Model Update 10/2

Note that this update doesn’t account for the President’s positive covid test yesterday. I don’t what that means for the race.

This week’s map:

Scale (in terms of estimated win probability):

Scale: 0-.05 Safe Red (darkest) 0.05-0.15 Likely Red (second darkest) 0.15-0.25 Lean Read (light red) 0.25-0.75 Tossup 0.75-0.85 Lean Blue (lightest blue) 0.85-0.95 Likely Blue(second darkest) >.95 Safe Blue (darkest)

Biden/Trump are likely to lose about 1 in 4 of his lean states and 1 in 10 likely states. So this means Biden will probably lose 22-46 electoral votes from this map, but him winning only 300 electoral votes would still be possible due to correlated errors. Except for Texas, the likely and lean red states are labeled because of insufficient polling data.

The 95% intervals should be accurate at this point in time.

This map changed from last week. The predicted vote share hasn’t changed, but a minor bug messed up the uncertainty estimates last week.

Analysis

I have no idea how Trump’s covid infection will play out. I think if he is lucky and has a mild case, then there wouldn’t be a lot of changes. But if he dies or has complications that prevent him from finishing his term or running for re-election then I think anything could happen. I hope he recovers, but his age and weight make him high risk. So for now I’m watching and waiting.