As a sanity check, here's a comparison of our current "fancy" 538 averages to a simple average of post-debate polls for states with at least 3 post-debate polls. As you can see, the simple and fancy methods are very close to one another.
I mention this in part because Biden has gained 3.0 points in our national polling average since the debate, but only 1.2 points in polling average in the average swing state. It's a bit weird, but it's a direct reflection of what the polls are showing.
Also worth noting that *before* the debate, state polls tended to be a bit *better* for Biden than the national polls, implying that he was ahead by ~8 points rather than ~7. So there's likely a bit of mean reversion here.
Oops, forgot Wisconsin in that table. Sorry, Wisconsin.
It is worth mentioning that "gold standard" state polls (nonpartisan live caller w/cell phone) have been 1-2 points better for Biden than the average of all post-debate state polls. So there could be some bigger numbers for Biden coming as higher-quality state polls filter in.
Part of what *might* be going on: Some of these middling-quality pollsters do a bit of herding. High-profile national polls (e.g. NBC/WSJ Biden +14) opened the floodgates for basically anything goes in national polls, but they may be herding to pre-debate averages in state polls.
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Ordinarily a major national poll showing a candidate 12 points ahead would be huge news, but it's just sort of par for the course these days. A mini-thread with a couple of quick observations, though.
Biden's lead in our national polling average is up to 10.3 points. There's no sign that things are getting better for Trump; the ABC/Post poll showing him -12 postdates his leaving the hospital. The USC tracker has also been getting worse for Trump.
One silver lining for Trump: the state polls still mostly seem to be in line with an 8-9 point deficit, rather than 10-11 as in national polls. But, there's also been a real lack of high-quality state polls for the past several days, so that may just be a matter of time.
Biden does seem to be running a little hot in national polls relative to state polls. He's had lots of *good* state polls and *some* eye-popping ones (Quinnipiac today), whereas there are lots of fireworks going off in the national polls. This is likely just random variation.
The one real exception in the state polls is Florida, where Biden now leads by +4.6 and which has moved closer to the tipping point. That gives Biden a good backup plan if something goes wrong in the Midwest. Also makes an election night call more likely.
Related to this, but I *hate* the "this will give people a false sense of security" argument, at least when applied to measures that *really are* effective (e.g. masking, testing) though not perfect.
Let's say masks reduce transmission by 60% other things held equal, but people respond by going out and being around people 30% more often. So instead of reducing COVID spread by 60%, you reduce it by about 45-50% instead.
A couple of implications:
First, that's not a *false* sense of security. It's a *correct* sense of security and a response that indicates people are managing hard tradeoffs. I'd prefer to reserve the "false" label for "sanitization theater" interventions that have little effect.
I don't think it would be crazy—from a purely strategic standpoint, notwithstanding the health risk—for Harris to put her foot down and say leaders need to take COVID seriously and she won't debate in person until Pence is out of the quarantine period.
And by the way, from a health standpoint: we are not talking about some trivial risk. Literally half the people around Pence in this POLITICO illustration got COVID. The negative tests and lack of symptoms reduce the chance, but it's still decently high. politico.com/news/2020/10/0…
Harris is a good debater (though Pence isn't bad) and I guess you don't wanna take chances when you're 8-9 points ahead. But the public buys the message that Trump/Pence have been deeply irresponsible on COVID and one way to highlight that is by actually following the CDC rules.
Our post-debate poll with Ipsos is out, and it finds voters thought Biden did well and Trump did poorly. Also hints of a *bit* of topline movement toward Biden, though most voters stuck with their initial preferences.
We asked the same voters both before and after the debate their chances of voting for Biden and Trump in a 0 to 10 scale. Not *quite* a horse race question, though close to it.
If you were to treat the 0-to-10 scale as tantamount to a 0-to-100% chance of voting for the candidate — certainly a shortcut, so don't treat this as a proper horse-race poll — this group of voters moved from Biden 50-38 pre-debate to Biden 52-37 afterward, i.e. a 3-point swing.
Worth reading but it's worth remembering that Trump was judged the loser of the debates by polls and actually lost quite a bit of ground to Clinton in head-to-head polls following the debates.
Clinton actually led by only 1.4 points in national polls entering the first debate, eventually got that lead back up to 6 points before it started falling again. There were other things going on in that period ("Access Hollywood") but still....
And the primary debates? Generally Trump did very well on the unscripted days where he completely dominated coverage. The debates were a chance for his rivals to even the score and often resulted in Trump losing a point or two in polls. He was mediocre and uneven—though not poor.