Chris, we are three days away from Tuesday's historic election. So far, Biden is still winning this, as are Senate Dems. Of course, no one is taking the polls for granted, and that's why I'm going to ask you one final time to chip in to both Joe Biden's campaign AND to the 14 key Senate races.
Here's where things stand.
Biden & Kamala
At this point, Biden is doing so well in the polls that the polls would have to REALLY be off --- way more than they were in 2016 -- for Trump to win. That doesn't mean Trump can't win -- and cheat -- but it means Biden is in better shape than Hillary was in 2016 at this time.
Nate Silver did an analysis of what today's polls would show were they to be as off as they were in 2016. The result? Biden still gets 335 electoral votes, way more than the 270 needed:
Harry Enten at CNN did a great analysis of Biden's chances today -- you can read it here -- but Harry's basic point is that Biden is not only doing well in most of the states Hillary won, but he's also doing well in a lot of key states that Trump won in 2016, including Wisconsin, Michigan, Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Maine's 2nd Congressional District, Florida, North Carolina, Georgia and Iowa.
That's really good news, as it means Biden has a lot more potential paths to victory than Trump does.
The Senate
Winning back the Senate is key, even if Biden doesn't win -- a lesson we've learned oh too well the last four years -- but it's also key if Biden does win, because we don't Mitch McConnell shooting down all of Biden's legislation and judicial appointees.
At this point, the Senate race is closer than the presidential, but the experts agree that Democrats are ahead. I run down the 14 key Senate races on my ActBlue page, where you can also donate to all of them with one single donation. If you want more details on those races, Harry Enten has a quite detailed look at them here.
Not much has changed in the past week, other than Maine might be tightening (meaning, Susan Collins is catching up) - but it's still a toss up, per the Cook Political Report. Otherwise, Arizona and Colorado still look good for Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper. North Carolina and Iowa are still toss ups, as are both Georgia races, South Carolina and Montana. (Keep in mind, the two Georgia races -- Ossoff and Warnock -- will probably lead to run-offs, so we're not done with those on Tuesday.) And Alaska, the Kansas open seat, and Texas are all "Lean Republican," which is only slightly worse than a toss up. So, we "can" take back the Senate, but it's close.
One interesting factor that Harry raises is Covid. Trump tends to do less well in states where Covid is worse. And Covid is surging in all the key battleground states (and really, nationwide at this point).
I've been wondering whether the increase in cases might scare some voters away from the polls, and with Dems voting early more often than Republicans do, that could benefit Democrats. But, Democrats also tend to worry about Covid more than Republicans, so it's also possible that Democratic voters might be more likely to be scared off by it. Then again, I'd crawl over hot glass to vote for Biden and against Trump at this point, so I'm not too worried.
Cheating
The Republicans are going to cheat. They already are. We're going to see even more court cases, trying to strike down ballots (they're trying to get rid of 100,000 ballots already in Texas). We also have to worry about GOP violence on election day. There's a rather scary oped in today's New York Times (if you subscribe) about how Republicans might try to disrupt the elections. The Washington Post also has a scary story about how the National Guard is preparing for unrest on, and following, the election. We need to be prepared for Trump to pull anything on election day and the days thereafter.
That's it for now. Oh, I keep forgetting to mention my podcast -- we've been doing non-stop election analysis for a while now. You can find those episodes here. And one final time, here are the links to donate to Joe Biden's campaign AND to the 14 key Senate races.
Thanks as always. Fingers crossed.
JOHN
PS You can also donate directly to support my work -- I work on my own doing the podcast, my blog, fundraising for candidates, and more generally using social media to give Republicans a hard time. So my work is supported by folks like you. Thanks if you can help chip in here.
