I don't think the numbers are
right. I just think that the numbers are far more favorable than they were in 2020:
- for the most part, Biden has bigger polling leads than Clinton did (in the RCP "Top Battleground" comparison, Biden is doing 1.9 points better than Hillary).
- Biden has polling leads which are bigger than the 2016 polling errors (in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Georgia).
- pollsters have already made pro-Trump adjustments to their methods.
- the polls are trending towards Biden in several states (Pennsylvania being a notable exception).
- Biden is already above 50% in several states, unlike Hillary (that gives him much more room to lose votes).
- Biden is favored in more states than Hillary was (also gives him more room to lose votes).
- in 2016, 538 missed their projection by 71 electoral votes, and RealClearPolitics missed their projection by 41 electoral votes. If you deduct the same number of electoral votes from their 2020 projections, then Biden would still win.
- fewer undecided voters in 2020.
- no viable 3rd party option (sorry Kanye fans).
- no Comey surprise (yet).
- Biden has a much larger favorability spread. (Hillary was 8.4 points more favorable than Trump, but she was also 12.6 points below zero. Biden, by comparison, is 19.4 points more favorable than Trump, and he's 6 points above zero.)
Each of the above factors, taken individually, might not give me much confidence compared to 2016. But when you combine them all together, along with some subjective things such as the stock market (which I think is hurting Trump) and the lack of COVID stimulus (which hurts both but hurts Trump more, IMO), and the Amy Coney Barrett confirmation (which I think will motivate a few previously-lazy liberals) plus the early voting (which helps Democrats, especially if there is a COVID surge or a weather event on Election Day)......it all adds up to me being quite a bit more confident than I felt in 2016.
But I still think 538's forecast of 89% is wayyyyyy too high.