Trump, however, still trails Biden by at least 90 electoral votes on each of the models.

The little activity could be a sign the models are waiting for what could be the last big event of the campaign, the debate scheduled for 9 p.m. Thursday in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s possible some voters will pivot based on how Trump and Biden handle the topics selected for the debate: fighting COVID-19, American families, race in America, climate change, national security and leadership.

Meanwhile, this lull has provided the opportunity for some to question what they’ve been seeing play out in the campaign. Most polls, like the models we’ve been tracking, have consistently shown Biden leading. But can they be trusted? Helping feed that skepticism is the 2016 presidential race, when Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton seemed to catch many by surprise. So over the past week, we’ve seen articles such as this one on FiveThirtyEight: ”What Pollsters Have Changed Since 2016 — And What Still Worries Them About 2020."

High in the article is a defense of the pollsters of 2016. It notes that FiveThirtyEight wrote before the 2016 election that Trump was always a normal polling error behind Clinton.

“And that’s essentially what happened in 2016: Trump beat his polls by just a few points in just a few states,” the article states. "The presidential polls were, simply, not that off. State-level polling was less accurate, although as editor-in-chief Nate Silver wrote after the election, it was ‘still within the “normal” range of accuracy.’ ”

Still, many pollsters saw a need to make changes. So what did they do? Generally, they now give more weight to a voter’s level of education because that turned out to be a big factor in 2016 in determining how he or she chose a president.

The pollsters have also had to adjust to technology, especially in collecting their data. They’re relying more on cellphones because, according to Pew Research, in 2019, 96% of Americans owned one.

So will the polls be perfect this time? Not a chance. The New York Times' Upshot sums it up with this bit of chatter over one of its graphics illustrating the results of the race based on current polling: “Electoral votes if polling leads translate perfectly to results (they won’t).”

Others point to what they see as more important data, as in this New York Times article about new voter registrations: “Behind in Polls, Republicans See a Silver Lining in Voter Registrations.” The GOP has seen gains in registrations in the key states of Florida, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, although the article also notes that “Democrats retain a lead in total registrations in those three states and hold a significant advantage in early turnout.”

The facts are that there is a lot of data out there and every election is different. A lot of organizations have devoted resources to producing these models. That’s why we track them, and in the end we’ll examine how well they did.

Or, as Trump might say, “We’ll have to see what happens.”

‘The Bottom Line’

Biden still leads on all 15 models that we track, and all but one of them gives the Democrat more than the 270 electoral votes he would need to win.

But the former vice president saw his average drop by two electoral votes, down to 297.

President Donald Trump picked up those two votes, bringing the Republican’s total to 163.

Toss-ups remained the same at 78.

Democrat Joe Biden: 297 votes this week, 299 votes last week, 290 votes the week before that

Republican Donald Trump: 163 votes this week, 161 votes last week, 167 votes the week before that

Toss-up states: 78 votes this week, 78 votes last week, 81 votes the week before that

Projections as of noon Monday:

270toWin consensus map (last updated Friday): Biden, 290; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 85

270toWin polling map (updated three times daily): Biden, 259; Trump, 125; Toss-up 154

270toWin polling with no toss-ups (updates three times daily): Biden, 357; Trump, Trump, 181

CNN (last updated Oct. 7): Biden, 290; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 85

Cook Political Report (last updated Sept. 29): Biden, 290; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 85

The Economist (updated twice daily): Biden, 319: Trump, 188; Toss-up, 31

FiveThirtyEight (updated every two hours): Biden, 334; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 41

Inside Elections (last updated Friday): Biden, 319; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 56

Niskanen Center (last updated Sept. 15): Biden, 318; Trump, 123; Toss-up, 97

NPR (last updated Oct. 9): Biden, 290; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 85

Politico (last updated Oct. 12): Biden, 279; Trump, 179; Toss-up, 80

PredictIt (updated every four hours): Biden, 334; Trump, 204

Princeton Election Consortium: Biden, 335; Trump, 181; Toss-up, 22

RealClearPolitics (last updated Wednesday): Biden, 216; Trump, 125; Toss-up, 197

Sabato’s Crystal Ball (last updated Oct. 8): Biden, 290; Trump, 163; Toss-up, 85

U.S. News (last updated Sept. 29): Biden, 290; Trump, 185; Toss-up, 63

*PredictIt doesn’t do toss-ups except for equal results, while most other sites define toss-ups as difference between candidates falling within 5 percentage points

What’s new?

It seems kind of late in the game, but on its pundit page, 270toWin added a couple of more projection sites. The predictions of both strongly favor Biden but are within the range of the models we’ve tracked here.

The first sounds like a sequel in the “Transformers” series, Decision Desk — Optimus 2020 Presidential Forecast. Right now, it gives Biden 334 votes in the Electoral College to 163 for Trump. Still up for grabs, 41 electoral votes.

The other is JHK Forecasts Presidential Election Forecast. It gives Biden 335 electoral votes to 163 for Trump. Forty electoral votes remain in the toss-up category.

The interesting thing about JHK Forecasts is it allows you to run your own simulations, in case you like to watch each state fill in as red or blue. During a test Monday, it took 12 shots before Trump won any of the races, a victory of 274 electoral votes to 264 for Biden.

The closest race among the simulations that gave Biden a win came in with 278 electoral votes for the Democrat to 260 for Trump. In his biggest triumph, Biden got 426 electoral votes to 112 for Trump.

In the 12 simulations, Georgia went to Trump seven times and Biden five times. (Your results may vary.)

One note of skepticism, when watching the simulations run, Georgia is often among the first three or four states to report its totals. We can only hope.

Where does Georgia stand

Both of the new projection models mark Georgia as a toss-up, as do 12 of the 15 we were already tracking.

A big moment for the state last week was when FiveThirtyEight changed Georgia’s color on its snake chart, shifted back and forth between a rosy pink for Trump and an extremely light hue of blue for Biden. That followed a Quinnipiac poll that showed Biden leading in Georgia by 7 percentage points, a much larger spread than in other polls FiveThirtyEight includes in its recipe (The site also considers other factors, such as demographics and past voting patterns). The spreads in the other polls that FiveThirtyEight uses for Georgia range from 2 points in favor of Biden to 2 points in favor of Trump.

As of Monday, FiveThirtyEight put Biden’s odds of winning the state at 51% to 49% for Trump. It’s predicting a final vote of 49.7% for Biden to 49.5% for Trump.

This development prompted FiveThirtyEight to also produce an article, "Will Georgia turn blue? The answer: maybe.

Real Clear Politics, which maintains its own projection site and isn’t listed on 270toWin, also continues to mark Georgia as a toss-up state. But it has consistently been the most cautious site in terms of how it interprets polls and awards states to either candidate. It currently categorizes almost a quarter of the states as toss-ups.

What are the other toss-up states?

On its consensus map, 270toWin lists only five states as up for grabs. In addition to Georgia, they are Florida (29), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15) and Iowa (6). It also still marks one congressional district in Maine, and its one electoral vote, as a toss-up.

Real Clear Politics moved Minnesota and its 10 electoral votes back into the toss-up category this past week, joining Georgia and 10 other states — Texas (38), Florida (29), Pennsylvania (20), Ohio (18), Michigan (16), North Carolina (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10), Iowa (6) and Nevada (6). It also still sees the individual congressional districts in Maine and Nebraska as too close to call.