-A pandemic. -An economic recession.
-A racial reckoning.
-And two septuagenarian candidates.
-It all comes to a head on Election Day.
-This is your 2020 Fix.
-For all the tumult of 2020,
this presidential race has been surprisingly stable,
especially since this summer.
The coronavirus and the president's handling of it
has dragged down his poll numbers.
-Do we want normal life to resume?
Normal life. We just want normal.
-And Joe Biden has had a consistent lead nationally
and in key swing states.
-Given what we know about how states are expected to vote,
Biden is expected to start out with around 200 electoral votes,
and Trump with around 125.
We think there are ten states, give or take,
that will determine the outcome.
Biden has consistently led in polls
in six of those key swing states,
according to the Post's polling average.
-To the extent voters are voting on the issues,
it seems that Joe Biden has an advantage there as well.
-This country can't afford four more years of a president
who thinks he's only responsible
for the well-being of the people who voted for him.
-How the president has responded to the coronavirus pandemic
that has left more than 200,000 Americans dead,
and it's also cause an economic downturn
that's left thousands of voters out of work,
is going to be at the top of the minds of many people
who go to the polls.
-COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID -- by the way, on November 4th,
you won't hear about it anymore.
-But there are quite a few first-time voters
who are really considering where we stand in America
when it comes to race relations, and the role President Trump
has played in improving those relationships or worsening them.
-The other issues that voters say are top of mind for them --
health care, the economy --
also aren't necessarily working in Trump's favor.
The economy has been his strength,
and we do see in swing states that some voters
are still giving Trump the benefit of the doubt
that this economic recession is not his fault.
-We're gonna have the best year we've ever
had economically next year.
-I've said it before: I'm not gonna shut down the economy.
I'm not gonna shut down the country.
I'm gonna shut down the virus!
Pretty much the only way we can expect to know
the results on Election Day
is if one of the candidates has an unexpectedly large lead.
The Trump campaign expects to have a big advantage
among the people who are going to vote on Election Day,
meaning those totals might be the first thing
we see from the results.
-We're doin' very well.
You know, we're supposed to be a little behind,
and then we're a little bit above, right?
But that wave comes, and now we go to the front of everything.
I think we're gonna win everything.
-An influx of mail-in ballots
and a slowdown in the postal service
means that we may not know who the winner is on election night.
There are also cases in which the Supreme Court
and other courts are currently deciding
which ballots actually get counted,
specifically ones that arrive after Election Day,
even if they might have been sent beforehand.
The early vote is particularly interesting this year,
given the number of ballots cast early is already more
than half of the total turnout in the 2016 election.
-Election officials caution that a delay in the results
is not a sign of fraud,
as President Trump has sometimes tried to claim;
it's actually them being very careful
to get the results out to the public that are accurate.
-Based on the polls, it appears that Joe Biden
will win the popular vote,
but as many voters learned in 2016,
winning the popular vote
does not get you to the Oval Office.
So the question will be, who can get 270 electoral votes
needed to capture the election.
-Joe Biden enters the closing days of the campaign
with a clear advantage --
an advantage that, in any normal campaign,
would seem to be prohibitive.
At the same time, the lessons of 2016
and the uncertainty created by the coronavirus pandemic
mean that we can't take anything for certain at this point.
-But for all the instability of 2020,
this race has been remarkably stable,
and Joe Biden is leading where he needs to be leading
to win the White House.