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With only a day before the election, polling seems grim for the incumbent, President Donald Trump. Numerous national polls show challenger Joe Biden polling ahead of the incumbent in battleground states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Normally Republican strongholds Texas and Georgia have become toss-ups. Astonishingly, Arizona, which overwhelmingly went for Trump in 2016, is now leaning Democratic.
This paints a picture of an election that will require an upset for the incumbent to win. However, there are still plausible paths to victory for Donald Trump, who has proven to be a resilient candidate.
When counted out in the 2016 primary, he miraculously surged ahead to become the Republican nominee. When polling suggested he’d lose to Hillary Clinton in 2016, he pulled away in the last week to become president.
Judging by Politico’s electoral projections, in order to score the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency, Donald Trump would need to win literally every toss-up state. If this sounds unlikely, that’s because it is: Biden leads Trump in Florida by three to five points. Pennsylvania, a state Trump may well need for a realistic path to victory, sees Biden ahead by a five-point lead.
Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Michigan are considered the core battleground states, as well as Pennsylvania. At present, Trump enjoys a very slight lead in Texas and Georgia, while he lags behind in Michigan and Pennsylvania. North Carolina is a true toss-up, with the race being almost impossible to predict there.
Something pollsters could be missing in their tallies: “shy Trump” voters. It’s no secret that Trump supporters are judged by those who don’t agree with his politics. This could drive some respondents to surveys to either lie or not say who they support, which could lead to polling errors.
Normally, these kinds of errors only matter in the margins, but the margins could matter in an election like this.
Should polling errors be in play, Democrats could be in for another election-night shocker. Judging purely by data, which is what political scientists must do, Biden appears to be in a comfortable lead. The smart money would bet on him to take the election. However, it’s unclear if that data is untarnished by polling errors and shy respondents.
Of course, we won’t need to wait long to find out. With Election Day tomorrow, the results of this historic election should be known soon.
