The Forecasts Begin

National media outlets are beginning to publish daily forecasts, which combine national (and sometimes state) polling with other data (economic, historical, political trends) to offer a statistical prediction as to the winner of the presidential election. Also, several political websites provide an aggregate of the latest surveys, sometimes simply averaging the means and other times using a variety of factors to weight the polls before averaging the data.

Aggregators

On the Wednesday after the Democratic convention, aggregators of polling data published the head-to-head positions:

All three aggregators have Hillary Clinton up based on new post-convention polls favoring her. She is getting what looks like a bounce.

Forecasts

The major forecasters include not only statistical models, but also political experts (such as Charlie Cook and Larry J. Sabato) who combine data with judgement as to the strength of the candidates and campaigns.

As of August 3rd, Clinton is seen as having an advantage to win the election, and Colorado is consistently rated lean Democrat. The spread has widened since the end of the Democratic Convention due to a bounce and Donald Trump’s missteps.