REVIEW - Biden Leads In Final Stretch, Yet Key Swing States Remain In 'Too Close To Guess' Category

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 27th October, 2020) Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden has maintained his lead in most battleground states, with just over a week until election day, yet slim margins and complicating factors such as mail-in ballots make the race practically impossible to predict.

Biden, as of Monday afternoon, leads nationally by 7.9% on average in the 11 most recent surveys posted on poll aggregator Reaclearpolitics.com (RCP), dropping one point from where it stood a week ago.

However, the national popular vote is irrelevant given the format of the electoral college, which requires candidates to win statewide contests. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the national popular vote by 2.1% but lost the election because she failed to win enough electoral votes, 538 of which are apportioned across 50 states. A candidate must win 270 electoral votes to be declared the winner.

The Biden camp is extremely nervous about history repeating itself. Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's campaign manager, in a recent memo to supporters said the race is "far closer" than some of the punditry would suggest.

"In the key battleground states where this election will be decided, we remain neck and neck with [President] Donald Trump," Dillon said as quoted by Politico last week.

Biden is ahead in ten of the top 12 battleground states, but all of his leads are within a typical margin of error, except in Michigan, where he has an 8.1% edge. Biden's lead is under three percent in 5 states: Florida (+1.5%), North Carolina (+1.2%), Georgia (+0.4%), Arizona (2.4%), and Iowa (0.8%).

The former vice president is leading by 4-6 percent in the remaining four states: Pennsylvania (+4.9%), Wisconsin (+5.4%), Minnesota (+6.0%), and Nevada (5.2%), according to the RCP average.

Trump leads in Texas by 2.6 percent and has maintained about a half-point lead in Ohio.

These RCP poll averages in the past few days have fluctuated more than stock prices and are bound to change before November 3 - the question remains to what extent. The margins have been volatile but within a 1-percent flat range except in Arizona and North Carolina where Biden's lead dropped by 1.5% in each and in Texas where Trump lost 1.2 points in the past week.

The significance of the margin of error (MOE) cannot be understated when assessing these leads because the typical MOE of 3% actually implies a swing of up to six points in either direction. For example, Biden is up 50-45% on average (rounding up slightly) in Pennsylvania, but when we apply the typical MOE of 3% this suggests the lead could be as much as 11 points (53-42%) or it could mean Trump is actually ahead by 1 point (48-47%). For the Biden camp, any lead less than 7% is probably too close for comfort.

Although we are only about eight days away from the election, it is worth considering that Clinton was ahead in the polls at this point in 2016 in seven of these states - and by a greater margin than where Biden is today in four of them. By the eve of the 2016 election, Clinton's lead had entirely vanished in three states and fell by 3.9 points to 1.9% in Pennsylvania and by 2 points in 2 other states.

When comparing the RCP average on the night before the 2016 election with the actual results, it appears Clinton's poll numbers were inflated by 7.2% in Wisconsin, 3.1% in Michigan and 2.6% in Pennsylvania - 3 states she was favored to win but lost. The numbers were also inflated by 4.5% in Ohio and 6.5% in Iowa, two states she lost by more than expected and inflated by 5.7% in Minnesota - a blue state she won by only 1.5 points.

Technically speaking, however, in only one of these states, Wisconsin, could the polling be considered "wrong," because the rest were within a 3 percent MOE (which implies the possibility of a 6-point swing).

The Democrats are worried polling in swing states might be inflated due to the "hidden" Trump voter phenomenon, the efficacy of Republican voter suppression efforts, and the number of mail-in ballots that could be disqualified for a number of reasons, the report added.

Even if pollsters have better accounted for key demographics - such as non-degreed white males - it is hard to factor in the number of ballots that could be rejected on technical grounds - or for simply arriving too late. Experts have said the massive influx of mailed ballots could increase the rejection rate to up to 2 percent.

As of Sunday evening, nearly 60 million early votes have already been cast, including almost 40 million by mail, according to the US Elections Project which consolidates polling data from each state. In 2016, only about 33 million ballots were submitted via the postal service.

In Pennsylvania, 1.4 million votes have been cast by mail of 2.9 million ballots requested. In 2016, only about 330,000 Pennsylvanians cast ballots by mail of just over 6 million total votes. In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by just over 44,000 votes (0.7% margin).

It is impossible to tell what this means for Biden's lead. So much more than just a grain of salt comes with the below estimated scenarios.

If the election were held today, and we assume the polls are 100% accurate, Biden would win by a 357-181 electoral college landslide by capturing all of the aforesaid swing states except Texas and Ohio. This seems unlikely, given the factors mentioned, but Biden still has more "paths to victory," than Trump, who would have to win eight of 12 swing states, among which he only leads in two.

If we assume the polls are inflated in Biden's favor, we could conduct a sensitivity analysis based on a range of reasonable MOEs to determine possible scenarios. The good news for Biden is that even if one applies the exact percentage the polls were off in 2016, Biden would win 325 electoral votes. Largely because the margin of error in Florida in 2016 equated to a 1-point swing (MOE = 0.5%) and Biden is up by 1.5 percent.

If we apply a full 1-percent MOE (2-point swing) across all 12 states - a legitimate possibility given the factors mentioned - Biden ends up with 290. If we apply a 2% MOE (4-point swing), Biden would lose Arizona yet still capture a threshold-crossing 279 electoral votes. If forced to guess, it seems highly likely that Biden would reach at least this figure.

Hence, for Trump to have a chance, it seems to boil down to Pennsylvania and/or Wisconsin. If Trump then takes Wisconsin, where he is down 4.6%, the electoral college would end up tied 269-269.

Determining who wins the presidency would be up to the House of Representatives, according to the 12th amendment, and the Senate would pick the vice president, which has not happened in almost 200 years. Although the Democrats have a 32-seat majority in the 435-member House, the constitution says each state would only get one vote and the Republicans, it turns out, happen to control more states. Hence, Trump would win. This scenario might be far-fetched, but one we cannot entirely rule out.

In conclusion, the odds seem in favor of Biden winning at least 279 to as many as 290 electoral votes. However, it bears reiterating that most of these swing states fall into the "too close to call" category. And a week is a long time. Given the Great Collapse of 2016, election day could not come soon enough for the Biden campaign.