US Presidential Race tightens a little, but Biden still predicted to eke out a win: Final meta-poll-tracker

 This is my final meta-analysis of 2020 US presidential poll trackers. For previous ones see here.

Since October 17th the Economist has shifted considerably towards a win by Biden, with 7 states showing shifts towards the Democrats and none towards the Republicans. This includes close states North Carolina, Iowa and Ohio (the latter two moving to Toss-up status).

CBC, on the other hand, has shifted 6 states a little towards the Republicans and 3 states a little toward the Democrats. The only close states with shifts, however, are all in the Republican direction: Florida and North Carolina (which become toss-ups, instead of likely Democrat) as well as Pennsylvania (which becomes likely Democrat instead of very likely).

Electoral-Vote.com has shifted Arizona towards the Republicans, from very likely Democrat to just likely Democrat and has adjusted the confidence level in three states that are on the Republican side of the chart.

Princeton has shifted Texas a little to the Democrats and adjusted two other Republican states a little.

Finally, Real Clear Politics has made two slight changes toward the Democrats in non-close states.

But the net result is that no state changes in its overall ranking on the spectrum from certain Democrat to certain Republican. If all the polls and poll trackers are doing a decent job, Biden will at least overtop the magic 270 Electoral College votes (EVs) by winning three states that Trump won in 2016: Nevada, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. That would give him 279 EVs (or 280 with the Nevada second district), which I will call my prediction.

But looking more closely at the polls, there is a clear trend whereby Biden's margin has been dropping. This happened to Clinton too. I wouldn't be confident in any state where the polls show less than a 4 point lead for Biden. That means he might only get those 279 votes. And if he lost Pennsylvania, as is entirely possible due to the fracas over fracking, then he would need to win a state like Arizona (plus a single Nebraska district which is likely) or North Carolina.

So I also think Biden will win the popular vote nationally by 6%, which should help quell naysayers, although is below what the current polling average is predicting. I say this because of the desperation and passion of Trump supporters, and the fact that they are less likely to be concerned by the pandemic, and hence might come out to vote in higher numbers.

I think the results will only be known for sure a couple of weeks after election day.

Presidential Poll Meta-Tracker Update Oct 17: Shift to Biden but lower projected EV final count for him

Below is the latest update to my US Presidential poll meta-tracker. It updates my earlier posts from Oct 5, Sept 27 and Sept 8. The methodology is explained in earlier posts.

Since October 5th, the following shifts are evident:

• Ohio (18EV), although still a swing state, has shifted to be more likely a Republican win than a Democrat win.
• Wisconsin (!0EV) has shifted out of swing state status, in favor of the Democrats.
• A total of 11 state projections for the Democrats have shifted (more) towards the Democrats. These are shown as white text on blue background. But only 5 of these are in swing states (where it matters).
• A total of 2 state projections that are projecting Democrats to win have shifted towards the Republicans (Red text on blue background). Both of these are in swing state Florida (29EV).
• A total of 2 state projections have moved from Republican-expected to toss-up status (hence showing a shift towards the Democrats). Shown as blue text on white background. These are in Iowa (6EV) and Texas (38EV).
• A total of 2 state projections have moved from Democrat-expected to toss-up status (hence showing a shift towards the Republicans). Shown as red text on white background. These are in swing state Georgia (16EV) and non-swing state Minnesota (10EV).
• A total of 2 state projections that are projecting Republicans to win have shifted towards the Democrats (Blue text on red background). Neither of these are in swing states.
• A total of 9 state projections for the Republicans have shifted (more) towards the Republicans. These are shown as white text on red background.
• Overall the meta-projection shows Joe Biden now confidently getting over the 270 threshold (with 279 confident EVs), wheras there were only 269 confident EVs before. However, the likely projected EVs for biden is now 350, whereas it was 368 before.
• The model now in green shows four swing states where Biden has an advantage (five before), but still has to fight for: Arizona, Florida, North Carolina and Georgia. He doesn't need to win any of these to win the election if the confident states all fall in his favour, but winning any of these would reduce his risk.
• Donald Trump, on the other hand, has the advantage in three swing states marked in yellow (Iowa, Texas and Ohio). He has to win all of these. He also has to win all the four swing states where Joe Biden has an advantage as above, and one of the states where the pollsters are confident in a Biden win (most likely one of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan).

Net result: An overall shift in win probability towards Joe Biden, even though Biden's projected final EV count has shrunk by 18 EV.

One final point: Will the results be known or projectable on Election night? Most likely yes. There are a few states where late mail-in ballots will be accepted (postmarked up to election day, meaning they may not be counted for a week or two, delaying projections if counts are close and the number of such ballots are high). Some of these are in very confident Democrat states, so we shouldn't consider those. We only need to consider the states that are either swing states or at least somewhat competitive. These are the following:

• Nevada: 6EV, Very Likely Democrat. If we subtract this from the 279 confident EVs for Biden, we still have 273EVs, and hence a clear win for Biden.
• Virginia: 13 EV. Likely Democrat.
• Minnesota: 10 EV. Likely Democrat.
• North Carolina: 15EV Swing trending Democrat
• Georgia: 15EV Swing  leaning Democrat
• Iowa: 6EV Swing leaning Republican but that has moved towards the Democrats slightly
• Texas: 38EV Swing leaning Republican
• Ohio: 18EV Swing trending Republican

Given the margins, we have to consider the 29EV from Virginia, Minnesota and Nevada. If there are no projections from them due to late mail, that would bring the projectable number of EV wins for Biden down from 279 to 250. But Florida (29EV) could make the election a clear win for Biden on election night if it goes his way as could Arizona plus some other late-mail state that has a high-enough margin or low-enough number of delayed votes. Also, it is unlikely that all the 'late mail' states will be unprojectable, given the high number of people voting in advance.

Covid-19 country status update as of October 15, 2020

Using Worldometer data from October 16, here are is an update to Covid-19 statistics that are not readily available. This data (as in my previous posts) only focuses on countries with more than 10 million people, since small countries tend to be outliers and vary a lot from day to day. For example the Vatican had an outbreak among its Swiss Guards, which skewed its data for a few days.

I have highlighted a few countries consistently to allow comparisons among these metrics.

Countries doing worst right now in terms of new deaths per million:

Argentina	9.3
Czechia	5.4
Romania	3.8
Mexico	3.7
Brazil	3.4
Iran	3.0
Spain	3.0
Colombia	3.0
Belgium	2.9
South Africa	2.7
USA	2.6
Jordan	2.4
Poland	2.4
Ecuador	2.4
Bolivia	2.2
UK	2.0
Peru	2.0
Russia	2.0
Netherlands	1.7
Ukraine	1.7
Iraq	1.6
Italy	1.4
France	1.3
Guatemala	1.3
Greece	1.2
Morocco	1.2
Portugal	1.1
Chile	1.0
Canada	0.9

Countries doing worst right now in terms of new cases per million:

Czechia	907.2
Belgium	712.7
France	468.8
Netherlands	454.4
Argentina	377.3
UK	278.9
Jordan	240.3
Spain	233.4
Poland	214.1
Romania	209.0
Portugal	206.2
USA	199.4
Italy	145.7
Brazil	138.5
Colombia	133.7
Nepal	128.0
Ukraine	116.0
Russia	94.2
Morocco	89.6
Iraq	88.6
Germany	84.4
Peru	84.2
Ecuador	72.1
Canada	62.0
Sweden	58.9
Chile	58.7
Iran	54.8
Azerbaijan	52.1
India	43.7

Countries doing worst right now in terms of new cases as compared to their total cases (more recent, higher numbers in this wave):

Jordan	0.074
Czechia	0.065
Poland	0.054
Belgium	0.046
Netherlands	0.038
France	0.038
Angola	0.035
Malaysia	0.032
Myanmar	0.032
Nepal	0.031
UK	0.028
Romania	0.024
Italy	0.023
Portugal	0.023
Germany	0.020
Morocco	0.020
Greece	0.019
Argentina	0.018
Ukraine	0.018
Chad	0.016
Sri Lanka	0.014
Kenya	0.014
Mozambique	0.014
Burkina Faso	0.013
Indonesia	0.013
Azerbaijan	0.012
Canada	0.012
Spain	0.011
Russia	0.010
Syria	0.010
Iran	0.009
Iraq	0.009
Ecuador	0.008
Ethiopia	0.008
India	0.008
USA	0.008
Colombia	0.007
Benin	0.007
Guatemala	0.007
Japan	0.006
Philippines	0.006
Guinea	0.006
Sweden	0.006
Brazil	0.006
Venezuela	0.005
Uzbekistan	0.005
Turkey	0.005
Mexico	0.005
Mali	0.005
Uganda	0.005

US Presidential meta-tracker update as of October 5 - mostly consolidation, but one more state for Dems

 Here is the third update of my meta-tracker of US presidential poll trackers. For the method and previous posts see here (Sept 8th) and here (Sept 27).

Since my last post on Sept 27th there has clearly been a shift towards Joe Biden. The debate happened, and data from after that, and the President's Covid-19 diagosis, are starting to be reflected, although not completely.

In Republican and Republican-leaning states, there is consolidation towards trump (white on red below). There is also consolidation in Democrat and Democrat-leaning states (white on blue below). One toss-up state to move to leaning Democrat is Georgia. Two Democrat-side states and one toss-up state have moved slightly towards the Repoblicans (Nevada, Wisconsin and Ohio -- red text). But Joe Biden seems to have enough other swing states (green at left) to carry him, especially if polling shifts continue to move the way they are.