Experts see Trump’s chance at reelection decline in early October survey

The PollyVote has completed its seventh survey of elections experts to forecast the 2020 presidential election. In the survey, conducted from October 7-9, twelve political science professors from a variety of U.S. universities predicted that Joe Biden

1. is likely to win the electoral college and
2. will win the popular vote with a roughly 7-point margin. 

Biden’s popular vote lead expands by 1 point

The mean forecast is that Biden will garner 53.7% of the popular two-party vote, compared to 46.3% for President Trump. This is a 1-point increase in Biden’s lead compared to the previous round.

Biden expected to win the electoral college

PollyVote also asked panelists to estimate the probability that Trump will win the electoral college. On average, the experts give Trump a 24% chance to get reelected, with individual estimates ranging from 0% to 50%. In other words, experts currently regard Biden as the likely winner (76% probability).¹

PollyVote thanks the experts who participated in this round, namely

1. Alexa Bankert (University of Georgia)
2. Andrea Benjamin (University of Oklahoma)
3. Scott Blinder (University of Massachusetts Amherst)
4. George Edwards (Texas A&M University)
5. Sarah Fulton (Texas A&M University)
6. Sandy Maisel (Colby College)
7. Michael Martinez (University of Florida)
8. David Redlawsk (University of Delaware)
9. Larry Sabato (University of Virginia)
10. Mary Stegmaier (University of Missouri)
11. Michael Tesler (University of California, Irvine)
12. Charles Walcott (Virginia Tech)

¹ PollyVote treats probabilities as follows:

• 50 to 65: even chance for both candidates
• 66 to 89: likely to win
• 90 to 94: very likely to win
• 95 to 98: extremely likely to win
• >= 99: virtually certain to win