Showing posts with label Utah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Utah. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 30, 2023

The 14th amendment and presidential primary ballot eligibility

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

First, over at FHQ Plus...
  • Add Missouri Democrats to the 2024 presidential primary calendar. Democrats in the Show-Me state finally released a draft delegate selection plan with proposed details of their process for 2024. That and delegate allocation will look different for Massachusetts and Montana Republicans than it has in past cycles. All the details at FHQ Plus.
If you haven't checked out FHQ Plus yet, then what are you waiting for? Subscribe below for free and consider a paid subscription to support FHQ's work and unlock the full site.


In Invisible Primary: Visible today...
...
Discussion about former President Donald Trump and his eligibility under the 14th amendment given the events of January 6, 2021, have been en vogue during August, set off first by a pair of conservative scholars associated with the Federalist Society and then reignited in recent days by Michael Luttig and Lawrence Tribe, writing at The Atlantic. FHQ has kept most of it at arm's length, choosing to focus instead on the evolving state-level delegate allocation rules on the Republican side. Mainly that is a function of the whole thing being compartmentalized in my head as a general election question.  

But then came questions about and lawsuits pertaining to Trump's eligibility for presidential primary ballots. There have been questions raised in first-in-the-nation New Hampshire and in Arizona and lawsuits filed or threatened in the Granite state and Michigan as well. But in FHQ's eye, those actions face a much steeper climb to success in the courts. And that is not to suggest that the case for Trump's eligibility on the general election ballots across the country are a slam dunk. [David Frum is probably right.] But those general election access challenges would be a cleaner proposition than the comparative legal thicket challengers would wade into with respect to primary ballot eligibility. That is probably why Baude and Paulsen, the conservative scholars who started all of this, did not dwell on the primaries but in a handful of passing references in 120 plus pages. 

The primary side of the equation is messy (or messier) for a few reasons. First of all, a primary is an election for a nomination and not an office. Does the 14th amendment address eligibility for nominations? Yes, a primary is a step toward an office, but it does not solely hand someone said office if a candidate wins it. Furthermore, presidential primaries are different than primaries for other offices. The winner of a presidential primary will not necessarily appear on the general election ballot. Ted Cruz, for example, won the 2016 Texas Republican presidential primary but was not on the ballot on the presidential line in the Lone Star state in the November general election. When Cruz won his Senate primary in 2018, he was on the general election ballot.

And then there is the whole issue of primaries -- well, nominations -- being the business of political parties, entities that have certain free association rights under the first amendment. Sure, that veers into questions of political parties opting into state-run (and subsidized) primary elections, a complication that arises in other contexts. The linkage to a state sponsored election may serve to weaken the argument against primary eligibility. 

All of this merely scratches the surface. There are probably other complexities in addition to those above, but each and every one of those would be added to list above and on top of the ones that will be raised in any challenge to Trump's eligibility to appear on the general election ballot should it come to that. The primary questions are just messier, but that does not mean that someone more litigious than I will not wander down that path. In fact, they already have. But they have quite the legal minefield to get through.


...
A new survey of the Republican presidential nomination race in Utah from Deseret News offers an interesting hypothetical in terms of delegate allocation in the Beehive state next year. First, the results from the poll:

So Trump is ahead but by a narrower margin than in some other states. How would the delegate allocation look in this situation? 

Before FHQ answers that, I should note that the Utah Republican Party adopted rules in June 2023 that carried over the allocation rules from 2020. Yes, the party will use a caucus system rather than the state-run primary option in 2024, but the basic allocation scheme is the same. No one has a majority in this poll, and thus no candidate trips the winner-take-all trigger. Two candidates -- Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis -- hit the 15 percent qualifying threshold called for in the Utah rules and would be entitled to a proportional share of the 40 delegates at stake in Utah. 

But there is a catch. Under Utah Republican Party rules, if three or more candidates clear the 15 percent hurdle statewide, then they are entitled a proportional share of the delegates based on the qualified vote, the combined vote of just those over 15 percent. If, however, two or fewer candidates win 15 percent statewide in the caucuses on Super Tuesday, then the threshold is dropped altogether. All of the candidates who could mathematically round up to a full delegate would claim a share. That would take delegates away from Trump and DeSantis under the results above (assuming there was a universal 15 percent qualifying threshold that applied in all cases except when one candidate wins a majority). 

Yes, there are still 13 percent who are undecided in this survey and Super Tuesday is a long way off. But this is one of those rules quirks that bears watching. [Yeah, there are a lot of them in the Republican process.]


...
From around the invisible primary...


--
See more on our political/electoral consulting venture at FHQ Strategies. 

Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Invisible Primary: Visible -- Think, for just a sec, about those early presidential primary polls

Thoughts on the invisible primary and links to the goings on of the moment as 2024 approaches...

FHQ has not weighed in on the polling that continues to be conducted on the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race. Honestly, it takes me three and a half years to get over crunching poll numbers for electoral college projections to want to dig into polling in any in-depth way anyway. But also, it is too early to divine much of anything from the polling that has been coming out in recent days. 

However, polling on that race is coming out frequently and regularly enough. Natalie Jackson offers some sage advice on those surveys over at National Journal:
I know better than to hope for widespread sanity in reporting on the horse race, but I’m still going to put out the plea. Please think critically about the numbers and arguments presented, whether you’re a reporter being fed numbers by a partisan pollster that is shopping them around or you’re a reader consuming what that reporter wrote up. There’s a reason some media outlets won’t report on private partisan polls: They’re usually being distributed for a specific purpose to drive a narrative that benefits their candidate. It’s manipulative, not informative.
It is not quite "ignore those polls!" in the Bernsteinian sense, but instead it is "wait a tick and think some about those polls before incorporating them in any way into one's thinking about the 2024 Republican race." Too true. If you have not already started, always read Natalie.

And as an aside, she is absolutely right about any two-way polls (something FHQ obliquely hinted at in the staff primary section of Monday's Invisible Primary: Visible). Those should not get anything other than a collective eyeroll from everyone. There is no two-way race!


...
Ron DeSantis (R-FL) is headed to the Super Tuesday state of Utah next month to keynote the Republican state convention in the Beehive state. And it appears that there is already evidence of some structural support for a DeSantis bid in the state. No, it is not necessarily coming from the state party -- although the keynote in front of the convention does not say nothing -- but instead, the interest is coming from the county party level. Taking a page out of Seth Masket's book, the Deseret News spoke with county Republican chairs in 22 of the 29 counties in Utah. Two-thirds of the chairs contacted indicated they were willing to support DeSantis while just fewer than half named Trump.

The former president struggled in Utah during the 2016 primaries when the state party conducted caucuses, losing bigly to Ted Cruz. But the state has subsequently switched to a primary and the signal of institutional support for DeSantis may or may not translate as easily -- even from the county level -- in that setting as opposed to caucuses. Utah is a sleeper contest to watch on Super Tuesday (...depending, of course, on how the early contests go, not to mention the remainder of the invisible primary).


...
The effort to establish a presidential primary in Kansas is a Republican-driven one, but it looks like the Democratic Party in the Sunflower state is supportive of the change (even if it is only for the 2024 cycle):
"The Kansas Democratic Party has expressed tentative support for a state-run primary. Newly-elected chair Jeanna Repass said it’s extremely expensive for the party to essentially conduct its own statewide election. She said if the party holds a caucus using a mail-in ballot, the printing and postage would cost upwards of $800,000. 
“'Initially, we view this favorably because of the undue financial burden this puts on the individual state parties to run a presidential primary,' Repass said."
And it is not just about the cost savings to the state party. The national party has had rules in place the last two cycles that have nudged state Democratic parties to use state-run primary options where available to increase participation in the nomination process. Already in 2023, state parties in Alaska and North Dakota -- traditional caucus states with no state-run primary option -- have signaled that they will once again opt for party-run primaries rather than lower turnout caucuses for 2024. Kansas Democrats did the same in 2020. So it was an open question when the presidential primary bill was introduced whether Sunflower state Democrats would jump at the state-run option. 

That question appears to have been answered. 


...
On this date...
...in 1988, Vice President George H.W. Bush ran away with the Connecticut primary, and on the Democratic side, Michael Dukakis took the primary in the Nutmeg state. Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-MO) withdrew from the Democratic nomination race after having previously won three contests including the Iowa caucuses.

...in 2016, Governor Scott Walker (R) endorsed Ted Cruz for the Republican presidential nomination, part of a late establishment push against a possible Donald Trump nomination.



Sunday, November 1, 2020

The Electoral College Map (11/1/20)

Update for November 1.


Well, if Saturday was a break from what have often been quiet weekends on the polling front in the 2020 presidential race, then Sunday was a decibel-filled cacophony. There were new data from 57 polls in 16 states -- plus surveys that covered both congressional districts in Maine and the second in Nebraska -- and it was all concentrated in the 13 states from New Mexico on the left to Texas on the right in the heart of the Electoral College Spectrum order. 

What was unique about this batch of new surveys was that a raft of them came from right-leaning pollsters. And across the states that count -- those six core battlegrounds of Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- the margins all decreased, benefiting President Trump. However, there are two sizable caveats to that. First, despite the decreases, the map and projection remained unchanged after the introduction of those polls. That means that none of those battlegrounds changed categories. But second, in drilling down just a smidgen, there was either no movement or movement toward Biden since the last polls in the majority of surveys in those series. 

They may have -- and may yet on Monday -- flood the zone with new polls, but those data from right-leaning pollsters are unlikely to change anything around here before tomorrow. Even Georgia, which has lately been precariously perched on either side of the partisan line has shifted enough into the Biden column at this point, that it, too, is likely locked in there. Again, this has been a steady race, and while these polls may have brought down the average margins some in states where Biden has been ahead throughout, in the end it is but a small sliver of a change.

On to the polls...


Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona
(Trump 50, Biden 48 via AtlasIntel | Biden 48, Trump 46 via Emerson | Biden 49, Trump 43 via Siena/NYT Upshot | Biden 50, Trump 46 via CNN | Biden 50, Trump 47 via Y2 Analytics)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +2.89] 
No previous AtlasIntel poll
Emerson: Biden 53, Trump 47 in August poll
Siena: Biden 49, Trump 41 in early October poll
CNN: Biden 49, Trump 45 in July poll
No previous Y2 Analytics poll

FHQ will start each of these polling vignettes today with the current FHQ average in each state. In Arizona, Biden's (rounded) advantage is 48-45. Of the day's polls in the Grand Canyon state, Emerson, CNN and Y2 Analytics most fall in line with that long established state of affairs in Arizona. It is and has been close, but it has also, more often than not been tipped in the former vice president's direction in individual polls. There is some narrowing across a few of these from their last iterations, but it is not to the level of tightening that the president is going to need to pull out wins in some of these states below. 


Colorado
(Biden 53, Trump 41 via Keating Research)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +12.82] 
Keating: Biden 54, Trump 39 in mid-October poll

Currently, the averages in this former perennial battleground has Biden out to a 53-40 (rounded) lead. Colorado simply has not been close in 2020 and is not still in an update that falls right on the candidates' averages here.


Florida
(Trump 47, Biden 46 via Susquehanna | Biden 48, Trump 47 via Pulse Opinion Research | Biden 47, Trump 44 via Siena/NYT Upshot | Biden 49, Trump 48 via St. Pete Polls | Biden 52, Trump 46 via Emerson | Biden 51, Trump 47 via RMG Research | Trump 50, Biden 48 via ABC/WaPo | Biden 49, Trump 47 via YouGov/CCES)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +2.88] 
Susquehanna: Trump 49, Biden 44 in poll last week
Pulse Opinion Research: Trump 50, Biden 46 in mid-October poll
Siena: Biden 47, Trump 42 in early October poll
St. Pete Polls: Biden 49, Trump 47 in mid-October poll
Emerson: Biden 51, Trump 48 in mid-October poll
RMG Research: Biden 50, Trump 48 in mid-October poll
ABC/WaPo: Trump 51, Biden 47 in September poll
No previous YouGov/CCES poll

In the Sunshine state, Trump lags Biden by a 49-46 (rounded) margin, and most of the eight new polls out of Florida today fit right in that general range. There are some exceptions like Susquehanna, but it remains a steady picture in this case. Like Arizona, it has been close in Florida almost all along. There was a brief five day period in late July when the Sunshine state drifted over into Lean Biden territory, but that moment was fleeting. Yet, the fact remains that as close as Florida has been, it has been consistently tipped toward the former vice president throughout much of 2020. The addition of these polls does not alter that. Even the polls that had Trump ahead -- Susquehanna, RMG and WaPo -- all either saw no shift since the last polls in the series or tightening that benefited Biden. And surveys that moved toward Trump tended to bring them in line with the prevailing average in the state at FHQ.


Georgia
(Trump 48, Biden 46 via Insider Advantage | Biden 49, Trump 49 via Emerson | Biden 48, Trump 47 via YouGov/CCES)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +0.36] 
No previous Insider Advantage poll
Emerson: Trump 48, Biden 47 in mid-October poll
No previous YouGov/CCES poll

In the Peach state, once the average shares of both candidates are rounded, the count comes to a 47-47 tie. And again, the new surveys are largely in line with that. Only the Emerson poll offered a comparison to an earlier poll, and even there, the change was minimal. Georgia is close, the closest state on the board at the moment. 


Iowa
(Trump 49, Biden 48 via Civiqs | Trump 49, Biden 47 via Emerson | Trump 48, Biden 46 via Insider Advantage | Trump 48, Biden 41 via Selzer)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +0.89] 
Civiqs: Biden 48, Trump 47 in early October poll
Emerson: Trump 48, Biden 48 in mid-October poll
Insider Advantage: Trump 45, Biden 45 in mid-October poll
Selzer: Trump 49, Biden 47 in September poll

Speaking of the closest states on the board, Iowa also fits that bill with Trump maintaining a narrow 47-46 (rounded) edge in the FHQ averages. Again, as in Georgia above, most of the new polls today are consistent with that established average. However, the one that stands out is the one that is often called he gold standard of polling in the Hawkeye state. And in that Selzer poll, the president stayed in the upper 40s like the last survey in September but Biden trailed off, dropping in to the low 40s. What is different from that last poll to the latest update is that five percent of the respondents refused to say who they were supporting in the new one. That was a segment of the electorate that was not accounted for in the previous poll. The crosstabs on that subsample of around 40 respondents in that poll would have been interesting to look at; not necessarily representative, but interesting. 


Maine
(Biden 54, Trump 43 via Emerson
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +13.40] 

Maine CD1
(Biden 58, Trump 39 via Emerson
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +22.92] 

Maine CD2
(Biden 50, Trump 47 via Emerson
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.88] 
No previous Emerson poll

FHQ will keep the focus in Maine on the second congressional district where the competition is. There has been no previous Emerson poll of the Pine Tree state, so there is no natural comparison, but Biden's lead in the averages there has stabilized around 47-45 (rounded). That is behind this poll of the district, yet not exactly inconsistent with it. Although there have been just 14 surveys in the field in ME CD2, 11 of them have favored the former vice president. Like the rest of those other toss ups close to the partisan line on the Biden side, the second is and has been close throughout, but consistently tilted toward the Democratic nominee. 


Michigan
(Biden 53, Trump 45 via Ipsos | Biden 49, Trump 47 via Insider Advantage | Biden 52, Trump 46 via Emerson | Biden 53, Trump 41 via CNN | Biden 52, Trump 45 via Mitchell Research | Biden 48, Trump 41 via EPIC-MRA)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +7.31] 
Ipsos: Biden 53, Trump 43 in poll last week
No previous Insider Advantage poll
Emerson: Biden 54, Trump 43 in early October poll
CNN: Biden 52, Trump 40 in July poll
Mitchell: Biden 52, Trump 42 in poll last week
EPIC-MRA: Biden 48, Trump 39 in mid-October poll
 
Here is the deal in the Great Lakes state: Biden is already averaging over a 50 percent share of support there. Despite the fact that each of these polls today -- those with a predecessor in the series anyway -- show some narrowing, it is almost all on the Trump side of the equation. The former vice president is still stable and at or over the majority mark in each of these updates. The president may or may not close the gap some on election day, but if Biden is over 50 percent, it will not matter. 


Minnesota
(Biden 54, Trump 39 via St. Cloud State
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +8.52] 
No previous St. Cloud State poll

This St. Cloud State survey of the North Star state may be on the high side of the range for Biden and low side for Trump, but it remains in line with the 51-42 (rounded) average the race is currently at under the FHQ methodology. And as was said in Saturday's update, other than the Survey USA series, the majority of pollsters have generally found a race with Biden over 50 percent and Trump stuck in the low 40s, the latter of which is in the range of the president's overall job approval numbers nationally. 


Nebraska CD2
(Biden 50, Trump 48 via Emerson)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +6.69] 
No previous Emerson poll

The difference between this latest poll and the FHQ averages for NE CD2 are fairly stark. As of now, Biden holds a 51-44 (rounded) lead that looks a lot like the early polls out of the district over the summer. But that discrepancy likely has more to do with the general lack of polling activity in the Omaha area this year. The big polling issue on the state level in 2016 was that there were not a lot of polls in the field in the days before the election. Now, the swing is much less likely to be as large this time around -- there are fewer undecideds after all -- but the same sort of thing could be happening Nebraska's second as election day nears and partisans/partisan leaners come home. Regardless, Biden has been at or over 50 percent in all but one of the (yes, just) six public polls conducted in the district in 2020.


Nevada
(Biden 49, Trump 47 via Emerson)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +4.34] 
No previous Emerson poll
 
Nevada is another jurisdiction where polling has been lacking all year, but where Biden has trailed only once. This Emerson poll hits the vice president's average FHQ share but has Trump running about three points ahead of his average share of support. That tighter margin may be partisans coming home to the president, Biden struggling with Latinos in the state and/or signs of the vaunted Harry Reid turnout machine faltering in the midst of a global pandemic. But the Silver state is another state where it is striking how close the Democratic nominee is to 50 percent. He is not there in this case, but Biden is approaching it in a way that neither Clinton nor Trump did four years ago. 


New Mexico
(Biden 54, Trump 42 via Research & Polling Inc.)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +10.64] 
Research & Polling: Biden 54, Trump 39 in September poll

In the Land of Enchantment, the FHQ averages have the race for the state's five electoral votes at 53-42 (rounded) in favor of the former vice president. This poll is evidence of the race coming in line with that more than it is about Trump gaining ground. This may have been a flip opportunity -- or a state that was eyed as one by the president's campaign operation -- but that has not panned out in any of the New Mexico polling in 2020.  


North Carolina
(Trump 50, Biden 48 via AtlasIntel | Trump 48, Biden 44 via Insider Advantage | Biden 47, Trump 47 via Emerson | Biden 51, Trump 45 via CNN | Trump 49, Biden 47 via Trafalgar Group | Biden 49, Trump 45 via YouGov/CCES)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.77] 
No previous AtlasIntel poll
No previous Insider Advantage poll
Emerson: Biden 49, Trump 49 in mid-October poll
CNN: Biden 49, Trump 46 in September poll
Trafalgar: Trump 49, Biden 46 in poll last week
No previous YouGov/CCES poll

Only half of the polls out today in North Carolina had a previous survey to which to compare, and two of those had Trump uncharacteristically ahead in a state where Biden has carried a narrow but consistent lead in the FHQ averages for much of the year. Currently, Biden is up 48-46 (rounded) and most of the surveys today are consistent with that. Some, like the CNN poll have Biden running toward the top end of this range while others like AtlasIntel have the president outperforming his average. The margin may have inched down a tick, but it remains tipped in Biden's direction in the Tar Heel state. 


Ohio
(Trump 49, Biden 48 via Civiqs | Biden 50, Trump 49 via Emerson)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +0.95] 
Civiqs: Trump 50, Biden 47 in mid-October poll
Emerson: Trump 51, Biden 49 in May poll

One could make a mountain out of a molehill and suggest that the gap narrowed in both Buckeye state polls released today, but the truth is that both maintain an established status quo Trump lead in Ohio. With election day in sight, the president's 47-46 (rounded) advantage in the FHQ averages of Ohio are reflected in both surveys. But the key is less about who leads than how much Ohio has swung toward the Democrats since 2016. The shift there is in line with the seven point average swing across the whole country in 2020 polls. That Ohio is close at all is the story here. Whether Biden can flip it or Trump narrowly defend it is mostly immaterial to the quest for 270 electoral votes (especially in the winning Biden scenarios). 


Pennsylvania
(Biden 52, Trump 46 via Ipsos | Trump 49, Biden 47 via Insider Advantage | Biden 49, Trump 43 via Siena/NYT Upshot | Biden 52, Trump 47 via Emerson | Trump 50, Biden 49 via AtlasIntel | Biden 51, Trump 44 via ABC/WaPo | Biden 52, Trump 44 via YouGov/CCES)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +5.28] 
Ipsos: Biden 51, Trump 44 in poll last week
Insider Advantage: Trump 48, Biden 46 in poll last week
Siena: Biden 49, Trump 42 in early October poll
Emerson: Biden 51, Trump 47 in early October poll
No previous AtlasIntel poll
ABC/WaPo: Biden 54, Trump 45 in September poll
No previous YouGov/CCES poll

There is a prevailing take home that has emerged in the most frequently surveyed state in the 2020 presidential race. The first point on the checklist is always to ask whether Biden is around 50 percent and if Trump is in the mid-40s. This batch of polls checks that box for the most part. Those that do not, like the Emerson survey show no real movement poll-to-poll from the last update, have Biden over the majority mark (ABC/WaPo) or have the president ahead in a state where polls have shown that less than a tenth of the time. But that 50-44 (rounded) edge the former vice president has had has been among the most consistent realities of this race for months. That consistency has kept the Keystone state firmly lodged in the tipping point position well inside Biden's coalition of states.


Texas
(Trump 50, Biden 49 via Emerson | Trump 50, Biden 45 via Gravis Marketing | Trump 49, Biden 47 via YouGov/CCES)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +1.45] 
Emerson: Trump 52, Biden 48 in May poll
Gravis: Trump 46, Biden 44 in July poll
No previous YouGov/CCES poll

Like Iowa and Ohio, Texas has been a state that has swung toward the Democrats since 2016, but shifted in a manner that is in line with the average change across the country. That has made the Lone Star state look much more competitive in 2020, but it continues to be basically the North Carolina of the Trump side of the partisan line. The president has led throughout, but has maintained a narrow -- and at this point 48-46 (rounded) -- edge in the FHQ averages. The newly added surveys do little to disrupt that general outlook in Texas. 


Utah
(Trump 51, Biden 44 via Y2 Analytics)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +13.44] 
Y2 Analytics: Trump 50, Biden 40 in early October poll

Look, this is among the rosiest polls a Democrat will likely ever get in the Beehive state. But then, the Y2 Analytics series of polls this year in Utah, has been that way for Joe Biden. But the fact remains that no Democrat has cleared 40 percent in Utah since Johnson carried the state in 1964. Obama came closest in 2008 with 35 percent there, but this series polls stands out in a state where the FHQ average has settled in at 52-39 (rounded) with Trump out in front.


Wisconsin
(Biden 51, Trump 47 via Civiqs | Biden 53, Trump 45 via Ipsos | Biden 51, Trump 49 via AtlasIntel | Biden 53, Trump 45 via Emerson | Biden 49, Trump 46 via Susquehanna | Biden 52, Trump 41 via Siena/NYT Upshot | Trump 52, Biden 44 via CNN)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +6.39] 
Civiqs: Biden 53, Trump 45 in mid-October poll
Ipsos: Biden 53, Trump 44 in poll last week
No previous AtlasIntel poll
Emerson: Biden 52, Trump 45 in September poll
Susquehanna: Biden 46, Trump 45 in mid-October poll
Siena: Trump 51, Biden 41 in mid-October poll
CNN: Biden 52, Trump 42 in September poll

There just is not that much different from one poll to the latest in this group of new surveys out of the Badger state. And two of the three polls that find a greater than one point change increase the former vice president's advantage there. But the bigger thing in Wisconsin is that Biden's average FHQ share has now, as in Michigan, surpassed the 50 percent threshold, a point he passes in six of the seven new polls today. Trump does not need Wisconsin, but with Biden north of 50 percent at FHQ in both Michigan and Wisconsin now, the president's margin for error is quite low. Without those two, Trump absolutely has to run the table through the Biden toss ups and claim the one remaining blue wall state he flipped (and where Biden is barely below 50 percent at FHQ), Pennsylvania. 



NOTE: 


The Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3
VT-3
(6)2
NJ-14
(156)
NE CD2-1
WI-10
(253)
AK-3
(125)
TN-11
(60)
MA-11
(17)
OR-7
(163)
PA-203
(273 | 285)
MO-10
(122)
KY-8
(49)
MD-10
(27)
IL-20
(183)
NV-6
(279 | 265)
SC -9
(112)
SD-3
(41)
HI-4
(31)
ME-2
(185)
AZ-11
(290 | 259)
MT-3
NE CD1-1
(103)
AL-9
(38)
NY-29
(60)
CO-9
(194)
FL-29
(319 | 248)
KS-6
(99)
ID-4
(29)
CA-55
(115)
VA-13
(207)
ME CD2-1
NC-15
(335 | 219)
IN-11
(93)
AR-6
(25)
DE-3
(118)
NH-4
(211)
GA-16
(351 | 203)
NE-2
(82)
OK-7
(19)
WA-12
(130)
NM-5
(216)
IA-6
(187)
UT-6
(80)
ND-3
(12)
CT-7
ME CD1-1
(138)
MN-10
(226)
OH-18
(181)
MS-6
(74)
WV-5
(9)
RI-4
(142)
MI-16
(242)
TX-38
(163)
LA-8
(68)
WY-3
NE CD3-1
(4)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Pennsylvania (Biden's toss up states plus the Pennsylvania), he would have 285 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Biden's number is on the left and Trump's is on the right in bold italics.

3 Pennsylvania
 is the state where Biden crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election, the tipping point state. The tipping point cell is shaded in yellow to denote that and the font color is adjusted to attempt to reflect the category in which the state is.

57 new polls from 16 states and another poll out of the second district in Nebraska led to the following changes:
  • Nebraska CD2 moves into the middle column at the very top, a once cell shift toward the partisan line.
  • Arizona and Florida traded spots on the Electoral College Spectrum with the Sunshine state moving closer the partisan line. 
  • Speaking of the partisan line, Maine CD2 moved away from it and to the other side of North Carolina in the order. 
  • Wisconsin saw Joe Biden's share of support push across the 50 percent barrier there. 

2 days to go.


Where things stood at FHQ two days before election day (or close to it) in...
2016
2012
2008


--
NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Biden and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State
Potential Switch
Georgia
from Toss Up Biden
to Toss Up Trump
Iowa
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Kansas
from Lean Trump
to Strong Trump
Nevada
from Toss Up Biden
to Lean Biden
New Hampshire
from Strong Biden
to Lean Biden
New Mexico
from Strong Biden
to Lean Biden
Ohio
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania
from Lean Biden
to Toss Up Biden
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

--
Methodological Note: In past years, FHQ has tried some different ways of dealing with states with no polls or just one poll in the early rounds of these projections. It does help that the least polled states are often the least competitive. The only shortcoming is that those states may be a little off in the order in the Spectrum. In earlier cycles, a simple average of the state's three previous cycles has been used. But in 2016, FHQ strayed from that and constructed an average swing from 2012 to 2016 that was applied to states. That method, however, did little to prevent anomalies like the Kansas poll that had Clinton ahead from biasing the averages. In 2016, the early average swing in the aggregate was  too small to make much difference anyway. For 2020, FHQ has utilized an average swing among states that were around a little polled state in the rank ordering on election day in 2016. If there is just one poll in Delaware in 2020, for example, then maybe it is reasonable to account for what the comparatively greater amount of polling tells us about the changes in Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico. Or perhaps the polling in Iowa, Mississippi and South Carolina so far tells us a bit about what may be happening in Alaska where no public polling has been released. That will hopefully work a bit better than the overall average that may end up a bit more muted.


--
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Friday, October 23, 2020

The Electoral College Map (10/23/20)

Update for October 23.


The work week ends with debate season now in the rearview mirror and just 11 days until the voting phase of the 2020 presidential election concludes. And while Friday saw a slowing down of the pace of polling releases witnessed over the last three days, it was still a fairly busy day with 13 new surveys from 10 states representing all but the Strong Biden category. Despite the new data, the race ends the work week where it began with Georgia on the Biden side of the partisan line and a sizable projected advantage in the electoral vote tally.

On to the polls... 


Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona
(Biden 46, Trump 46)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +2.97]
Susquehanna has fielded some of the most Trump-friendly polls in recent weeks and that was true of the firm's Arizona survey released today. Favorable (relative to other polling) to one candidate or not, this poll had both the president and Joe Biden losing support compared to the last Susquehanna poll there in September. But both polls have the race tied, so there was no net change in the race across those two surveys. And this latest one finds Trump in the core of his recent range of results in the Grand Canyon state while Biden lags toward the bottom end of his. 


Florida
(Biden 49, Trump 47 via St. Pete Polls | Trump 50, Biden 46 via Pulse Opinion Research)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +3.27]
It was a choose one's own narrative in a pair of Florida polls released today. Like the Susquehanna poll of Arizona, the St. Pete Polls survey showed the same two point margin as the pollster's survey a week and a half ago and was, in fact, unchanged in that time. Yet, the steady picture painted by that poll was not the same one as in the Pulse Opinion Research survey. It was the firm's first poll of the Sunshine state in 2020 and stands out from other recent polls there. Trump has never led a Florida survey this year by more than four points and has only hit or surpassed 50 percent in six of the 98 polls that have been conducted in Florida in calendar 2020. That obviously puts Trump at the ver top of his range in all of Florida polling as Biden ended up far closer to the low end of his. Of the two polls, the St. Pete poll is more consistent with the current FHQ averages which project a 49-45 (rounded) Biden edge. 


Iowa
(Trump 47, Biden 47)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +0.70]
An unusually busy polling week in Iowa ends with an update to the July RMG Research poll. While that summer survey had the president up one, it also found both candidates around 40 percent. However, both are consistent (in terms of their margins) with where the race for the Hawkeye state's six electoral votes currently is. Of the ten October polls, four have had the race tied and six of those ten have found Iowa within a point (or less). But Biden had the advantage in three of the remaining four polls that had a margin greater than one. That is why Iowa has moved in Biden's direction. 


Michigan
(Biden 48, Trump 39 via EPIC-MRA | Trump 49, Biden 45 via Zia Poll)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +7.00]
Back over in Michigan, the new Zia Poll matches Trump's largest lead in the Great Lakes state, matching a July Spry Strategies poll. But recall the Michigan discussion from yesterday with respect to the Trafalgar surveys there. This is just Trump's eighth lead in 114 polls conducted in Michigan in 2020. Compared to all the other polls, this one is an outlier. And like that St. Pete poll of Florida above the EPIC-MRA poll mirrors the one the firm put out last week. EPIC remains closer on the Biden number, but below where both candidates are in the FHQ averages (Biden 50-43 currently). 


Montana
(Trump 49, Biden 43)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +8.40]
For the second consecutive day, there is a new poll out Montana. Yes, the Treasure state arguably remains comfortably red, but the update to the Siena/NYT Upshot series, like the Strategies 360 poll a day ago, has the gap between the two major party candidates below ten percent. What's more, Siena for the second straight poll has found Trump under 50 percent, but doesn't really mark much of a change since September. Biden did bump up a point to come more in line with his FHQ average share of support there. Comfortably red or not, Montana has had an above average shift from the 20 point margin the president enjoyed there in 2016.


North Carolina
(Biden 48, Trump 44 via Meredith College | Biden 48, Trump 44 via Data for Progress)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.84]
The two polls of the Tar Heel state show exactly the same thing, but took different routes in getting to a 48-44 Biden advantage. The Meredith poll made the transition from a register to likely voter sample and ostensibly helped the former vice president in the process. Biden rose a couple of points and the president dropped one. But while the margin expanded in the Meredith series it contracted in the Data for Progress series of polls in North Carolina. Trump remained at 44 precent for the second time in October, but Biden slid back to around where he was in the firm's August poll of the state. Both candidates, it should be said, are operating in quite tight ranges in the DfP series. 


Oklahoma
(Trump 60, Biden 35) [August poll]
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +24.55]
Another day, another Sooner Poll from Oklahoma. This one is a bit outdated having been in the field there in August. But it like the other Sooner polls conducted this year has Trump hovering around 60 percent and Biden once again in the mid-30s. Its addition also does little to alter the margin in a state that is way off on the Republican end of the Spectrum below. Still, the margin in Oklahoma is much closer than it was just four years ago. That does not mean close, but there has been a shift toward the Democrats in that time. 


Pennsylvania
(Biden 51, Trump 44)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +5.40]
The trajectory of change in the Muhlenberg series of surveys of the Keystone state has gradually moved in Biden's direction over the course of the last eight plus months. A February tie was a 49-45 Biden advantage in August. And Biden rose again from the August to October polls as the president faded a little more. Overall, the shifts have brought the current Muhlenberg poll in line with FHQ average shares of support for the two major party candidates. As of now, the former vice president holds a 50-44 (rounded) lead here on a day that saw the margin in Pennsylvania tick up.


Utah
(Trump 50, Biden 38)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +14.26]
There are some interesting dynamics at play in the polling of Utah this cycle. RMG Research and Y2 Analytics have been the most active pollsters in the Beehive state this cycle, but both started out with widely divergent numbers in polling the state. In the RMG Research series, Trump has hovered around the 50 percent mark all year as Biden has risen from the low 30s to the upper 30s now. Y2, on the other hand has until its last poll had the president below 50 percent and Biden cresting to a point above 40 percent, a level Democrats have not met in the state in years. Over time, however, the two pollsters have converged with Trump at or slightly above 50 percent and Biden approaching, but falling short of 40 percent (a bit above where Obama was in the state in 2008).


West Virginia
(Trump 58, Biden 38)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +25.98]
Finally, something may be brewing in West Virginia (or it could be that one pollster's work among a general lack of polling in that state in 2020 is somewhat deceptive). But Triton Polling and Research in its second consecutive poll has found Trump under 60 percent in the Mountain state. That is actually the third poll in a row -- including both Triton surveys -- to show that. If those latest three surveys are in any way indicative of the state of the race in West Virginia, then that would translate to Trump losing around ten points from 2016 to polling now. And that would also mean Biden moving nearly 12 points beyond where Clinton end up four years ago. That would make for a massive shift. Even if the polls are understating the president's support and it is accurate on the increased Biden support, then that Democratic side of swing equation alone would be an above average overall swing compared to the (averaged) nationwide shift in 2020 polling from election day 2016. But as it stands, including earlier, albeit discounted, polls the margin is still around Trump +26.


NOTE: 


The Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3
VT-3
(6)2
IL-20
(162)
WI-10
(253)
AK-3
(125)
TN-11
(60)
MA-11
(17)
OR-7
(169)
PA-203
(273 | 285)
MO-10
(122)
KY-8
(49)
MD-10
(27)
NJ-14
(183)
NV-6
(279 | 265)
SC -9
(112)
AL-9
(41)
HI-4
(31)
ME-2
(185)
FL-29
(308 | 259)
NE CD1-1
MT-3
(103)
SD-3
(32)
NY-29
(60)
CO-9
(194)
AZ-11
(319 | 230)
KS-6
(99)
ID-4
(29)
CA-55
(115)
VA-13
(207)
NC-15
ME CD2-1
(335 | 219)
NE-2
(93)
AR-6
(25)
DE-3
(118)
NH-4
(211)
GA-16
(351 | 203)
IN-11
(91)
OK-7
(19)
WA-12
(130)
NM-5
(216)
OH-18
(187)
UT-6
(80)
ND-3
(12)
ME CD1-1
CT-7
(138)
MN-10
(226)
IA-6
(169)
MS-6
(74)
WV-5
(9)
RI-4
(142)
NE CD2-1
MI-16
(243)
TX-38
(163)
LA-8
(68)
WY-3
NE CD3-1
(4)
1 Follow the link for a detailed explanation on how to read the Electoral College Spectrum.

2 The numbers in the parentheses refer to the number of electoral votes a candidate would have if he or she won all the states ranked prior to that state. If, for example, Trump won all the states up to and including Pennsylvania (Biden's toss up states plus the Pennsylvania), he would have 285 electoral votes. Trump's numbers are only totaled through the states he would need in order to get to 270. In those cases, Biden's number is on the left and Trump's is on the right in bold italics.

3 Pennsylvania
 is the state where Biden crosses the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidential election, the tipping point state. The tipping point cell is shaded in yellow to denote that and the font color is adjusted to attempt to reflect the category in which the state is.

Today was another day in which the map and Watch List remained unchanged from a day ago. But the Electoral College Spectrum saw one small change way off on the Republican end. The new, "tight" survey in West Virginia lowered the average margin in the Mountain state enough to push it one spot toward the partisan line and past North Dakota. No, that change makes no real difference in the grand scheme of things, but it is a slight change nonetheless. 

Overall, this was a mostly good polling day for Biden. The average margins in six of the ten states with newly added polls moved in his direction. But two states in the Biden column and close to the partisan line -- Arizona and Florida -- shifted slightly away from the former vice president. But in reality, it was a mostly status quo maintaining day. 

11 days to go.


Where things stood at FHQ on October 23 (or close to it) in...
2016
2012
2008


--
NOTE: Distinctions are made between states based on how much they favor one candidate or another. States with a margin greater than 10 percent between Biden and Trump are "Strong" states. Those with a margin of 5 to 10 percent "Lean" toward one of the two (presumptive) nominees. Finally, states with a spread in the graduated weighted averages of both the candidates' shares of polling support less than 5 percent are "Toss Up" states. The darker a state is shaded in any of the figures here, the more strongly it is aligned with one of the candidates. Not all states along or near the boundaries between categories are close to pushing over into a neighboring group. Those most likely to switch -- those within a percentage point of the various lines of demarcation -- are included on the Watch List below.

The Watch List1
State
Potential Switch
Georgia
from Toss Up Biden
to Toss Up Trump
Iowa
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Nevada
from Toss Up Biden
to Lean Biden
New Hampshire
from Strong Biden
to Lean Biden
New Mexico
from Strong Biden
to Lean Biden
Ohio
from Toss Up Trump
to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania
from Lean Biden
to Toss Up Biden
1 Graduated weighted average margin within a fraction of a point of changing categories.

--
Methodological Note: In past years, FHQ has tried some different ways of dealing with states with no polls or just one poll in the early rounds of these projections. It does help that the least polled states are often the least competitive. The only shortcoming is that those states may be a little off in the order in the Spectrum. In earlier cycles, a simple average of the state's three previous cycles has been used. But in 2016, FHQ strayed from that and constructed an average swing from 2012 to 2016 that was applied to states. That method, however, did little to prevent anomalies like the Kansas poll that had Clinton ahead from biasing the averages. In 2016, the early average swing in the aggregate was  too small to make much difference anyway. For 2020, FHQ has utilized an average swing among states that were around a little polled state in the rank ordering on election day in 2016. If there is just one poll in Delaware in 2020, for example, then maybe it is reasonable to account for what the comparatively greater amount of polling tells us about the changes in Connecticut, New Jersey and New Mexico. Or perhaps the polling in Iowa, Mississippi and South Carolina so far tells us a bit about what may be happening in Alaska where no public polling has been released. That will hopefully work a bit better than the overall average that may end up a bit more muted.


--
Related posts:




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