As numbers roll in from the 2020 US presidential election, there’s still so much which remains unclear. We don’t have a clear read on who will win the thing. Thanks to postal votes and other hijinks, we can’t say with certainty whether US President Donald Trump or his challenger, Democratic Party nominee Joe Biden, will secure some incredibly important swing states. Christ, we don’t really know if Trump will accept the result if it doesn’t immediately go his way.
One thing is increasingly clear, though: just like in 2016, anyone who looked at pre-election polls and expected an easy Democratic victory isn’t going to get it.
Four years ago, the vast majority of national polls suggested Democratic Party challenger Hillary Clinton would win over Trump. This year, the bulk of national polls also suggested Biden would succeed. At time of writing, Biden is still in the race – but it’s not the cakewalk some supporters may have hoped for.
Let’s look at more specific models. Number-crunchers FiveThirtyEight gave Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning in 2016. In 2020, they favoured Biden would win the election 89 out of 100 times (they gave a ten percent chance to Trump, and one percent to rounding errors or a tie).
Pretty relieving for anyone who doesn’t like Trump, right? Unfortunately for Biden’s supporters, it doesn’t appear that 89% chance will necessarily translate to an easy path to the White House.
FiveThirtyEight gave Biden an incredibly slight edge in pivotal states like Florida, Georgia, and North Carolina. The New York Times states Biden would “likely” win the presidency if he captured any of them. At time of writing, the NYT has Biden is trailing in Florida and North Carolina, with only a bee’s dick of an advantage in Georgia.
Let’s have a peek at Wisconsin, too: FiveThirtyEight’s final estimation had Biden ahead. With 70% of the vote counted, the NYT reckons he’s still trailing.
Okay, those figures don’t speak to the crazy data collapse we experienced four years back, and FiveThirtyEight don Nate Silver has advised “it wouldn’t take that big of a polling error in Trump’s favor to make the election interesting.”
Besides, a Trump victory was never deemed impossible: anyone who’s played poker long enough will tell you about the time their pocket aces were cracked by an Uno card and a dry cleaning receipt.
“Although nobody needs any reminders of this after 2016 — Trump can win,” Silver added. “All the election models are bullish on Biden, but they are united in that a Trump win is still plausible despite his seemingly steep deficit in polls.”
A mass of polls pointing to a Biden win doesn’t guarantee that win would come easy – if at all. If you had hoped things would be different this time, I’m sorry to tell you this kind of drawn-out agony was always a possibility.
P.S. Remember that 1% chance of a tie? Here’s what Silver had to say about it this afternoon:
If there’s a 269-269 tie then maybe it’s a simulation.
Just kidding. I think.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) November 4, 2020
You have my permission to go fucking apeshit over the pre-election polls if that comes to pass.
