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The presidential election is less than a month away, and millions of Americans have already cast their vote in a letter. Donald Trump’s delay throughout the campaign was significant, but over the past two weeks, the scissors between him and Democratic challenger Joe Biden have grown even wider. The electoral portal RealClearPolitics summarizes an average of 9.7 percentage points of advantage over recent polls.
We often write that the results of a national poll alone say nothing about the outcome of an election, because most responses come from states where a Democratic or Republican victory can be assured. It is much more important to pay attention to the battlefield states where the competition has not yet developed, including the most populated ones.
And the situation seems to be that Joe Biden is the winner in the vast majority of these Member States, and in most of them the Democratic candidate’s lead has even increased in the last two weeks.
Three of the states mentioned above are worth highlighting: In Florida, Joe Biden’s leadership has shifted significantly from a minimal lead two weeks ago, now outpacing Trump by nearly 4 percentage points. In Pennsylvania, the Democratic candidate was able to increase his advantage to such an extent that we were even able to take him out of the battlefield states, while in Texas, Trump was able to increase his advantage, according to the current position, his victory seems certain here.
The electoral representatives of all member states will be elected to the Electoral College on a prorated basis. It is important that in each Member State the number of voters is not distributed proportionally, but according to the “winner takes all” principle. According to the present, the electoral college would look like this:
Biden will most likely consume 226 electricity, and Trump could almost certainly count 125 from now. Candidates must get 270 voters to win, so both must win additional voters from the battlefield states marked in gray on the map above.
But while Biden should only win 44, 145 should be won from the electorate of the front states.
As shown above, in these battlefield states, Biden primarily leads: If the Democratic candidate pulls in the states where he currently leads with great confidence, then furthermore, it would be enough to win just a few of the battlefield states and he would be the president. – It would be enough for him to win Pennsylvania and Florida, for example, along with the traditionally democratic states, and then take all the other states off the battlefield to no avail, Biden would remain president.
So at this point, Biden is more likely to get a distinctly soft victory over Trump. This is also valued by the bookies, who say that Biden now has twice the chance of winning as Trump (two weeks ago, the ratio was roughly 55-45 in favor of Biden).
Once again, the advantage of the Democratic candidate is not new, in the middle of the summer there was already a difference of the same magnitude between the parties. However, as focus gets closer, what the polls show becomes increasingly critical, and where the trend is heading is also a huge factor. It also does not project a reduction in the gap.
Not a race yet
In the last two weeks there have been important advances that have already been incorporated into the surveys presented previously. One such development was the first inter-party presidential candidate debate, in which Trump regularly violated the rules of debates, Bident declined to speak, and debate was generally poor. Tellingly, the gap between the two candidates began to widen on September 30, the day after the debate, meaning the debate was bad for Trump’s trial. In the weeks before, Trump might still have reason to believe the debate would tip the balance in his favor because Biden had performed particularly poorly in the pre-election debates. Also, it appears that the second round of the debate will not take place, so Trump also has less of a chance to prove it.
The other important development is the illness of the president, which, however, is difficult to show in the polls, in any case, it can be safely said that he could not break the trend. Incidentally, the president and his staff have received much criticism for not informing the public about their status in a transparent manner, as well as criticism of the epidemiological protocols of the White House (for example, 11 people were infected at a White House event last week).
There is another important factor that Trump may have reason to believe in: the inaccuracy of the polls.
It is memorable that the polls also led Hillary Clinton to win in 2016, but in the end, Trump was able to triumph. Populist politicians like Trump tend to underestimate them in elections, and even now there may be many voters hiding their preferences but planning to vote for Trump in the meantime. While the difference between the parties is indeed significant, many battlefield states still have Biden’s advantage within the margin of error, so it would be irresponsible to claim that Trump has almost no chance of winning.
Cover image: Getty Images
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