US Presidential Poll Meta-Tracker update - Sept 27 - Some shifts Republican but higher Dem EV cutoff

This is an update on September 27th, 2020 to my US Presidential Election meta-tracker. Compare this to my earlier post on Sptember 8th, where you can also find more details about the method. It includes polls that straddle before and after the Supreme Court nomination became an issue, but before debates.

The news is mixed: Small shifts to the Republicans, but the threshold has shifted towards the Democrats.

The table below shows the states ranked from top to bottom from most likely Democrat wins for President (top) to Republican wins (bottom). Data is amalgamated from 6 current poll trackers, such as the Economist and Princeton University.The cells with the green and yellow backgrounds are the current swing states.

The green-background cells are the swing states that Democrats seem most likely to win. Ohio has been added to this list, compared to September 8th. Wisconsin and Michigan have dropped into clear Democrat category, and no longer appear to be swing states.

Joe Biden needs to win any one of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina or Ohio to get over the 270 threshold, whereas the Donald Trump would have to win them all. But Joe Biden still also has a fighting chance at four more states marked in yellow.

Despite this apparent slight shift in electoral vote chances towards the Democrats, there have been a considerable number of shifts in individual state predictions by the trackers towards the Republicans.

• The text colour is white if there has been a shift towards the party given by the background colour (e.g. white on blue means becoming even more Democrat) and white on red or pink means becoming more Republican.
• Blue on red (or blue on pink) means Republicans are favored, but less so than before.
• Red on blue means the Democrats are favored, but less so than before.
• Red on white means newly toss-up states in favor of the Republicans, whereas the Democrats had been favoured before. Two poll trackers have these, for Arizona and Florida.
• Blue on white means newly toss--up states in favor of the Democrats. Four states have these, for Indiana, Georgia, Iowa and Ohio. 

Four states have shifted in different directions in different poll trackers: Georgia, Pennsylviania, New Hampshire and Missouri

Of the swing states, Arizona, Texas and Florida have shifted consistently to the Republicans (78 EVs), while Ohio and Iowa have shifted consistently to the Democrats (24 EV).

Overall the prediction currently would be Joe Biden 352 EV, vs, Donald Trump 186 EV. 

I am also showing information on the right about the mode of voting, obtained from CNN. Of the 5 swing states from which the Democrats must win one to win, three should have results on election day, or very soon thereafter, because ballots must be received by then (shown in green text). Three states (all favouring Democrats) will, however, have almost-entirely mail-in voting, where the ballots only have to be posted by election day. These have 32 EVs in total; the networks will probably be able to 'call' these states, but they could be a cause of controversy if the election is close.