by Derek Major

October 14, 2020

‘The Economist’ Election Forecast Gives Joe Biden A 91% Chance Of Winning Electoral College

The latest election forecast from The Economist gives Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a 91% chance of gaining a majority of electoral college votes in the upcoming election.

The forecast also gives the former vice president a 99% chance of winning the majority of the national vote. In order to win the presidency, a candidate must receive 270 of the 347 electoral college votes.

According to Newsweek, The Economist‘s forecast is based on a predictive model that simulates 20,000 plausible election outcomes, with each simulation varying vote shares to account for possible polling errors. While the model puts President DonaldTrump at a significant disadvantage, it still gives him a slight chance to win as the model has Trump receiving between 116 and 312 electoral votes in the models.

These predictions should be taken with a grain of salt. In 2016, the Princeton Election Consortium and Huffington Post gave Hillary Clinton a 99% and 98% chance to win the election. FiveThiryEight’s prediction wasn’t as strong, but still gave Clinton a 71% chance of winning the election.

Biden is also polling better than Clinton was at this time in 2016. On Monday, Biden was leading Trump by an average of 10.4% nationally. Clinton was ahead of Trump by 6.3% at the same point in 2016, but by Election Day, Clinton’s average dropped to 3.9%. Biden’s average has stopped climbing but has remained consistent.

State polling is also favoring Biden today more than it did for Clinton in 2016. As of Monday, Biden leads Trump in Pennsylvania by an average of 7.2%. At this time in 2016, Clinton was leading Trump by less than 1%.

Biden has grown his base by projecting himself as a calm, rational leader at a dangerous and unsettling time in America.

The coronavirus pandemic, the economic recession, the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement, the anti-police movement, and climate change essentially setting California on fire are just a few of the issues that have popped up this year.


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