Statistical analysis news website FiveThirtyEight unveiled its 2020 presidential election forecast model with ample disclaimers following 2016 blowback and anger toward election forecasters when President Trump surprised many by winning the election.
This year’s FiveThirtyEight forecast, based on 40,000 simulations of likely electoral outcomes, gives Trump about a 29% chance of winning the election and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden a 71% chance.
Those figures are strikingly similar to its 2016 model on election day, which gave 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning the election and Trump a 28.6% chance.
Many in the public and the Trump campaign argue that polls showing Biden ahead are inaccurate, citing polls from four years ago and Trump’s unexpected victory. Pollsters, however, say that national polls were fairly accurate in predicting the popular vote, which Clinton won by 3 million votes. They blame state polls with subpar methodology for making decisive Electoral College states, such as Wisconsin and Michigan, seem to tilt toward Clinton and election forecasters, such as FiveThirtyEight and the New York Times Upshot, for shaping the public’s expectations. The Upshot “election needle” notoriously gave Clinton an 85% chance of winning on Election Day.
Last month, the Economist faced criticism for unveiling a 2020 election model that put Biden’s chances of winning the election over 90%. Its forecast now gives Biden an 88% chance at victory and Trump an 11% chance.
This year, FiveThirtyEight is providing more explanation of what its model means and how to interpret it.
A cartoon fox in thick-framed glasses popping out on the left margin of the page provides a disclaimer: “Don’t count the underdog out! Upset wins are surprising but not impossible.”
Nate Silver, founder and editor-in-chief of FiveThirtyEight, wrote in a column accompanying the launch of the model that it is “way too soon to count Trump out.”
“While the polls have been stable so far this year, it’s still only August,” Silver said. “The debates and the conventions have yet to occur. Biden only named his running mate yesterday. And the campaign is being conducted amidst a pandemic the likes of which the United States has not seen in more than 100 years, which is also causing an unprecedented and volatile economy.”
But he acknowledged that the mood of the country is prone to change.
“Nor has it been that uncommon, historically, for polls to shift fairly radically from mid-August until Election Day. Furthermore, there are some reasons to think the election will tighten, and President Trump is likely to have an advantage in a close election because of the Electoral College,” Silver said.
Silver’s explanation of the model also noted that Trump appears to have an advantage in the Electoral College because the state that could decide the 270th Electoral College vote is “somewhat to the right of the national popular vote.”
