Four years ago, 538 mapped out the likelihood Biden would win the electoral college if he won the national popular vote by xx points.

You can view the probability here:

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-is-an-underdog-but-the-electoral-colleges-republican-tilt-improves-his-chances/

At 2-3 points margin nationally, Biden only had a 44% chance of winning the electoral college.

But it jumped to 88% if he won the popular vote by 4-5 (which he did).

Biden trails in this poll, and four years ago, the data said that if Biden lost the popular vote, he'd have only a .8% (not even a full percent) chance of winning the electoral college.

The electoral college is much more favorable to the Republicans than the popular vote.

Biden is losing the popular vote and therefore that's a sign that right now, he's probably losing the electoral college too.

Biden isn't winning the election in November if he loses the popular vote. I feel pretty confident in saying that, unfortunately.

And surprise, Biden trails in pretty much every swing state.

I remember reading in a 2012 analysis that said Obama actually had a better chance of winning the Electoral College than he did of the popular vote (he was favored in and won both obviously). Sometimes the trend in swing states can be different than overall. The GOP won the congressional popular vote in 2022, but almost all the swing state races went to the Democrats.

Ohio especially.

Obama led wire-to-wire in Ohio polls in 2012. You might have found the rogue poll that showed him down a couple but from every poll between October 1st and election day, Obama led in 30 polls. Romney only led in four.

Ohio is not in play anymore and none of the states Biden flipped that were traditionally Republican (Arizona and Georgia) are as strong as Ohio was for Obama.

That was 18 electoral votes Obama didn't need to win but led in anyway.

Obama also had a much wider base of support in the Blue Wall that Biden was able to win back (narrowly, of course). Obama won Pennsylvania by five, Michigan by nine and Wisconsin by 7.

The shift we've seen since 2012 has certainly put states like Georgia and Arizona way more in play than what Obama saw, but they're not locks and that's why Biden is at a major disadvantage with the electoral college.

He doesn't have the support in PA, WI and Michigan, states he trails in the average of polls, that Obama saw.

So, while he might be seeing better margins in Arizona and Georgia and Virginia and even Texas, outside Virginia, none of those states are lean-Biden and certainly weren't in 2020.

They were toss-up states.

The reality, had Biden lost just one-point off his popular vote total in 2020, he likely loses Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin, three states that he won by a combined 43,000 votes. That's all that decided the election.

If Obama had lost one point off his national total, he still wins except maybe loses Florida.

And that's the last point: Biden has a far worse shot in Florida and Iowa than Obama ever did.

Obama was the favorite in Ohio and Iowa (24 electoral votes total) and Florida was a toss-up (29 electoral votes). That's 53 electoral votes in 2012 that either leaned-Obama or were toss-ups that are now states Republicans are likely to carry in 2024.

We're assuming Arizona and Georgia are toss-up states again, and maybe they are, but that still only 27 electoral votes total. Even less than just Florida in 2012.

On top of that, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, which were not toss-up states in 2012, are now viewed that way solely by the polling.

And that's why the electoral college favored Obama.

It was all predicated on the idea that the Blue Wall would not collapse. And it did in 2016. Biden was able to build it back but it's absolutely not as secure as it was even when Kerry ran in 2004 (he won Michigan by about the same as Biden, despite losing the popular vote and won Pennsylvania by about three points, where Biden won it by about a point.

The electoral college could be more favorable to Biden right now than in 2020 but maybe marginally so and even then, hard to imagine him losing the popular vote but winning the electoral college. Not with how he's polling in the Blue Wall states.

But I thought this guy did a pretty good job breaking down where things stand, and he argues the battleground states are moving towards Biden more than the overall popular vote.

Most national polls now show Trump only up marginally in a multi-candidate race. In fact, only two polls released in March alone show Trump with a lead wider than two-points (+5 Harvard-Harris, which is a problematic poll and +6 in the Forbes-HarriX, which is part of the same Harris of the problematic Harvard poll).

Now I am guessing these numbers are looking at just the head-to-head (no third parties) but even that has narrowed.

Right now, Trump's average lead head-to-head is 1.1 points. That's about a point better for Biden than this time in February.

I suspect in a national popular vote when Trump wins by 1.1 points, the state results are similar to what was outlined in the video.

But even looking at his numbers, and doing a toss-up as a toss-up (neither gets those EV), if Trump and Biden won the states they led in here, plus the non-swing states Trump and Biden are expected to win, it's 268 Trump, 236 Biden.

Biden would still have to win both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Trump wins either, he wins.

There's no doubt Biden's polling has improved but the electoral advantage remains with Trump solely because the Blue Wall states (Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) are all toss-ups (this guy has them being a tie or Biden only +1).

But Biden has definitely lost ground in Georgia and Arizona and that makes his positioning very precarious.

Is that I don't think this is like 2016 or 2020 in that Biden needs a popular vote margin of several million votes to win the EC. The swing states seem more favorable to him than that this time. I'm not necessarily saying he can lose the popular vote but win the Electoral College, but I don't believe he needs to win by several percentage points either.

I think the EC is a bit more favorable to Biden but not anywhere near where it was in 2012.

If Biden were up 4 points nationally, or his total win margin in 2020, I could concede he'd maybe be doing a point or so better in the Blue Wall compared to 2020.

And that would be enough to win by a decent margin.

But he's not up four nationally. He's not even up nationally at this point in the averages.

The whole argument began because I said popular vote is not meaningless. If Biden loses the popular vote by the margin he's trailing right now, I would not bet on him winning those toss-up states.

And because Georgia and Arizona are further out of play in these scenarios, he loses backup options that existed in 2020.

Which he is not doing at the moment.

I think he needs to win the popular vote by at least one-point to have even a prayer at winning the EC.

Which he is not doing at the moment.

If Biden wins the popular vote by two-points, he could win but I don't think it'd be a lock.

Three? And he's probably getting more comfortable.

Challenge them in the courts, clobber them with ads against their character, and sabotage their petitions by signing multiple times with fake names.

These are certainly ideas, not particularly good ones, but ideas nonetheless.

Kennedy is already on the ballot in AZ, GA and a few other states.