Election update: 11/3/16 (abridged)

I don't want to do a full election update until Monday or so where we get the last polls before the election and I can do some very detailed analysis of what's going on. This is only a snapshot. I just want to give you the latest electoral map and what the chances are for the candidates, since there is significant change from the last update, where Clinton was comfortably ahead.

This is the most likely electoral map.

 Ouch, look at that, 273-250 in favor of Clinton, a HUGE shift from my last update, which had Clinton winning with 303 electoral votes. Note how North Carolina is blank. This is because at this very moment, it is literally a statistical tie. It could go either way. If Trump gets it, the electoral vote will be 273-265. All Trump will need at this point, is ONE STATE to win. ANY STATE, outside of perhaps one of the CD2s. The tipping point for Trump is in New Hampshire. If Trump gets 0.8% more in Maine CD2, he brings it down to 272-266. If he gets 0.9% in New Hampshire, he wins 270-268.

This is close. This is very close. If we were to give my typical percentages of their chances of winning based on a 4 point margin of error for each state, Clinton essentially has a 57.9% chance of winning, whereas Trump has a 42.1% chance. This is because 0.8% is 0.2 standard deviations away from what the polling data says. This is close. Very close. The presidency is now anyone's game. I expected Clinton being able to ride this to victory, but it seems there's a "Trump tide" so to speak in the last week leading up to the election.

I'll do more detailed analysis next week, probably on Monday.

EDIT: I don't know how I overlooked this, but it's also possible this election could end in a tie. If Trump takes New Hampshire and North Carolina but Clinton holds Maine CD2, the electoral college count will be 269-269.  While my own probability model ignores this possibility because Maine CD2 will go to Trump before New Hampshire statistically, it's still possible for the model to be defied in practice, leading to a tie. If this happens, the race will be thrown to the house of representatives, who will almost certainly make Trump the president. A tie is a win for the republicans in practice.