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G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
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12 Oct, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Vote-switching accounts for 2/3rds of the swing in Democratic margin from 2016 to 2020, according to these figures.

As we found out after the 2018 midterms, the bigger force driving post-Trump electoral change is modest persuasion, rather than huge differential turnout
choice, persuasion -- tomato tomahto, we're saying the same thing
If you include 2016 third-party voters in the vote choice v turnout calculation, the numbers work out to 89% of the Biden-Trump swing being due to switching among 2016 voters.

Which... hmmm where have I seen that number before... ;)

medium.com/@yghitza_48326…
How do we square this w polarization? Well, polarization has definitely reduced the overall number of swing voters, relative to eg 1970s levels etc — but since the size of Dem and Rep blocs are roughly equal, vote-switching has also gotten more pivotal. So, an interesting puzzle.

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More from @gelliottmorris

G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
12 Oct
There is a large divide between national and state polls right now, with national poll showing an 11 percentage point advantage for Biden (in two-party %) and state polls hovering around +9.
Our election model is based mostly on the latter — we only really use national polls to fill in the gaps — but I do wonder about what the election would really look like with Biden +11 in state polls too. IA, OH and GA would probably be safely lean D
A 2 point delta nationally is huge in probabilistic terms, esp on election day. It's the difference between FL being 70% Biden and 90%, which might even be enough to push Biden's odds above 95
Read 8 tweets
G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
11 Oct
Our model thinks that some of the big swings toward Biden in other models/aggregates is a bit phantom. That's probably bc it relies heavily on state trends (which have been more stable) when data are available and bc of our partisan non-response adjustment projects.economist.com/us-2020-foreca…
I'd be careful with normal polling averages right now. We know that debates tend to cause temporary swings in the polls, and our model is picking up what we'd expect to see under a phantom swings — big movement in rdd and phone polls with smaller changes in partisan-weighted data
You can see the diff bt state and national trends at play in PA: If Biden really was up 10-11 nationally, our model thinks we should be seeing a lot more polls around +9-10, but instead we have a load of +5-8s and a few outliers around +11.
Read 4 tweets
G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
6 Oct
Trump is #actually pretty bad at politics. That's why his (net) approval rating has been historically stable and almost perennially low, and why he will very likely become the country's next elected one-term president (only the fifth since 1900). He's simply not good at this.
Trump's a minority pres who won the White House by drawing an inside straight in a few important states among a declining voting bloc. Since then, he has needed to expand his base to win re-election. But he has only ever catered to it—every time shrinking his electoral prospects.
If Trump wins again, his victory will be attributable in large part to years of trickery and attacks against higher election turnout. The simple fact of today's GOP is that it is a minority party, in power due only to electoral institutions that disproportionately advantage them.
Read 5 tweets
G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
6 Oct
Biden +11 in post-debate poll in Pennsylvania from Monmouth monmouth.edu/polling-instit…
Unlike the CNN poll earlier today, this one shows an increasing Biden margin among a sample that is actually more Republican than their July survey
Hard to overstate how bad polls are for the president right now.
Read 4 tweets
G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
6 Oct
Do you hear that sound? It’s the partisan non-response alarm going off
There can be non-response for vote choice in the 'independent' party category too, so just looking at the sample d/r numbers isn't quite the whole picture.

The +16 is probably a mix of both non-response and normal sampling deviation

If Biden is up by 8-9 like our model says then we would expect to see +16 polls in about one of every 30 samples, so this isn't like earth shatteringly weird
Read 4 tweets
G. Elliott Morris Profile picture
5 Oct
I've gotten a lot of questions about our model's projection in Arizona today (probably because of the NYT poll). People think it should be bluer. Maybe! Our model has it closer to 50-50 (though on the verge of lean blue) than other models (eg 538) for a few reasons.
First, our model is picking up some real pro-Biden pollster-level and mode effects in many of the polls coming out of AZ. I remove them, Biden's current adjusted polling margin there increases from three to four percentage points, and same with the election-day prediction. Image
A second factor is that polls were a lot closer a week or two ago, and our model thinks that information is still valuable. And since Biden has only gained ~1 point or so nationally and in states like AZ over that period, the model doesn't want to adjust too much to newer data. Image
Read 8 tweets

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