Pennsylvania Is Biden Country This Year

Adam Schultz/Biden for President/ZUMA

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Joe Biden is ahead in the national polls by about ten points or so. But we’re sophisticated people around here and we know that doesn’t matter. Only the Electoral College matters. And because we’re really sophisticated political consumers, we also know that the Electoral College all boils down to Pennsylvania. As the Keystone State goes, so goes the nation. So how are things going there? Here are the final poll averages before Election Day:

  • Economist: Biden +6
  • 538: Biden +5.1
  • New York Times: Biden +6

This is what the Washington Post calls a “slight” lead, but only because they don’t really understand how margin of error works. For the rest of us, this is a pretty substantial lead indeed. It’s not literally impossible for the Pennsylvania polls to be off by five or six points, but it’s pretty damn unlikely considering the amount of effort that’s gone into correcting some of the shortcomings of the 2016 polling.

Of course, all of this depends on Democrats getting out and voting. And I think they will. If they haven’t been motivated by the past four years, I can only assume they’re all in comas.

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DONALD TRUMP & DEMOCRACY

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And we need your support like never before, to fight back against the existential threats American democracy faces. Fundraising for nonprofit media is always a challenge, and we need all hands on deck right now. We have no cushion; we leave it all on the field.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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