Once again, it is time for our Monday rundown of the state-level polling in the presidential race. Since last week, Donald Trump has returned to the campaign trail in a big way, after his quick recovery from COVID-19. His rallies are (as usual) packed shoulder-to-shoulder with nary a mask in sight, even though we're on the leading edge of the next big wave of infections across the country (indeed, in many of the states Trump is travelling through).

This is Trump's final message -- ignore the disease, and maybe it'll go away. This is reckless and irresponsible, but it is also classic Trumpian behavior. One does wonder how many independents (especially out in the suburbs) this is going to turn off, but Trump really doesn't seem to care at this point.

Last week, instead of the second scheduled presidential debate, we got duelling townhalls on different television channels. Joe Biden appeared calm and collected and downright presidential. Donald Trump got grilled mercilessly by Savannah Guthrie (of all people), and reacted with his usual bombast and falsehoods and gaslighting. This week, we'll have what was supposed to be the third presidential debate (which is now the second), which will be the last real chance Trump will have to turn his campaign around. This chance has already shrunk considerably, since almost 30 million people have already cast their ballots.

Trump is trying to push an "October surprise" based on dubious emails about Hunter Biden, but at this point nobody (outside of Fox News) really cares. It is not going to have the same impact as Hillary Clinton's email revelations late in the game, but that's not going to stop Trump from trying. Trump is also going to crow about confirming another Supreme Court justice, but again this is not likely to resonate outside of his own base voters.

Instead, the real October surprise isn't all that surprising, because the experts have been predicting it for months now. The pandemic is beginning to rage across the country once again, and we're seeing numbers we haven't seen since the last wave hit at the beginning of the summer. If these numbers keep going up for the next week or so, it will almost certainly be the biggest issue on voters' minds in the election. Trump, astonishingly, is out there ridiculing Joe Biden for listening to the doctors and the experts, ridiculing Anthony Fauci (who is much more trusted by the public than Trump), while continuing to hold "superspreader" events at all his rallies. The disconnect between Trump's "we're turning the corner" gaslighting and Joe Biden taking the crisis very seriously is downright jarring.

In any case, as usual all the data necessary to produce these Electoral Math columns comes from the excellent website Electoral-Vote.com, who is still the best source anywhere for tracking state-level polling across the nation. Let's dive right into the numbers, with a first look at how each candidate is doing relative to the other. The following chart shows Electoral Votes (EV) for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Biden's numbers start from the bottom and are in blue, and Trump's are in red and go down from the top. Whichever candidate is across the 50 percent line will win the election, if all the polls are correct and nothing changes in the next two weeks.

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

The week began with the "Tied" category (in white) disappearing altogether, as Ohio moved into Trump's column. On the same day, Georgia swung over to Trump, leading to a dip in Biden's total. However, a poll the very next day swung the state back to Biden, leaving the only real change for the week Trump's addition of Ohio to his total.

For the week, Biden started at 356 EV, dipped briefly down to 340 EV, and then finished right where he started. Trump went from an initial 164 EV up to 196 EV (with the addition of both Ohio and Georgia), and then fell back to 182 EV, where he finished the week.

In other words, not a whole lot of changes in the overall totals. Percentage-wise, Biden stayed exactly where he was last week at 66 percent of the Electoral College, while Trump improved four points up to 34 percent. This is a perfect 2-to-1 split, you'll note, two weeks out from Election Day.

However, there was a bit more movement when you take a closer look at the relative levels of support from each state for the two candidates. Which brings us to our next chart. As always, these are broken down into three categories: "Strong" (10 points up in the polls or better), "Weak" (from 5 to 10 points up), and "Barely" (less than a 5-point lead). Let's take a look at Biden's chart to start with.

As you can see, there has been quite a bit of movement since the last time we took a look at this chart. Overall, as the previous chart showed, nothing changed for Biden. But within each category, things got both better and worse for Biden, in different states.

Biden's big improvement came in the Strong category, the lowest line on the chart. He started the week with 200 EV here, then added both New Hampshire and Virginia to rise to 217 EV at the end. This means Biden only has to win 53 EV in states he is polling lower than 10 points, so it is good news indeed.

However, those two states came from the Weak category, which bounced around quite a bit this week. The very start of the week saw a big drop in this category, as Florida moved down to only Barely Biden. Those 29 EV could be the key to the entire election, so this is a setback. Biden's Weak column did improve from that point, when Arizona firmed up for Biden -- but this only lasted a few days, and it eventually moved back to being only Barely Biden. Biden started off the week with a whopping 108 EV, which fell with the loss of Florida down to 79 EV the first day. With New Hampshire, Virginia, and Arizona moving around, Biden finished the week with only 62 EV in the Weak category.

However, overall, things didn't change, as states merely shifted categories. This meant that Barely Biden grew as Weak Biden shrank. In the Barely column, Biden started the week at 48 EV, and then improved with the addition of Florida to 77 EV. Georgia wobbling was the one dip in the topline of the chart, but Biden would close the week with these 77 EV in his Barely column.

As always, though, the most important line on that chart is the "Strong Plus Weak," since this is the best measure of which states a candidate can feel at least somewhat confident of winning. And by this measure, Biden didn't have a particularly good week. Not disastrous, mind you, but moving in the wrong direction nonetheless. Let's take a look at this line, compared to the last three Democratic presidential candidates at the same point in the race.

Last week, Biden had an impressive 308 EV in the Strong Plus Weak category. However, as I've been warning all along, Florida was the biggest reason his numbers were so high here. With Florida softening to only Barely Biden, his line on this chart took a big hit to start the week off, dropping down to 279 EV. He did see some improvement when Arizona got stronger for Biden, but then this dropped back again today. Biden's line moved up to 290 EV but then back down again to finish the week at 279 EV.

Historically, at the start of the week Biden was running behind both Barack Obama's 2008 numbers and Hillary Clinton's numbers (which experienced a one-day spike and then started a disastrous downhill slide). Biden moved above both of them briefly, but then finished the week just below where Obama was at this point twelve years ago (at 286 EV).

The big question, of course, is whether Biden will follow in the footsteps of Clinton or Obama over the next two weeks. Obama hit his highest point of the entire election soon after (rising to 317 EV), while Clinton struggled (and ultimately failed) to keep her numbers above the magic 270 line.

Now, it is worth pointing out that this chart is not an indication of success or failure in the final outcome. You'll note that Obama won both his races, despite being (at this point) at only 237 EV in the 2012 race. And while Hillary finished stronger than Obama did in 2012, she still lost the race in the end.

The biggest thing to watch -- on all these charts -- is how the last-minute deciders break. Now, this is hard to do because sometimes this trend doesn't even appear until a few scant days before the election. But it's what killed Hillary's chances last time around, because there was so much movement away from her after James Comey decided to stick his thumb on the scale so late in the game.

Will states firm up for Biden over the next week? That would certainly be a positive sign. If Biden's numbers start improving in Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, that could really seal the deal for him. And, of course, if Florida moves out of reach of Trump, that alone could spell the end of the race for the sitting president.

But while the race has indeed tightened a bit for Biden, he's still in excellent shape overall. Bear in mind that Biden currently has 279 EV polling 5 points or better for him, which is 9 EV more than he needs to win -- without even taking into account all the close races. If he can hang on to these states, it simply won't matter what happens elsewhere.

Now let's take a look at how Donald Trump is doing in the breakdown chart.

Trump also saw more movement than normal (for him) across all three categories this week. In his Strong category, Trump began the week with 87 EV, fell back and then rose to 93 EV before falling back again to finish the week at only 82 EV (a net loss of 5 EV). This was all due to Montana and Indiana softening up while South Carolina got stronger for Trump.

These numbers were all mirrored in his Weak totals, which moved from 30 EV to 24 EV and then finally up to 38 EV when Trump got a good poll from Alaska.

Trump's Barely numbers showed quite a bit move movement, however, as in the same day he added both Ohio and Georgia to his overall totals (Ohio had been Tied, Georgia had been Barely Biden). This jumped him up from 47 EV all the way up to 81 EV, but when Georgia wobbled right back to Biden's column, Trump lost half this bump. He would go on to finish the week with 62 EV in the Barely column.

Overall, this is one of the better points Trump has seen in the entire race so far. He spiked up to scrape the ceiling of 200 EV (which he couldn't quite manage, with only 198 EV for one day) -- an achievement he's only hit twice before. Still, even with the good news, Trump finished the week at only 164 EV overall, which is over 100 EV away from the goal.

Meanwhile, Trump's Strong Plus Weak line barely budged, once again. Let's take a look at his current numbers compared to the previous three Republican presidential races.

Donald Trump is almost exactly where he was four years ago, which is far below where John McCain or Mitt Romney were at this point in the race. In Strong Plus Weak, Trump regained Alaska's 3 EV that he lost a few weeks back, to put him back up to 120 EV. Four years ago, Trump was at 117 EV with two weeks to go.

At this point, John McCain was over 150 EV and Mitt Romney was at 180 EV, it is worth noting. But, as with the Democratic numbers, this is no indication of success. McCain and Romney went on to lose, while Donald Trump began his come-from-behind rise that would put him just barely over the top.

It's also worth noting that this was possible because of the collapse of Hillary Clinton in the final weeks. If Biden can avoid a catastrophic repeat, he's still heavily favored to win the overall race. Donald Trump has only 120 EV he can really count on winning, two weeks out. This is less than half the total he needs. He would need to somehow win 150 EV more to pull off another surprise victory. The chances are against that happening, but (as he proved before) nothing is impossible in electoral politics.

My Picks

I was pretty bold last week in moving states around, so there wasn't a whole lot of movement to speak of this week. Almost all of it was within the subgroupings, as states shifted back and forth between Safe and Probable for each candidate, for the most part.

Trump's polling slump due to catching the coronavirus did largely reverse itself, most likely due to his speedy recovery. We still haven't seen any reaction in the polling to the duelling townhalls last week, although a million more people watched Biden than Trump, for whatever that is worth. We've got the final debate this week, which is the last time the two candidates will face each other before Election Day.

The biggest unknown, at this point, is really how bad the next wave of the pandemic will become in the next two weeks. If daily cases start posting higher-than-ever numbers (roughly 75,000 cases a day or worse), then this could be very bad news for Trump. If Trump sticks to his: "we're turning the corner" line while Biden counters it (as he has recently been doing) with: "we're not turning a corner -- instead Trump has gone around the bend," then it's going to be painfully obvious which candidate is living in the real world and which is trapped inside some fantasy of his own creation.

The categories for this section -- which are my own picks, based upon both polling and gut feeling, please note -- are broken down into "Safe," "Probable," and "Lean" for each candidate, as well as "Too Close To Call" at the end for the real tossups. And as always, there is a full list of data at the end showing where exactly I've placed each state, along with their individual EV totals.

Likely States -- Biden

Safe Biden (22 states, 253 EV)
Last week, we optimistically moved five states up to the Safe Biden category. This week, four of them stayed put, while one seems a little too weak to justify being here. In both New Hampshire and Virginia, new polls appeared which showed Biden with strong leads (proving earlier polls which were closer were likely just outliers).

Of the three battleground states which moved up last week, Michigan just seems to keep getting stronger for Biden. The latest poll shows him up by a whopping 11 points. However, both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania seem to be tightening a bit. In both states, the most recent poll only shows a 5-point lead for Biden, while previous polling showed a larger gap. A case could be made that both states should move back to only Probable Biden, but I'm going to split the difference and move Pennsylvania down while keeping Wisconsin here. This is more gut feeling than numerical analysis, since Pennsylvania tends to worry me more.

In a similar gut-feeling sort of move, though, I'm elevating Nevada from Probable Biden up to Safe Biden, because no matter how many times Trump or his stooges visit the state I think in the end it'll wind up in Biden's column. The polling has been pretty good for him, although Nevada is a notoriously hard state to poll.

Probable Biden (2 states, 26 EV)
As just mentioned, Nevada moved up to Safe Biden while Pennsylvania moved back down. The only other state in Probable Biden is Minnesota, and a case could be made for moving it up to Safe Biden as well, but we haven't seen a poll out of the state for a week, so for now I'm going to leave it here.

Likely States -- Trump

Safe Trump (18 states, 117 EV)
I'm going to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt in three states this week, moving them all up from Probable Trump to Safe Trump. The polling in all three -- Alaska, Missouri, and South Carolina -- isn't overwhelming, but my gut tells me Trump is going to win all three pretty easily.

Alaska is another one of those states that is notoriously hard to poll, and the race seems to be tighter there than in the other two states, but in the end I think Trump will chalk up a victory up north. Missouri hasn't seen much polling at all, but again I seriously doubt Biden can pick the state up. South Carolina has had more polling than the other two, and recently the polls have even gotten closer, but in the end even if Democrats have a shot at dethroning Lindsey Graham I think there will be enough ballot-splitting to ensure a Trump victory.

I did move one state down from Safe Trump to Probable Trump, because the latest poll out of Montana was surprisingly close, with Trump up only six points. This may prove to be an outlier, but for now I'm moving Montana down to only Probable Trump as a result.

Probable Trump (1 state, 3 EV)
All movement here has already been discussed. All three states from last week moved up, while Montana moved down. I had moved Montana up to Safe Trump last week, but now am having second thoughts after that recent poll. So it takes its place as the only Probable Trump state this week.

Tossup States

Lean Biden (4 states, 71 EV)
Although I'm not feeling overconfident about any of them, I'm going to keep Arizona, Florida, and North Carolina here this week. All three could easily be seen as Too Close To Call, though.

In Arizona, the race has tightened up, but Biden still seems to be holding a steady lead of three points or better. In both Florida and North Carolina, the latest poll showed a perfect tie, but all the other polling shows Biden with a very slight lead. So my gut is telling me that all three should still be considered at least Lean Biden.

In a fit of optimism, we're going to also move Georgia up from Too Close To Call to Lean Biden. The latest poll showed Biden with a lead of almost five points, although other polling shows a much tighter race. But while we may have to move the state right back down next week, for now we're going to consider it a Lean Biden state.

Lean Trump (2 states, 44 EV)
To balance that fit of optimism, however, we're going to leave Texas as a Lean Trump state even though the most recent poll showed Biden up by a single point. The polling has been pretty consistently neck-and-neck, so by the numbers alone it should be in the Too Close To Call category, but like many Democrats I'm kind of tired of the eternal game of waiting for Texas to flip to blue. I'll believe it when I see it, in other words, but until then (or until some clearer polling arrives), I'm going to leave Texas as at least Lean Trump.

The other state in this category is Arkansas, which didn't move. There has been only one poll from the state for the entire race (in early June), but it was so close that it's hard to see the state as even Probable Trump at this point.

Too Close To Call (2 states, 24 EV)
Due to that fit of optimism, the Too Close To Call category is smaller than ever, with only two states so perfectly balanced that they're true tossups. Both Iowa and Ohio keep on flipping and flopping between Trump and Biden, meaning the margin of victory will likely be incredibly small in both states (and we may have to wait a few days to find out who won them). But the notable thing is that, with the loss of Georgia, there are only two states here this time around.

Final Tally

We've only got two more of these columns to go, folks. And at two weeks out, things still look pretty peachy for Joe Biden.

Overall, his Electoral College numbers are better than Trump's by a factor of 2-to-1. Biden has 279 EV which are either Safe or Probable at this point. Trump has only 120 EV locked up.

To put this another way, Donald Trump has to win at least one state Biden already considers locked up (Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin) to even have a chance of winning the Electoral College. If those five states go for Biden, then none of the other close states will even matter. And for Trump to actually win, he'd have to not only poach one of those five, he'd also have to completely run the table in every single other close race (Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas). That is a very tall order indeed.

On the other hand, if Biden wins just one of the big tossup states (such as Florida), then the race is all over and the only thing we'll be waiting to hear will be how big an Electoral College victory margin Biden can rack up.

Overall, if you add in the states which are merely leaning, Biden's got at least 350 EV to Trump's 164 EV. Trump will have to make up a deficit of 106 EV, even after winning Texas.

But Trump is running out of time for any sort of game-changing event to happen. More people are voting early than ever before -- 30 million of them and counting. Those votes will be locked in no matter what happens in the next two weeks, and that number will likely be a lot higher (perhaps as high as 50 million) by the time the two candidates hold their final debate. Some are predicting an overall turnout of perhaps 150 million votes, which would blow away the old record.

Trump, to be blunt, is running out of time. All Biden really has to do at this point is run out the clock. Barring a landscape-changing event (like James Comey's announcement, four years ago), this dynamic could remain unchanged until the very end.

[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 -- 22 States -- 253 Electoral Votes
California (55), Colorado (9), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Michigan (16), Minnesota (10), New Hampshire (4), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Virginia (13), Washington D.C. (3), Washington (12), Wisconsin (10)

Probable States -- 2 States -- 26 Electoral Votes
Nevada (6), Pennsylvania (20)

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

Safe States -- 18 States -- 117 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Missouri (10), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 1 State -- 3 Electoral Votes
Montana (3)

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

Tossup States Leaning Biden -- 4 States -- 71 Electoral Votes
Arizona (11), Florida (29), Georgia (16), North Carolina (15)

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

Too Close To Call -- 2 States -- 24 Electoral Votes
Iowa (6), Ohio (18)

Polling data gaps:

Polled, but no recent polling data -- 9 States
(States which have not been polled since the middle of September, with the dates of their last poll in parenthesis.)

Arkansas (6/10), Connecticut (5/24), Kentucky (9/14), North Dakota (3/5), Massachusetts (8/27), Mississippi (2/28), Oklahoma (9/8), Tennessee (5/22), Vermont (9/15)

No polling data at all, yet -- 7 States
(States which have not been polled so far this year.)

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

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant