Democrats, desperate for any positive news about Biden's free-fall in the polls and election, pounced on the ABC News/Washington Post poll showing the race tied. Far from showing anything new, the poll showed similar readings from this pollster and flashed significant warning signals for Biden. The truth is harsh for the Biden campaign: there is no good news in the polls.

First, the pollster who ran the ABC News / Washington Post poll is Ipsos, the same pollster for Reuters. Ipsos ran a poll for Reuters on July 1-2 and found a similar result: a tied race. Ipsos ran a similar methodology for ABC News and The Washington Post and got similar results: a tied race.

There's nothing deceptive about this; the pollster is listed for both of them. But this also isn't a unique poll in the RealClearPolitics samples. The way Ipsos sets the demographics of its polls leads it to a tied race.

When you're measuring a wide variety of polls in a Presidential race, this spread of opinion is good. It provides a check on how other pollsters may be modeling the race.

Polling elections is like building a hurricane forecast. Some models may show the storm turning at a certain point, other models focus more on wind strength, and others have assumptions baked into them. Instead of trying to figure out which one is best, you take everything together, average, and get the path an average of all the forecasts is telling you.

That average gives you a far more accurate view of the race. That's why most people focus on polling averages like RealClearPolitics, Decision Desk HQ, and other sites. The average of all the polls tells you more than the assumptions of one pollster.

The Reuters and Washington Post/ABC News polls are in the RealClearPolitics average. You get a radically different perspective by looking at everything together: Donald Trump has a clear advantage. This week, Trump has held a lead of three points or more in the averages.

Those averages include things like Trump leading by as many as six points. That's the story CNN, The New York Times, and Wall Street Journal all find when they send their pollsters out. Those are the top-end polls; a tie race is the best case for Biden.

However, that's terrible news for Biden, even with a tied race. At this point in 2020, Biden led Trump by nine points in the polls. If things are only tied right now, that's a nine-point shift to Trump to give us a tied race. That's a seismic shift.

If you look at the averages, Biden's 2020 lead of nine points compared to Trump's three points now is a twelve-point shift towards Trump. These are massive shifts in the electorate.

Joe Biden won the 2020 election with about 45,000 votes sprinkled between a few battlegrounds deciding the race. Donald Trump doesn't need to shift polls by twelve points to win; he likely only needs to shift things by about two points. If Biden's margin is trimmed by around two points, that moves enough of those 45,000 voters to give Trump the win.

More troubling for Biden in that ABC News/Washington Post poll is what voters say about him. 85% of voters say Biden is too old to serve as President. 67% of voters say Biden should step aside, including 62% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents saying the same.

The poll also asked Biden supporters what they thought about this. 54% of Biden supporters believe he should step aside. In short, most of all major political demographics believe Biden should step aside. And everyone thinks that because he's too old.

When the press puffs up these press conferences and interviews for Biden, they're doing this for themselves. The public is already set in their opinion on Joe Biden. Everyone is convinced that Biden is too old.

Biden's campaign is losing this race. You can accept Biden's version of the race, which suggests the polls are tied, and even that points to a Biden loss. Nothing about the race or any measurement you use suggests this is a toss-up race.

Does that mean Biden cannot win? Absolutely not. However, we need to be clear on what that would mean: Joe Biden would need the greatest polling disaster in US history to win, and that's with a majority of his own supporters thinking he should step aside.

It's certainly possible that Biden gets that and wins re-election. Of course, it's also possible that Vanderbilt University wins the SEC Championship and goes to the newly expanded college football playoffs.

How many people are betting on that? Better yet, how many Vanderbilt fans are betting on that? Not many. And if you look at the betting odds markets right now, they think the same about Biden's odds. Does he have a chance? Yes. Is it the kind of odds you'd get in a toss-up race?

No. This is Donald Trump's race to lose. And it has been for the entirety of this year.