Jonathan Bernstein: “President Donald Trump’s chances of winning a second term continue to slip away. With under a week to go, he’s still down about 9 percentage points nationally, and there’s little sign of any real movement in either direction. Early last week, I speculated that there was still enough time for significant changes to the race. That’s much less true now. With the debates over, it’s hard to imagine anything that would spark a shift of more than a percentage point or two. And not only is Trump being badly outspent in the final days by former Vice President Joe Biden, the current spike in the coronavirus, an issue that plays very badly for the incumbent, is unlikely to help him as the few remaining undecided voters make up their minds.”

“Right now, Trump’s best bet appears to be holding every state he won last time except for Michigan and Wisconsin. To do so, he’d need to take Pennsylvania, where he currently trails by a bit more than 5 percentage points. That’s not impossible; I’d bet that the results will reveal a polling error of at least six points in more than one state. But that’s less likely to happen in heavily polled Pennsylvania. And if it’s just a one-state problem, then Trump is still sunk, because he’s currently losing (according to the New York Times averages) in Arizona, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and perhaps Georgia. So what Trump needs is for the national polls to be off (in his favor), and for Pennsylvania to be even more off (in his favor) without those other states being off in Biden’s favor. We could go through that same exercise, carefully counting where the electoral votes fall, with Wisconsin or Michigan. Or perhaps with Nevada or Minnesota, both of which Hillary Clinton won in 2016. But Biden’s polling lead is even larger in those states, and while it’s certainly possible that errors could still turn them for Trump, it’s increasingly unlikely.”