carolina is a pure tossup, though Biden does have a slight edge in the polls (+1.8 for Biden). The Senate elections will probably help him too, since the Democratic candidate, Cal Cunningham, is up significantly in polls. This is certainly going to be one of the closest races this year. In 2016, Trump won it by 3.7 percent.
The final tally gives Biden 334 votes compared to Trump’s 204. 183 votes are safe for Biden compared to 71 for Trump, 55 votes are likely for Biden compared to 54 for Trump, 81 votes are lean for Biden compared to 25 for Trump, and 15 votes are tilt for Biden compared to 54 for Trump.
Though Trump certainly could improve before the election (and it is expected that he will, at least slightly), there are only 58 days till the election, and every day that passes makes it seem less and less likely to tilt in favor of Trump. To win, Trump will certainly have to pull off nothing short of a miracle, as the odds are really against him now.
By aggregating all the data, here is my map showing the probability that each state will be won by their respective candidates (>90% for safe, >80% for likely, >60% for lean, and >50% for tilt).
How accurate do you think my prediction will be? Let me know in the comments below. Posts on the gubernatorial and House elections will be out very soon, so make sure to subscribe and stay tuned for that!
Check out my Senate, House, and gubernatorial election predictions too for early September.
Happy Labor Day.
Polling data is correct as of writing. Polling data may have changed slightly since writing. Polling averages are based on the FiveThirtyEight average, and their website provides the most up-to-date information.
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