Biden has improved standing in many battleground states, 538 says. Missouri isn’t one
According to FiveThirtyEight’s election forecast, President Donald Trump has recently lost ground in many battleground states to Joe Biden.
That’s not the case with Missouri, though, with Trump increasing his lead in the state since FiveThirtyEight first released its model in mid-August.
Elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley looked at the 20 states where either Trump or Biden had at least a 10% chance of winning. Missouri was one of only two states where Trump’s numbers had improved in the last month, as he went from a 87.1% chance of taking the state on Aug. 12 to 89.7% on Sept. 16.
One poll in particular seems to have helped. A late August survey conducted by The Trafalgar Group — with 1,015 respondents — had Trump ahead of Biden, 52%-41%, among Missourians.
Florida was the only other “close” state to gain Trump support, according to the model, moving his chances from 35.9% on Aug. 12 to 39.3% on Sept. 16.
Trump easily took Missouri — and its 10 electoral votes — in the 2016 election, winning over Hillary Clinton, 56%-38%.
FiveThirtyEight explains its projection methodology on its Missouri-specific page, as 48% of the forecast comes from polls, while 52% relies on other data points such as demographics and previous voting patterns.
The site’s latest simulation gives Biden roughly a three in four chance of winning Nov. 3’s national election.
