FiveThirtyEight’s top stories this week

A [FiveThirtyEight]( email [Popular This Week] Sunday, October 18, 2020 [1. Live Updates: We’re Tracking The Vote And Voting Problems]( [2020-VoteBlog-4×3-LIVE]( [Read more]( [2. 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]( [3. 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]( [4. Democrats Don’t Need To Win Georgia, Iowa, Ohio Or Texas — But They Could]( [1016_POLLA-4×3]( Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup. [Read more]( [5. 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]( [6. How Conservative Is Amy Coney Barrett?]( [SCOTUS-DATA_scotus-data_standard]( Just how conservative is Amy Coney Barrett? [Read more]( [7. 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]( [8. Hundreds Of Schools Are Still Using Native Americans As Team MascotsÂ]( [FiveThirtyEight-Mascots-Lockers-1200×900]( In the summer of 2020, public tolerance for companies advertising with racist images was at an all-time low. Brands including Aunt Jemima, Mrs. Butterworth’s and Uncle Ben’s all announced plans to change their product imagery and in some cases even their names in reaction to widespread public protests against anti-Black racism. The world of sports wasn’t far behind. [Read more]( [9. Wisconsin Was Never A Safe Blue State]( [WI-SWING-4×3]( This is the fifth in a series of articles examining the politics and demographics of 2020’s expected swing states. [Read more]( [10. How Did Lindsey Graham End Up In Such A Close Race?]( [Capitol Hill]( Recent polls of the U.S. Senate race in South Carolina have found third-term Sen. Lindsey Graham effectively tied in his contest against Democrat Jaime Harrison, a former top aide to longtime South Carolina Rep. James Clyburn and a one-time South Carolina Democratic Party chair. This is pretty surprising at first glance — Graham cruised to victory in 2014, winning by 15 percentage points. And Harrison isn’t some political juggernaut; in fact, he’s never before won any elective office. [Read more]( --------------------------------------------------------------- Weekly Listen [Play]( [Politics Podcast: How The Model Is Responding To Biden’s Double-Digit Lead In The Polls]( [FiveThirtyEight] [View in browser]( [ABC News]( [Unsubscribe]( Our mailing address: FiveThirtyEight, 47 West 66th Street, New York, NY 10023.