Will there be any surprises this election?
In the last two presidential elections, there have been some major surprises. Surprise was, of course, the theme for 2016, when Trump won a decisive Electoral College victory with the crumbling of the "blue wall" of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. With Clinton ahead in the polls that year, this a significant upset. In 2020, Biden's victories in Arizona and Georgia came as a surprise to many observers -- neither had gone to the Democratic presidential candidate since the 1990s.
Is it possible for us to be surprised this year? Most race predictions allowed for a wide range of outcomes, with either candidate winning the popular vote, the Electoral College or one but not the other. The major competitive states still seem like anyone's guess. A Harris victory in North Carolina, where votes are still being counted, might be a slight surprise -- Trump won there in both 2016 and 2020 -- but so far, we haven't seen anything unexpected, and it's not clear that we will.
