“Trump won the 2016 election in large part because he was able to break through the big “blue” wall in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He did so on the backs of White voters, and in particular White voters without a college degree. This led to those infamous memes of reporters seeking out voters in diners across America. But today, Biden leads Trump in these Great Lake (or Rust Belt) battlegrounds because he’s eating into Trump’s margins among those very groups. These gains have big implications for the electoral college because they suggest Biden’s easiest path to victory may be through these three states” writes CNN election forecaster Harry Enten.

“Biden has clear leads in an average of the last three CNN approved polls in the states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. On average, Biden is up by 9 points in Michigan, 11 points in Pennsylvania and 10 points in Wisconsin. Biden’s upward trajectory is because of vast improvements among White voters in a comparison of Biden’s standing in each poll to how Clinton did with them in an average of post-election estimates from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study and Center for American Progress. Post-election estimates aren’t the most ideal comparison to pre-election polling, which would be accurate pre-election polling (something missing from these states in 2016). Like any poll (or poll average), these post-election estimates are subject to error. Still, the size of Biden’s rise over Clinton in these states is clear enough that it’s well outside the range of any statistical anomaly.”