Later today, we will see the first of three presidential debates between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. This is clearly a milestone in the race we have been enduring for the past two years (and in some sense the last four or five). As we enter the final month of the 2020 election campaign, I thought this would be a good time for me to unveil an update to my predictions for the presidential, gubernatorial, and congressional races across the country. This will be my last set of predictions before my final predictions to be unveiled the day before Election Day, so keep in mind that these races can still easily change (especially with the debates yet to occur). Overall, the election has been remarkably stable this year, contrasting with 2016 which was a wild rollercoaster of a contest. That being said, there have been some notable developments in key states that require us election handicappers to remain vigilant even as we enter the final stretch.
PRESIDENTIAL RACE: LIKELY BIDEN WIN (290 D, 169 R, 79 T)
The updates here are a bit of a mixed bag. While at first glance it might appear that the race has narrowed (and in a sense it has), another way of looking at the changes is that Biden has solidified his lead in the Rust Belt, which if borne out on Election Day would guarantee the 270 electoral votes needed to win the Presidency. With that in mind, here are my main five points in my Pre-Debate Update on the presidential race:
Florida has moved considerably towards Trump. Without a doubt, the most dramatic shift of any state in the past month has been Florida. Despite the Sunshine State’s reputation for ridiculously narrow margins of victory (see Bush v. Gore), many pundits were shocked to see Biden leading so consistently by comfortable margins throughout the summer months. The prevailing theory was that the race would narrow before Election Day in keeping with the state’s reputation as a swing state. Since the end of the Republican National Convention in August, it has indeed narrowed considerably. According to FiveThirtyEight’s aggregation of polling, Biden’s lead over Trump in Florida was about 5 points on August 27, the last day of the Republican Convention. Today, on September 29, that lead has now been cut by more than half, being just under two points in favor of Biden. This narrowing seems to be coming both by Trump improving his standing in the state as well as Biden’s favorability falling, I suspect mainly amongst Latino voters. As such I have moved my characterization of the Florida race from Leans Democratic to Tossup. Pres. Trump clearly has the momentum here, so I will be keeping an eye on the state to see if his momentum continues or plateaus in the coming month.
There is a slight window for Trump gains in New England. New Hampshire and Maine’s Second Congressional District have also moved towards Trump, though not nearly as drastically as Florida. I moved Maine’s Second from Leans Democratic to Tossup based mainly on recent polls showing no clear frontrunner in the district. For New Hampshire, after summer polling suggested a strong Biden lead, polling done by the New York Times this month suggested a statistical tie, leading me to change my ranking from Likely Dem to Leans Dem in the Granite State. (That being said, more polling since then has shown bigger Biden leads once again, so perhaps the NYT poll was an outlier).
The election will likely be decided by Pennsylvania. Another state that has tightened up, but not quite enough for me to change my prediction, is in Pennsylvania. Similar to Florida, Pennsylvania began tightening after the Republican National Convention, with Biden’s lead narrowing from just above five points to the mid four point range. However, with new polling in the past couple days, Biden’s lead has ticked up to pre-RNC levels, suggesting to me that whatever bump Trump got in the Keystone State has been short-lived. However, the bump also showed that the race in Pennsylvania might not be quite settled yet, and I am predicting that Pennsylvania will decide the election as a whole. Whoever wins Pennsylvania should win the Presidency.
Trump’s overtures to Wisconsin have fallen flat. Wisconsin was a state that Trump’s campaign was long bullish about, and polling prior to the pandemic seemed to justify that confidence. However, the pandemic and the BLM protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing shifted the race decisively in Biden’s favor, opening up a high single-digit lead on aggregate for the former Vice President. After the shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, Pres. Trump sought to capitalize on the riots that took place in the city to tout his law and order campaign message. However, after a couple days of narrowing by about two points, the state stands today at the same 7-point lead on aggregate for Biden that he held the day Jacob Blake was shot and the protests in Kenosha began. In other words, Trump’s most aggressive attempt to date to court Wisconsin voters has not moved the needle in the Badger State whatsoever, leading to my decision to change Wisconsin from Leans to Likely Democratic.
Once considered Trump territory, Iowa and Ohio are now up for grabs. In Ohio, Trump’s rebound in the past couple months seemed to confirm what I and many other pundits had been assuming for some time (despite his poor poll numbers in the state), that Ohio would be favorable terrain for the President. Thus, my characterization of the state for months has been Leans Republican (and before the pandemic I even flirted with characterizing it as Likely Republican). But recent polls show Biden not just narrowing the gap with Trump, but even taking the lead in some cases, with a Fox News poll showing Biden leading Trump by five points, a not insubstantial margin. On aggregate, Biden leads by one point, a three point swing from his two point deficit to the President at the beginning of September. Therefore, for the first time this election cycle I am characterizing Ohio as a Tossup. I was tempted to make Iowa a Tossup as well, due to a similar polling swing towards Biden recently. But unlike in Ohio, Biden’s rising fortunes in Iowa are new, with even his summer high not managing to make Iowa consistently close. So for now the Hawkeye State will remain at Leans Republican in my book. But the main takeaway is that the field of swing states has expanded for Democrats to include Iowa and Ohio, which pundits previously thought would be relatively easy Trump wins.
SENATE RACES: PURE TOSSUP (49 R, 49 D, 2 T)
Though the chances for Democrats taking the upper chamber have improved in the past few months, the contest remains a coin flip, with numerous variables and uncertainties at play across the country. A very real possibility is that the Senate will have a 50/50 split between Republicans and Democrats, which would leave control of the Senate to whoever wins the White House, since the Vice President breaks Senate ties. Since Biden appears to have the edge in the presidential contest, then the Senate could be characterized as tilting ever so slightly towards the Democrats, with a scenario in which Chuck Schumer is Majority Leader due to a Kamala Harris tie-breaker. Once again, here are my big five takeaways from my updates to the Senate map:
North Carolina keeps looking bad for Republicans. GOP Sen. Thom Tillis has been struggling in his bid for reelection for months now, as he has often waffled between portraying himself as a moderate Republican willing to stand up to Trump and a staunch ally to the President against Democratic legislation. The flipping has allowed an opening for moderate Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham to keep the race competitive, playing off of dissatisfaction with Tillis by both moderate Republicans who think he is too beholden to Trump and by Trump Republicans who believe he has not been faithful enough. The hope in the GOP has been that as Election Day approaches, the Senate race would narrow to the level that the presidential race has. Their only problem is that that has not happened. Cunningham continues to post mid to high single digit margins over Tillis with only a month to go in the campaign, leading me to change this race from a Tossup to Leans Democratic Pickup. Losing North Carolina would be a terrible loss for Republicans in their bid to keep control of the chamber, so expect to see tons of GOP money dumped into the state in a last-ditch attempt to rescue Thom Tillis.
Previously tight red states seem to be coming home to the GOP. Senate contests in Montana, Texas, Kentucky, and Georgia have appeared unusually tight this year in states that are typically expected to be Republican locks. However, Republicans finally seem to be solidifying their support in these states due in large part to massive ad campaigns to protect their vulnerable incumbents. Texas and Kentucky continue to be Likely Republican Holds in my book, and Democrats run the risk of being locked out of the inevitable top-two runoff in the Georgia Special Senate Election (there are two major Republicans running in that race, and polls show a real chance that they could be the top two vote-getters to qualify for a runoff election). In Montana, after Gov. Steve Bullock jumped into the race and scrambled the contest, Republicans launched a massive effort to boost incumbent Sen. Steve Daines to avoid a loss in a state they really cannot afford to lose (especially when they face tough races in places like North Carolina). The campaign appears to have worked, as Daines has been showing a slight but steady lead over Bullock recently. This will be a relief for Republicans, as they now don’t need to worry about as many battlegrounds.
Other red states are refusing to come home. Two notable departures from the trend above are Kansas and South Carolina, where Democratic candidates have been maintaining close races with their Republican opponents in ruby red states. South Carolina is the bigger shock of the two, as Sen. Lindsey Graham’s seat was characterized by myself as a Safe Republican Hold earlier this year. However, Democratic nominee Jaime Harrison has outraised Graham in every financial quarter this year, allowing him to blanket the airwaves and Internet with advertisements to boost himself and tearing down the incumbent Senator. Also at play is a similar dynamic as what Tillis faces, only arguably more pronounced. Graham earned headlines in the 2016 presidential election (in which he was a Republican candidate) for brutally slamming then-candidate Donald Trump as being bigoted and unfit for the office of the Presidency. That seemed to be in line with his reputation at the time for being a McCain-esque maverick in the GOP, with his friendship with McCain being almost legendary on Capitol Hill. Since McCain’s death, however, Graham has swung tremendously. Now he is known as one of Trump’s biggest defenders, with his most recent flip being on the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Having helped block the nomination of Merrick Garland in 2016, Sen. Graham pledged that he would abide by the same standard of not approving a Supreme Court nomination in an election year in 2020 regardless of whether the President was Republican or Democrat. Fast forward to today, and Sen. Graham has changed his position to one of cramming through Trump’s recent nomination in record time before votes are counted on Election Day. Harrison’s focus on these flips seem to be causing the most damage to Graham, with polls now showing the race as a statistical dead heat. By polls alone, this race is a Tossup, however I am downgrading it only to Leans Republican only because of Trump’s expected easy victory in the state, which could provide coattails for the ailing Senator. In Kansas, Democratic nominee Barbara Bollier has proven resilient despite not getting her favored opponent, the ever-controversial Kris Kobach. But the more mainstream Roger Marshall has failed to put this race away, as polls still show the contest as just within reach of Democrats. It remains a longshot, but the tightness of the race forces Republicans to spend money here that could be used elsewhere.
Senate control might come down to Maine. The race between Republican Sen. Susan Collins and Democratic nominee Sara Gideon has been considered a Tossup for some time now, and it remains that way in my new prediction. However, if things continue as they have been, then my final prediction will likely be a Democratic pickup. Sen. Collins has been struggling to combat allegations that she has abandoned her moderate reputation in order to protect Trump. Her vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court as well as her vote to acquit Pres. Trump in his impeachment trial in particular have damaged Collins in this blue state. Matters are made more difficult for Collins due to Maine’s ranked-choice voting system in which voters rank the candidates from their most favored to least favored. If no one gets over 50% of the vote, then the bottom candidates’ second choice votes will be added to the other candidates, with each successive lowest-ranking candidate being eliminated until someone has over 50%. I am anticipating that most people voting third party will be generally anti-Collins, which could make it difficult for Collins to win if no one gets over 50% on Election Night. Every seat matters in the race for the Senate, so Republicans desperately need to hold Collins’ seat if they want to hold the chamber. If Maine goes blue, you can bet that Democrats will have control of the Senate in 2021.
Iowa is now in play. Just like in the presidential contest, Iowa was long seen as a relatively solid Republican hold. Sen. Joni Ernst was popular in the state, and Democrats were facing a divided primary with no clear frontrunner. However, that has all changed in the past couple months, as Ernst’s popularity has dropped as voters seem disappointed in the Senator for not quite living up to her “make ‘em squeal” promise for DC when she first won the seat in 2014 (rather than making the establishment squeal, she is ironically now a member of Senate Republican leadership). Polls have recently shown her Democratic opponent, Theresa Greenfield, narrowing the gap between them, even occasionally leading Ernst in some surveys. I’ve changed my rating for Iowa from Leans Republican Hold to Tossup, with Iowa complicating Republicans’ hopes of retaining control of the Senate.
House Races: Safe Democratic Hold (224 D, 190 R, 20 T)
The gist of my House predictions have remained the same, with the main development being that there are more tossups than before. But Democrats are still almost certain to retain control of the chamber. For Republicans to take over, they would need to sweep all 20 of the tossups, then pick up at least 8 more seats that Democrats have an edge in right now. In other words, it would need to be approaching Republican wave levels, of which there is no evidence one will occur whatsoever. Democrats have a far better chance than Republicans at getting a wave this year, and even that is in doubt. If any of you have noticed that these numbers add up to 434 seats total rather than the House’s 435, there is a reason for that. Due to the death of a third party candidate in Minnesota’s 2nd Congressional District, the Secretary of State has postponed the election to February in accordance with Minnesota state law. This means that the seat will need to be vacated by Democratic Rep. Angie Craig in January, with the office being filled in a February special election. She is currently suing to keep the election in November, but the issue is up in the air as of now. If the election goes through, then I will rank it as a Likely Democratic Hold.
Governors’ Races: Likely Republican Majority (27 R, 23 D)
There is little to say here. Presidential election years do not have many gubernatorial contests, and this year not many of that handful are even competitive. The main one to watch is in Montana, where incumbent Democrat Steve Bullock is term-limited (and consequently running for Senate). I previously characterized Montana as a Tossup but am now changing that rating to Leans Republican Pickup. In general, Montana seems to be solidifying for Republicans, as I mentioned above in the Senate section. Otherwise, the rest of the races are pretty set for the incumbent to win. For instance, I’ve upgraded Vermont and New Hampshire from Likely Republican Holds to Safe Republican Holds, as the Democratic nominees in both states have failed to gain any meaningful traction.
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