Biden heavily favored to win election in model forecast

WASHINGTON

US Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has a nearly 90% chance to beat US President Donald Trump in next week's election, according to a forecast released Thursday.

The FiveThirtyEight.com website notes that Trump continues to lag behind the former vice president in nationwide polling, though there are considerably tighter races in key battleground states.

Using a range of polls that update daily, it simulated the election 40,000 times and found Biden emerges victorious in 89 out of every 100 samples. The likelihood that Biden wins has increased since late September.

The website's modeling relies heavily on state polls as it is possible to lose the nationwide general vote, but still win the presidency. Either candidate is required to receive at least 270 Electoral College votes, allocated based on results in state elections, to claim victory.

Trump lost the popular vote in 2016 by nearly 3 million, but secured the White House under the US system. That year, Five Thirty Eight forecast Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton to win 71.4% of the time.

This year, the forecaster says Pennsylvania is "arguably the most important swing state," noting its results are most likely to serve as a tipping point for either candidate.

Of the nearly 79 million people who have cast ballots ahead of Election Day, more than 2 million are in Pennsylvania, according to the US Elections Project, which is run by a University of Florida professor.

Five Thirty Eight further found Democrats are "clearly favored" to maintain their hold in the House of Representatives, and are now favored to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans with the highest likelihood coming from Democrats winning 51 or 52 of the 100-member chamber's seats.

The Senate splitting evenly between the parties has a 10.6% likelihood of resulting from the Nov. 3 election.