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What if the polls were wrong again in 2020 and shifted towards Trump exactly the same as they did in 2016? While it is unlikely that the polls will shift exactly the same amount I wanted to calculate this scenario to see what could happen if Trump manages to capture the exact same poll defying magic as he did in 2020.

To calculate this shift I first averaged the polling aggregate margins created by both RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight in 2016 state by state. If RCP lacked an official average in a given state I manually averaged up the last five (or in some states only one) polls to create an average margin of Clinton vs Trump. Several states lacked any sort of polling data in RCP, and so for those states I categorized them as safe republican or safe democratic based on their 2016 vote. The least safe of these states is Rhode Island, which voted for Hillary Clinton by a margin of 15.51%, so I think it's beyond the realm of possibility to expect these states to flip to Trump or Biden.

Then I took the polling averages and compared them to the actual vote margin Trump and Clinton got in the 2016 election. While most states shifted to Donald Trump, with Trump overperforming in most states especially in the Midwest, Hillary did manage to outperform in a few states, most notably Texas. Here are the margins that either Trump or Clinton outperformed the polls in 2016.

Shifted to Donald Trump:

Alaska by 10.38%

Maine 2nd District by 9.84%

Missouri by 8.74%

Indiana by 8.62%

Kansas by 8.10%

Utah by 7.98%

South Carolina by 7.65%

Mississippi by 6.73%

Arkansas by 6.52%

Wisconsin by 6.47%

Iowa by 6.36%

Ohio by 5.93%

Louisiana by 5.74%

Montana by 5.62%

Minnesota by 5.13%

Michigan by 4.28%

Pennsylvania by 3.87%

Maine statewide by 3.79%

North Carolina by 3.56%

Delaware by 2.93%

Florida by 2.45%

New Hampshire by 1.88%

Georgia by 0.98%

Arizona by 0.70%

Virginia by 0.28%

Shifted to Hillary Clinton:

Texas by 0.76%

Colorado by 1.41%

Washington by 1.51%

Oregon by 2.13%

Connecticut by 2.47%

New Jersey by 2.5%

Nevada by 2.52%

New Mexico by 3.06%

Nebraska 2nd District by 5.31%

Then I took the current polling averages as shown state by state in RCP and 538 in 2020, as of today, October 31st. Lastly, I applied each of these 34 different shifts to each state's current polling margin in 2020, as of October 31st, 2020. And as you can see, even if the polls are wrong by as much as they were wrong in 2016 Trump still loses massively, with the following electoral tally:

Joe Biden 306

Donald Trump 232

Of course I highly doubt that the exact same shifts from the polls to actual votes will occur twice in a row, but it is a good sign for the Biden campaign that the projections show him winning big even if Trump four years later, after over 230,000 American deaths and 40,000,000 Americans out of work this year, somehow outperforms the polls by the same margin he did in 2016.

I personally predict that Biden is going to win by more than 306 electoral votes, as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and even Texas are all either currently polling for Biden or trending in his favor. However while Trump's chances of legitimately winning remains less than one percent his real life chance of winning is around 40% due to his many attempts at blocking mail in voting and suppressing citizens' right to vote. We will just have to wait and see if Trump's attempts at rigging actually manage to flip this election or if they fail just as horribly as his attempts to prevent American deaths and boost the American economy.

Sources:

www.realclearpolitics.com/epol…

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p…

www.realclearpolitics.com/epol…

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Uni…

coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

www.syracuse.com/business/2020…

apnews.com/article/ece1f6e9cea…

economictimes.indiatimes.com/n…

Description

What if the polls were wrong again in 2020 and shifted towards Trump exactly the same as they did in 2016? While it is unlikely that the polls will shift exactly the same amount I wanted to calculate this scenario to see what could happen if Trump manages to capture the exact same poll defying magic as he did in 2020.

To calculate this shift I first averaged the polling aggregate margins created by both RealClearPolitics and FiveThirtyEight in 2016 state by state. If RCP lacked an official average in a given state I manually averaged up the last five (or in some states only one) polls to create an average margin of Clinton vs Trump. Several states lacked any sort of polling data in RCP, and so for those states I categorized them as safe republican or safe democratic based on their 2016 vote. The least safe of these states is Rhode Island, which voted for Hillary Clinton by a margin of 15.51%, so I think it's beyond the realm of possibility to expect these states to flip to Trump or Biden.

Then I took the polling averages and compared them to the actual vote margin Trump and Clinton got in the 2016 election. While most states shifted to Donald Trump, with Trump overperforming in most states especially in the Midwest, Hillary did manage to outperform in a few states, most notably Texas. Here are the margins that either Trump or Clinton outperformed the polls in 2016.

Shifted to Donald Trump:

Alaska by 10.38%

Maine 2nd District by 9.84%

Missouri by 8.74%

Indiana by 8.62%

Kansas by 8.10%

Utah by 7.98%

South Carolina by 7.65%

Mississippi by 6.73%

Arkansas by 6.52%

Wisconsin by 6.47%

Iowa by 6.36%

Ohio by 5.93%

Louisiana by 5.74%

Montana by 5.62%

Minnesota by 5.13%

Michigan by 4.28%

Pennsylvania by 3.87%

Maine statewide by 3.79%

North Carolina by 3.56%

Delaware by 2.93%

Florida by 2.45%

New Hampshire by 1.88%

Georgia by 0.98%

Arizona by 0.70%

Virginia by 0.28%

Shifted to Hillary Clinton:

Texas by 0.76%

Colorado by 1.41%

Washington by 1.51%

Oregon by 2.13%

Connecticut by 2.47%

New Jersey by 2.5%

Nevada by 2.52%

New Mexico by 3.06%

Nebraska 2nd District by 5.31%

Then I took the current polling averages as shown state by state in RCP and 538 in 2020, as of today, October 31st. Lastly, I applied each of these 34 different shifts to each state's current polling margin in 2020, as of October 31st, 2020. And as you can see, even if the polls are wrong by as much as they were wrong in 2016 Trump still loses massively, with the following electoral tally:

Joe Biden 306

Donald Trump 232

Of course I highly doubt that the exact same shifts from the polls to actual votes will occur twice in a row, but it is a good sign for the Biden campaign that the projections show him winning big even if Trump four years later, after over 230,000 American deaths and 40,000,000 Americans out of work this year, somehow outperforms the polls by the same margin he did in 2016.

I personally predict that Biden is going to win by more than 306 electoral votes, as Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, and even Texas are all either currently polling for Biden or trending in his favor. However while Trump's chances of legitimately winning remains less than one percent his real life chance of winning is around 40% due to his many attempts at blocking mail in voting and suppressing citizens' right to vote. We will just have to wait and see if Trump's attempts at rigging actually manage to flip this election or if they fail just as horribly as his attempts to prevent American deaths and boost the American economy.

Sources:

www.realclearpolitics.com/epol…

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/p…

www.realclearpolitics.com/epol…

projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2…

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Uni…

coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

www.syracuse.com/business/2020…

apnews.com/article/ece1f6e9cea…

economictimes.indiatimes.com/n…