LogFAQs > #946397538

You might have heard some stats about 2020's early voting, like how 58 million Americans (a record) voted early in 2016 but we're already up to 71.1 million this year, which is over 51% of 2016's total. And how some key battleground states like Texas, Florida, North Carolina, and Georgia are on pace to pass their 2016 totals before Election Day even arrives.

But for some reason no one is using those numbers to estimate the current actual results, so I decided to do it myself, GameFAQs Contest poll update-style! Here's the sheet, which I'll be keeping up to date on a nightly basis:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1NTMEI1vn58ET9WOWPUg2tOFnOOsQZFCqRvOvx68CpOs/edit?usp=sharing

Based on the best polling data available of registered voters who said they were planning to vote, the current standings are

40,962,735 Biden Votes (estimated)
27,258,817 Trump Votes (estimated)
13,703,918 Current Lead (estimated)

In terms of percentages, we're looking at

57.64% Biden Total Percentage (estimated)
38.36% Trump Total Percentage (estimated)
19.28% Current Lead (estimated)

So as you see, Biden's lead is just under 14 million. If 150 million Americans end up voting this year (keep in mind we've never cracked 137 mil in any election before so that would be pretty wild), Trump needs to win 58.7% of all remaining voters to come out ahead, aka he needs to win the rest of the way by 17.4% overall.

Why does he need to mount such a comeback? Well, he's spent the last six months bashing mail in ballots, so his most loyal supporters are waiting to cast their votes in person on Tuesday, hoping to dig him out of the huge hole he's created. Beyond that though, Trump's got two problems- Biden's chipped away juuuuuuust enough of his normally loyal fanbase (getting 90.4% of registered Republicans to Joe's 94.1% registered Democrats) and unlike in 2016, Independents aren't buying what he's selling (loses by 15.2% with them versus Biden).
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* Caveats!

• unlike GameFAQs Character Battles, this election won't be decided by popular vote! Trump only needs to take his margin from the 19.3% he's currently facing down to 2 or 3% and he'll be in good shape to win the Electoral College (as we saw in 2016, when he lost overall by 2.1%)
• if Biden can keep the margin above 8%, a Trump EC victory is almost mathematically impossible. anything in the 3 to 7% range is likely a Biden win, but there are some (improbable) scenarios where Trump could still win the EC from that range
• the 48 million mail in ballots you see on the sheet have been received and are ready to be counted, but haven't been tallied yet. it's possible that judges in hotly contested states could throw our millions of them by saying they weren't completed properly, for instance because the signature doesn't match what's on file
• the registered voter preference percentages were taken from the latest, most highly-regarded nationwide poll, which was conducted earlier this month. still, they have a margin of error of 3.2%... and obviously preferences could change based on any kind of breaking news as we get closer to election day
• (honestly though I trust those numbers as they're close to what we've seen in dozens of polls over the last couple months, and there's only a small sliver of the country who could still be persuaded to change their vote. also as we've gone over, a huge chunk of the votes have already been locked in and can no longer be switched, so there's going to be less last minute movement than we've ever seen before)

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Congrats to azuarc, Mario Kart 64 AND GameFAQs Contest Legend!
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