Declan M. Hurley

Today, I launched my electoral forecast on my main website, FDL Review . After extensive data collection and hours of calculations, I arrived the following electoral tally: 219 votes for former Vice President Joe Biden, 205 for President Donald Trump, and 114 "tossups." After assigning the tossup states to the candidates nominally leading in each of them, Biden comes out with a slight lead: 297 to 241. However, this apparent advantage obscures the fact that the 2020 race is really a 50/50 contest. Seven months ago, it looked like Trump would win in a landslide. Two months ago, it looked like he would lose  in a landslide. Now, the outcome is far less obvious and the momentum is with Trump. Nate Silver's model —which is admittedly much more advanced than FDL Review's—gives Trump a 30% chance of victory, up from 21% on June 29th. Silver said that the forecast would shift away from Trump over time because of the corresponding decline in uncertainty, unless Trump improve...

YouGov, CBS News's pollster of choice, released a poll showing that former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by 10 points: 52% to 42%. Their sample consisted of 957 registered voters with a margin of error of plus/minus 3.6 points. According to YouGov, Trump leads Biden by 10 points (47% to 37%) among independents and by 88 points (93% to 5%) among Republicans. So, why is he behind by 10 points overall? The sample—i.e., the group of people that YouGov polled—was roughly 41% Democratic, 30% Republican, and 27% independent. Compare YouGov's sample to the actual breakdown of the electorate: 41% independent, 31% Democratic, and 26% Republican. YouGov's numbers, when adjusted to fit reality, indicate a much tighter race: 45.9% Biden to 44.4% Trump (my math is below). President Donald Trump The massive over-representation of Democrats in YouGov's sample is a textbook example of why conservatives and impartial observers reflexively discount public-opinion...

Four years ago, then-Republican nominee Donald Trump trailed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton by 5.3 points in the battleground states and by 4.3 points in the national popular vote . Now, President Trump is behind by 7.6 in the popular vote but only by 4.2 in the battlegrounds. The candidates ( Milwaukee Magazine ) In other words, the difference between national performance and battleground-state performance grew from negative one point to positive  3.4 points over the course of four years. Considering that Trump is trailing in the national popular vote, this is good news for his campaign. If these numbers hold, Trump could prevail in the Electoral College even if he loses the popular vote by five points or more. Count Trump out at your own peril.

If public-opinion surveys are any indication, President Donald Trump is headed for a defeat on November 3rd. The RealClearPolitics no-tossup map , which is based strictly on state polls, predicts that former Vice President Joe Biden will win 337 electoral votes to 201 for Trump. Of the main swing states, only one—North Carolina—is in the Republican column. The question remains: Do these numbers actually mean anything? Obviously, polls do not vote; people do. However, polls have a certain degree of predictive power and they are useful for examining trends. In this election cycle, polls should be considered but balanced by considerations of enthusiasm, the time element, dissenting views, and the silent Trump voter theory. Integrating these caveats paints a picture of a 50/50 race instead of the lopsided one predicted by RCP and other prognosticators. Enthusiasm: Trump voters are far more enthusiastic than Biden voters, as measured by two metrics: (1) declared enthusiasm levels and (2) v...

With all of the talk about the contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, it is almost as if the United States Senate does not exist. In reality, the party that wins the Senate majority in 2020 will have the upper hand in Washington, D.C.—regardless of the victor in the presidential race. If Trump wins reelection but the Republicans lose the Senate, he will find it difficult to confirm Cabinet secretaries, let alone federal judges. And, if Joe Biden wins the presidency but the Republicans keep the Senate, executive orders will be his only means for effecting an agenda. The current betting odds suggest that each party will end up with 50 seats in the Senate. Because the vice president is technically the 101st senator (he casts tie-breaking votes), bettors are predicting that Senate control will come down to who wins the presidency. The RealClearPolitics no-tossup map , however, predicts that the Democrats will win an outright majority: 51 seats to 49 fo...