Joe Biden is consistently leading Donald Trump a lot in polls. And it’s now close enough to the election for the polls to actually matter. By late June, the average poll result generally predicts who will win the popular vote on election day and what that candidate’s victory margin will be, to within about 4% of the vote.
Here are the polling averages from RealClear Politics as of this date in past election years, along with the actual election result in November.
Losing the popular vote doesn’t always mean losing the election. In 2016, Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but still won the election because he narrowly carried the swing states, and thus won in the all-important electoral college. Hillary Clinton had lots of wasted votes in places like California that she carried by more than 2-to-1 margins. In the states where the election was close, Trump overwhelmingly won.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
But in this election, Biden’s margin is just too big for Trump to carry all-important swing states like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Right now, Trump is even trailing in Florida and North Carolina, states he absolutely must carry to win the election and easily carried in 2016.
There will be lots of close congressional races this fall, especially in the Senate. So all people who can vote, should vote.
The Democrats will probably end up controlling both houses of Congress. But unless Trump radically improves his campaign, he will definitely lose.
