quoting my prediction from August and updating with my very-nearly-final predix:
Unchanged, except for swapping Iowa to Biden and Ohio to Trump.
I originally thought having a senate race would help Trump hold onto states, such as Iowa, while states without senate races, such as Ohio, would be more strictly focused as a referendum on Trump, which I assumed would make such states harder to win. The thesis was weak partisans might not turnout for just Trump alone, but maybe they would if they also had a senator they felt they could support to vote for and then they'd plug their nose and vote Trump once already voting. This would give him a slight bump, and in states that are often close like Iowa and Ohio, these small factors can change the outcome.
At this point however, the Senate is seen by independents/weak partisans as the primary roadblock to passing coronavirus relief, as well as the fact that a majority of voters believe they should not have rushed to confirm a supreme court justice, and as such these states with senate races are actually likely to see increased turnout among people who may not have otherwise voted (we're already seeing strong evidence that this is likely to be the highest turnout election in decades), as well as increased likelihood of swing voters actually swinging to Ds in order to get shit done. In certain states the local politics around controlling covid in their own state in the absence of federal action has also created some state specific factors we might not have otherwise seen in a regular election year. And again, for states that were already likely to be close, this can make all the difference.
For Iowa, essentially, because Gov. Reynolds and Sen. Ernst are unpopular (especially as pertains to covid), and Ds are running pretty credible candidates in all the house districts as well as for senate, I think statewide politics here are actually buoying Biden v Trump in Iowa more so than he is buoying the downballot candidates, and I think this will be juuuust enough to put it into Biden's column by under 2 points, despite the fact that the state voted for Trump by 9.5 points in 2016. It's tight, but I do think Biden's national and state polling support that he is slightly favored here. I do think this will be the state with the narrowest margin, though, so not at all confident in predicting Iowa either way. When looking to see if this thesis might have been correct after the fact - see if Greenfield-Ernst comes out with a more favorable margin for Ds than Biden-Trump does. I expect that will be so.
Compared to Iowa, there's no such luck for Biden in Ohio, where he has to make up nearly as large of a deficit from 2016 (8 points). However, here Gov. DeWine remains popular and is seen as managing COVID-19 well and there is no senator to take vengeance on this year. Ohio's polling has been
very strange recently, but at the end of the day I am inclined to believe Trump likely wins the state by 3-5 points, since Ohio has frankly been trending redder for a number of years now. Notably - if this is the case and Ohio goes for Trump while the country goes for Biden, then it will be the first time since 1960 and only the third time since 1896 that Ohio does not vote for the winner. But that becomes increasingly likely as Ohio becomes less purple.
Due to these same kinds of factors around statewide politics, I am also tempted to put GA and/or TX under Biden's column, more so than I was in August. I no longer think a narrow loss is Biden's ceiling in either state - I do now think he has a very credible chance to win both/either, but I do still think the
most likely outcome is a narrow loss, and so I am keeping them as predix under Trump's column. I am however continuing to track early voting in TX and GA, which has been impressive, and may be persuaded to change my predix for them in these last few days. For all other states, I feel pretty locked in.