With 141 days until Election Day, our forecast still sees the presidential race as a pure toss-up. Right now, President Joe Biden is favored to win in 491 out of 1,000 of our model’s simulations of how the election could go, while former President Donald Trump wins in 504 of our simulations. There is still a small chance of the pure chaos scenario: In 5 simulations, no candidate wins a majority of Electoral College votes, which would throw the election to the House of Representatives.
Compared to last week, the fundamentals have gotten slightly better for Biden — owing to positive releases of payroll, wage growth, inflation and stock market data. But a preliminary reading of the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment for June also flashed red last week, so the good news for Biden may not last for long. And at 38 percent (brushing against the lowest mark of his presidency), the president’s approval rating is not doing him any favors. Currently, though, our median fundamentals-only forecast for the national popular vote is holding steady at roughly +3 for Biden.
Meanwhile, the polls continue to suggest a slight edge for Trump in both the popular vote and the Electoral College. As mentioned in our discussion of the model on the 538 Politics podcast last week, these polls will continue to receive more weight in our forecast as we approach November — and that will keep pulling Biden’s overall chances down unless his numbers improve. That’s not happening yet, though: Recent polls aren’t suggesting statewide momentum for either candidate relative to last week’s forecasts. And national polls indicate that the recent judicial news surrounding each candidate — the conviction of Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, and the conviction of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, on charges relating to purchasing a gun while on drugs — has not yet meaningfully impacted vote intention.
What should you watch for this week? Besides the typical stream of polls, we’ll get new data on private residential housing construction and manufacturing sales, both of which feed into our model.
