Iowa Projection Analysis
Why is it 4 points?
For polls conducted on the same date by the same pollster, average the Likely Voters (LV) and ignore the Registered Voters (RV). See yellow highlights in the above chart.
538 Current Projection
Recent Polls
538 still has Iowa in Trump’s column, but barely.
Fearless Forecast
In my My Fearless Election Forecast and Range of Outcomes on October 13, I put Iowa, Georgia, and Ohio in Biden’s column.
I expect all three to break for Biden unless he makes a major gaffe in the next debate, catches Covid, or some other unexpected event happens.
I expected the polls to change for Biden, and Iowa just did.
Silver waits for the polls, I will take a reasonable shot when I see one.
I expected the Monmouth poll and there it is.
Confidence Level
Q: How confident am I of Iowa, Ohio, and Georgia?
A: Not very and neither is Silver.
Silver has Iowa 54-46 Trump, Georgia as 52-48 Trump, and Ohio as 50-50.
I have all three as 55-45 Biden.
Eight Reasons
- Trump keeps making gaffes. I expect him to keep making them.
- Polling momentum is in Biden’s favor,
- Early voting is in Biden’s favor.
- Trump is running out of money. Down the stretch Biden has over twice as much money as Trump.
- Covid, Covid, Covid. The attack on Fauci by Trump was just plain stupid.
- I suspect Trump made a fool of himself on 60 minutes but we will have to wait and see.
- In 2016 Trump turned the campaign into a referendum on Hillary. In 2020 Trump turned the campaign into a referendum on him.
- The Biden camp is clearly energized, not for Biden, but against Trump.
Despite the Monmouth poll, my odds did not change because I already expected such a result by a high quality pollster.
If we see further momentum in Biden’s favor, expect to see Nate Silver at something like 55-45 Biden for Iowa, Georgia, and Ohio as well.
Poll of the Day
Addendum
Siena College / The New York Times Upshot, another A+ rated pollster has Biden +3 in Iowa. The poll as Oct 18-20.
No surprise in this corner.
Mish
The swamp is draining itself.
I heard an ad on the radio for Joni Earnst. Basically it said that all the problems of the world were caused by immigrants who smuggle drugs and take jobs from Iowans. I would say Greenfield will win.
I’m surprised Biden performing well in the Northern states. I had assumed he needed Klobuchar for that reason
what is your take on the data in this article?
I admire Iowa’s political independence as they tend to vote for what they believe is best for the state. It’s rare these days.
Biden is not going to need Iowa…at least I am beginning to think that way.
Florida is the one that looks critical to me….but it might not be critical either, if we get some of those flips.
Trump’s got Florida.
With Biden only showing a two point poll lead, I’d be willing to believe Trump takes FL. Especially with the Republican Party machine to help out.
Suspecting tipping point likelihood is like this:
PA
FL
NC
Trump can lose the electoral vote while winning FL. I don’t think he can lose if he wins PA, as that likely means NC, GA, FL, IA, OH are all his. NC is fading from tipping point status in my view.
That’s kinda the way I see it. Trump has to run the table with all the tossups – OH, IA, GA, FL, NC, AZ – and then get at least another 10 from either PA, WI, or MI to win.
Interestingly, if he gets the additional 10 from WI, it’s a tie at 269 and he wins by single state votes.
Michigan looks like it will go Biden to me. The other two look less sure.
Do you think Trump has Florida for sure?
My deciding state list is FL, NC, MI, WI, AZ.
Biden will take PA. Look at the early vote #s. https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/PA.html
Trump will take OH and IA. He pulled his ads in both states today. No way he could pull out of OH unless his internal polls showed a comfortable lead there. No Republican can win without taking OH.
I’m not questioning whehter Biden doesn’t win Iowa but I am questioning the validity of using a likely voter poll. Voting is up far above 2016 and I think we may find that looking at registered voters may be more telling. We seem to be breaking all sorts of records with regard to voter participation.
13 days till November 3rd. These are not insurmountable deficits but considering the short time left and the lack of cash not an easy task either. Donald seems unfocused today. He’s been busy tweeting photos of Leslie stahl for the past hour, still fuming over a 60 minutes interview that went in a direction he didn’t like
No self-awareness at all with Trump.
Repeat rallies in Iowa at a time when over 20% of CV test come back positive in Iowa.
Record rates, hospitalizations, and deaths.
Ignore it all.
Ignore the derecho effects and complain instead about the Iowa media not reporting on his efforts on a Nobel award.