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OK, I keep seeing this convention hot take that hashtag #ACKSHUALLY the way for Trump to win is to target his convention to loyal Republicans and increase their turnout by 10 points or more over Ds (which is totally possible under the theory). Here's why that's wrong. 1/n
Trump would need to drive nearly impossibel levels of differential turnout to close a 9-10 percentage point gap in the polls based on turnout alone.
Here is one table that shows a hypothetical election where Biden is up 9.5 and 65% of all Ds, Rs and Is turn out to vote.
Here is one table that shows a hypothetical election where Biden is up 9.5 and 65% of all Ds, Rs and Is turn out to vote.
Now let's crank Republican turnout up to 70%, 5 points higher than Dem or Indie turnout. Already this is a pretty large turnout differential for presidential elections, and I think it's unlikely a convention could cause this on its own.
This nudges Trump up from -9.6 to -7.4
This nudges Trump up from -9.6 to -7.4
FYI there is some evidence that polarization reduces the size of convention bounces, and polls in recent fall campaigns have been much stabler than in, say, the 1980s
General election polling in 2020 has been very stable (as we predicted). That _could_ change before November, yes, but there are at least two good reasons to think it won't: the low variance from Jan to July, & that election polls now are like half as volatile as they used to be.
Yes, candidates can get convention bounces, but #ackshually polls in the first half of the campaign have been more volatile than polls in the second half, historically speaking. This is the trend for the variance over the whole electio nyear:
