No internal link - The election is too far to call – The polls can go either way

It’s 120 days until Election Day, and our model thinks the presidential election could go either way. Right now, President Joe Biden is favored to win in 512 out of 1,000 of our model’s simulations of how the election could go, while former President Donald Trump wins in 484 of our simulations. There is still a small chance of the pure chaos scenario: In 4 simulations, no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives.

It might not seem like it based on the panicked reaction to Biden’s poor debate performance nearly two weeks ago, but the election is still a considerable ways away. This means there is a lot of uncertainty about where the polls will end up on Nov. 5. In turn, the 538 election model puts a healthy amount of weight on non-polling factors such as economic growth and political indicators. Today these indicators suggest an outcome closer to a 3-point Biden win — clear in the opposite direction of national polls.

538’s focus on uncertainty partially explains why our election forecast has not moved much in reaction to new national polls showing Trump gaining on Biden. In effect, we are hedging our bets, putting more weight on the so-called “fundamentals” because we believe the campaign could be volatile or polls could be biased. The other big factor explaining our model’s relative stability is the flurry of swing-state polls that were published over the weekend, most good for Biden. The average swing-state poll published since July 6 has Trump leading Biden by 1 point, compared to his 2.2-point lead in national polls today.

There is a 13-in-100 chance that Biden wins the national popular vote by 10+ percentage points 538’s forecast is based on a combination of polls and campaign “fundamentals,” such as economic conditions, state partisanship and incumbency. It’s not meant to “call” a winner, but rather to give you a sense of how likely each candidate is to win. Check out our methodology to learn exactly how we calculate these probabilities.