Only because Biden is in the role of a challenger, while Obama was the incumbent. They're different beast, as Obama spent four years building a significant ground game in the most crucial swing states.
This is almost the exact opposite of 2012.
What I mean by that is Biden leads nationally by a consistent, and sizable margin. In 2012, at this point in the game, the national polls were much closer (and would get even closer in October). On this day in 2012, Obama led Romney by an average margin of just three-points. Biden is doing much better.
The difference, and why 2012 was different, Obama had very consistent leads in the swing states, despite a very narrow national vote lead - leads typically larger than Biden is seeing now.
I discussed this a few days ago but it's also due to the changing of the electoral college map. In 2012, Obama was not really viable in Georgia, Texas or Arizona - states Biden does much better in. However, Ohio & Iowa were two states that Obama consistently led in. Take the polls from 2012 in Ohio from September. There were 15 polls done that month. Obama led in every single one.
Ohio and Iowa are two states Biden likely is going to lose, despite growing support nationally.
Beyond all that, Biden's margins in these states (MI, WI, FL & PA) are at the level of Obama's final results in 2012 but with a national vote margin possibly three-plus points better than Obama in 2012.
What does that mean? Despite only winning the national vote by four points, Obama cleaned up with comfortable wins in Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He narrowly won Florida.
If Biden wins by four nationally, he'll likely lose Ohio and Iowa, maybe Florida and still probably win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, but by a narrower margin than Obama eight years ago.
Of course, he'll make up for it by doing better in Arizona, Colorado, Texas, Georgia and maybe even North Carolina.
Unfortunately, Biden could still do much better in four of those states than Obama did and still lose them (Colorado notwithstanding).
That's the biggest difference, imo.
Biden's EC path is narrower than Obama's if the margins get close to 2012 levels. So, Biden hopefully can win this by 5+ points nationally. That should easily give him 270 EV.
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