State of the race?

On paper it looks like a comfortable Joe Biden win, if not a landslide. Biden is now a 2-1 betting favorite, and my own spreadsheet shows Biden up by around six percent (more than enough to win the electoral college with room to spare). That is up by about a point in a half from the pre-debate & pre-covid positive test result numbers.

Trump now ahead of his 2016 polling in Battleground
 states even as he lags in the popular vote

Yet, all of this assumes that our pollsters learned their lesson from 2016 and are simply more accurate with these polls showing large leads for Biden, than they were for Hillary in 2016. While Hillary's lead was never what we are seeing for Joe Biden in the polling averages, that was largely due to the fact that there were several daily tracking polls in 2016 that showed the race much closer than the media pollsters that dominate the averages in 2020. 

Now it's not that these tracking polls are not showing the same numbers as they did. They simply do not exist. Had they not existed in 2016, then Hillary's lead would have been much more substantial than it was showing back them. The media polls (ABC/WaPo, NBC/WSJ, CBS/NYT) were also tracking Clinton with large leads. We saw over a dozen polls with double digit leads back in October of 2016. They were just offset by other pollsters that no longer appear to be part of the game. 

It could be that these pollsters would also show bigger Biden leads as well. But because they do not exist, it's impossible to know for sure how they would have affected the averages. 

Another difference is how few pollsters are actually allowing for people to choose from a third Party candidate. Back in 2016, nearly everyone included Gary Johnson, Evan McMullin, and Jill Stein in their polling. But in 2020, only a handful of pollsters are providing those choices. The RCP averages drops by over two points when you average the polls that include third Parties vs those that do not. 

There are other polling factors that would (under general circumstances) make one believe that we would be looking at a close race, if not an incumbent victory. The President's personal approvals do not reflect that he has taken the huge nosedive that the horserace polls show. They remain right around 45% which is where he has sat for most of his term. Based on the huge movement in the horserace polls, which is supposed to reflect a negative response to the debate and the President testing positive for Covid, it's surprising that his personal approvals have not reflected that.

Meanwhile, a recent Gallup poll shows that 56% of Americans feel they are better off than they were four years ago. That is a significantly better number than either Obama or Bush enjoyed when they both won reelection. This has been a benchmark for reelection. No incumbent has lost election with the sort of numbers Trump is seeing in that particular poll. 

Lastly, while polling favors Biden, the number of Americans who still believe that their neighbors are voting for Trump and that Trump is still going to win remains stubbornly high. This polling questions might not mean much other than to pollsters and pundits who watch pollsters. But if there is such a thing as a "shy voters" these are the questions designed to flush that out.

If we move past the polling and into some more tangible dynamics, we are looking at a much more mixed bag. Democrats can crow about early voting numbers that seem to favor Democratic areas more than Republican areas. While that is very tangible, it's hard to measure whether it is more about Democratic support for Biden, or more about Democratic support for early voting. Democrats have also outraised Republicans again in many key races. While this is not unusual, it's still a good sign for Democrats.

On the flip side, new voter registration is lagging in many key states for Democrats. In fact, Republicans have an advantage in new voter registration in many battleground states, which is pretty much unheard of.  There is also been a lot of polling that is suggesting a very luke warm amount of enthusiasm with the younger voters that tend to push Democrats over the edge. Both of these might be tied to Covid, as younger and more liberal Americans have holed up during the pandemic, which would include both those who would be out pushing the GOTV drive and those who would otherwise be politically active and engaged. 

At this point, it's difficult to make a solid assessment regarding a landslide or to take 12-16 point polling leads very seriously. I do, however, take my six point spreadsheet lead pretty seriously. In those regards, the movement has been with Democrats consolidating around Biden, while Republicans have not done the same with Trump. Independents have also moved a point or so (based largely on new polling showing huge Biden leads with Independents). 

At this point, it looks like Biden's race to lose. Considering we may or may not even see another debate, and we pretty much never see Joe Biden anywhere else, the strategy of hiding him away and letting his advertising and name recognition to their thing, might be what has gotten him to this point. Perhaps had Clinton just hid herself away, then Trump never would have become President. 

But at the end of the day, this is as it was in 2016. Are the larger number of polls showing huge leads for Biden with independent voters correct or are the handful of polls showing Independents voting in a more traditional manner correct? If it is the former, then we can look for a big night for Biden and the Democrats in general. If it's the latter, than we  might be looking at a very long election night that might look eerily close to what happened in 2016.