The Electoral College Map (9/18/20)

Update for September 18.

Changes (September 18)
State	Before	After
Nebraska CD2	Toss Up Biden	Lean Biden

At the end of the work week there was a flurry of polling activity out of the Rust Belt and Sun Belt targets which not only have seen the most campaign and media attention in 2020, but have also been surveyed the most frequently. There are the usual six -- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin -- but add to that more data out of Maine (especially the competitive CD2 in the Pine Tree state) and another in Ohio. Those two have been underpolled compared to the core six battlegrounds, but any updates from either or both provides an opportunity to better calibrate both as election day nears.

The changes in Arizona and Florida once again had an impact on Nebraska's second congressional district, shifting it back into the Lean Biden category. Again, this is less about the movement than it is about where the district is positioned in the order. It rests right on that Lean/Toss Up line at Biden +5. And as long as it sits on limited polling data, then its position will remain contingent upon how states that finished near it in 2016 have fared. Additional polling in those states and NE CD2's proximity to the Lean/Toss Up line means that it is apt to jump back and forth across the line as it has this week.

Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona
(Biden 49, Trump 40)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +3.61]
Across most of the new polls today, there are previous iterations from the pollsters that were in the field. That is true of Siena/NYT Upshot in Arizona. Last in the field there in June, Siena found a 48-41 Biden advantage during what could be considered Biden's peak in calendar 2020 polling nationwide. The marginal change -- Biden gaining a net two points over the last three months -- is more a story of stability than of change. As such it does not fit the trend witnessed in other states of late: that Biden's peak in June/July and basically came back to his position prior to that surge period. That stability, however, may be less an issue than the gap between the Biden and Trump in the Grand Canyon state in this poll. It had the effect of pushing Arizona's margin to within range of Florida's. The two states have been on something of a collision course over the last couple of weeks with Florida becoming more competitive and the margin in Arizona growing.


Maine
(Biden 55, Trump 38)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +13.09]

Maine CD2
(Biden 47, Trump 45)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +2.45]
Siena/NYT Upshot conducted a poll in Maine, their first there in calendar 2020. While there is not a natural point of comparison within a series of polls by Siena, the statewide margin and the gap in ME CD2 are consistent with the existing averages in both. That is probably more true in the district than statewide where Biden ran a couple of points ahead of his FHQ average share of support and Trump lagged nearly two points behind his. But the more narrow margin in ME CD2 perhaps casts some doubt on the Biden +9 from Quinnipiac earlier in the week. It stood out from other polling before today and still does once the Siena poll was added. Statewide, Maine is looking comfortably blue and while ME CD2 tilts in Biden's direction, the former vice president's edge there is small.


Michigan
(Biden 48, Trump 40)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +7.53]
EPIC-MRA has now conducted five polls in the Great Lakes state in calendar 2020. The latest finds Biden at his lowest point in any of those surveys in the series. But the lead is as wide now as it was in the time before his peak during the former vice president's June/July surge (both nationally and in this series). The trend line of that margin may have regressed to the pre-surge mean, but both candidates have lost support since the first poll in the series back in January. On top of that, this most recent poll in the series does not diverge too much from the FHQ averages showing Biden up 49-42 (rounded).


North Carolina
(Biden 45, Trump 44)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.53]
The biggest change in the Siena/NYT Upshot wave was in North Carolina. As in Arizona, the last time Siena conducted a survey in the Tar Heel state was in June. But unlike the Grand Canyon state, the intervening period was not exactly marked by stability. Instead, a nine point Biden advantage in June shrunk to just a point in September. The four points Biden lost seemingly went right into Trump's column. There is no pre-surge poll from Siena in this case, so one cannot as easily suggest that the race for North Carolina's 15 electoral votes has regressed to the mean, but given recent polling from other pollsters, one can conclude that North Carolina is a bit closer now than it was. But the FHQ average margin in the Tar Heel state remains fairly stable in the 1-2 point range.


Civiqs (Rust Belt Rising September wave)
The top priorities on the checklist of items to look at in these waves of polls is to explore not only what has changed since the last iteration but whether the order holds up compared to the depicted on the Electoral College Spectrum below. On the first item, the growth in the Biden lead in Michigan will catch one's eye, but that Trump took back the advantage in Ohio is noteworthy as well. But the changes were minimal for the most part from August to now. The order of the states also matches the FHQ order with Ohio on the Trump end and Michigan on the Biden end. Michigan, however, is a bit further off from the tighter bond it has on the Spectrum with Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Michigan: Biden +11 (Biden +4, Trump -4 since the August wave)
Ohio: Trump +3 (Biden -2, Trump +1)
Pennsylvania: Biden +7 (Biden +1, Trump +1)
Wisconsin: Biden +7 (Biden +/-0, Trump -1)


Redfield and Wilton Strategies (Swing state September wave)
Applying the same checklist to the latest R&W cluster of polls there was not a lot of movement between early September and now. Biden did lose ground in both Michigan and Wisconsin, but maintained leads that were greater than or consistent with the FHQ average margins in both. And North Carolina flipped from favoring Trump about two weeks ago to giving Biden the edge now. But that may just be noise. North Carolina is close as FHQ has said a number of times and has reached a point where Biden and Trump both hold leads in the polls out of the Tar Heel state, but they are within a narrow range. That is no different in this wave. As for the order of the six core battlegrounds, that, too, holds up for the most part. Only Arizona is "out of position" on the Biden side of Florida. But again, the two states have been on something of a collision course of late and if current trends hold will likely trade spots on the Spectrum in the coming days.

Arizona: Biden +5 (Biden -1, Trump +1 since the early September wave)
Florida: Biden +3 (Biden +/-0, Trump +/-0)
Michigan: Biden +10 (Biden -2, Trump -1)
North Carolina: Biden +2 (Biden +4, Trump +1)
Pennsylvania: Biden +5 (Biden +1, Trump +1)
Wisconsin: Biden +6 (Biden -3, Trump +/-0)

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2020 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3 MA-11 (14)2	CT-7 (162)	WI-10 (252)	AK-3 (125)	IN-11 (60)
HI-4 (18)	NJ-14 (176)	PA-203 NE CD2-1 (273 | 286)	MO-10 (122)	UT-6 (49)
CA-55 (73)	OR-7 (183)	NV-6 (279 | 265)	SC-9 (112)	KY-8 (43)
VT-3 (76)	NM-5 (188)	FL-29 (308 | 259)	MT-3 (103)	AL-9 (35)
NY-29 (105)	VA-13 (201)	AZ-11 ME CD2-1 (320 | 230)	KS-6 NE CD1-1 (100)	ID-4 (26)
WA-12 (117)	CO-9 (210)	NC-15 (335 | 218)	MS-6 (93)	ND-3 (22)
ME CD1-1 MD-10 (128)	ME-2 (212)	GA-16 (203)	AR-6 (87)	SD-3 (19)
IL-20 (148)	MN-10 (222)	OH-18 (187)	NE-2 (81)	OK-7 (16)
RI-4 (152)	MI-16 (238)	IA-6 (169)	LA-8 (79)	WV-5 (9)
DE-3 (155)	NH-4 (242)	TX-38 (163)	TN-11 (71)	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 286 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.

There was a lot to look at today, but little in the way of change here at FHQ. Yes, Nebraska's second district shifted again, and subtle changes on the map, Spectrum and Watch List followed. None of that is surprising. Neither really is the fact that Ohio nudged past Georgia deeper into the Trump coalition of states on the Spectrum. On the weight of that Civiqs survey, Ohio leaves Georgia behind as the most competitive Trump state on the board, the state right up against the partisan line separating the two candidates' coalitions of states from each other.

The Watch List remains as it did a day ago. The nine states and districts are still the ones to watch when new polling data comes in. But only Georgia, Iowa and Ohio are within range of jumping the partisan line and changing the overall projected electoral vote tally.



Where things stood at FHQ on September 18 (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 Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Iowa	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Missouri	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Nebraska CD2	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
Nevada	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Ohio	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
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:
The Electoral College Map (9/17/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/16/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/15/20)

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

The Electoral College Map (9/17/20)

Update for September 17.

Changes (September 17)
State	Before	After
Nebraska CD2	Lean Biden	Toss Up Biden

Thursday's batch of state-level polls -- eight surveys from five states -- came right out of the heart of the order among other places. But Arizona, Florida and North Carolina all sit between the partisan line separating the Biden and Trump coalitions of states on the Electoral College Spectrum below and the current tipping point state, Pennsylvania. Biden holds the edge in all three as of now, and Trump realistically probably needs all three in most of his paths to 270 electoral votes.

And the good news for the president with the addition of today's polls is that the FHQ margins in both Arizona and Florida ticked down slightly, not only bringing the pair closer to the partisan line but influencing the average in Nebraska's second congressional district again. The Omaha-area district, as it has now done three times since last weekend has hopped the Lean/Toss Up line back into Toss Up Biden territory. Recall, that with limited polling of Nebraska, the averages in competitive CD2 are tethered to states that finished near it in 2016, including Arizona and Florida. The attempt there is to capture the swing in the last four years in similar states.

Polling Quick Hits:
Arizona
(Biden 45, Trump 40 via Kaiser Family Foundation | Biden 47, Trump 47 via Monmouth)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +3.42]
Both polls released today in the Grand Canyon state are either the first this year (Kaiser) or the first since just before the Arizona presidential primary back in mid-March (Monmouth). And in the latter's case, the March sample was registered voters compared to a likely voter sample now. In other words, there is no perfect comparison for either survey. While the Kaiser survey had Biden further ahead, it also left a lot of undecideds out there and both candidates ran well behind their established FHQ averages. The Monmouth poll comes with the usual caveat that FHQ has once again used the low turnout likely voter model which more often than not favors Trump. The results do not differ that substantially when using the high turnout data. Although, it should be disclosed that using those data -- Biden +2 -- would have kept the FHQ average margin stable instead of dropping it down a hair.


California
(Biden 61, Trump 31 via David Binder Research | Biden 60, Trump 31 via PPIC)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +29.18]
The two updates out of California are both remarkably similar and remarkably consistent with the existing candidate shares of support and margin. Needless to say, that is not the sort of data that will uproot a state and push it to a new position in the order below, much less shift it into a different category. What one can say about California at this point is that the Golden state is one of the few where Biden is lagging behind Hillary Clinton's pace in 2016. But that is offset somewhat by Trump running slightly behind his showing there as well. However, the president's average share of support after adding these two surveys is less than a point off where he finished four years ago.


Florida
(Biden 43, Trump 42)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +3.81]
Like the Arizona poll above, the Florida version of the Kaiser Family Foundation survey had double digit undecideds in a registered voter sample. Again, that meant that both Biden's and Trump's shares of support in the poll ran fairly far behind their established averages here at FHQ. But Trump was further behind his than was Biden. In actuality, however, the real focal point in this survey should be that it is the lowest either candidate has been in a poll of the Sunshine state since a July Zogby Analytics survey. While Trump has fallen below 42 percent on occasion, this matches Biden's nadir in Florida. Shares aside, though, the margin was enough to once again bring the Florida average down a bit drawing it closer to both Arizona and the partisan line.


North Carolina
(Biden 45, Trump 43 via Kaiser Family Foundation | Biden 46, Trump 43 via Suffolk)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.53]
As with the California pair of polls above, the two out of the Tar Heel state were quite similar to each other on the surface. Unlike the California polls, the two in North Carolina surveys were not as consistent with the existing averages in the state. Biden trailed his FHQ average share by a couple of points while Trump was about three off of his. North Carolina remains a close state, but one that continues to ever so slightly advantage the former vice president. And unlike the next two states in the order -- Arizona and Florida (which were also part of the Kaiser Sun Belt wave) -- the average in the Tar Heel state increased rather than decreased, nudging the Tar Heel state a little further away from the partisan line. But it remains Biden's first line of defense up against the line separating the Biden states from the Trump states.


Utah
(Trump 53, Biden 35)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +14.71]
Finally, in Utah RMG Research unsurprisingly found the president well out in front of Biden. That may not be surprising, but the fact that Trump's 53 percent share in the survey is his high water mark in polling of the Beehive state in calendar 2020 may be. Still, that has the president running well ahead of his 2016 pace there with no favorite son independent siphoning off support in Utah. Biden may be ahead of Clinton's ending point in November 2016, but that is only enough to get the former vice president in range of where Barack Obama finished in the state in 2008 (both in this survey and in the FHQ averages).

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2020 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3 MA-11 (14)2	CT-7 (162)	WI-10 (252)	AK-3 (125)	IN-11 (60)
HI-4 (18)	NJ-14 (176)	PA-203 (272 | 286)	MO-10 (122)	UT-6 (49)
CA-55 (73)	OR-7 (183)	NE CD2-1 NV-6 (279 | 266)	SC-9 (112)	KY-8 (43)
VT-3 (76)	NM-5 (188)	FL-29 (308 | 259)	MT-3 (103)	AL-9 (35)
NY-29 (105)	VA-13 (201)	AZ-11 ME CD2-1 (320 | 230)	KS-6 NE CD1-1 (100)	ID-4 (26)
WA-12 (117)	CO-9 (210)	NC-15 (335 | 218)	MS-6 (93)	ND-3 (22)
ME CD1-1 MD-10 (128)	ME-2 (212)	OH-18 (203)	AR-6 (87)	SD-3 (19)
IL-20 (148)	MN-10 (222)	GA-16 (185)	NE-2 (81)	OK-7 (16)
RI-4 (152)	MI-16 (238)	IA-6 (169)	LA-8 (79)	WV-5 (9)
DE-3 (155)	NH-4 (242)	TX-38 (163)	TN-11 (71)	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 286 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.

Even with five new polls out of that trio of Sun Belt states in the heart of the order on the Spectrum above there was little movement and certainly not enough to change the sequence of Biden states right up against the partisan line. North Carolina is still up against the line with Arizona and then Florida behind it (and Maine's second district mixed in). That is exactly where Trump has to advance to begin erasing the deficit he finds himself in with just 47 days until November 3.

No, none of those three states nor California budged on the Spectrum, but Utah switched places with Indiana, moving deeper into the Trump coalition of states. That was the only change on the day other than Nebraska's second district changing categories and thus, once again, possible changes on the Watch List below. Again, however, that says less about the state of the race in Nebraska than it does about where the second district is in the order: right on that five point line separating Lean Biden from Toss Up Biden. Expect further updates in states like Arizona and Florida to continue to affect its standing.

The rest of the list remained unchanged from a day ago.



Where things stood at FHQ on September 17 (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 Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Iowa	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Missouri	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Nebraska CD2	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Nevada	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Ohio	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
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:
The Electoral College Map (9/16/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/15/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/14/20)

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

The Electoral College Map (9/16/20)

Update for September 16.

In with the midpoint of the work week came a number of interesting polls. Interesting for, in some cases, the margins. But in other instances because of the helpful updates in red states that have been mostly underpolled in calendar 2020. Due to Senate races in the latter, however, there are some presidential numbers as well. Yet, despite six new polls in six states today, the outlook stays mostly the same here at FHQ. Now, to be clear, there were some shake ups but not in the overall picture. It was all under the hood.

Polling Quick Hits:
Georgia
(Biden 52, Trump 46)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +0.35]
This HarrisX poll for the Lieberman Senate campaign is perhaps what one would expect from an internal poll that sees the light of day: tilted in the favor of the candidate and their party. That was true in the presidential trial heat as well. Biden held an uncharacteristic six point lead in a state where he did not lead by more than four even during his best polling period in June/July. One can call this one what it is: an outlier. But it did not do all that much damage to Trump's already narrow lead in the Peach state. The president led by less than a point before and after the addition of this survey, but now Georgia and Iowa had traded spots on the Spectrum below. Georgia now is only behind Ohio for the honor of being the most competitive state currently at FHQ.



Kentucky
(Trump 58, Biden 38)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +17.10]
One thing that has defined the polling on the presidential race this year in the Bluegrass state has been that while Trump has been ahead, the president has run behind his 2016 performance there. That is still true in the latest Quinnipiac survey of Kentucky, but Trump came much closer to his 2016 mark than was the case, pre-conventions, when he was at his nadir in the early August precursor. Biden in the same time span, on the other hand, came down from his peak in Kentucky to a level that is more in line with his average share of support at FHQ. But the former vice president is still running more than five points ahead of Clinton's effort in the state in 2016 while Trump is almost six points behind his. Still, this is a reliably red state for the president.


Maine
(Biden 59, Trump 38)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +12.60]

Maine CD1
(Biden 64, Trump 32)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +24.64]

Maine CD2
(Biden 53, Trump 44)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +2.54]
Rather than split these up, FHQ will take the Maine results from Quinnipiac together. First of all, this is a pretty good survey -- and sample -- for Biden in the Pine Tree state. This marks the apex of his support in any poll there this year. And that is something that applies across the board, statewide and in the two congressional districts. As Biden surged in this survey, however, Trump mostly remained static, hovering in these polls around where the president is in the FHQ averages. So, while Biden improved over his early August showing in the last Quinnipiac survey of Maine, Trump, again, stayed mostly where he has been.


Minnesota
(Biden 57, Trump 41)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +8.21]
FHQ mentioned this earlier on Twitter, but the first thing we thought about when seeing these new numbers from WaPo/ABC out of Minnesota was Sean Trende's recent RCP piece on whether state-level polling has been "fixed" in the Midwest since 2016. Polls like this on in the Land of 10,000 Lakes may lead one to conclude that they have not. The Maine survey above may be an outlier, but this one definitely is. It is not that the vice president has not been in the upper 50s in Minnesota all year, but he has not since that June/July surge period from which he has recently come down. The same may or may not be true for Trump. The president has now been in the low 40s over the last four polls of Minnesota. That is not the best of signs in a state that the Trump campaign has targeted as flippable. Needless to say this one nudged the average margin in the state up a bit, pushing it above eight points and creating some separation between Minnesota and Michigan and New Hampshire, a formerly clustered trio of states in the order on the Spectrum below.


South Carolina
(Trump 51, Biden 45)
[Current FHQ margin: Trump +5.97]
The Palmetto state continues to look like a state that is closer than in 2016 (not unusual), but still probably comfortably tilted in the president's direction. Still, if South Carolina has swing nearly eight points in the Democrats' direction in four years, then that opens the door to a number of states -- like Georgia, Iowa and Texas -- being competitive. And that is the reality through the lens of the state-level polling in those states. But both candidates gained in the Quinnipiac transition from registered to likely voters since August, and the president maintained an advantage that keeps his lead just inside the lower end of the Lean Trump category.


Wisconsin
(Biden 52, Trump 46)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +6.36]
Yesterday's CNN survey of the Badger state may have come across as an outlier, but that may not have been because of where the cable network and its polling partners had the former vice president. That was consistent with where WaPo/ABC had Biden at in the state as well. Rather, the difference between the two was all about the Trump data point. CNN had the president at nearly the lowest point in recent surveys in the field in Wisconsin. That said, it was just under Trump's average share of support at FHQ while the margin was consistent with that here. The CNN poll had the president running well ahead of the pace he has set in other polls of the state. The overall story remains much the same however. Biden is closing in on 50 percent in Wisconsin and the president has ground to make up in a state he narrowly carried in 2016.

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2020 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
DC-3 MA-11 (14)2	CT-7 (162)	WI-10 (252)	AK-3 (125)	UT-6 (60)
HI-4 (18)	NJ-14 (176)	PA-203 NE CD2-1 (273 | 286)	MO-10 (122)	IN-11 (54)
CA-55 (73)	OR-7 (183)	NV-6 (279 | 265)	SC-9 (112)	KY-8 (43)
VT-3 (76)	NM-5 (188)	FL-29 (308 | 259)	MT-3 (103)	AL-9 (35)
NY-29 (105)	VA-13 (201)	AZ-11 ME CD2-1 (320 | 230)	KS-6 NE CD1-1 (100)	ID-4 (26)
WA-12 (117)	CO-9 (210)	NC-15 (335 | 218)	MS-6 (93)	ND-3 (22)
ME CD1-1 MD-10 (128)	ME-2 (212)	OH-18 (203)	AR-6 (87)	SD-3 (19)
IL-20 (148)	MN-10 (222)	GA-16 (185)	NE-2 (81)	OK-7 (16)
RI-4 (152)	MI-16 (238)	IA-6 (169)	LA-8 (79)	WV-5 (9)
DE-3 (155)	NH-4 (242)	TX-38 (163)	TN-11 (71)	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 286 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.

The map and Watch List remain unchanged from a day ago, but there were a number of shifts on the Electoral College Spectrum above. Working from the far Democratic end to the most Republican end of the order, Maine CD1 pushed a couple of cells deeper into the Biden coalition of states as Maine CD2 moved a spot further away from the partisan line, both because of the solid Quinnipiac survey for the former vice president. And on the Trump side of the partisan line, Georgia as mentioned above in the discussion of the HarrisX poll switched places with Iowa and is now only separated from the partisan line by Ohio. Finally, South Carolina moved a hair, flipping with Missouri. The two had margins that were within a tenth of a point of each other before and that is true even after the Q-poll in the Palmetto state. But now South Carolina is on the Trump side of Missouri in the order.



Where things stood at FHQ on September 16 (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 Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Iowa	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Missouri	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Nebraska CD2	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
Nevada	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Ohio	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
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:
The Electoral College Map (9/15/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/14/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/13/20)

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.

The Electoral College Map (9/15/20)

Update for September 15.

The race for the White House is now halfway through September and there are just seven weeks until election day on November 3. This Tuesday -- seven weeks out -- brought seven new polls from four states, all of which have been competitive in the 21st century. But one -- Virginia -- has slipped over the course of those twenty years from a reliably red state to something that appears to be fairly comfortably blue now.

But what is interesting about this group of polls and the first half of September is how little has really changed on the surface. The month began with Ohio pushing over the partisan line in Toss Up Trump territory, but that projected 335-203 Biden advantage in the Electoral College has held since then. But again, that is on the surface. Underneath, there has been some narrowing in a handful of states. Notably, Arizona and Florida have drawn closer, but the latter is closing at a quicker clip as the two are seemingly on a trajectory to converge in the Biden +3-4 point range if the course remains on the same path. North Carolina, too, has tracked down some in the Biden +1-2 point range. Yet, none of those states are essential to the former vice president reaching 270 electoral votes as the Electoral College Spectrum below clearly demonstrates. Even in those states, Trump has work to do. Biden sits at 48 in Arizona, 49 in Florida and 47 in North Carolina in the averages here at FHQ. Trump, then, in states the president will need to get to 270, will need to either bring Biden down some and/or out-perform the former vice president among undecideds (or persuade a lot more Trump supporters to turn out). Obviously, nothing is set in stone, but with just 49 days left -- and voters already voting -- time is running out.

Polling Quick Hits:
Florida
(Biden 50, Trump 50 via Florida Atlantic | Biden 49, Trump 46 via Monmouth)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +3.89]
There were a pair of polls out of the Sunshine state on Tuesday and both show a close race for those 29 electoral votes. The tie in the Florida Atlantic poll is pretty much par for the course in the series of four polls now in 2020. And yes, this series also fits the now familiar pattern. The early polls in January and March showed a nearly tied race both times. But in May, Biden jumped out to a six point lead. While that edge was a little early for the Biden surge in June/July, that was the last poll in a series that is now back to tied. Ride the roller coaster if one must, but recognize also that there is in battleground state after battleground state a pattern of surge and decline in these state-level polls. Things are right back to where they were in the spring: Biden ahead, and by smaller margins than over the summer, but ahead where it will count the most in November.

The Monmouth poll is the university's first survey of the Sunshine state, so there is no direct comparison. However, FHQ will note that our policy has been to take the "low turnout" version of the polls for the sake of continuity. Even if one trades out the low for high turnout version (50-45, Biden), the former vice president's lead only grows by 0.05 points. Either one one looks at, they are both within the ranges in which both candidates have been in Florida polling in September so far.


North Carolina
(Biden 47, Trump 47 via Survey USA | Trump 48, Biden 46 via Trafalgar Group | Biden 49, Trump 46 via CNN)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +1.48]
The trio of surveys recently in the field in the Tar Heel state ran the gamut of results in September polls there. Everyone had something to latch on to. Trafalgar had the president ahead, Survey USA found a tied race and CNN had Biden marginally in front. It was the first poll for each of Trafalgar and CNN, so the focus will be on the series from Survey USA. There have been three Survey USA polls conducted in North Carolina in calendar 2020, but this latest is the first since April. Both of the earlier polls had the former vice president up by four or five. And while there was no data in the intervening period in which Biden would have typically jumped out to a larger advantage, this latest poll breaks with the pattern mentioned above. Biden may have peaked in a hypothetical June Survey USA poll of the state, but even if he had, then that lead would have decayed more than to the (winter and) spring levels. This poll, then, reflects more than that which is something of a silver lining for Trump in a state the president needs.


Virginia
(Biden 53, Trump 39)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +11.71]
The latest survey in the field from Virginia Commonwealth of the Old Dominion shows what most polls there this year have found: Virginia is not a swing/battleground state in 2020. And this VCU series of polls has been pretty consistent through the year. Biden has mostly been at or above 50 percent there while Trump has instead hovered around 40 percent. And that is basically where the FHQ averages are for both candidates right now, Biden 51-40 (rounded).


Wisconsin
(Biden 52, Trump 42)
[Current FHQ margin: Biden +6.37]
Finally, the CNN survey of Wisconsin -- also its first in the Badger state -- catches the eye if only because of that double digit lead Biden carries in a state Trump won by a fraction of a point in 2016. But the surprising thing perhaps about Wisconsin polling right now is not this CNN poll but rather that it is not out of the ordinary for recent polling there. Yes, it has Biden on the high side of his range and Trump on the low side of his, but the consistency of these mid- to upper single digit Biden leads in the Badger state is what continues to break with FHQ's expectations. The narrowing just has not really come to Wisconsin like it has in some other battlegrounds. Now, there is still time for that to change, but there have been enough of those sorts of polls cited above to buttress the former vice president's roughly six point lead there.

NOTE: A description of the methodology behind the graduated weighted average of 2020 state-level polling that FHQ uses for these projections can be found here.

The Electoral College Spectrum1
MA-112 (14)	CT-7 (162)	WI-10 (252)	AK-3 (125)	UT-6 (60)
HI-4 (18)	NJ-14 (176)	PA-203 NE CD2-1 (273 | 286)	SC-9 (122)	IN-11 (54)
CA-55 (73)	OR-7 (183)	NV-6 (279 | 265)	MO-10 (113)	KY-8 (43)
VT-3 (76)	NM-5 (188)	FL-29 (308 | 259)	MT-3 (103)	AL-9 (35)
NY-29 (105)	VA-13 (201)	AZ-11 (319 | 230)	KS-6 NE CD1-1 (100)	ID-4 (26)
WA-12 (117)	CO-9 (210)	NC-15 ME CD2-1 (335 | 219)	MS-6 (93)	ND-3 (22)
MD-10 (127)	ME-2 (212)	OH-18 (203)	AR-6 (87)	SD-3 (19)
IL-20 (147)	MN-10 (222)	IA-6 (185)	NE-2 (81)	OK-7 (16)
ME CD1-1 RI-4 (152)	MI-16 (238)	GA-16 (179)	LA-8 (79)	WV-5 (9)
DE-3 (155)	NH-4 (242)	TX-38 (163)	TN-11 (71)	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 286 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. To keep the figure to 50 cells, Washington, DC and its three electoral votes are included in the beginning total on the Democratic side of the spectrum. The District has historically been the most Democratic state in the Electoral College. 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.

There were some significant additions to the polling dataset at FHQ today in a handful of states that are going to decide the election in November. But it was the state that is most comfortably in Biden's column -- Virginia -- that changed and not Florida, North Carolina or Wisconsin. The VCU pushed the average in the commonwealth up enough to nudge Virginia past both Maine and Colorado on the Spectrum above. But, to be clear, all three are tightly bunched with average margins of 11-12 points at the moment. If that passes for a change -- and it does -- then it is a small one. Meanwhile, the averages in both Florida and North Carolina ticked down but continue to advantage Biden. Wisconsin, on the other hand, saw its FHQ average margin nudge up slightly on the weight of that double digit CNN poll. None of the three battlegrounds moved in the rank order on the Spectrum.

Florida may not have budged in the order above but it finally moved off the Watch List. The Sunshine state is no longer within a fraction of a point of possibly moving into the Lean Biden category. It is just a solid Biden toss up as of now. That trims the List to just nine states and districts and still only three that would potentially alter the overall projected tally at FHQ (all of which are on the cusp of potential moves into the Biden coalition of states).

Halfway through September, however, there was a little bit of good news for both camps, but little change, something that continues to be a feather in the former vice president's cap.



Where things stood at FHQ on September 15 (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 Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Iowa	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Mississippi	from Strong Trump	to Lean Trump
Missouri	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
Nebraska CD2	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
Nevada	from Toss Up Biden	to Lean Biden
Ohio	from Toss Up Trump	to Toss Up Biden
Pennsylvania	from Lean Biden	to Toss Up Biden
South Carolina	from Lean Trump	to Toss Up Trump
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:
The Electoral College Map (9/14/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/13/20)

The Electoral College Map (9/12/20)

Follow FHQ on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook or subscribe by Email.