Your 2020 Election Cheat Sheets

Election Day 2020 has finally arrived. More accurately, the end of election season comes today, as over 100 million Americans have already voted. To help guide you through the coming hours of media coverage, I have attached two PDFs.

The first one allows you to track the results of the presidential election. For my last update and to understand how I aggregate all polls assessing Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden, Jr. versus Republican President Donald J. Trump, please see here.

The second one allows you to track, the results of the 36 Senatorial and 11 gubernatorial elections. In the column headed “538CL,” I list the final projected FiveThirtyEight.com Senate election margins using their “Classic” methodology. The analysts at 538 did not track gubernatorial elections this year. For my last update, see here.

Names of incumbents are underlined in italics, while, in open seats, the candidate of the incumbent’s party is in italics. Values highlighted in blue are projected Democratic gains, and values highlighted in red are projected Republican gains.

In both trackers, the column headed “JBWM” list my my best estimate of the final margins in each election, not the polling averages. In most states, this is essentially the same as the final polling average. Since my last update, I made two algorithm changes. First, I weight all poll conducted entirely after the final presidential debate on October 22 six times higher. Second, I halve the weight of any poll with a one-day field date.

However, in the 13 key Electoral College states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin, and in the key Senate battlegrounds of Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina and Texas, I began by assigning between 0.5 and 3.0 percent of the total vote to third party candidates, essentially eyeballing their polling percentages and cutting them in half. I then adjusted the final polling margin, for states for which I had this information, by the average 2016-2018 miss, as calculated by Dave Wasserman. Finally, I divided the remaining–usually minimal–undecided vote based on the relative Democratic or Republican lean of the state and the early vote count as a share of the 2016 vote totals. Put simply, in strong Democratic states with high turnout, I gave two-thirds of the undecideds to Biden, in strong Republican states with lower turnout I gave two-thirds of the undecideds to Trump, and where the two metrics diverged, I split them evenly.

With that in mind, here are some general observations.

1. Maine and Nebraska assign two Electoral Votes (“EV”) to the statewide winner and one each to the winner of the state’s two and three Congressional districts (“CD”), respectively. I did not analyze polling data from the 2nd CD of Nebraska or the 2nd CD of Maine. While I expect Biden to win the former (and the 1st CD of Maine), I have no clear sense of who will win the latter; Trump will easily win the other two CD in Nebraska.
2. My final “product of EV probabilities” sums are 348.5 using all polls conducted since January 1, 2019, and 350.6 using only polls conducted since the national party conventions concluded on August 28. With a systemic three-point polling error favoring Republicans, the EV total drops to 297.5, and with a systemic pro-Democratic error the EV total jumps to 391.2
3. In my 2020 presidential election cheat sheet, Biden wins a total of 290 EV in states where I project him to win by at least 2.2 points, including NE-2; the latter state is Pennsylvania, with 20 EV–losing it drops Biden to exatly the 270 he needs to win. Note that I “award” North Carolina to Trump, while 538 has Biden slightly favored there. I am far less certain of three states whose 83 total EV–Florida, Georgia and Texas–I “award” to Biden by very narrow margins; 538 has Trump slightly favored in Texas. Honestly, Biden could win all four of these states, Trump could win all four, or any combination in between. Thus, by my calculations, Biden could win anywhere from 290 to 373 EV–very close to my six-point polling error spread.
4. Recall that there are two Senate elections in Georgia, one scheduled between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican incumbent David Perdue, and one being defended by incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler in which all candidates run in the same election. In the former, I “award” the win to Ossoff, but if neither candidate reaches 50%–and Libertarian Shane Hazel routinely earns ~3% in public polling–there will be a runoff election on January 5, 2021. In the latter race, it is a near certainty Democrat Raphael Warnock will advance to a runoff election on January 5, probably–but not certainly–against Loeffler. As of now, Warnock is the strong favorite to win that election.
5. Louisiana also has a “jungle” primary for Senate, with a runoff between incumbent Republican Bill Cassidy (if he does not reach 50% today) and Democrat Adrian Perkins a near-certainty.
6. I line up exactly with 538 on Senate races, though the Senate race in Iowa is quite close. We both anticipate the next Senate to have 50 Democrats, plus two Independents who caucus with them, and 48 Republicans.
7. However–keep an eye on Montana. Democratic Governor Steve Bullock is a very slight underdog against incumbent Republican Steve Daines, but could also easily eke out a narrow win. And the only remotely competitive governor’s race–an open seat battle between Democratic Lieutenant Governor Mike Cooney versus House Member Republican Greg Gianforte–is being held there as well.

And that is it.

Time to prepare a batch of blue lagoons, ready my bowl of blue and white M&M’s and settle in for a long night…or week.

Until next time…please stay safe, and if you have not done so already, please VOTE!