FiveThirtyEight’s top politics stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular In Politics] Thursday, October 15, 2020 [1. Will Georgia Turn Blue?]( [EU-1014-4×3]( For all the turmoil in the country this year, our presidential election forecast has been remarkably stable. Dating back to June 1, the first date that we ran the forecast, only two states had flipped between Donald Trump and Joe Biden at any point: North Carolina and Ohio. On Wednesday, though, they were joined by a third state, Georgia, where for the first time all year, Joe Biden is the favorite — the ever-so-slight favorite! — in our forecast. [Read more]( [2. Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]( [2020-VoteBlog-4×3-LIVE]( [Read more]( [3. Why The Amy Coney Barrett Hearings Are Verging On The Absurd]( [Coney Barrett Confirmation – POOL TW]( In her first day of questioning from senators, Supreme Court nominee Amy Comey Barrett wouldn’t say how she would rule on abortion cases. Or Obamacare cases. Or gun rights cases. Or really anything else. She wouldn’t even say how she would rule if President Trump tried to move the election to another date, as he suggested he might do earlier this year. (There is no real indication that Trump will follow through on that idea.) [Read more]( [4. What Pollsters Have Changed Since 2016 — And What Still Worries Them About 2020]( [POLL-OF-POLLSTERS_4x3]( If you ask Americans whether they trust the polls, many seem unable to let go of what happened in 2016. Polls taken since then have generally found that a majority of Americans have at least some doubts about what polls say. But as FiveThirtyEight wrote in the run-up to the 2016 election, Donald Trump was always a normal polling error behind Hillary Clinton. [Read more]( [5. Why Democratic Senate Candidates Are Competitive In Red States Like Alaska, Kansas And MontanaÂ]( [Montana Governor Steve Bullock Campaigns For Senate]( Democrats have a relatively clear path to securing a majority in the U.S. Senate: Win seats in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and North Carolina — all states where the Democratic candidate is favored. Carrying these four states, and winning the presidency, would take Democrats from 47 seats currently to 50 seats — Democrat Doug Jones is likely to lose his reelection race in Alabama — with a Vice President Kamala Harris as the tie-breaking 51st vote. Democrats also have about even odds of picking up a seat in Iowa. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Forecasts How popular is Donald Trump? [How popular is Donald Trump?]( [See all polls]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: The Road To A Senate Majority Runs Through The Sun Belt]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.