Donald Trump could still stage a comeback (again)

EVERY FOUR years, political journalists and prognosticators deem America’s presidential contest the “election of the century”. By definition, each cannot be. But at the risk of causing readers’ eyes to roll backwards, the stakes really do appear higher than usual this time round. In early June The Economist published its own statistical forecasting model for this November’s presidential contest to guide such handicapping. Back then, it gave Donald Trump at best a one-in-five chance of winning a second term. But by July, as unrest and the coronavirus ravaged the nation, his odds had slumped to as low as one-in-ten. There they stayed until the middle of August. Now, our model shows Mr Trump has clawed back a sizeable chunk of support.