Any given week of the presidency of Donald Trump can feel like an eternity. Last week was no different. We started with the revelation that Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes for two years running, then we all saw the worst presidential debate in American history, then at the end of the week Trump announced he had tested positive for COVID-19 and entered the hospital. All in one week. This is why we are now moving to a weekly schedule for these "Electoral Math" columns. We'll post a new numbers-crunching column every week until the Monday before Election Day (which is now only four weeks from tomorrow).

The last time we took a look at the state of the state polls, none of the above had happened. This time around, some polling which took place after the disastrous debate is starting to be announced, however no polling to date has taken Trump's coronavirus diagnosis into account (that'll happen with next week's numbers).

Let's get right to it, starting (as always) with the chart of the overall Electoral Vote (EV) totals. Our data is provided by the great folks at Electoral-Vote.com, who tirelessly chart and map the all the state polling data on a daily basis.

This chart is read from the bottom (in blue) for Joe Biden, and from the top (in red) for Donald Trump. Whichever area crosses the 50-percent mark in the middle signifies who would win if the election were held today and all the polling was perfectly accurate.

[Click on any of theses graphs to see larger-scale versions.]

Since our last column was only a week ago, only the rightmost portion of this chart has changed. Last time, the "Tie" column (the area in white) had expanded greatly with the addition of Florida's 29 EV. This widening continued when North Carolina also showed a perfect tie, bringing the total in the Tied category up to 50 EV.

There were two big moves on the same day, which resulted in a spike upward in Biden's blue area, as both Florida and North Carolina moved into his column. But then today, Ohio's 18 EV moved to Tied, leaving the category at 24 EV at the end of the period.

Joe Biden started the week off with an overall total of 323 EV. He improved this by one vote as he both lost North Carolina and gained Georgia in the same day. But his big move this week was to regain North Carolina and pick up Florida on the same day, which left him at a very impressive total of 368 EV. That's almost 100 more than he needs to win, obviously. The loss of Ohio's 18 EV today, however, moved him back down to 350 EV -- a net gain of 27 EV for the week.

Donald Trump started the period off with 180 EV. He only saw one loss, early on, as Georgia flipped to Biden. All the other movement was between Biden and the Tied category. This dropped Trump's total for the week down to only 164 EV, for a loss of 16 EV.

Percentage-wise, Biden improved while Trump fell back. Biden regained almost all the ground he lost the last time around, to wind up with a comfortable 65 percent of the Electoral College. Trump, however, continued to slide, moving down to only 30 percent of the total EV available. This reverses the downward trend Biden showed last time around, which is good news indeed.

But polling didn't just move around between the candidates, it also showed changes in both candidates' relative strength. Let's begin by taking a look at Biden's chart, broken down into three categories: "Strong" (polling 10 points up or better), "Weak" (polling between 5 and 10 points up), and "Barely" (a lead of less than 5 percent).

The big movement here was in the Weak and Barely categories this week. Biden's Strong category began with that slight downward notch, as Nevada went from Strong to Weak Biden. The last two polls in the state showed Biden with an 11-point lead and an 8-point lead, so this is really nothing much to worry about. The next day, however, New Hampshire moved back into the Strong Biden column, which almost made up for Nevada's loss (Nevada has 6 EV to New Hampshire's 4 EV). The Strong category started at 206 EV, slid down to 200 EV, and then recovered back up to 204 EV for the period.

The biggest news for Biden was firming up several states into his Weak category this week, though. He started off with 69 EV in the Weak category, which then moved up to 75 EV with the addition of Nevada. But yesterday, Biden moved Florida all the way from Tied to Weak Biden, which added another 29 EV for a final total of 104 EV.

Biden's Barely column jumped around quite a bit this week, as states moved both into and out of the range. Most of this news was good, however. North Carolina wobbled out of Barely Biden to Tied, and then wobbled right back to Barely Biden again three days later. Biden's Barely numbers really spiked when Florida moved from Tied to the category, but a day later the state had moved up to the Weak Biden category. At the very end, Biden got his only bad news here, as Ohio moved from Barely Biden to only Tied. Overall, the category started at 48 EV, spiked up to 89 EV with the addition of Florida, and then fell back to only 42 EV at the end, for an overall loss in the category of 6 EV for the week.

Of course, the line I watch the closest is the "Strong Plus Weak" line, where all the news for Biden was good this time around, which reversed his late-summer downward trend. Biden started the period with 275 EV in Strong Plus Weak, rose a bit with the strengthening of New Hampshire (which moved all the way from Barely Biden to Strong Biden in one jump), and then really spiked upward with the addition of Florida's 29 EV. Biden finished the week with a grand total of 308 EV in Strong Plus Weak -- the first time he's topped 300 EV since the first day of September.

Which brings us to a historical comparison of Biden's Strong Plus Weak numbers with the previous three Democratic presidential candidates at this point in the race.

As you can see by this chart, Biden topping 300 EV in Strong Plus Weak once again is great news. Once again, he is leading the pack of Democrats, since at this point in their own races Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were both below the 270 EV threshold. In 2008, Obama then jumped up briefly above 300 EV (hitting 304 EV for one day), but then fell back again. Obama wouldn't comfortably be above 300 EV until the final weeks of the 2008 campaign, and he never managed the feat at all in 2012. Hillary Clinton only rose above this line once in her campaign, in August, when she hit an impressive 320 EV. The closest she got in the later part of the race was 298 EV, which only lasted a single day.

Joe Biden, by contrast, has spent most of the race above this mark. For the last month, he dipped below it, but now seems to have recovered. Now, this all hinges on Florida staying where it is, polling at five points or better for Biden -- an important caveat. And at this point, Biden doesn't really have a whole lot of easy pickups to improve his Strong Plus Weak number -- the only state he could realistically hope will move soon is Arizona, which is currently polling at only Barely Biden. So he's almost at his ceiling here, but it's a pretty impressive ceiling, you've got to admit.

If the election were held today and Biden picked up all of his Strong Plus Weak states (and no others), he would still win the Electoral College by 38 EV. Even if he lost Florida, he'd still be at a winning 279 EV. That's a pretty good place to be sitting, four weeks out from Election Day.

So let's take a closer look at how Donald Trump is doing this week.

Donald Trump continues the downward slide that began at the end of the previous period. Last time around, Trump had seen several steps down for his overall total line, and that continued with yet another big stairstep down as he lost Georgia to Biden.

Other than that dramatic development, Trump's chart stayed relatively stable this week. This was largely due to the fact that most of the movement towards Biden came from the Tied category, rather than Biden flipping Trump states (other than the aforementioned Georgia).

The only other movement on Trump's chart at all this week happened when two states swapped places on the same day. South Carolina moved from Strong Trump down to Weak Trump, while Kansas moved in the opposite direction (as the first Kansas poll in quite a while was posted, showing Trump strengthening). This swap resulted in a net negative change of 3 EV from Strong to Weak (South Carolina has 9 EV, while Kansas only has 6 EV).

For the period, Trump's Strong number went from 87 EV down to 84 EV. His Weak number improved from 33 EV to 36 EV. But his Barely number sank from 60 EV down to only 44 EV. Overall, Trump moved from 180 EV total down to 164 EV -- over 100 votes away from victory.

Trump's Strong Plus Weak line did not budge at all, staying at 120 EV for the week. This number hasn't changed in almost a whole month, in fact. So let's take a look at how this stacks up historically with the past three Republican presidential candidates.

Once again, Trump is just not looking good, historically. His Strong Plus Weak line has flattened completely, and at an extremely low level. He is over 40 EV below where the worst Republican numbers were at this point in previous races (John McCain, at 163 EV, in 2008). The only numbers Trump is beating for the entire chart were his own, in the late stages of the 2016 race (where he hit a low of 105 EV in Strong Plus Weak right before his final climb upwards).

Of course, as many will point out, Trump still won in 2016, even with such dismal numbers. It is still impossible to say how the race will break in the final weeks of the campaign. But at this point it certainly does seem like Trump is in trouble, since his Strong Plus Weak numbers are now a whopping 150 EV away from the 270 EV he would need to win.

My Picks

Before I get to making my own picks for the week, I have one technical note to point out. The individual state-by-state charts from Electoral-Vote.com changed this week, for anyone who has been following them closely. Previously, the state charts all used pretty much the same scale for the vertical axis, which meant you could easily see the relative differences in leads between the states. This time, however, they have shifted to much more granular scales, which are different for each state. So you cannot compare the slope of the lines of one chart to another without also checking the percentage axis. This allows you to see tiny changes in the states that are polling very close, which was hard if not impossible to do with the larger scales. Just wanted to point this change out, for anyone who has been following the data all along.

OK, with that out of the way, here are my now-weekly picks. These involve all the data as well as a certain amount of gut feeling, as always. The states are sorted into "Safe," "Probable," and "Lean" for both candidates, as well as a "Too Close To Call" category at the end. As always, there is a full list of all the states and data (complete with the total EV for each state, and the totals for each category and sub-category) at the end of this column.

Likely States -- Biden

Safe Biden (17 states, 200 EV)
No movement in this category at all this week, as all 17 Safe Biden states stayed safe for him. We did get the first poll out of Illinois this election cycle, but (as expected) it showed Biden with a strong lead.

Probable Biden (7 states, 79 EV)
There was some movement here this week, as New Hampshire moves up from Lean Biden to Probable Biden. There has been a flurry of polling in the state, some done before the debate and some after. All of them showed a pretty strong lead for Joe Biden, with the last (done post-debate) showing him with an 8-point lead (53/45). In fact, a case could even be made that New Hampshire belongs in the Safe Biden category, but we're going to wait for a few more polls before making this move.

A strong case could also be made to move Nevada up to Safe Biden as well, as his last two polls showed leads of 11 points and 8 points. But again, we're going to wait to see at least one more poll before making this move.

The other five states in this category remained the same, which is all good news for Biden, since the list is almost entirely made up of states that are seen as crucial battlegrounds: Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. We're still waiting to see a strong poll from Virginia to move it up to Safe Biden, but the rest of those states could wind up being the key to Biden's victory.

Likely States -- Trump

Safe Trump (15 states, 95 EV)
Maybe we're just feeling sorry for Donald Trump this particular week, but we're going to go ahead and make a few gut-feeling calls in his favor. We're moving Kansas, Tennessee, and Utah up from Probable Trump to Safe Trump. There are few polls from these states, but I really can't see any of them breaking for Biden at the last minute, personally.

Trump did get some bad news here, though, as South Carolina moved down to Probable Trump. Trump is still polling ahead here, but the most recent poll showed a much tighter race than before. The previous poll showed Trump with a lead of 10 points (52/42), but the most recent had the race neck-and-neck, with Trump only up by a single point (48/47). This will likely turn out to be just an anomaly, but for now we've got to move the state down to just Probable Trump.

Probable Trump (4 states, 25 EV)
The movement here was a reflection of the movements just described: Kansas, Tennessee, and Utah all moved up to Safe Trump, while South Carolina moved down. The other three states in this category (Alaska, Missouri, and Montana) all stayed the same.

Tossup States

Lean Biden (2 states, 40 EV)
This is where the biggest news for Biden is reflected, as there were two big moves in a positive direction. As mentioned above, New Hampshire moved back up to Probable Biden this week, which showed that the single poll from a few weeks back showing a very close race was almost certainly an outlier. All polling since has shown Biden with a much stronger lead.

But the biggest news of the week was that Florida now has to be considered at least a Lean Biden state -- at least, for now. After flipping back and forth between Biden and only being Tied for months, Joe Biden seems to have opened up a slight but enduring lead here. I should mention that polling in the state is constantly streaming in, so we'll be able to quickly tell whether this is true or not over the next week or so. But the past two polls have both shown Biden with an identical 5-point lead over Trump (48/43 and 47/42). The most-recent of these was taken after the debate, as well, so this could signal a significant shift in the overall race. If Biden wins Florida, Trump may have no viable path to the 270 EV needed to win. We'll be watching the Sunshine State closely to see if this trend solidifies, but for now it has to be seen as Lean Biden.

The other state still in the Lean Biden category is Arizona. The latest three polls all show Biden with a lead of four points, but Team Trump seems confident they've still got a shot in Arizona, so we're going to leave the state here for now.

Lean Trump (2 states, 44 EV)
Trump also has only two states leaning toward him this week, although one of them may be about to move back down to the Too Close To Call category. Trump seems to have a slight edge in Texas, but the most recent poll showed a clear tie here (at 48 percent). The previous two polls both showed Trump up by 4 points, though, so for the time being we're going to keep it here. The other state in the Lean Trump category is Arkansas.

Too Close To Call (4 states, 55 EV)
As usual, there was some back-and-forth flip-flopping among the polling from these states this week, but no clear trends really emerged from any of it, with the exception of Florida (which moved up to Lean Biden). Georgia flipped to Barely Biden, but the latest poll only showed Biden up by 3 points. Iowa is going back and forth. North Carolina wobbled from Barely Biden to Tied and then back again, with Biden up by 2 points in the latest poll. And Ohio went from a Biden lead to being tied, which was disappointing because it broke an emerging trend in Biden's direction (the last three polls showed Biden up by a single point (48/47), then up by 5 points (50/45), but then back to being tied at 47 percent. So it can't even be seen as Lean Biden, at this point, but it's worth watching over the next week or so.

Final Tally

Biden is looking strong, as the numbers begin to come in after the first presidential debate. In fact, Biden strengthened his position notably this week. One technical footnote, though -- none of the polling to date has reflected what any of the voters think about Trump's positive COVID-19 test and trip to the hospital. Will he get any degree of a "sympathy vote" for being sick, or will this convince voters that he himself was largely to blame for getting sick due to his ignoring all the medical advice to date? Trump even mocked Joe Biden for wearing masks in the debate, so it remains to be seen whether Trump will change his tune on promoting mask-wearing among his own supporters or not. His behavior seems downright reckless to most of the public (by a 3-to-1 margin, in one poll), so it's hard to see any sort of "sympathy vote" appearing, really. But time will tell.

Biden is far ahead of Trump pretty much no matter how you read the data. In the Strong category, Biden has 204 EV to Trump's 84 EV -- a lead of 120 EV. In the Weak category, Biden has 104 EV to Trump's 36 EV. Add these two together and you get Biden at 308 EV in Strong Plus Weak to Trump's 120 EV. The only place they're even close is in the Barely column, where Biden currently has 42 EV to Trump's 44 EV. However, this doesn't help Trump much in the final tally, as Biden now has an overall total of 350 EV to Trump's 164 EV.

If Biden wins all his Strong and Weak states, the race will be over. Even if Biden wins all these states except Florida, he'll still win the race with 279 EV. This means Biden could lose all of the close states (including his own Lean Biden states) and still win the race. Trump, on the other hand, has to win all of the close states (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas) and then somehow poach another 10 EV from Biden's column to win the race -- which would require flipping at least one Biden state (two or more, if they're small states).

So far, the movement after the debate has overwhelmingly been in Biden's favor. We'll have to see whether this trend continues or not this week. Trump will exit the hospital and move back to the White House, but his relative health is going to be front-page news for days to come (no matter what happens), and we'll have the vice-presidential debate in the middle of the week. Now, vice-presidential debates rarely change anyone's mind, so that last one may be of limited influence in the actual polling, admittedly.

Trump seems to have squandered his best chance at turning his campaign around with his outrageous debate performance. Chris Wallace counted up the times Trump interrupted and came up with something like 145 times in an hour and a half. The public mostly recoiled in horror at this unseemly display of bluster and unpresidential behavior. He'll have two more chances to improve with the final two debates, but time is already running out. Millions of votes have already been cast in early voting across the nation, and by the time the next presidential debate rolls around, that could easily be in the tens of millions. From tomorrow, we've only got four more weeks until Election Day. And Joe Biden seems to be in excellent shape to take this race.

[Full Data:]
(State electoral votes are in parenthesis following each state's name. Washington D.C. is counted as a state, for a total of 51.)

Joe Biden Likely Easy Wins -- 24 States -- 279 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 17 States -- 200 Electoral Votes
California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3), Washington (12)

Probable States -- 7 States -- 79 Electoral Votes
Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), New Hampshire (4), Pennsylvania (20), Virginia (13), Wisconsin (10)

Donald Trump Likely Easy Wins -- 19 States -- 120 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 15 States -- 95 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 4 States -- 25 Electoral Votes
Alaska (3), Missouri (10), Montana (3), South Carolina (9)

Tossup States -- 8 States -- 139 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Biden -- 2 States -- 40 Electoral Votes
Arizona (11), Florida (29)

Tossup States Leaning Trump -- 2 States -- 44 Electoral Votes
Arkansas (6), Texas (38)

Too Close To Call -- 4 States -- 55 Electoral Votes
Georgia (16), Iowa (6), North Carolina (15), Ohio (18)

Polling data gaps:

Polled, but no recent polling data -- 6 States
(States which have not been polled since the beginning of August, with the dates of their last poll in parenthesis.)

Alaska (7/24), Arkansas (6/10), Connecticut (5/24), North Dakota (3/5), Mississippi (2/28), Tennessee (5/22)

No polling data at all, yet -- 9 States
(States which have not been polled so far this year.)

Hawaii, Idaho, Louisiana, Nebraska, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Washington D.C., West Virginia, Wyoming

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant