2020 Presidential Predictions (General)

[FalterinArc]

Daily Reminder: Trump Will Win

hahahahahahahahahahahah

[DabbingSanta]

My forecast:



Actual results:



Postmortem on my forecast:

I predicted the wrong winner in three states (FL, GA, NC)

I overestimated Democrat support in the Midwest by a significant margin.

My most accurate states were Texas and Minnesota. The least accurate? Ohio and Iowa.

Here are my predicted margins from before the election vs the actual margins as of Nov 8th, 2020. We won't know Alaska for a while, so I'll leave that one out of the equation.

Alaska:   +12 Trump   N/A
Montana:   +12 Trump   +16.3 Trump   (4.3)
Texas:   +5 Trump      +5.8 Trump     (0.8)
Iowa:   +2 Trump      +8.2 Trump     (6.2)
Georgia:   +1 Trump           +0.2 Biden      (1.2)
Ohio:   +1 Trump      +8.2 Trump     (7.2)
N Carolina: +0.5 Biden       +1.4 Trump     (1.9)
Florida:   +1 Biden      +3.4 Trump     (4.4)
Arizona:   +2 Biden      +0.5 Biden      (1.5)
Nevada:   +5 Biden      +2.4 Biden      (2.6)
Pennsylvania: +5 Biden   +0.6 Biden      (4.4)
Wisconsin:   +5 Biden      +0.7 Biden      (4.3)
New Hampshire: +6 Biden   +7.2 Biden      (1.2)
Michigan:   +8 Biden      +2.7 Biden      (5.3)
Minnesota:+8 Biden      +7.2 Biden      (0.8)
Maine:   +10 Biden      +8.7 Biden      (1.3)
Colorado:   +12 Biden      +13.2 Biden    (1.2)
Virginia:   +12 Biden      +9.6 Biden      (2.4)

[DabbingSanta]

Alaska update...

Forecast: +12 Trump

Actual: +10.8 Trump

[ElectionsGuy]

Here's my final 2020 prediction:



Trump/Pence - 289 (47.0%)
Biden/Harris - 249 (51.5%)

Safe: 100% certainty
Likely: >90% certainty
Lean: 70-90% certainty
Tilt: 50-70% certainty

Safe Biden: 196
Likely Biden: 14
Lean Biden: 12
Tilt Biden: 27
Tilt Trump: 41
Lean Trump: 60
Likely Trump: 63
Safe Trump: 125

State (rounded to nearest 0.5%)

AZ: Trump 49.5%, Biden 49.0%
CO: Biden 53.5%, Trump 44.0%
FL: Trump 50.5%, Biden 48.5%
GA: Trump 51.0%, Biden 48.0%
IA: Trump 52.5%, Biden 46.0%
ME: Biden 51.5%, Trump 45.5%
 ME2: Trump 52.0%, Biden 45.0%
MI: Biden 50.0%, Trump 49.0%
MN: Biden 50.0%, Trump 48.5%
 NE2: Biden 49.5%, Trump 49.0%
NV: Biden 50.5%, Trump 46.5%
NH: Biden 51.0%, Trump 47.5%
NM: Biden 53.0%, Trump 44.0%
NC: Trump 50.5%, Biden 48.0%
OH: Trump 53.0%, Biden 45.5%
PA: Trump 49.5%, Biden 49.5%
TX: Trump 51.0%, Biden 47.0%
WI: Trump 49.5%, Biden 49.0%

My bias (rounded to nearest 0.5%)

NPV: Even
AZ: Trump +1
CO: Trump +4
FL: Biden +1.5
GA: Trump +3
IA: Biden +1.5
ME: Trump +3
ME2: Biden +0.5
MI: Trump +2
MN: Trump +5.5
NE2: Trump +6
NV: Biden +1.5
NH: Trump +4
NM: Trump +2
NC: Trump +1
OH: Biden +0.5
PA: Trump +1
TX: Biden +2
WI: Trump +1

On Average: Trump +1.5

I nailed the popular vote pretty good, but I overestimated Trump slightly in the key swing states. My explanation is that I thought Biden would do better than he did in California (I would've guessed more than 30 points), Texas, Florida, and New York too. As a result, my battleground state predictions were too right-leaning. But the only places where I was really off were Minnesota and NE-02. I underestimated how well Trump would do with Hispanics overall, even though I did predict he'd do better, and underestimated how badly he'd do with white college-educated voter, even though I thought there'd be more erosion but not as much as there actually was. So really for me, it was a case of underestimating the extent of things I expected. I also thought he'd do better in some working-class white areas carried by Clinton like Erie PA and the Iron Range in Minnesota, and that didn't happen other than Mahoning County OH. It's weird to me that Ohio is the only place where this happened, but that's what happened. Definitely one of the few areas I got wrong this election.

[DabbingSanta]

When will the scores be posted? Anxiously waiting!

[Arachno-Statism]

Any updates on the scoring?

[MR. KAYNE WEST]

Liep usually updates scoring when he makes the new maps, when he makes 2021 Gov maps, the scoring usually updates, but we don't know when that is

[DabbingSanta]

A photo of me, waiting

[California8429]

A photo of me, waiting

yup