We’re almost there. We’ll get to find out (soon?) whether the polls have got it right this time around. The average of national polls give Biden a 7 point lead over Trump and state-level polls have Biden winning most the battleground states (Charts 3-11). This is reflected in model and prediction market forecasts for the election outcome. FiveThirtyEight gives Biden a 90% chance of winning, The Economist gives him 95% and PredictIt gives him 63%. The numbers are not as high for the Senate, but they still show the Democrats with a more than 50% chance of winning the Senate (Chart 1).

The Battleground States Matter

But as the 2016 election showed, it’s the state-by-state count that matters. Starting with the three states that turned the 2016 election: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, we find Biden with stable leads of between +4 to +7 points in the polls (Charts 3,4, 6). The FiveThirtyEight and Economist models have Biden winning them with odds of 90% or higher. Prediction markets are lower at 60% to 70% odds (Chart 2). The twist is that these states may not announce results until later in the week due to how they count absentee and mail-in ballots.