Super exciting map that is literally just who is ahead in the 538 projections, but is also just my own, final personal best guess. My previous semi-final predictions in Cong was this same map, but with GA red and Iowa blue. I've now switched both.
I've gone back and forth on Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, and Texas so many times, but I'm ultimately going with blue GA, and red on the others. All should be close, and I wouldn't be surprised if all 4 are within a ~3% margin.
For GA, there are plenty of polls where Biden gets to 50% and very few where Trump does. The polls where Trump wins tend to have higher totals for third party candidates that I don't think are realistic based purely anecdotally on people I know back home who have historically voted 3rd party when GA has not been competitive (and are all voting for Biden this time), as well as crosstabs that consistently don't make a ton of sense. The polls where Biden wins have seemed more credible in both respects.
The latest Selzer/DMR poll for Iowa has spooked me, and though I do not think that poll reflects reality - it's going red if that poll is even remotely accurate. Meanwhile Biden's best Iowa polls are a few weeks old at this point, and Iowans often decide late. The fact that polls have trended Trump's way doesn't bode well for Biden.
Ohio polling has generally been wacky, and TX turnout has been very high all across the state, not just in the big cities, so I don't know what to make of that :) Turnout increases when a state is actually competitive, and TX is competitive in a presidential election for the first time in a long while, so this could be just as much a story of Rs turning out to keep Texas red as it is Ds turning out to flip Texas blue.
I've gone back and forth on Iowa, Ohio, Georgia, and Texas so many times, but I'm ultimately going with blue GA, and red on the others. All should be close, and I wouldn't be surprised if all 4 are within a ~3% margin.
For GA, there are plenty of polls where Biden gets to 50% and very few where Trump does. The polls where Trump wins tend to have higher totals for third party candidates that I don't think are realistic based purely anecdotally on people I know back home who have historically voted 3rd party when GA has not been competitive (and are all voting for Biden this time), as well as crosstabs that consistently don't make a ton of sense. The polls where Biden wins have seemed more credible in both respects.
The latest Selzer/DMR poll for Iowa has spooked me, and though I do not think that poll reflects reality - it's going red if that poll is even remotely accurate. Meanwhile Biden's best Iowa polls are a few weeks old at this point, and Iowans often decide late. The fact that polls have trended Trump's way doesn't bode well for Biden.
Ohio polling has generally been wacky, and TX turnout has been very high all across the state, not just in the big cities, so I don't know what to make of that :) Turnout increases when a state is actually competitive, and TX is competitive in a presidential election for the first time in a long while, so this could be just as much a story of Rs turning out to keep Texas red as it is Ds turning out to flip Texas blue.
