Joaquin Monfort | September 22, 2020
In this update, how Trump is more likely to win New Hampshire, projections for key marginal states, and how these compare with other major election monitors.
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The main news this week is that our monitor is now showing Trump projected to win in New Hampshire and not Biden.
It is worth noting, however, that the state has switched leading candidate four times since March, as can be seen from the chart above.
Whether Trump can hold onto his lead is uncertain, but what is clear is that New Hampshire is likely to be a closely fought state in 2020 - just as it was in 2016.
The headline forecast for the election monitor has adjusted to take into account the four vote shift away from Biden to Trump as a result of New Hampshire turning Republican.
This means the main headline is now showing that if an election was held tomorrow, the winner would be Joe Biden by 319 to 219 electoral college votes, a change from 323 to 215 last week.
These are optimum projections that lie within ranges of possible outcomes. The range for Biden lies between 286 - 357 and for Trump between 181 - 252. Even if Biden were to only secure the bottom value of his range at 286 he would still beat Trump who would only get 252 electoral votes.
It is said Trump won the 2016 election because he managed to flip a few upper midwestern states, and it is often the case that the Presidential election is decided by a few key marginal states.
Although the battleground shifts from election to election (Ohio was a deciding factor in 2012 but not in 2016) it might still be a useful exercise to check forecasts for those states that were the most closely fought in 2016.
The 10 key marginals in 2016 were Michigan, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Minnesota, Nevada, Maine, North Carolina, and Arizona.
The table below shows them listed with our election monitor’s projected chances of winning in this year’s election.
Three additional states have also been included: Georgia, Ohio, and Texas, (colored red) because they have shown consistently close polling in 2020 (polling which is never more than 5% apart).
As things stand, 8 out of the 10 closest fought states in the 2016 election are forecast as turning blue in this election, based on our monitor’s projections. Only New Hampshire and Arizona are forecast to go to Trump.
Michigan, which was one of those upper midwestern states that went to Trump last election, is now a solid Biden win. Wisconsin likewise.
Pennsylvania was won by Trump in 2016 but is 95% likely to swing to Biden in 2020.
Florida, North Carolina and Arizona are all still likely to be more closely fought, with Biden likely to win Florida with an 85.2% chance and North Carolina with 51.7% chance, and Trump likely to win in Arizona with a 69.1% chance.
New Hampshire has seen the biggest weekly change, not surprisingly, with a 5.9% swing in favor of Trump winning.
All 3 of the states that were not key marginals in 2016 but are showing close polling in 2020 are projected to be won by Donald Trump.
Below is the table of key battleground states but with projections from 3 other major election monitors, published by the Economist, FiveThirtyEight.com and JHKForecasting.com. The average of all 4 projections has also been calculated and included as a reference.
From the table above we can see that based on the average of all 4 monitors all 10 of the most closely fought states in 2016 are likely to be won by Joe Biden in 2020, even the two which the RavenPack monitor alone is showing as likely to be won by Trump - New Hampshire and Arizona.
North Carolina is likely to be the most marginal with Biden expected to win by only a slim 53.9%.
The 3 key marginals in 2020: Georgia, Ohio, Texas are all likely to go to Trump as was the case based on the RavenPack monitor’s projections.
Despite Pennsylvania sizing up to be an important battleground in the election, according to pundits at FiveThirtyEight.com, the average projection is a quite-safe 83.5% and RavenPack is showing the state as a Biden ‘slam-dunk’ with a 95% chance of winning.
Florida - which is always seen as a key battleground state - is shown as 69.5% likely to fall to Biden according to the average of all 4, and a more solid 85.2% according to the RavenPack monitor alone.
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