ACCA Now September/October 2020

R emembering that the Presi- dent must win all five of these southern tier states, Mr. Biden’s best conversion oppor- tunity, when all is said and done, will be Arizona since we are seeing fundamen- tal demographic and political change developing in that state. Of the five Ari- zona polls released in July, Mr. Biden has led in three from between one and seven points. Another of the surveys projected the candidates deadlocked, and the final study in this category found Mr. Trump holding a four point lead. Therefore, we can expect Arizona to be a major battle- ground all the way to November. In the swing Great Lakes states, seven July polls have surfaced from the region, and Mr. Biden’s leads generally land within in a five+ percent range. Of the seven, Mr. Trump had the edge in only one, Wisconsin, from the Trafalgar Group, the only pollster to correctly pre- dict a Trump Badger State win in 2016. All of the aforementioned states are yielding close early polling results between Trump and Biden when overlay- ing polling with vote history and primary turnout figures. In terms of national voting patterns, does the presidential election fundamentally transgress into who wins the preponderance of just these key nine states? In a word, yes. The Senate races also look tohave their own firewall. The campaigns continue to evolve as we turn the corner toward the late primaries, and it is becoming clear that the Republicans are establishing a political safety net in order to protect their 53-47 chamber majority. Of the 35 Senate elections on the 2020 elections card, it appears that 13 are highly competitive, eleven of which are

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SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2020