The “riding with Biden” bandwagon is growing by the day, sometimes by the hour, and it’s triggering a major bump in the polls for the former Vice President. A USA Today/Suffolk University poll, which came out yesterday, showed Joe Biden with a 10% lead, head-to-head against the incumbent Donald Trump. Other polls show a tighter race, but still have the challenger with a lead in the high single digits, comfortably above the margin of error.

Earlier this month, Biden, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party, received endorsements from a number of key voices including former President Barack Obama, and it’s providing a tremendous boost in his election chances. There are sites that have already updated their odds. Sports Betting Dime lists a few of the more popular sites to bet in the US, where you will noticed the Democratic Party’s chances of winning shifted from +100 to -110. The odds may differ at each site, but all have a similar point: Joe Biden follows closely to Trump’s lead overall.

The former Delaware Senator was officially endorsed by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a very influential progressive yesterday. Biden has also been endorsed by, as listed out by the progressive political blog Palmer Report: “Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Amy Klobuchar, Pete Buttigieg, and John Lewis, among others.”

The Sanders endorsement is really key, as it gets the so-called “Bernie Bros.” and the far left wing of the party on his side. Biden will need the full coalition of the left in order to win, no matter what the polls currently say right now. If the Dems learned anything from 2016, it’s that they cannot get complacent and coast.

Hillary Clinton had all the odds makers and polls favoring her, comfortably, heading into the last Presidential election day. Although she won the popular vote by more than three million, she was still about 77,000 votes shy in the swing states, and thus lost the electoral college.

Which brings us to the next major point- this is no popularity contest. Fortunately for Biden, various E.C. polling sites also have him up comfortably. This one shows him with a 348-190 advantage (270 are needed to win), citing a 49%-41% lead in Michigan, a 52%-43% in Arizona (a place that no Democrat has won since 1996) and three points up in Florida. When all is said and done, it’s really all that matters. The Democrats have been burned by this twice in the past five presidential elections. However, it is worth noting that no one was won the presidency by losing the popular vote and winning the electoral college twice/back to back.

Biden absolutely must win some of the swing states, and that should be considered a top priority when selecting his running mate. He’ll get the left coast and the northeast for sure. The Mid-Atlantic region is probably in the bag too. However, the Rust Belt states are very much in play, with Ohio pretty much neck and neck. Along these lines, perhaps Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, although still a relative unknown until a few months ago, would be the safe pick.

Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly contributes to WGN TV, Sports Illustrated, Chicago Now and SB Nation.

You can follow Banks, a former writer for Chicago Tribune.com, on Twitter and his cat on Instagram.

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