A deep dive into polling in 2020 v. 2016 by @Nate_Cohn of @nytimes. The big news today: Even if this year’s polls are as bad as the 2016 state polls, Joe Biden has enough of a lead to win.
Make it so, Democrats.
Five weeks to election day.
Many states are already voting.
Let’s keep working hard!
#BlueTsunami2020
“Of course, the polls won’t be exactly as wrong as they were in 2016. They could understate support for Donald Trump by an even greater degree. But there are good reasons to believe that many causes of 2016’s poll misfire are less likely this time around:
“More pollsters now weight by education, which ensures that voters without a college degree make up an appropriate share of the sample. Many state polls had far too many college graduates four years ago, leading them to underestimate Mr. Trump.
“There are far fewer undecided voters, who ultimately broke toward Mr. Trump across the Upper Midwest. A similar late break among undecided voters this time would be less consequential.
“A more stable race. Our estimate of the polling error in 2016 is a little unfair to pollsters: We’re looking at the average error over the final three weeks of the race.
“That includes polls taken after the ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and before the Comey letter. Those polls showed Mrs. Clinton with a commanding lead. The final polls were more accurate, if still biased toward Mrs. Clinton.
“This time it’s probably less likely that the polls will swing greatly over the last few weeks of the race. After all, they’ve been far more stable over the last few months than they were at any point in 2016.
“That doesn’t mean that we’re immune to another misfire. Indeed, most polling misses happen precisely because the causes can’t be anticipated.
“That’s why our tables on this page also include the polling miss from 2012, when surveys underestimated President Obama. But it also means there’s no reason the polls couldn’t be off by even more than they were four years ago.”
@nytimes updates this report daily. You can find the data and analysis here: nytimes.com/live/2020/pres…
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