FDL Electoral Model (8/24): Biden 297, Trump 241

If the 2020 presidential election were held today, the FDL Review election model predicts that former Vice President Joe Biden would narrowly win the Electoral College. Per the model, Biden commands 297 electoral votes to 241 for President Donald Trump.

However, the Trump-Biden race is very close. When states where neither candidate commands 50% of the vote are shifted to the "tossup" column, Biden's electoral tally drops to 219 and Trump's to 205.

The FDL Review model identifies the following states as tossups: Arizona (47.71% Trump/47.48% Biden), Florida (48.93% Biden/47.13% Trump), Minnesota (49.61% Biden/46.07% Trump), Nevada (49.18% Biden/44.82% Trump), North Carolina (48.54% Trump/47.62% Biden), Pennsylvania (49.87% Biden/46.95% Trump), Virginia (49.95% Biden/45.21% Trump), and Wisconsin (48.65% Trump/48.61% Biden).

The model predicts that Biden would win Michigan, commonly identified as a battleground state, with 50.26% of the vote to Trump's 44.82%.

No tossups map

Map with tossups

The FDL Review model emphasizes an FDL-developed metric that measures each state's fundamentals and also considers past election results, public-opinion polling with adjustments for 2016 accuracy (or lack thereof), and enthusiasm. Once all the data are inputted, the model forecasts the share of the state's popular vote that each candidate would receive if the election were held today.

This forecast based on polling conducted prior to August 25, 2020.