So, I decided to do my election forecast a week early. I figured I would do it the last Friday/weekend of the month, but February/March is a bit weird. We got 4 weekends in February followed by 5 in March, and I'm really impatient, and I kinda realized that if I just did February now, if I get impatient I can do another in early/mid march, and another at the end of the month. And if I dont wanna do it, I will just do another one some time in march anyway.
Anyway, this time I want to do things a little differently. I want to look at not just the two way races, but also the five way races between Trump, Biden, RFK Jr., Stein, and West. I won't necessarily do this every month, and if I see enough data for doing so I might just always include the third party candidates, but I kinda wanna see how things end up a bit differently this time including them. As such, let's get to it.
2 way national polling: +1.1% Trump
5 way national polling: +4.8% Trump
So yeah. third party candidates have a net 3.7% hit to Biden. You would think Stein and West would be contributing to most of that, but in a three way race, it's actually +5.0% Trump. So before people blame west and stein for existing, keep in mind these voters seem to be never Biden voters and will vote for any populist third party candidates. These guys MIGHT represent the "genocide joe" vote, as well as other lefty causes, since a lot of leftists (as well as moderate/right wing populists) seem to LOVE RFK for some reason. I don't think he's terrible, but I literally think Biden is better and that he's all talk, so...yeah. But I digress. This isn't primarily an opinion piece. These predictions are supposed to be cold hard facts.
Now, before I jump into state polling, I do want to address ONE topic I've been waffling on here. And that is, well...are democrats best off sticking with Biden or not? I mean, we seen some harris polling which was horrid, but what of, say, Dean Phillips? Sadly polling of him vs Trump doesn't exist. But we do see Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom hitting the polls as potential Biden alternatives. And they do pretty terrible.
Whitmer vs Trump: Trump +7%
Newsom vs Trump: Trump +7%
Harris vs Trump: Trump +6.6%
Yeah. This is pretty bleak, it's no wonder the dems are reluctant to dump Biden even if his mental faculties are in question. And I guess to answer Jon Stewart, Biden IS Conan at the ramparts against the barbarians, as bleak as his numbers are.
This is why, I myself, have been kinda reluctant to consider dumping Biden. Yeah. Biden is terrible polling wise, but this is what happened in 2020. Biden STILL had the best numbers. And that's still the case now. Dumping Biden and putting up an alternative would drop Biden by another 5-6% in a 2 point race. And he's already 5-7% down from where he needs to be to win 2024.
NOW, let's go into the state level data:
So, some states like Colorado became slightly more blue, some became slightly more red like Nevada, Georgia, and Texas. North Carolina is now technically in play after being stuck as a safe state, although Biden's chances there are only 3%. Biden currently has a 11.5% chance of winning, with Trump a 88.5% chance of winning. This is the same odds I gave for 2020 but the candidates are reversed. Still better than a 91% Trump chance from last time though. The electoral map is also a little more certain now that Wisconsin has chosen a side, with the predicted outcome being 245-293 Trump.
Now, as far as the third party stuff goes, to my knowledge, only the swingiest of swing states are being polled with any regularity, but I can look at the 7 states in question. This is with a 5 way race between Biden, Trump, RFK, Stein, and West.
It...doesn't look much different, in all honesty. Biden goes down to a 8.4% chance, with Trump getting a 91.6% chance. So this matchup does favor Trump slightly. But the end result of the election is the same. 245-293 Trump. PA had a wild swing but that was due to only having one poll. otherwise the results were largely not a ton different than their 2 way analogues. Wisconsin and Arizona had significant departures in Trump's direction, although given Pennsylvania's swing the other way, it's hard to tell if this is lack of data (multiple polls vs one poll) or if it is an actual trend. The national polling does indicate a roughly 4% trend toward Trump is about what we should expect though, and that's roughly what we get. But yeah, otherwise the results aren't much different. I probably won't do third party results more consistently until later in the election cycle given relative lack of data and not seeing many statistically significant differences I find interesting enough to discuss.
But yeah, that's my February election update. Biden is still screwed, although maybe a little less screwed in the 2 way matchup (and roughly as screwed in the 5 way matchup). I still expect this election to go to Trump, although we kind of answered the question of what replacing Biden will look like, and it isn't good. We will likely do WORSE replacing Biden with anyone else. So I guess we're stuck with Biden, I guess.
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