Even a 10-point lead isn't safe for Biden because 1) it's closer in the swing states 2) there's still *some* time for the race to tighten 3) polls can be wrong (although they'd have to be quite wrong, not just a little wrong, but I digress...)

Nonetheless, one thing these polling averages are very good at is detecting when there's been a real shift in the race from when there hasn't been. So even if you never look at our probabilistic *forecasts*, we think the *averages* can help you in that regard.

I would note that our averages are tuned to a more aggressive setting in the closing days of the campaign. There certainly can be danger in under-reacting; we think some other averages were a bit slow to adjust to the Comey letter in 2016, for example.

In general, though, there tend to be more false positives in the final two weeks than things that really do move the polls. And that's perhaps more so in an election where there are few undecideds and many people have already voted.