fivethirtyeight--2020-10-16--Democrats Don’t Need To Win Georgia, Iowa, Ohio Or Texas — But They Could

Welcome to Pollapalooza , our weekly polling roundup .
Just eight years ago , it would have been weird to put Iowa and Ohio in the same electoral category as Georgia and Texas .
In the 2012 election , President Obama won Iowa by 6 percentage points and Ohio by 3 points while losing Georgia by 8 and Texas by 16 .
But in the early stages of the Trump era , Georgia and Texas got a bit more blue , while Iowa and Ohio got more red .
( Exactly why these shifts happened at the same time is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that aside for the moment . )
In 2016 and 2018 , these four states voted similarly — about 11 points , give or take , to the right of the country overall .
That gave Trump fairly comfortable wins in all four states in 2016 — when Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by just 2 points — but Republicans barely won in several key statewide races in these four states in 2018 , when Democrats won the national U.S. House vote by about 9 points .
Fast-forward to 2020 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2018 — and perhaps even more so — and all four states look competitive .
You can see that in the latest polls .
Morning Consult surveys released this week showed President Trump with just a 2-point lead in Georgia and Texas , and a 3-point lead in Ohio .
A CBS News/YouGov poll had Biden and Trump tied in Iowa .
Those are just a few polls , obviously , but they largely match the FiveThirtyEight polling averages in each of these states .
Biden doesn ’ t need to carry these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Electoral College victory without carrying them .
Trump does need them , however — but he also needs bluer states like Florida , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to win reelection .
Similarly , Democrats can win a Senate majority without carrying any of the four Senate seats up for grabs in these states ( none in Ohio but two in Georgia ) .
But these states are still important .
Winning the Senate races there would likely mean that Democrats have 53 or 54 seats overall , giving them room for defections on key @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Texas , meanwhile , could help down-ballot Democrats there , as the party could flip several U.S. House seats and the Texas House of Representatives .
Symbolically , winning Georgia and particularly Texas would suggest that Democrats have really arrived in the South after years of talk about their potential strength in that region .
And winning Iowa and particularly Ohio would suggest that Democrats ’ decline in the Midwest have been overstated .
So let ’ s look at these four states more closely .
( I have generally ordered them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ worst . )
Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield has a 53 in 100 chance of winning , according to FiveThirtyEight ’ s Senate forecast for Iowa ; Biden has a 42 in 100 chance of winning , per our presidential forecast .
Even with the national swift toward the Democrats , Greenfield ’ s strong standing has been a bit surprising .
Incumbent Sen. Joni Ernst , as both a Republican woman and former Army reservist , was a compelling candidate when she ran for the Senate in 2014 and seemed like a rising @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 8 points in a state Obama had carried two years earlier .
She has probably been more aligned with Trump than a senator from a swing state should be for electoral reasons , but she hasn ’ t made any major gaffes or had any big scandals in her Senate tenure .
And Greenfield , who runs a real estate firm in Des Moines , doesn ’ t particularly have a unique biography , and she has never been elected to any office before .
Part of the story here is likely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that Ernst was a strong candidate because her 2014 margin looked really big at the time , but that margin was really about Iowa shifting to the right more than Ernst herself .
( Trump won big there in 2016 . )
So Ernst is struggling now because Iowa has moved back left and she doesn ’ t have much popularity separate from the broader GOP .
Our model has Biden doing slightly worse than Greenfield — or put another way , Trump is doing better than Ernst .
That might just be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Senate results could end up lining up fairly closely .
But there is an obvious explanation for this dynamic : Democrats are spending a lot of money in Iowa to try to win the Senate race , but not much in terms of the presidential race .
Biden and various organizations backing his campaign have spent just $ 3.3 million on TV commercials in Iowa to boost him , according to a recent NPR analysis .
That compares with $ 154.1 million in Florida , the state where they are spending the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more than $ 56 million in the Ernst-Greenfield race , more than all but one other Senate campaign ( North Carolina ) .
This makes sense .
Winning a Democratic Senate seat in Iowa is just as valuable as winning one in Texas .
But for Biden , Iowa is far less valuable — it has only six electoral votes .
Biden has a 49 in 100 chance , according to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential forecast .
Biden ’ s chances in Iowa and Ohio are fairly similar , reflecting the national dynamics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s one factor to watch in the next few weeks : It ’ s likely that Biden and Democratic groups backing his campaign will invest more heavily in trying to win Ohio than to win Georgia , Iowa or Texas ( at the presidential level ) .
Ohio has way more electoral votes ( 18 ) than Iowa .
And Ohio is fairly demographically and culturally similar to states like Michigan and Pennsylvania that Biden has been targeting for months .
So Biden doesn ’ t need to adapt his approach to win @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Texas are much different politically from the Midwestern states .
In fact , Biden was in Ohio this week , but his campaign seems hesitant to send him to Texas .
Biden has a 50 in 100 chance , according to FiveThirtyEight ’ s presidential forecast ; Democrats have a 49 in 100 chance of winning Georgia ’ s special Senate election , with Raphael Warnock as their likely candidate , and Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff has a 28 in 100 chance in the state ’ s other U.S. Senate race .
Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at the Senate level largely because of Georgia election law .
At the presidential level , the winner of the plurality of the vote gets the state ’ s 16 electoral votes .
But for the Senate ( and other races in Georgia ) , you can win only if you get 50 percent of the vote or more .
So it ’ s possible that both of Georgia ’ s U.S. Senate races will go to a runoff , which would take place on Jan. 5 .
Based on current polling , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the presidency and the Senate by that date .
I would expect Republicans to try really really hard to win one or both of these Senate races in such a runoff , and this is already a GOP-leaning state in the first place .
But the rules aren ’ t the only reason to be skeptical of Democrats ’ chances of winning in Georgia , particularly at the Senate level .
Candidate strength is another .
Stacey Abrams ’ s decision not to run for either of these Senate seats made sense for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t want to be a senator ) but was problematic for Democrats in Georgia .
In the race against incumbent Sen. David Perdue , Ossoff won the Democratic primary in a crowded field .
Ossoff , a one-time staffer to Georgia congressman Hank Johnson , is perhaps most famous for his 2017 U.S. House campaign in suburban Atlanta that got a lot of national attention because it was one of the first congressional races after Trump ’ s election .
But Ossoff lost that race and has never won or held political office @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the seat held by Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler , the Democratic Party establishment has coalesced around Warnock , who has never even run for office before .
Of course , it makes sense why Democrats have boosted Warnock despite his lack of electoral experience .
He is the kind of person the Democratic Party would like to elect to the Senate to represent Georgia — a Black man who serves as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta , the church Martin Luther King Jr. once led .
But Democrats have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the blue-leaning national environment but also because the GOP candidates are not exactly juggernauts either .
First elected in 2014 , Perdue has been a strong defender and ally of Trump , including his anti-immigration policies .
And Perdue , like Trump , has done little outreach outside of his base .
That approach likely ensures he will get almost total opposition from Georgia ’ s large bloc of Black voters and will lose badly in the Atlanta suburbs .
So if Ossoff can peel off a few white swing voters and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ levels , he can win this seat .
Loeffler is also likely to have trouble wooing voters outside of the GOP base because of the particular dynamics of her race .
She was appointed in December 2019 by Gov .
Brian Kemp , after longtime Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson retired .
Because of that appointment , her race is officially a special election , with different rules than the Ossoff-Perdue contest .
There were no party primaries .
So more than a dozen candidates from both parties are running , with the top @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 5 .
Kemp picked Loeffler with the idea that a 49-year-old woman who co-owns Atlanta ’ s WNBA team could run for this seat and appeal to more moderate voters .
But GOP congressman Doug Collins , who represents an area in more rural northeastern Georgia , opted to run too .
Collins is very conservative .
So Loeffler , worried that Collins and Warnock would finish ahead of her , has aggressively moved to the right , looking to secure enough GOP votes to make it to the runoff .
In some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and seems likely to make it into a runoff against Warnock .
But she attacked the Black Lives Matter movement , and the players on the Atlanta Dream are now strong critics of her .
Loeffler ’ s more moderate branding is gone .
She is now like Perdue , a Republican who must run up the score among more conservative and rural Georgians to overcome opposition by Georgia ’ s urban , suburban and Black voters .
Biden has a 31 in 100 chance , according to our presidential forecast ; Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 100 chance , per our Senate forecast for the state .
Why do Democratic chances seem slimmer in Texas ?
In terms of the Senate , the Republicans have a stronger candidate compared with those in Georgia and Iowa .
Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn has won six statewide races in Texas : Supreme Court twice , attorney general once and Senate three times .
In contrast , Hegar , a former Air Force pilot , has never held elective office .
She ran and lost in a U.S. House race two years ago @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s worth considering if ex-congressman Beto O ’ Rourke , who ran such a strong 2018 campaign for Senate in Texas , would be polling better than Hegar if he had run .
Also , Democratic groups aren ’ t spending that much in the Texas Senate race since they can try to win smaller , less-expensive states like Iowa .
Similarly , as I alluded earlier , Biden ’ s campaign also hasn ’ t spent much time or resources trying to win Texas .
That makes sense — Texas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state that determines the election .
But if Democrats fall short of winning the Texas House of Representatives , not investing in Texas might end up looking like a mistake .
A Texas dominated by Republicans can draw district lines for congressional races that will make it hard for Democrats to win seats and keep their U.S. House majority .
• Democratic Gov .
Roy Cooper of North Carolina led his opponent , Republican Lt. Gov .
Dan Forest , 51 percent to 44 percent among registered voters , according to a Monmouth @ @ @ @ @ @ @ likely voters , Cooper led Forest 51 percent to 37 percent in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll .
• About 79 percent of Black Americans think that structural and systemic racism is a “ major obstacle ” to Black people in America achieving equal outcomes compared with white people , according to a new poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Undefeated .
Fifty-seven percent of Hispanic Americans and 43 percent of white Americans agreed .
About 73 percent of Black adults said that individual acts of discrimination and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people , compared with 67 percent of Hispanic adults and 46 percent of white adults .
• In that same survey , 65 percent of Black men and 59 percent of Black women said that it is a “ bad time ” to be a Black man or Black woman in America .
Just 25 percent of Black men and 34 percent of Black women said it is a good time .
Black Americans are expressing much more negative views on their lives than when these questions were previously asked .
In a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent of Black men said that it was a good time to be Black in America , compared with 28 percent who said it was a bad time .
In a 2011 KFF/Washington Post poll , 73 percent of Black women said it was a good time , while 15 percent said it was a bad time .
( This was a really interesting poll , and I highly recommend reading it in full . )
• According to a recent Navigator Research survey , 52 percent of registered voters said that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in terms of dealing with the novel coronavirus .
That ’ s compared with 32 percent who said “ the worst is over ” and 16 percent who said they didn ’ t know .
The poll also found that 78 percent support laws in their states requiring people to wear masks in public places .
That includes 92 percent of Democrats , 70 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans .
• Just 21 percent of registered voters support adding justices to the Supreme Court , according to a new Yahoo @ @ @ @ @ @ @ idea , and 33 percent are not sure .
• New Hampshire Gov .
Chris Sununu , a Republican , leads his Democratic opponent for governor , state senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes , by 55 percent to 31 percent among likely voters , according to a new Suffolk University poll .
The same survey found Biden ahead of Trump 51 percent to 41 percent in New Hampshire .
U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen , a Democrat , is ahead 51 percent to 36 percent in her reelection bid against her Republican opponent , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s presidential approval tracker , 42.7 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president , while 54.3 percent disapprove ( a net approval rating of -11.6 points ) .
At this time last week , 43.2 percent approved and 53.4 percent disapproved ( for a net approval rating of -10.2 points ) .
One month ago , Trump had an approval rating of 43.1 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.7 percent , for a net approval rating of -9.6 points .
In our average of polls of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by 7 percentage points ( 48.9 percent to 41.9 percent ) .
A week ago , Democrats led Republicans by 6.5 points ( 49.3 percent to 42.8 percent ) .
At this time last month , voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points ( 48.6 percent to 42.1 percent ) .
Check out all the polls we ’ ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections .

Perry Bacon Jr. (perry.bacon@fivethirtyeight.com)

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.
Poll(s) of the week
Just eight years ago, it would have been weird to put Iowa and Ohio in the same electoral category as Georgia and Texas. In the 2012 election, President Obama won Iowa by 6 percentage points and Ohio by 3 points while losing Georgia by 8 and Texas by 16.
But in the early stages of the Trump era, Georgia and Texas got a bit more blue, while Iowa and Ohio got more red. (Exactly why these shifts happened at the same time is complicated, so let’s leave that aside for the moment.) In 2016 and 2018, these four states voted similarly — about 11 points, give or take, to the right of the country overall. That gave Trump fairly comfortable wins in all four states in 2016 — when Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by just 2 points — but Republicans barely won in several key statewide races in these four states in 2018, when Democrats won the national U.S. House vote by about 9 points.
Confidence Interval: Will Democrats win the trifecta? l FiveThirtyEight
Fast-forward to 2020, which is looking about as blue as 2018 — and perhaps even more so — and all four states look competitive. You can see that in the latest polls. Morning Consult surveys released this week showed President Trump with just a 2-point lead in Georgia and Texas, and a 3-point lead in Ohio. A CBS News/YouGov poll had Biden and Trump tied in Iowa. Those are just a few polls, obviously, but they largely match the FiveThirtyEight polling averages in each of these states.
[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]
Biden doesn’t need to carry these states — he can win a comfortable Electoral College victory without carrying them. Trump does need them, however — but he also needs bluer states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin to win reelection. Similarly, Democrats can win a Senate majority without carrying any of the four Senate seats up for grabs in these states (none in Ohio but two in Georgia).
But these states are still important. Winning the Senate races there would likely mean that Democrats have 53 or 54 seats overall, giving them room for defections on key votes. A strong performance from Biden in Texas, meanwhile, could help down-ballot Democrats there, as the party could flip several U.S. House seats and the Texas House of Representatives. Symbolically, winning Georgia and particularly Texas would suggest that Democrats have really arrived in the South after years of talk about their potential strength in that region. And winning Iowa and particularly Ohio would suggest that Democrats’ decline in the Midwest have been overstated.
So let’s look at these four states more closely. (I have generally ordered them from Democrats’ best chances to their worst.)
Iowa
Democratic candidate Theresa Greenfield has a 53 in 100 chance of winning, according to FiveThirtyEight’s Senate forecast for Iowa; Biden has a 42 in 100 chance of winning, per our presidential forecast.
Even with the national shift toward the Democrats, Greenfield’s strong standing has been a bit surprising. Incumbent Sen. Joni Ernst, as both a Republican woman and former Army reservist, was a compelling candidate when she ran for the Senate in 2014 and seemed like a rising star in the GOP after she won by 8 points in a state Obama had carried two years earlier. She has probably been more aligned with Trump than a senator from a swing state should be for electoral reasons, but she hasn’t made any major gaffes or had any big scandals in her Senate tenure. And Greenfield, who runs a real estate firm in Des Moines, doesn’t particularly have a unique biography, and she has never been elected to any office before.
Part of the story here is likely that people in politics like me assumed that Ernst was a strong candidate because her 2014 margin looked really big at the time, but that margin was really about Iowa shifting to the right more than Ernst herself. (Trump won big there in 2016.) So Ernst is struggling now because Iowa has moved back left and she doesn’t have much popularity separate from the broader GOP.
Our model has Biden doing slightly worse than Greenfield — or put another way, Trump is doing better than Ernst. That might just be random polling effects, and the presidential and Senate results could end up lining up fairly closely. But there is an obvious explanation for this dynamic: Democrats are spending a lot of money in Iowa to try to win the Senate race, but not much in terms of the presidential race. Biden and various organizations backing his campaign have spent just $3.3 million on TV commercials in Iowa to boost him, according to a recent NPR analysis. That compares with $154.1 million in Florida, the state where they are spending the most. But Democratic-aligned groups have spent more than $56 million in the Ernst-Greenfield race, more than all but one other Senate campaign (North Carolina). This makes sense. Winning a Democratic Senate seat in Iowa is just as valuable as winning one in Texas. But for Biden, Iowa is far less valuable — it has only six electoral votes.
Ohio
Biden has a 49 in 100 chance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast.
Biden’s chances in Iowa and Ohio are fairly similar, reflecting the national dynamics we explained above. But here’s one factor to watch in the next few weeks: It’s likely that Biden and Democratic groups backing his campaign will invest more heavily in trying to win Ohio than to win Georgia, Iowa or Texas (at the presidential level). Ohio has way more electoral votes (18) than Iowa. And Ohio is fairly demographically and culturally similar to states like Michigan and Pennsylvania that Biden has been targeting for months. So Biden doesn’t need to adapt his approach to win in those states, while Georgia and Texas are much different politically from the Midwestern states.
In fact, Biden was in Ohio this week, but his campaign seems hesitant to send him to Texas.
Georgia
Biden has a 50 in 100 chance, according to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential forecast; Democrats have a 49 in 100 chance of winning Georgia’s special Senate election, with Raphael Warnock as their likely candidate, and Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff has a 28 in 100 chance in the state’s other U.S. Senate race.
Biden may have a better chance than Democrats at the Senate level largely because of Georgia election law. At the presidential level, the winner of the plurality of the vote gets the state’s 16 electoral votes. But for the Senate (and other races in Georgia), you can win only if you get 50 percent of the vote or more. So it’s possible that both of Georgia’s U.S. Senate races will go to a runoff, which would take place on Jan. 5. Based on current polling, Democrats may have won the House, the presidency and the Senate by that date. I would expect Republicans to try really really hard to win one or both of these Senate races in such a runoff, and this is already a GOP-leaning state in the first place.
But the rules aren’t the only reason to be skeptical of Democrats’ chances of winning in Georgia, particularly at the Senate level. Candidate strength is another. Stacey Abrams’s decision not to run for either of these Senate seats made sense for her (Abrams said she didn’t want to be a senator) but was problematic for Democrats in Georgia. In the race against incumbent Sen. David Perdue, Ossoff won the Democratic primary in a crowded field. Ossoff, a one-time staffer to Georgia congressman Hank Johnson, is perhaps most famous for his 2017 U.S. House campaign in suburban Atlanta that got a lot of national attention because it was one of the first congressional races after Trump’s election. But Ossoff lost that race and has never won or held political office before.
Similarly, in the race for the seat held by Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler, the Democratic Party establishment has coalesced around Warnock, who has never even run for office before. Of course, it makes sense why Democrats have boosted Warnock despite his lack of electoral experience. He is the kind of person the Democratic Party would like to elect to the Senate to represent Georgia — a Black man who serves as the senior pastor at Ebenezer Baptist in Atlanta, the church Martin Luther King Jr. once led.
But Democrats have a chance in these races because of the blue-leaning national environment but also because the GOP candidates are not exactly juggernauts either. First elected in 2014, Perdue has been a strong defender and ally of Trump, including his anti-immigration policies. And Perdue, like Trump, has done little outreach outside of his base. That approach likely ensures he will get almost total opposition from Georgia’s large bloc of Black voters and will lose badly in the Atlanta suburbs. So if Ossoff can peel off a few white swing voters and the Democratic base turns out at really high levels, he can win this seat.
Loeffler is also likely to have trouble wooing voters outside of the GOP base because of the particular dynamics of her race. She was appointed in December 2019 by Gov. Brian Kemp, after longtime Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson retired. Because of that appointment, her race is officially a special election, with different rules than the Ossoff-Perdue contest. There were no party primaries. So more than a dozen candidates from both parties are running, with the top two advancing to face off on Jan 5. Kemp picked Loeffler with the idea that a 49-year-old woman who co-owns Atlanta’s WNBA team could run for this seat and appeal to more moderate voters. But GOP congressman Doug Collins, who represents an area in more rural northeastern Georgia, opted to run too. Collins is very conservative. So Loeffler, worried that Collins and Warnock would finish ahead of her, has aggressively moved to the right, looking to secure enough GOP votes to make it to the runoff.
In some polls, she is ahead of Collins and seems likely to make it into a runoff against Warnock. But she attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, and the players on the Atlanta Dream are now strong critics of her. Loeffler’s more moderate branding is gone. She is now like Perdue, a Republican who must run up the score among more conservative and rural Georgians to overcome opposition by Georgia’s urban, suburban and Black voters.
Texas
Biden has a 31 in 100 chance, according to our presidential forecast; Democratic candidate M.J. Hegar has a 13 in 100 chance, per our Senate forecast for the state.
Why do Democratic chances seem slimmer in Texas? In terms of the Senate, the Republicans have a stronger candidate compared with those in Georgia and Iowa. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn has won six statewide races in Texas: Supreme Court twice, attorney general once and Senate three times. In contrast, Hegar, a former Air Force pilot, has never held elective office. She ran and lost in a U.S. House race two years ago. As with Abrams in Georgia, it’s worth considering if ex-congressman Beto O’Rourke, who ran such a strong 2018 campaign for Senate in Texas, would be polling better than Hegar if he had run. Also, Democratic groups aren’t spending that much in the Texas Senate race since they can try to win smaller, less-expensive states like Iowa.
Similarly, as I alluded earlier, Biden’s campaign also hasn’t spent much time or resources trying to win Texas. That makes sense — Texas will almost certainly not be a tipping state that determines the election. But if Democrats fall short of winning the Texas House of Representatives, not investing in Texas might end up looking like a mistake. A Texas dominated by Republicans can draw district lines for congressional races that will make it hard for Democrats to win seats and keep their U.S. House majority.
Other polling bites
Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina led his opponent, Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest, 51 percent to 44 percent among registered voters, according to a Monmouth University poll released this week. Among likely voters, Cooper led Forest 51 percent to 37 percent in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll.
About 79 percent of Black Americans think that structural and systemic racism is a “major obstacle” to Black people in America achieving equal outcomes compared with white people, according to a new poll conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and The Undefeated. Fifty-seven percent of Hispanic Americans and 43 percent of white Americans agreed. About 73 percent of Black adults said that individual acts of discrimination and racism were a major barrier for Black people, compared with 67 percent of Hispanic adults and 46 percent of white adults.
In that same survey, 65 percent of Black men and 59 percent of Black women said that it is a “bad time” to be a Black man or Black woman in America. Just 25 percent of Black men and 34 percent of Black women said it is a good time. Black Americans are expressing much more negative views on their lives than when these questions were previously asked. In a 2006 KFF/Washington Post/Harvard University poll, 60 percent of Black men said that it was a good time to be Black in America, compared with 28 percent who said it was a bad time. In a 2011 KFF/Washington Post poll, 73 percent of Black women said it was a good time, while 15 percent said it was a bad time. (This was a really interesting poll, and I highly recommend reading it in full.)
According to a recent Navigator Research survey, 52 percent of registered voters said that the “worst is yet to come” in terms of dealing with the novel coronavirus. That’s compared with 32 percent who said “the worst is over” and 16 percent who said they didn’t know. The poll also found that 78 percent support laws in their states requiring people to wear masks in public places. That includes 92 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents and 62 percent of Republicans.
Just 21 percent of registered voters support adding justices to the Supreme Court, according to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll; 46 percent oppose the idea, and 33 percent are not sure.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, leads his Democratic opponent for governor, state senate Majority Leader Dan Feltes, by 55 percent to 31 percent among likely voters, according to a new Suffolk University poll. The same survey found Biden ahead of Trump 51 percent to 41 percent in New Hampshire. U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, is ahead 51 percent to 36 percent in her reelection bid against her Republican opponent, Corky Messner.
Trump approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 42.7 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 54.3 percent disapprove (a net approval rating of -11.6 points). At this time last week, 43.2 percent approved and 53.4 percent disapproved (for a net approval rating of -10.2 points). One month ago, Trump had an approval rating of 43.1 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.7 percent, for a net approval rating of -9.6 points.
Generic ballot
In our average of polls of the generic congressional ballot, Democrats currently lead by 7 percentage points (48.9 percent to 41.9 percent). A week ago, Democrats led Republicans by 6.5 points (49.3 percent to 42.8 percent). At this time last month, voters preferred Democrats by 6.5 points (48.6 percent to 42.1 percent).
Check out all the polls we’ve been collecting ahead of the 2020 elections.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-16--Politics Podcast: Why Democrats’ Chances Of Winning The Senate Have Increased

Democrats ’ chances of winning the Senate have ticked up in our forecast over the past week and a half @ @ @ @ @ chance to a 72 percent chance .
In this installment of “ Model Talk ” @ @ @ @ @ , Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss what is responsible for the shift and what @ @ @ @ @ key states .
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “ play ” @ @ @ @ @ above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your favorite podcast @ @ @ @ @ new to podcasts , learn how to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded @ @ @ @ @ new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes .
@ @ @ @ @ or suggestion for “ good polling vs. bad polling ” ?
Get in touch by @ @ @ @ @ in the comments .

Over the past week and a half, Democrats’ chances of winning the Senate have ticked up in our forecast, from a 63 percent chance to a 73 percent chance. In this installment of Model Talk on the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss what is responsible for the shift and what recent polling looks like in key states.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-15--Trump Said QAnon ‘Fights’ Pedophilia. But The Group Has Made It Harder To Protect Kids.

It ’ s hard to argue against a phrase like “ save the children.
” Which , presumably , is why QAnon uses it as a hashtag .
The growing online conspiracy cult has co-opted the phrase to push falsehoods about pedophiles who run the world .
But in promoting its radical worldview , QAnon has made life difficult for the organizations actually trying to save children .
And the results could be putting kids at risk .
QAnon is a baseless conspiracy regardless of how deep you go , but its fixation on pedophilia is particularly unmoored .
Devoted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of detail — that there is a secret cabal of powerful elites who run an underground pedophilia ring , and that President Trump is currently working to bring these evildoers to justice .
If you go all the way down the rabbit hole you ’ ll find theories about Bill Gates injecting tracking devices into every citizen , blood libel , devil worship and draining kids of a chemical compound called adrenochrome to become immortal .
But the underlying connective tissue of QAnon is that bad people , mainly Democrats , are trafficking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who can stop them .
Over the summer , Q followers began using # savethechildren to spread the conspiracy theory , and it worked .
From Aug. 9 through Aug. 15 , more than 12,000 public Facebook posts used the hashtag , according to the social media tracking tool CrowdTangle .
The rest of the year , the hashtag tended to garner fewer than 200 posts per week .
But most of the content shared using # savethechildren was based on a Q-fueled and completely warped picture of what child trafficking looks like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ made life difficult for the people who actually do anti-trafficking work .
“ It ’ s extraordinarily frustrating , ” said Lisa Goldblatt Grace , co-founder and executive director of My Life My Choice , an anti-trafficking nonprofit .
“ We ’ ve worked so hard for the last 18 years to shift the narrative and have people understand this is happening in our communities .
QAnon instead gives folks this incredibly sensationalized ‘ other ’ to fear and be angry about.
” In reality , child trafficking in the U.S. doesn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and D.C. elites performing satanic rituals on children they stole from suburban playgrounds .
Instead , kids who are sexually exploited are often poor , children of color , immigrants , or some combination of the three , and they ’ ve often been in the child welfare system or run away from home .
In 2018 , 1 in 7 kids who were reported as runaways to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were likely victims of child sex trafficking , according to UNICEF .
“ We see minors who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ they ’ ve run away from home , maybe they ’ ve been kicked out of their home — and then engage in sex acts for money in order to have food to eat and a place to stay , ” said Jean Bruggeman , executive director of Freedom Network USA , an anti-trafficking group .
“ Almost never is there any kind of abduction or solely a use of physical force or locking people away .
It ’ s generally much more subtle coercion.
” The spectre of pedophilia and child sex @ @ @ @ @ @ @ QAnon lore since the very beginning .
Q , the anonymous poster who feeds the conspiracy by claiming to “ drop ” highly classified government information on image boards known for attracting white supremacists and violent misogynists , has been alluding to underground child trafficking rings in his messages for years .
“ Perhaps [ Trump ] could not stomach the thought of children being kidnapped , drugged , and raped while leaders/law enforcement of the world turn a blind eye , ” reads one message from November 2017 .
“ Some of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Clintons do to children , what the deep state does to children , satanic trafficking and sacrifices , ” said Mike Rothschild , a conspiracy theory researcher currently working on a book about QAnon .
The # savethechildren hashtag , however , didn ’ t come onto the QAnon radar until this year .
The hashtag had been used before ( notably to promote the charity Save The Children , which has been around for a century and is unaffiliated with QAnon ) , but in July and August , the number of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major portion of those posts were Q-affiliated .
This was likely due in part to the pandemic , Rothschild said : With more people stuck indoors , out of work and feeling hopeless , it ’ s easy to get sucked into an online world that claims to have all the answers .
But it also coincided with a crackdown from Twitter to remove Q-related content .
Suddenly , Q followers couldn ’ t spread their message as openly as they had before , so it ’ s possible that ’ s why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wholesome , social media sites couldn ’ t possibly ban it .
It was more of an organic growth than any kind of coordinated campaign , said Annie Kelly , a PhD candidate at the University of East Anglia who studies far-right political movements and digital culture .
“ It ’ s incorrect to frame it as some kind of mastermind pulling the strings , ” Kelly said .
“ The # savethechildren evolution wasn ’ t a coordinated effort to hide QAnon ’ s agenda , but it had the effect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it ’ s QAnon.
” To some extent , this growing population of people concerned about child trafficking has translated into a genuine support for organizations that work to end it .
I spoke to representatives from six anti-trafficking groups and four told me they have seen a recent increase in donations .
Freedom Network USA , for example , received 102 donations totalling $ 23,200 from April to September this year , more than 50 times the amount it received in the same period last year , when it got five donations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to give specific figures but said they had seen an increase in donations this year , particularly over the summer .
That said , it ’ s really hard to say for sure how many , if any , of those donations were from Q followers .
“ Nobody was sending in donations with a note saying ‘ In Q we trust , ’ you know ?
” Goldblatt Grace said .
And the increased attention has come with plenty of drawbacks .
Polaris , the charity that operates the National Human Trafficking @ @ @ @ @ @ @ discouraging people from reporting that children were not being sold inside expensive cabinets online because callers were flooding its phones with a Q-adjacent conspiracy .
The inundated hotline is one example of a problem each of the anti-trafficking representatives I spoke to raised : Even if QAnon is bringing people ’ s attention to child trafficking in general , it ’ s focusing that attention specifically on a sensationalized , largely inaccurate picture of what trafficking looks like .
And that can pull focus and resources away from the actual problem .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ misunderstanding of the issue , but also a wrong response , ” said Borislav Gerasimov , the program coordinator for communications and advocacy at the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women .
As an example , Gerasimov cited the gunman who fired inside a pizza shop in 2016 because he wrongly believed it was the location of an underground pedophile ring , a conspiracy theory called Pizzagate that is a precursor to QAnon .
“ If you portray human trafficking as something that a secret cabal is doing , the solution becomes guns @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the solution to trafficking.
” The solutions that anti-trafficking groups advocate for aren ’ t about raiding pizza shops or decoding Justin Bieber ’ s headwear choices , they ’ re about improving social programs so kids don ’ t fall through the cracks and end up in situations that leave them vulnerable to exploitation .
That ’ s not as easy of a sell to the QAnon crowd .
“ I don ’ t find that I ’ m able to translate the kind of fervor and excitement and investment people get @ @ @ @ @ @ @ focus and excitement in caring for the most marginalized among us , ” said Goldblatt Grace .
Each of the nonprofit representatives I spoke to said they ’ re grateful for any donation and are hopeful the increased attention can create opportunities for outreach and education .
But for that to happen , Q followers would have to give up on some of their most cherished beliefs and admit that the real problem , while no less concerning , looks less like the action movie playing in their head and more like the @ @ @ @ @ @ @

It’s hard to argue against a phrase like “save the children.” Which, presumably, is why QAnon uses it as a hashtag. The growing online conspiracy cult has co-opted the phrase to push falsehoods about pedophiles who run the world. But in promoting its radical worldview, QAnon has made life difficult for the organizations actually trying to save children. And the results could be putting kids at risk.
QAnon is a baseless conspiracy regardless of how deep you go, but its fixation on pedophilia is particularly unmoored. Devoted QAnon followers believe — to varying levels of detail — that there is a secret cabal of powerful elites who run an underground pedophilia ring, and that President Trump is currently working to bring these evildoers to justice. If you go all the way down the rabbit hole you’ll find theories about Bill Gates injecting tracking devices into every citizen, blood libel, devil worship and draining kids of a chemical compound called adrenochrome to become immortal. But the underlying connective tissue of QAnon is that bad people, mainly Democrats, are trafficking children and Trump is the only one who can stop them.
Over the summer, Q followers began using #savethechildren to spread the conspiracy theory, and it worked. From Aug. 9 through Aug. 15, more than 12,000 public Facebook posts used the hashtag, according to the social media tracking tool CrowdTangle. The rest of the year, the hashtag tended to garner fewer than 200 posts per week.
But most of the content shared using #savethechildren was based on a Q-fueled and completely warped picture of what child trafficking looks like in this country. And that has made life difficult for the people who actually do anti-trafficking work.
“It’s extraordinarily frustrating,” said Lisa Goldblatt Grace, co-founder and executive director of My Life My Choice, an anti-trafficking nonprofit. “We’ve worked so hard for the last 18 years to shift the narrative and have people understand this is happening in our communities. QAnon instead gives folks this incredibly sensationalized ‘other’ to fear and be angry about.”
In reality, child trafficking in the U.S. doesn’t look like a bunch of Hollywood and D.C. elites performing satanic rituals on children they stole from suburban playgrounds. Instead, kids who are sexually exploited are often poor, children of color, immigrants, or some combination of the three, and they’ve often been in the child welfare system or run away from home. In 2018, 1 in 7 kids who were reported as runaways to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children were likely victims of child sex trafficking, according to UNICEF.
“We see minors who are in a vulnerable position — maybe they’ve run away from home, maybe they’ve been kicked out of their home — and then engage in sex acts for money in order to have food to eat and a place to stay,” said Jean Bruggeman, executive director of Freedom Network USA, an anti-trafficking group. “Almost never is there any kind of abduction or solely a use of physical force or locking people away. It’s generally much more subtle coercion.”
The spectre of pedophilia and child sex trafficking has been a part of the QAnon lore since the very beginning. Q, the anonymous poster who feeds the conspiracy by claiming to “drop” highly classified government information on image boards known for attracting white supremacists and violent misogynists, has been alluding to underground child trafficking rings in his messages for years. “Perhaps [Trump] could not stomach the thought of children being kidnapped, drugged, and raped while leaders/law enforcement of the world turn a blind eye,” reads one message from November 2017.
“Some of the earliest drops are about what the Clintons do to children, what the deep state does to children, satanic trafficking and sacrifices,” said Mike Rothschild, a conspiracy theory researcher currently working on a book about QAnon.
The #savethechildren hashtag, however, didn’t come onto the QAnon radar until this year. The hashtag had been used before (notably to promote the charity Save The Children, which has been around for a century and is unaffiliated with QAnon), but in July and August, the number of posts using it surged, and a major portion of those posts were Q-affiliated. This was likely due in part to the pandemic, Rothschild said: With more people stuck indoors, out of work and feeling hopeless, it’s easy to get sucked into an online world that claims to have all the answers. But it also coincided with a crackdown from Twitter to remove Q-related content. Suddenly, Q followers couldn’t spread their message as openly as they had before, so it’s possible that’s why they adopted a hashtag that was so wholesome, social media sites couldn’t possibly ban it. It was more of an organic growth than any kind of coordinated campaign, said Annie Kelly, a PhD candidate at the University of East Anglia who studies far-right political movements and digital culture.
“It’s incorrect to frame it as some kind of mastermind pulling the strings,” Kelly said. “The #savethechildren evolution wasn’t a coordinated effort to hide QAnon’s agenda, but it had the effect of drawing in people to QAnon without realizing it’s QAnon.”
To some extent, this growing population of people concerned about child trafficking has translated into a genuine support for organizations that work to end it. I spoke to representatives from six anti-trafficking groups and four told me they have seen a recent increase in donations. Freedom Network USA, for example, received 102 donations totalling $23,200 from April to September this year, more than 50 times the amount it received in the same period last year, when it got five donations totalling $428. Other organizations declined to give specific figures but said they had seen an increase in donations this year, particularly over the summer.
That said, it’s really hard to say for sure how many, if any, of those donations were from Q followers. “Nobody was sending in donations with a note saying ‘In Q we trust,’ you know?” Goldblatt Grace said. And the increased attention has come with plenty of drawbacks. Polaris, the charity that operates the National Human Trafficking Hotline, had to issue a statement discouraging people from reporting that children were being sold inside expensive cabinets online because callers were flooding its phones with a Q-adjacent conspiracy.
The inundated hotline is one example of a problem each of the anti-trafficking representatives I spoke to raised: Even if QAnon is bringing people’s attention to child trafficking in general, it’s focusing that attention specifically on a sensationalized, largely inaccurate picture of what trafficking looks like. And that can pull focus and resources away from the actual problem.
“It can lead to not only a misunderstanding of the issue, but also a wrong response,” said Borislav Gerasimov, the program coordinator for communications and advocacy at the Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women.
As an example, Gerasimov cited the gunman who fired inside a pizza shop in 2016 because he wrongly believed it was the location of an underground pedophile ring, a conspiracy theory called Pizzagate that is a precursor to QAnon. “If you portray human trafficking as something that a secret cabal is doing, the solution becomes guns and surveillance. This is totally not the solution to trafficking.”
The solutions that anti-trafficking groups advocate for aren’t about raiding pizza shops or decoding Justin Bieber’s headwear choices, they’re about improving social programs so kids don’t fall through the cracks and end up in situations that leave them vulnerable to exploitation. That’s not as easy of a sell to the QAnon crowd.
“I don’t find that I’m able to translate the kind of fervor and excitement and investment people get for #savethechildren into an investment and focus and excitement in caring for the most marginalized among us,” said Goldblatt Grace.
Each of the nonprofit representatives I spoke to said they’re grateful for any donation and are hopeful the increased attention can create opportunities for outreach and education. But for that to happen, Q followers would have to give up on some of their most cherished beliefs and admit that the real problem, while no less concerning, looks less like the action movie playing in their head and more like the rest of America’s problems.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-17--How Does Early Voting Affect The Forecast? And Other Listener Questions.

In this installment of Model Talk , Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss the current election forecasts and answer questions @ @ @

How Does Early Voting Affect The Forecast? And Other Listener Questions.
In this installment of Model Talk, Nate Silver and Galen Druke discuss the current election forecasts and answer questions from listeners.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-17--Confidence Interval: Will Democrats Win The House, Senate And Presidency In November?

It ’ s another installment of Confidence Interval , where we make a persuasive case for a hot take we @ @ @ @ @ and then reveal how confident we really feel about the idea .
This time , @ @ @ @ @ Galen Druke wonders how likely it is that Democrats will win the trifecta — that @ @ @ @ @ , gain control of the Senate and maintain control of the House this November .

It’s another installment of Confidence Interval, where we make a persuasive case for a hot take we’ve been hearing … and then reveal how confident we really feel about the idea. This time, politics podcast host and producer Galen Druke wonders how likely it is that Democrats will win the trifecta — that is, win the presidency, gain control of the Senate and maintain control of the House this November.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-18--8 Tips To Stay Sane In The Final 15 Days Of The Campaign

We ’ re in the final stretch of the campaign , with just 15 days to go until the election .
Indeed , “ the election ” is something of a misnomer , since early or mail voting is already underway in most states and around 30 million people have already cast ballots .
This is a period of high anxiety for almost everybody .
So here are a few tips for how to process news and polls over the final two weeks .
I ’ m going to keep these fairly short and sweet ; we ’ ll save @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , etc .
for elsewhere .
1 .
Keep the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in mind .
The most important story in the country is that 210,000 Americans and counting have died from the coronavirus , plus virtually everybody ’ s lives have been disrupted in some way by the pandemic .
And far from the U.S. having turned the corner , cases and hospitalizations are growing again in most parts of the country .
President Trump ’ s approval ratings on COVID-19 are poor , too , considerably worse than his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t a new story , but it ’ s liable to be more important to voters than , say , whatever is in Hunter Biden ’ s emails 2 .
Don ’ t assume the race is in the bag for Biden .
Although COVID-19 and other issues make Trump ’ s road to reelection difficult , he still has a 12 percent chance of winning the Electoral College , according to the FiveThirtyEight model as of Sunday afternoon .
And if Joe Biden maintains his current lead in the polls , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — although the forecast thinks it ’ s more likely that the race will tighten .
But say Trump ’ s chances do decline further — to 5 percent by Election Day , for example — I ’ d keep a few things in mind .
First , even a 5 percent chance is something you ought to take seriously if the consequences are very high , something I think both Trump and Biden supporters would say is true of this election .
And second , the outcomes in this election aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : His margin of victory will still be heavily scrutinized .
Does he win by double digits nationally ?
Does he win a state like Texas ?
This could affect both the degree to which Democrats pursue a more aggressive agenda , and the extent to which Republicans regard Trumpism as having been repudiated .
Also , many Senate races are competitive , and having control of 50 versus 52 versus 54 or more Senate seats will greatly affect Biden ’ s first two years in office .
Statewide races matter too , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ redistricting process is still in play .
3 .
But also don ’ t buy the narrative that “ polling is broken.
” Polling is an imperfect instrument , more so in some years than others .
However , 2016 — while far from a banner year from the polls — was not quite so bad as some critics assume .
The national polls were pretty good , and Trump ’ s wins in the swing states were not that surprising based on the close margins in those states beforehand .
The 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ years for polling on record , meanwhile .
One other thing to keep in mind about polls in an election like this one : They do provide some way to measure public sentiment , however imperfect , independent of election results , which could be important if the election is disputed .
It ’ s not surprising then that Trump frequently disparages polls — which could give Americans more confidence about the results if they closely resemble the polls — when he ’ s also repeatedly failed to commit to accepting the results @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ t get too obsessed with comparisons to 2016 .
I know it ’ s fashionable to make comparisons between 2016 and 2020 , and to discuss the various ways in which they might or might not be similar ( there are fewer undecided voters this year , for instance ) .
But to some extent , I think those comparisons are misguided .
You shouldn ’ t make too much of a sample size of one election .
And you should avoid thinking in binaries , i.e.
, that the polls will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right.
” Instead , it ’ s more of a spectrum : The larger Biden ’ s lead in the tipping-point states , the more that polls could be wrong and he could win anyway .
And there ’ s also no guarantee that a polling error will work in Trump ’ s favor as it did in 2016 .
In 2012 , polls underestimated then-President Barack Obama and Democrats instead .
At the same time , while there is no particular reason to think that polls will be wrong in exactly the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , there are also precedents for larger polling errors than the one we experienced in 2016 .
The final Gallup poll in 1948 had Harry Truman 5 points behind Thomas Dewey , for example , but Truman actually won by 4 points , making for a 9-point polling error .
A polling error of that magnitude probably would be enough for Trump to win the Electoral College , although not necessarily the popular vote .
5 .
Don ’ t pay much attention to individual polls ; wait for polling averages to move @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of advice we give most often at FiveThirtyEight , but it ’ s especially important in the final couple weeks of a campaign .
After a lull this weekend , there are likely to be a lot of polls the rest of the way out .
On any given day , it will be possible to take the 2 or 3 best polls for Biden and tell a story of his holding or expanding his lead , or the 2 or 3 best polls for Trump and make a claim that the race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into those narratives .
Instead , turn to polling averages like FiveThirtyEight ’ s that are smart at distinguishing ( ahem ) the signal from the noise .
We do program our averages to be more aggressive in the closing days of the campaign — so if there ’ s a shift in the race , our average should start to detect it within a few days .
But while there is such a thing as underreacting to news developments , the more common problem in the last days of a campaign is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media trying to hype big swings in the polls when they actually show a fairly steady race .
Indeed , while the Comey letter really did matter in 2016 , contributing to a 3-point shift toward Trump in the waning days of the campaign , it ’ s more the exception than the rule .
On average , in elections since 1972 , national polling averages shifted by an average of 1.8 points and a median of just 1.4 points in the final 15 days of the race .
Also , keep in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this year , and that many people have already voted , which could dampen the effect of any last-minute news developments .
7 .
Don ’ t read too much into the campaigns ’ behavior .
These last two points are things I ’ ve learned by experience .
There ’ s enough conflicting information in the final days of the campaign that it can help to triage , and one category of information I ’ d generally ignore are reports about how the Biden or Trump campaigns are feeling about the race @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into campaigns and are accurately reflecting their thinking , presidential campaigns often do not have a better read on the race than public polls .
Campaigns are often just as surprised by unexpected results as anyone else ; the Trump campaign ’ s models gave it a 30 percent chance of winning the Electoral College on the eve of the election in 2016 , the same as FiveThirtyEight ’ s forecast did .
And of course , less diligent reporters are subject to being spun by the campaigns , or to publishing information @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the campaign ’ s opponents .
8 .
Don ’ t get carried away with early voting data .
Democrats have a huge edge in early voting so far … but as I talked about on my weekly segment for ABC ’ s “ This Week , ” I ’ m not sure I ’ d read too much into it .
The early-voting lead for Democrats is largely in line with what polls predicted , and Republicans are likely to draw the race closer with a huge Election Day turnout .
Moreover @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that people tend to read more into early voting data than is warranted and often cherry-pick data in ways that are favorable to their preferred party or candidate .
Also , the huge partisan split in early in-person voting and mail voting is new — historically , it was something that both parties took advantage of — and that makes it hard to put it into context .
Maybe it really will turn out to be a bad sign for Republicans that Democrats are banking so many votes .
Or maybe Democrats will @ @ @ @ @ @ @ higher rate of ballot spoilage .
On balance I ’ d rather have a lot of votes locked in than not , but we ’ re flying pretty blind here .
Besides , most polls try to account for early voting — for instance , by asking voters whether they ’ ve already voted — so to the extent that Democrats are benefiting from it , it should be reflected in the polls already .
It ’ s going to a long 15 days — and perhaps beyond , since we may not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FiveThirtyEight will be providing all the content that you might want , from daily podcasts to near-constant updates of our forecast .
But you ’ ll usually know all that you need to if you ’ re pacing yourself and only checking in with news coverage of the campaign once a day or a couple of times a week .
Stay safe and stay sane , and we ’ ll enjoy watching the rest of the election with you .

We’re in the final stretch of the campaign, with just 15 days to go until the election. Indeed, “the election” is something of a misnomer, since early or mail voting is already underway in most states and about 30 million people have already cast ballots.
This is a period of high anxiety for almost everybody. So here are a few tips on how to process news and polls over the final two weeks. I’m going to keep these fairly short and sweet; we’ll save the more philosophical stuff about election forecasting, etc., for elsewhere.
Confidence Interval: Will Democrats win the trifecta? l FiveThirtyEight
1. Keep the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in mind.
The most important story in the country is that 210,000 Americans and counting have died from the coronavirus, plus virtually everybody’s lives have been disrupted in some way by the pandemic. And far from the U.S. having turned the corner, cases and hospitalizations are growing again in most parts of the country. President Trump’s approval ratings on COVID-19 are poor, too, considerably worse than his overall approval numbers. The pandemic isn’t a new story, but it’s liable to be more important to voters than, say, whatever is in Hunter Biden’s emails.
2. Don’t assume the race is in the bag for Biden.
Although COVID-19 and other issues make Trump’s road to reelection difficult, he still has a 12 percent chance of winning the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight model as of Sunday afternoon. And if Joe Biden maintains his current lead in the polls, Trump’s chances will fall further — although the forecast thinks it’s more likely that the race will tighten.
But say Trump’s chances do decline further — to 5 percent by Election Day, for example — I’d keep a few things in mind.
First, even a 5 percent chance is something you ought to take seriously if the consequences are very high, something I think both Trump and Biden supporters would say is true of this election. And second, the outcomes in this election aren’t entirely binary. Say Biden wins: His margin of victory will still be heavily scrutinized. Does he win by double digits nationally? Does he win a state like Texas? This could affect both the degree to which Democrats pursue a more aggressive agenda, and the extent to which Republicans regard Trumpism as having been repudiated. Also, many Senate races are competitive, and having control of 50 versus 52 versus 54 or more Senate seats will greatly affect Biden’s first two years in office. Statewide races matter too, especially in states where control of the redistricting process is still in play.
3. But also don’t buy the narrative that “polling is broken.”
Polling is an imperfect instrument, more so in some years than others. However, 2016 — while far from a banner year from the polls — was not quite so bad as some critics assume. The national polls were pretty good, and Trump’s wins in the swing states were not that surprising based on the close margins in those states beforehand. Meanwhile, 2018, with the midterms, was one of the more accurate years for polling on record.
One other thing to keep in mind about polls in an election like this one: They do provide some way to measure public sentiment, however imperfect, independent of election results, which could be important if the election is disputed. It’s not surprising then that Trump frequently disparages polls — which could give Americans more confidence about the results if they closely resemble the polls — when he’s also repeatedly failed to commit to accepting the results of the election.
[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]
4. Don’t get too obsessed with comparisons to 2016.
I know it’s fashionable to make comparisons between 2016 and 2020, and to discuss the various ways in which they might or might not be similar (there are fewer undecided voters this year, for instance). But to some extent, I think those comparisons are misguided. You shouldn’t make too much of a sample size of one election. And you should avoid thinking in binaries, i.e., that the polls will either be “wrong” or “right.” Instead, it’s more of a spectrum: The larger Biden’s lead in the tipping-point states, the more that polls could be wrong and he could win anyway. And there’s also no guarantee that a polling error will work in Trump’s favor as it did in 2016. In 2012, polls underestimated then-President Barack Obama and Democrats instead.
At the same time, while there is no particular reason to think that polls will be wrong in exactly the same ways that they were in 2016, there are also precedents for larger polling errors than the one we experienced in 2016. The final Gallup poll in 1948 had Harry Truman 5 points behind Thomas Dewey, for example, but Truman actually won by 4 points, making for a 9-point polling error. A polling error of that magnitude probably would be enough for Trump to win the Electoral College, although not necessarily the popular vote.
5. Don’t pay much attention to individual polls; wait for polling averages to move.
This is perhaps the single piece of advice we give most often at FiveThirtyEight, but it’s especially important in the final couple weeks of a campaign. After a lull this weekend, there are likely to be a lot of polls the rest of the way out. On any given day, it will be possible to take the two or three best polls for Biden and tell a story of his holding or expanding his lead, or the two or three best polls for Trump and make a claim that the race is tightening.
Resist buying too much into those narratives. Instead, turn to polling averages like FiveThirtyEight’s that are smart at distinguishing (ahem) the signal from the noise. We do program our averages to be more aggressive in the closing days of the campaign — so if there’s a shift in the race, our average should start to detect it within a few days. But while there is such a thing as underreacting to news developments, the more common problem in the last days of a campaign is false positives, with partisans and the media trying to hype big swings in the polls when they actually show a fairly steady race.
6. Beware talk of “October surprises.” They’re usually overhyped.
Indeed, while the Comey letter really did matter in 2016, contributing to a 3-point shift toward Trump in the waning days of the campaign, it’s more the exception than the rule. On average, in elections since 1972, national polling averages shifted by an average of 1.8 points and a median of just 1.4 points in the final 15 days of the race.
The final two weeks usually don’t change much How much the national polling margin changed between 15 days before the presidential election and Election Day, since 1972 Leader in FiveThirtyEight national polling average Year 15 days before ELECTION Election Day Change 2016 Clinton +6.9 Clinton +3.8 3.1 2012 Romney +1.2 Obama +0.4 1.6 2008 Obama +6.8 Obama +7.1 0.3 2004 Bush +2.4 Bush +1.6 0.8 2000 Bush +2.7 Bush +3.5 0.8 1996 Clinton +14.9 Clinton +12.8 2.1 1992 Clinton +14.1 Clinton +7.1 7.0 1988 Bush +11.8 Bush +10.4 1.4 1984 Reagan +16.7 Reagan +18.0 1.3 1980 Reagan +2.3 Reagan +2.1 0.2 1976 Carter +2.0 Carter +0.8 1.2 1972 Nixon +25.5 Nixon +24.1 1.4 The averages listed are calculated retroactively based on FiveThirtyEight’s current polling average methodology.
Also, keep in mind that relatively few voters are undecided this year, and that many people have already voted, which could dampen the effect of any last-minute news developments.
7. Don’t read too much into the campaigns’ behavior.
These last two points are things I’ve learned by experience. There’s enough conflicting information in the final days of the campaign that it can help to triage, and one category of information I’d generally ignore are reports about how the Biden or Trump campaigns are feeling about the race. Even if reporters have good access into campaigns and are accurately reflecting their thinking, presidential campaigns often do not have a better read on the race than public polls. Campaigns are often just as surprised by unexpected results as anyone else; the Trump campaign’s models gave it a 30 percent chance of winning the Electoral College on the eve of the election in 2016, the same as FiveThirtyEight’s forecast did. And of course, less diligent reporters are subject to being spun by the campaigns, or to publishing information that is designed to deceive or bluff the campaign’s opponents.
Over 25 million have already voted, but this is what pollsters expected: Nate Silver
8. Don’t get carried away with early voting data.
Democrats have a huge edge in early voting so far … but as I talked about on my weekly segment for ABC’s “This Week,” I’m not sure I’d read too much into it. The early-voting lead for Democrats is largely in line with what polls predicted, and Republicans are likely to draw the race closer with a huge Election Day turnout. Moreover, our experience in past elections is that people tend to read more into early voting data than is warranted and often cherry-pick data in ways that are favorable to their preferred party or candidate.
Also, the huge partisan split in early in-person voting and mail voting is new — historically, it was something that both parties took advantage of — and that makes it hard to put it into context. Maybe it really will turn out to be a bad sign for Republicans that Democrats are banking so many votes. Or maybe Democrats will underperform polls because mail votes have a higher rate of ballot spoilage. On balance I’d rather have a lot of votes locked in than not, but we’re flying pretty blind here. Besides, most polls try to account for early voting — for instance, by asking voters whether they’ve already voted — so to the extent that Democrats are benefiting from it, it should be reflected in the polls already.
It’s going to be a long 15 days — and perhaps beyond, since we may not know the winner on Nov. 3. FiveThirtyEight will be providing all the content that you might want, from daily podcasts to near-constant updates of our forecast. But you’ll usually know all that you need to if you’re pacing yourself and only checking in with news coverage of the campaign once a day or a couple of times a week. Stay safe and stay sane, and we’ll enjoy watching the rest of the election with you.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-19--Trump Is Losing Ground With White Voters But Gaining Among Black And Hispanic Americans

There ’ s a well-known truth in politics : No one group swings an election .
But that doesn ’ t mean that the demographic trends bubbling beneath the surface can ’ t have an outsized effect .
Take 2016 .
President Trump won in large part because he carried white voters without a college degree by a bigger margin than any recent GOP presidential nominee , though there had been signs that this group was shifting rightward for a while .
Likewise in 2018 , a strong showing by Democrats in suburban districts and among white voters with a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the House , a shift we first saw in 2016 when Trump likely became the first Republican to lose this group in 60 years .
And this is just scratching the surface .
In the past few years , we ’ ve also seen hints that more women voters are identifying as Democrats and that some nonwhite voters might be getting more Republican-leaning .
The question , then , in 2020 — as it is in every election — is what will the electorate look like this time around ?
Can we expect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 2016 and 2018 , or might some of those trends slow or reverse direction ?
And , of course , are there any surprises lurking beneath the surface that we haven ’ t quite identified yet ?
We tried to answer this question by comparing data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to 2020 data from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape polling conducted over the past month .
This comparison is hardly perfect — the 2016 CCES data is based on data from people who were confirmed to have actually voted while @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survey of people who say they have voted or will vote , and the two studies use different methodologies , which could lead to differences in what types of voters were reached and how they were weighted .
But this is as close as we can get to a direct comparison before the election , and it did allow us to identify some interesting trends .
First off , Democratic nominee Joe Biden is attracting more support than Hillary Clinton did among white voters as a whole — especially white women , older @ @ @ @ @ @ @ college degree — which has helped him build a substantial lead of around 10 points , according to FiveThirtyEight ’ s national polling average .
However , Trump is performing slightly better than last time among college-educated white voters , and he has gained among voters of color , especially Hispanic voters and younger Black voters .
White voters made up more than 7 out of 10 voters in the 2016 electorate according to CCES , so any large shifts in their attitudes could greatly alter the electoral calculus .
And as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more or less what has happened : Trump ’ s edge among white voters is around half of what it was in 2016 , which could be especially consequential as this group is overrepresented in the states that are most likely to decide the winner of the Electoral College .
One factor driving this is that Biden looks to be doing better than Clinton among white voters without a college degree , a voting bloc that made up close to half of the overall electorate in 2016 and forms a majority of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Michigan , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin .
While Clinton lost this group by more than 20 points four years ago , Biden is behind by just 12 points in UCLA Nationscape ’ s polling .
This isn ’ t entirely a surprise : We saw some signs of Biden ’ s strength with non-college whites in the 2020 Democratic primary , as he did better than Clinton in counties that had larger shares of white Americans without a college degree .
It ’ s hard to pinpoint exactly why we ’ re seeing this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that as an older white man , Biden just resonates more with these voters than Clinton did in 2016 , especially considering the role sexism and racism played in voter attitudes in 2016 .
But it ’ s also possible that some of these voters are just turned off by Trump after four years with him in the White House .
Take white women .
They backed Trump over Clinton in 2016 but were split pretty evenly between the two parties in the 2018 midterms .
And now they favor Biden by 6 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would be around a 15-point swing toward the Democrats compared to what CCES found for the 2016 race .
Trump has also taken a major hit among older white voters .
In 2016 , he won white voters age 45 or older by more than 20 points , but according to UCLA Nationscape polling , he now leads by only 4 points .
Trump isn ’ t losing ground among all white voters , though .
White men , for instance , look likely to back Trump by around 20 points again .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ college-educated white voters .
Trump lost this group by more than 10 points in 2016 , and Republican House and Senate candidates lost it by a similar margin in 2018 , but Trump may be running closer to even among them now .
As FiveThirtyEight ’ s Perry Bacon Jr. recently noted , many college-educated white voters are Republican-leaning , especially south of the Mason-Dixon line .
The question will be whether Trump can attract support from this group nationally , as he ’ s already essentially got a lock on many Southern @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Southern states as he ’ d like ) .
Trump is currently polling at 49 percent among white , college-educated voters in UCLA Nationscape ’ s polling , and if he stays there , that could help him hold on to battleground states he carried in 2016 , such as Florida , Georgia , North Carolina and Texas , where college-educated white voters are more likely to prefer the GOP .
Trump has also gained real ground among nonwhite voters .
To be clear , he still trails Biden considerably with these groups @ @ @ @ @ @ @ polling over the past month , he was down by 39 points with these voters , a double-digit improvement from his 53-point deficit in 2016 .
While older Black voters look as if they ’ ll vote for Biden by margins similar to Clinton ’ s in 2016 , Trump ’ s support among young Black voters ( 18 to 44 ) has jumped from around 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in UCLA Nationscape ’ s polling .
Black voters remain an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning constituency , but a notable reduction in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Biden .
Notably , young Black voters don ’ t seem to feel as negatively about Trump as older Black Americans do .
For instance , an early-July African American Research Collaborative poll of battleground states found that 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Black adults agreed that although they didn ’ t always like Trump ’ s policies , they liked his strong demeanor and defiance of the establishment .
Conversely , just 10 percent of those 60 and older said the same .
It ’ s a similar story with younger Hispanic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also made gains .
According to UCLA Nationscape ’ s polling , Trump is attracting 35 percent of Hispanic voters under age 45 , up from the 22 percent who backed him four years ago in the CCES data .
Most notably , even though Trump stands to gain with nonwhite voters across the board , his support seems to have risen the most among Hispanic voters with a four-year college degree .
We don ’ t want to overstate the influence of this group — they make up about 2 percent of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ — but they are disproportionately concentrated in one especially vital swing state : Florida .
In fact , 24 percent of Hispanic Floridians have a college degree , compared to 16 percent of Hispanic adults nationally .
So even if Trump isn ’ t doing as well among older white voters , his gains among Hispanic voters , including highly educated ones , could offer a path to victory in the Sunshine State .
One last point on where Trump has made gains among Black and Hispanic voters : He has done particularly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which might speak to how his campaign has actively courted them .
For instance , the Republican National Convention featured a number of Black men as speakers this year .
And Politico talked with more than 20 Democratic strategists , lawmakers , pollsters and activists who explained that many Black and Latino men are open to supporting Trump as they think the Democratic Party has taken them for granted .
The same can ’ t be said of Black and Hispanic women , though , and the gender gap among nonwhite voters is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was in 2016 .
Ninety percent of Black women supported Biden in UCLA Nationscape polling — unsurprising , as this group is arguably the most staunchly Democratic demographic in the electorate — whereas less than 80 percent of Black men did the same .
And among Hispanic voters , 64 percent of women backed Biden compared to 57 percent of men .
In the end , elections are all about margins .
That means Biden doesn ’ t necessarily have to win more white voters than Trump to win the election ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s performance four years ago .
By the same token , if Trump can do better among nonwhite voters than he did in 2016 — even if he still doesn ’ t win them outright — that could open a door for him to win if white voters don ’ t shift toward Biden as much as the polls currently suggest .
But at the moment , the real margin to keep an eye on is Biden ’ s double-digit lead in the polls .
That kind of advantage will be hard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ away at the edges of Biden ’ s support , especially when so many of Biden ’ s gains seem to have come at Trump ’ s expense .

There’s a well-known truth in politics: No one group swings an election.
But that doesn’t mean that the demographic trends bubbling beneath the surface can’t have an outsized effect. Take 2016. President Trump won in large part because he carried white voters without a college degree by a bigger margin than any recent GOP presidential nominee, though there had been signs that this group was shifting rightward for a while.
Likewise in 2018, a strong showing by Democrats in suburban districts and among white voters with a four-year college degree helped the party retake the House, a shift we first saw in 2016 when Trump likely became the first Republican to lose this group in 60 years. And this is just scratching the surface. In the past few years, we’ve also seen hints that more women voters are identifying as Democrats and that some nonwhite voters might be getting more Republican-leaning.
How does early voting affect the forecast? l FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
The question, then, in 2020 — as it is in every election — is what will the electorate look like this time around? Can we expect a continuation of what we saw in 2016 and 2018, or might some of those trends slow or reverse direction? And, of course, are there any surprises lurking beneath the surface that we haven’t quite identified yet?
We tried to answer this question by comparing data from the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study to 2020 data from Democracy Fund + UCLA Nationscape polling conducted over the past month. This comparison is hardly perfect — the 2016 CCES data is based on data from people who were confirmed to have actually voted while the UCLA Nationscape data is a large-scale survey of people who say they have voted or will vote, and the two studies use different methodologies, which could lead to differences in what types of voters were reached and how they were weighted. But this is as close as we can get to a direct comparison before the election, and it did allow us to identify some interesting trends.
[Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]
First off, Democratic nominee Joe Biden is attracting more support than Hillary Clinton did among white voters as a whole — especially white women, older white voters and those without a four-year college degree — which has helped him build a substantial lead of around 10 points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average. However, Trump is performing slightly better than last time among college-educated white voters, and he has gained among voters of color, especially Hispanic voters and younger Black voters.
White voters made up more than 7 out of 10 voters in the 2016 electorate according to CCES, so any large shifts in their attitudes could greatly alter the electoral calculus. And as the chart below shows, that’s more or less what has happened: Trump’s edge among white voters is around half of what it was in 2016, which could be especially consequential as this group is overrepresented in the states that are most likely to decide the winner of the Electoral College.
One factor driving this is that Biden looks to be doing better than Clinton among white voters without a college degree, a voting bloc that made up close to half of the overall electorate in 2016 and forms a majority of the population in key swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. While Clinton lost this group by more than 20 points four years ago, Biden is behind by just 12 points in UCLA Nationscape’s polling. This isn’t entirely a surprise: We saw some signs of Biden’s strength with non-college whites in the 2020 Democratic primary, as he did better than Clinton in counties that had larger shares of white Americans without a college degree. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly why we’re seeing this, though. One possible explanation is that as an older white man, Biden just resonates more with these voters than Clinton did in 2016, especially considering the role sexism and racism played in voter attitudes in 2016. But it’s also possible that some of these voters are just turned off by Trump after four years with him in the White House.
Take white women. They backed Trump over Clinton in 2016 but were split pretty evenly between the two parties in the 2018 midterms. And now they favor Biden by 6 points in UCLA Nationscape polling, which would be around a 15-point swing toward the Democrats compared to what CCES found for the 2016 race. Trump has also taken a major hit among older white voters. In 2016, he won white voters age 45 or older by more than 20 points, but according to UCLA Nationscape polling, he now leads by only 4 points.
Trump isn’t losing ground among all white voters, though. White men, for instance, look likely to back Trump by around 20 points again. And Trump is also making inroads with college-educated white voters. Trump lost this group by more than 10 points in 2016, and Republican House and Senate candidates lost it by a similar margin in 2018, but Trump may be running closer to even among them now. As FiveThirtyEight’s Perry Bacon Jr. recently noted, many college-educated white voters are Republican-leaning, especially south of the Mason-Dixon line. The question will be whether Trump can attract support from this group nationally, as he’s already essentially got a lock on many Southern states (although maybe not as many Southern states as he’d like). Trump is currently polling at 49 percent among white, college-educated voters in UCLA Nationscape’s polling, and if he stays there, that could help him hold on to battleground states he carried in 2016, such as Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas, where college-educated white voters are more likely to prefer the GOP.
Trump has also gained real ground among nonwhite voters. To be clear, he still trails Biden considerably with these groups, but in UCLA Nationscape’s polling over the past month, he was down by 39 points with these voters, a double-digit improvement from his 53-point deficit in 2016.
While older Black voters look as if they’ll vote for Biden by margins similar to Clinton’s in 2016, Trump’s support among young Black voters (18 to 44) has jumped from around 10 percent in 2016 to 21 percent in UCLA Nationscape’s polling. Black voters remain an overwhelmingly Democratic-leaning constituency, but a notable reduction in their support could still be a problem for Biden.
Notably, young Black voters don’t seem to feel as negatively about Trump as older Black Americans do. For instance, an early-July African American Research Collaborative poll of battleground states found that 35 percent of 18-to-29-year-old Black adults agreed that although they didn’t always like Trump’s policies, they liked his strong demeanor and defiance of the establishment. Conversely, just 10 percent of those 60 and older said the same.
It’s a similar story with younger Hispanic Americans, a group where Trump has also made gains. According to UCLA Nationscape’s polling, Trump is attracting 35 percent of Hispanic voters under age 45, up from the 22 percent who backed him four years ago in the CCES data.
Most notably, even though Trump stands to gain with nonwhite voters across the board, his support seems to have risen the most among Hispanic voters with a four-year college degree. We don’t want to overstate the influence of this group — they make up about 2 percent of the population age 25 and older nationwide — but they are disproportionately concentrated in one especially vital swing state: Florida. In fact, 24 percent of Hispanic Floridians have a college degree, compared to 16 percent of Hispanic adults nationally. So even if Trump isn’t doing as well among older white voters, his gains among Hispanic voters, including highly educated ones, could offer a path to victory in the Sunshine State.
One last point on where Trump has made gains among Black and Hispanic voters: He has done particularly well with Black and Hispanic men, which might speak to how his campaign has actively courted them. For instance, the Republican National Convention featured a number of Black men as speakers this year. And Politico talked with more than 20 Democratic strategists, lawmakers, pollsters and activists who explained that many Black and Latino men are open to supporting Trump as they think the Democratic Party has taken them for granted. The same can’t be said of Black and Hispanic women, though, and the gender gap among nonwhite voters is shaping up to be even bigger than it was in 2016. Ninety percent of Black women supported Biden in UCLA Nationscape polling — unsurprising, as this group is arguably the most staunchly Democratic demographic in the electorate — whereas less than 80 percent of Black men did the same. And among Hispanic voters, 64 percent of women backed Biden compared to 57 percent of men.
In the end, elections are all about margins. That means Biden doesn’t necessarily have to win more white voters than Trump to win the election; he just needs to improve on Clinton’s performance four years ago. By the same token, if Trump can do better among nonwhite voters than he did in 2016 — even if he still doesn’t win them outright — that could open a door for him to win if white voters don’t shift toward Biden as much as the polls currently suggest.
But at the moment, the real margin to keep an eye on is Biden’s double-digit lead in the polls. That kind of advantage will be hard to overcome if Trump is merely chipping away at the edges of Biden’s support, especially when so many of Biden’s gains seem to have come at Trump’s expense.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-20--What Full Democratic Control Of The White House And Congress Would Look Like

In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew compares Joe Biden ’ s lead now with Hillary @ @ @ @ @ and considers the agenda Democrats might pursue if they win the presidency , House and @ @ @ @

What Full Democratic Control Of The White House And Congress Would Look Like
In this episode of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew compares Joe Biden’s lead now with Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 and considers the agenda Democrats might pursue if they win the presidency, House and Senate in November.


fivethirtyeight--2020-10-19--Politics Podcast: Why Biden’s Lead Is Different

According to our forecast , Democrats have a 72 percent chance of winning a trifecta — that is , controlling @ @ @ @ @ and the Senate .
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast , the crew @ @ @ @ @ would prioritize in such a scenario and what divisions might emerge .
They also compare @ @ @ @ @ now with Hillary Clinton ’ s in 2016 and explain what ’ s similar ( @ @ @ @ @ ) about their circumstances .
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “ @ @ @ @ @ audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes , the ESPN App or your @ @ @ @ @ you are new to podcasts , learn how to listen .
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast @ @ @ @ @ .
Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on @ @ @ @ @ , question or suggestion for “ good polling vs. bad polling ” ?
Get in @ @ @ @ @ Twitter or in the comments .

According to our forecast, Democrats have a 72 percent chance of winning a trifecta — that is, controlling the presidency, the House and the Senate. In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, the crew discusses what policies the party would prioritize in such a scenario and what divisions might emerge. They also compare Joe Biden’s position now with Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 and explain what’s similar (and what’s different) about their circumstances.
You can listen to the episode by clicking the “play” button in the audio player above or by downloading it in iTunes, the ESPN App or your favorite podcast platform. If you are new to podcasts, learn how to listen.
The FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast is recorded Mondays and Thursdays. Help new listeners discover the show by leaving us a rating and review on iTunes. Have a comment, question or suggestion for “good polling vs. bad polling”? Get in touch by email, on Twitter or in the comments.