BTRTN 2020 Election Snapshot: The Short Answer – Can the Democrats Win a Trifecta?

Tom with the latest “snapshot” on the state of the races.

The burning question for Democrats -- and we've heard it plenty of times of late  - is:  what’s the short answer on whether the Democrats can win control of the White House, Senate and House?

The short answer:  With two weeks to go, the Democrats continue to have a very good chance of pulling off the ultimate “trifecta” – Joe Biden winning the presidency, the Democrats flipping the Senate, and also maintaining control of the House.

Here are the latest BTRTN odds, based on a brand new run of our models.

BTRTN ELECTION DASHBOARD AS OF 10/20
BTRTN Election Odds of Democrats' Winning/Controlling
Presidency	Senate	House
87%	74%	99%
335 Biden/203 Trump	51 DEM / 49 GOP (D+4)	251 DEM/187 GOP (D +18)

These odds have been inching upwards all year (with the exception of the House odds, which have remained at 99% the entire time), reflecting ever-more favorable polls and conditions for the Democrats. 

CHANGES IN ODDS
Date >>>	5/9	5/28	7/1	8/24	9/8	9/15	9/23	10/7	10/20
Presidency	n/a	73%	82%	81%	79%	81%	82%	83%	87%
Senate Control	59%	59%	59%	62%	65%	65%	67%	71%	74%
House Control	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%	99%

These conditions include:  Trump’s tendency to destroy himself and GOP hopes with every not-socially-distanced rally, every ludicrous claim that we are “rounding the corner’ on COVID, and every non-disavowal or outright defense of extremist groups.  And on top of that, the astonishing levels of fundraising being raked in by Biden and swing state Democratic Senate candidates and the truly stupendous grass roots volunteer force that is madly at work to turn out every Democratic voter they possibly can (the “2020 Victory” team that I text with has over 46,000 members right now.)

Having delivered that favorable news, we at BTRTN again reprise our “warning label” which should be read carefully and repeated as a mantra by all Democrats:

WARNING:  No matter how good the numbers look at any given time, the Democrats will not win any election unless they work hard to earn it – registering voters, calling, texting, donating – throughout the fall, up to and including Election Day.

And remember, this is a snapshot, not a forecast.  We are down to two weeks to go until Election Day, and you can rest assured much will happen between now and then.  Remember 2016 – at this stage of the race, neither of the Comey letters had been released as yet.

THE RACES

The Presidency:  Joe Biden’s national lead has grown to +9 points in the month of October.  Collectively he is ahead in the swing state polls as well, on average by +4 points in that same time span.  There have been a whopping 83 swing state polls in October thus far, and Biden has led in 67 of them, Trump has been ahead in only 10, and there have been 6 ties.

Biden is winning by +5 points or more in states (and districts) with enough electoral votes, 290, to give him the presidency.   And while the other states are all “toss ups,” he is modestly ahead in the polls in all of them except Texas, where he is still shockingly competitive.  But he does not need to win any of the toss-ups to win the election.

The key states here are Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.  If he holds his “solid” states (216 electoral votes) and Minnesota (10 more, and he is ahead by +7 there), all he needs are those three to get to 270.  He is ahead by +6 or +7 points in each.  And he has other “paths to 270” as well, with good leads (+5) in Arizona and Nevada.  Biden also holds “within the margin of error” leads in Iowa, Florida, North Carolina (all "toss-ups") and a host of other toss up states also present possibilities.  It is an enviable map at this point.

 

BTRTN PRESIDENT SNAPSHOT
	EV	State/District (EV)	Latest Polls
BIDEN	335
Solid	216	CA, CO, CT, DC, DE, HA, IL, ME, ME1, MS, NH, NM, NJ, NY, OR, RI, VT, VA, WA
Likely	10	Minnesota (10)	Biden + 7
Lean	64	Nebraska 2nd (1)	Biden + 7
		Michigan (16)	Biden + 7
		Wisconsin (10)	Biden + 6
		Pennsylvania (20)	Biden + 6
		Nevada (6)	Biden + 5
		Arizona (11)	Biden + 5
Toss-up (D)	45	Florida (29)	Biden + 2
		Maine 2nd (1)	Biden + 4
		North Carolina (15)	Biden + 3
Toss-up (GOP)	78	Iowa (6)	Biden + 2
		Ohio (18)	Biden + 1
		Georgia (16)	Biden + 1
		Texas (28)	Trump + 2
Lean	0
Likely	0
Solid	125	AL, AK, AR, ID, IN, KS, KY, LA, MP, MO, MT, NE, NE1, NE3, ND, OK, SC, SD, TN, UT, WV, WY
TRUMP	203

Can Trump possibly win?  Of course – but he his odds are down to a 1 in 8 chance at this point.  You can’t discount that; we’re fond of saying that horses with lesser odds do win at Belmont now and again.  But Trump has to win every toss up entity – which gets him to 248 electoral votes -- and then pick off two or even three of the states in which Biden has a +5 point lead or higher.  Frankly, it’s not likely, barring some truly devastating October surprise (and Russian-created Hunter Biden emails, fed to Rudy Giuliani and published only by the New York Post, hardly counts).

The Senate.  The Democrats remain in a strong position to flip the Senate.   They need a net of +3 flipped seats to get to 50, which would be enough to gain control, assuming a Biden win, with VP Kamala Harris in the tie-breaking chair.

The clearest path to the required “+3” is to flip Arizona, Colorado and any two of Iowa, North Carolina and Maine.  This path assumes a successful defense of Michigan (as well as all the other “solid” states, of course) and the loss of Alabama.  The Democrats have decisive leads (both in polling and in dollars on hand, thanks to a mega-gusher of third quarter fundraising) in each of the required states – as of now.  If they won every seat they lead in, they would gain control with a vote to spare, at 51 seats. 

But they are also in highly competitive races in many other GOP-held seats.  Four races are toss-ups:  Georgia’s regular election, Kansas, Montana and South Carolina.  And Alaska and Georgia’s special election are in the mix as well, though Kentucky, at this point, is probably out of range.  But the Democrats still have at least a tiny chance of coming away with an eye-popping 57 seats if everything breaks their way in a blue tsunami.

 

BTRTN SENATE SNAPSHOT
	Seats	States	Latest Polls
DEM	51
Holdover	35
Solid	10	DE, IL, MS, MN, NH, NM, NJ, OR, RI, VA
Likely	2	Arizona	Kelly + 9
		Colorado	Hickenlooper + 8
Lean	4	Michigan	Peters + 5
		Iowa	Greenfield + 6
		North Carolina	Cunningham + 4
		Maine	Gideon + 4
Toss-up (D)	0
Toss-up (GOP)	4	South Carolina	Graham + 2
		Georgia (regular)	Perdue + 1
		Montana	Daines + 3
		Kansas	Marshall + 3
Lean	2	Alaska	Sullivan + 3
		Georgia (special)	n/a
Likely	2	Kentucky	McConnell + 11
		Alabama	Tuberville + 12
Solid	11	AK, ID, LA, MP, NE, OK, SD, TN, TX, WV, WY
Holdover	30
GOP	49

 

The House.  The Democrats already hold a large majority in the House.  The current count is 232 Democrats to 198 Republicans with one Libertarian and four vacancies.  When you take the four vacancies and apportion them back to their original 2018 holding party, and also assign to the GOP the seat currently held by Libertarian Justin Amish, then the effective split is 233 to 205.

The generic ballot, the key variable in our BTRTN House Prediction model, has the Dems up on average by nearly 8 points.   If the Democrats maintain this margin through Election Day, they would be expected to flip 18 more seats, give or take a few, according to our model, to get to a whopping 251 to 187 advantage.  There is no way the GOP can flip the House.   We are being kind to put the odds of the Dems holding the House at 99%; we are simply allowing for the highly unlikely threat of a meteor landing. 

HOUSE SNAPSHOT
House	As of 10/20
Generic Ballot	Dem + 7.7
Democrats	251 (+ 18)
Republicans	187 (- 18)

And always remember this:

WARNING:  No matter how good the numbers look at any given time, the Democrats will not win any election unless they work hard to earn it – registering voters, calling, texting, donating – throughout the fall, up to and including Election Day.