Thread by @DavMicRot

I largely refrained from predictions in 2020 for numerous reasons. Horse-race coverage (1) gamifies & diminishes importance of this election (2) may displace coverage of more import (3) may discourage participation. I did jump into disagree w/ everyone on trajectory of election:

https://twitter.com/DavMicRot/status/1281606831765364738

I was convinced by my polling, fundamentals of economy & COVID-19, relative strengths of the candidates that Biden would enlarge the map and maintain his polling lead up to Election Day: it is pretty clear at this point that my position was valid ...

Now the question is what will the polling error be (i.e., will Biden or Trump do better than the final polling averages), while almost everyone is fretting over how much Trump beats the average, I believe that Biden is actually more likely to beat the averages.

Trump beats the polling average if there really is a shy Trump voter (no evidence) or voter suppression is effective (it has raised the cost of voting, but preparation and hatred of Trump has led to record turnout, despite his voter suppression) ...

Biden beats polling average if the surge in early voting is actually way more Democratic than people are estimating (I think it is due to selection into early voting conditional on demographics being driving by support of Biden), and Trump's Election Day enthusiasm does not match

Anyway, the early predictions can help for more efficient allocation of resources, late predictions like this are not very useful. Hopefully I am not suffering from confirmation bias! Either way: vote, make sure everyone you know votes, volunteer if you can, then pray for US.