Lindsey Graham in South Carolina is also neck and neck with his Democratic challenger and is supposedly getting greatly outfunded by him.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/518500-graham-neck-and-neck-with-challenger-in-south-carolina-senate-race-poll

A few interesting polls...

Again from our friends at Trafalgar, the ones who's claim to fame is predicting Trump wins it Pennsylvania and Michigan. They have Biden up by 3 in Wisconsin. If you're still holding on to the polls are biased against Trump theory, this one definitely wasn't in 2016, and it's still showing a better picture for Biden.

Interesting poll in Alaska, which has Trump up by only 1. If Alaska is close, that indicates a landslide Biden victory. But while the pollster is above average, it is funded by a super pac supporting the democratic/independent candidate for the Senate race. So, grain of salt. 

The biggest poll is the NYTimes/Sienna College poll showing Biden up by 9 in Pennsylvania. If this is the case then election over. For comparison they had Clinton up by 7 last time, so they did indeed vastly overrate her in that state. But, even if we assume they did not correct their models at all, this shift would take the state.

The thing to note here is that whether you take a pro-Trump poll like the Trafalgar one mentioned earlier, or a pro Clinton poll, they're both moving in unison, and both show a shift in rust belt states that would lead to a Trump loss.

In other maybe interesting news, Public Policy has a tie in Texas. 

In Illinois, a poll has Biden up by 13. This would actually be down from what Clinton won by in 2016 (17). So, that'd be bad for Biden. But, it's not a high rated pollster. The only reason it's interesting is that this is literally the only poll that has been done in Illinois this cycle according to fivethirtyeight. Illinois is considered a really safe state, so not a lot of data coming out of there. 

Sienna/Times has Biden up by seven in Nebraska's 2nd. This is significant because in a scenario where Trump wins Pennsylvania/Florida, and all of the toss up states, Biden needs both of the one electoral vote districts to win. Also, Trump won this by about 2 in 2016, so a 9 point swing is notable. That's probably not super reliable since there are few polls there, but it's consistent with what we're seeing in other places.

Lastly, Monmouth is showing a 5% lead for Biden nationwide with third parties, which is consistent with the Washington Post, and slightly less than the Times.

Edit: And another top rated poll, ABC Washington Post, shows Biden with a 9 point lead in Pennsylvania. No data on how good they were specifically in the 2016 race. 

This poll however is actually a lot worse for Trump than the Sienna poll. Because according to this poll, Biden is up by 54-45. That means there is a mere 1% of likely voters who have not chosen a candidate, which would mean a comeback, assuming the poll's accuracy, would require Trump to win over about 10% of Biden's support. That's a very tall task when the election has actually started.

On the other hand, the Center for American Greatness has released a poll showing Biden up by 2% in Wisconsin. This is the same source that funds Rasmussen, which has a consistently pro-republican lean, so decide for yourself how to consider that. The pollster has a C rating from fivethirtyeight.

Pennsylvania is probably the most important state in the election. If these polls are even as close as they were in 2016, then it's on to 46.

One last update I guess before the debates.

American Greatness has Biden up by 3 in Florida. Normally when you click on a poll on fivethirtyeight it links you to their methodology. When you click on these, it takes you to a pro-Trump press release... so, big grain of sale.

Quinnipac, which is pretty good, and Civiqs, which is ok, have Biden up by 3 in Georgia.

University of Mass. has three interesting polls. First off, they show Donald Trump up by about 3.5 in Texas. Some polls show it even, but on balance, it seems like Texas going blue is a bit of a pipe dream. Although, polls did underestimate Clinton by 3 points, so not entirely out of the question.
In NC, they have a tossup.
New Hampshire is probably the most interesting of the polls. While it didn't get much attention, this was actually the closest state in 2016. It slipped under the radar because it went the way people expected, but Clinton only won by .3%. Despite that, there have been surprisingly few polls in the state. Which is kind of odd because a win in Pennsylvania plus New Hampshire (and all the toss up states) is one of Trump's most viable paths to victory.

At any rate, they have Biden up by 8 in the state. If this is true, it would be a pretty significant shift... but it would match the shifts in Ohio, Iowa, and Pennsylvania. So, either polls are getting much worse in unison, or the race is moving considerably in that direction.

Also, they found that Krispy Creme has an 83% approval rate. See, Democrats and Rebublicans can agree on something.



As for the debates... I don't see it changing things much. I think people will mostly see what they want to see via the power of confirmation bias. If Biden legitimately thought it was 1985 and fell asleep during the debate, and Trump said starting throwing the N word about, I don't think anyone would change their mind. So, I expect the polls to remain more or less constant. If anything, the tax stuff will be more of a factor.

why are they even bothering with debates? It's just going to be 4 hours of 4 candidates explaining with eloquence and dignity what their platform is and what their stance is on various situations, followed by 1 hour of trump rambling on and never completing a single sentence, sounding like iPhone auto-complete wrote his script.

I only watched snippets of them, but was Trump this much of a raving bully during the 2016 debates? Incessant interruptions and lots of personal attacks. Biden did a decent job of deflecting his aggression rather than rising to it. His speaking could have been a lot better, but it was interesting watching Joe focus on the viewers while Don focused on Joe and Chris. They REALLY need to turn off the non-speaker's mic in the following debates. What a mess...

The 2016 debates were more cohesive than whatever that was.

Trump won this debate easily. Joe Biden was rattled and crying for his mommy.

Biden easily won this debate, Trump had no way to argue actual points, just lob personal attacks at Biden's family. Oh and Trump refused to condemn white supremacy groups, lets not forget that priceless moment in the debate, that alone hands the victory to Biden.

Of all the debates I've ever seen, that one was the most recent.

Don't think anyone will be changing their mind based on that. I thought Trump was awful, but he was Trump. If you're supporting him at this point, that's the kind of thing you like or at least tolerate.

Biden did ok, but sometimes allowed Trump to bully him. I would think the constant arguing with the moderator would be a bad thing... but again, this is Trump.

I don't think Biden said anything that would lend credence to the Biden is diminished narrative. It's a little silly I should have to say it, but at all times he seemed to have a full grasp on what was being discussed. They both fumbled over words at time, but that's what happens when you're publicly speaking without a script.

The most clipworthy moment was probably Trump's response to white supremacists. When asked to do so, he danced around the issue and ranted about Antifa. When finally pinned down he said "stand down and stand by". Which is probably the most fucking horrifying response he could have given. Intentionally or not, it came off as an order. But, again, that's Trump. If you're with him so far, you either support that sort of thing, or at least it's not a dealbreaker.

Ultimately, I think this is a win for Biden, simply because he's ahead already, and nothing that happened will change the status quo.

Biden didn't do great, but Trump's last 20-30 minutes was a total disaster. He wasn't bad to start but the white supremacy moment probably blew his presidency