Eight in 10 chief financial officers (CFOs) at some of the largest public and private companies in the world are convinced Democratic Party candidate Joe Biden will wrest the presidency of the United States from Donald Trump on November 3.
These CFOs, who are members of the CNBC Global CFO Council also believe the House of Representatives will stay Democrat while Republicans will maintain control of the Senate.
In the council's Q3 survey, 75% of respondents said Biden will win in November. In addition, 63% of CFOs from the U.S. and Canada said Democrats will retain control of the House while 75% believe the GOP will again control the Senate. Only 6% believe the GOP will reclaim the House.
Out of 100 U.S. senators, 53 are Republican, 45 are Democrats and 2 are Indepdendents that mostly vote with the Democrats. The House consists of 232 Democrats and 198 Republicans. There is also one Libertarian (Justin Amash from Michigan). There are four vacancies in the House due to resignations.
Members of the CNBC Global CFO Council collectively manage more than $5 trillion in market value across a wide variety of sectors.
The views of the global CFOs closely match the results of practically all U.S. opinion polls taken since June. These polls overwhelmingly show Biden winning the presidency in November. Biden remains the choice for president as shown in a widely respected compilation of poll results put together by poll aggregator, RealClearPolitics. As of August 29, Biden enjoys an average 6.9% lead over Trump as to who Americans want as their next president. This compares to Biden's 7.6% lead the week before.
The August 29 results show Biden's lead ranging from 10% (ABC News/Washington Post poll) to 4% in CNN polling. The Trump-biased Rassmussen Reports has Biden with only a 1% lead over Trump, a stunning result that helped pull down Biden's average.
The two newest polls taken from Aug. 19 to 25 show Biden clearly in the lead. Both the Economist/YouGov and The Hill/HarrisX polls reveal Biden with a 9% advantage over Trump.
Recent modeling by opinion poll analysis website FiveThirtyEight shows Biden with a huge 71% chance of defeating Trump if the election were held today. In contrast, Trump's chances of pulling off a win stand at only 29%.
FiveThirtyEight simulated the election 40,000 times to see who wins most often. The winner is Biden in seven out of 10 times.
FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver still believes a lot can happen that might turn things around. There's COVID-19 to consider, as well as the U.S. economy still gripped by an economic recession.
These factors, however, likely won't be enough to prevent a Biden win. Biden's lead over Trump is larger than Hillary Clinton's post-convention peak in 2016. Biden, also, enjoys more overall voter support than Clinton.
