So you cannot ignore the polls, even though many were wrong in 2016. Well, the national ones were not that bad, state polls were. The Trump undercount in the state polls still happens, because white non-college educated voters tend to be more difficult to keep on the phone and answer the pollster's questions. In 2016, pundits argued they were just embarrassed to say Trump, but that is not an issue now, he's the damn President. National polls though are much more accurate because the huge swath of demographics can be fulfilled because they can hit a much wider sample size.
If you look at the national polling, Biden is now on average up 8-9 points and growing. He's been consistently in the lead with likely voters since 2019. Yes, Clinton won the popular vote but only by 3.3%. If Biden were to win that by even 5-6% though polling indicates a higher gap, there's simple little possibility for Trump in the Electoral College. The reason for this is mainly with probability calculations, but to be 6+% up, it's just very difficult. Hell at 3% he won three critical states by less than 100,000 votes in total.
One of the interesting sites I look at was created by a college freshman, Jack Kersting, https://projects.jhkforecasts.com/presi … -forecast/ He uses polling as well as Fundamentals (partisan lean, economic indexes), Expert's Ratings, and State Similarity Regression (demographic changes) to make a forecast.
Then there is the modern expert, Five Thirty Eight, https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/po … national/, which does a great job at tracking all of the national and state polls.
Finally we have Real Clear Politics, https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll … _map.html, who have an interactive map and do the gold standard in polling averages. RCP is also very selective in what polls it includes in the averages.
With all of that said, to chime in on what SQ21 calculated, I have it Biden 222 Trump 125 right now in terms of absolute guaranteed votes. What's left?
Let's take states that are not "in the bag" yet, though likely, for one or the other....Iowa (T), Minnesota (B), Texas (T), Georgia (T), Nebraska 2nd (T), Michigan (B). Yes I know Michigan went for Trump in 2016, but ALL of the polling is totally to Biden by a highly safe number.
That's now Biden 248 Trump 186 with 104 votes remaining, and Biden only needing 22. The states included are Arizona, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Maine's 2nd district.
There's many scenarios, but if Biden takes PA, he's 2 votes shy. While the Maine 2nd would tie the two of them, Biden would lose the tie breaking house vote (it's done by state delegations and that's unlikely to favor him after 2020 election even). So he then needs only one other state, likely to be AZ, WI, FL, or NC. I don't see Ohio flipping.
If I had to estimate where the race is right now, I'd say 333-205, but again, it's tough because the state polling might be off again. Look a LOT can change, but you cannot ignore trends. The trend since 2017 has been mass turnout and move away from Trump. The GOP has been steamrolled all over the country under his leadership. James Carville predicts a blow out, which I'd adore but not counting on. Biden in like polls is doing far better with suburbanites, independents, women, and even high school only white guys than Hillary.
Now in terms of Transmodiar's lamentations, I'll go back to Carville. Bernie ran a good campaign, but in the end, the rank and file of the Democratic Party voting against him. He only had about 30% support in most of the country. And if you get away from the coasts, it just was not there. Like Trump, he opted to be populist, and that just doesn't have a big enough tent.