Blog Credo

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H.L. Mencken

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Polling Update

 A lot of high quality polls go dark the week before the election, because they feel it can warp perceptions. But the election has been going on for weeks now, so I'm not sure what the scruples are.

Today saw a massive dump of new polls, from good outfits to mystery outfits. Four years ago, we were beginning to see the erosion in Clinton's support and a surge in support for Trump that narrowed the margin from 6% to 3%, close to the final margin.

That is not happening this year.

Top rated pollster Monmouth has Biden up between 2-5%...in Georgia. YouGov and Ipsos have Biden up around 11 points nationally. Ipsos has Biden holding narrow leads in Florida and Arizona. Some group called Redfield and Wilton have Biden up 10 nationally.

Public Religion Research Institute (an A/B pollster in 538's rankings) has Biden up 19 points! The ABC/WaPo poll (A+) has him up 17 in Wisconsin!

These are outliers, but outliers count, too. What's more, they could signal that late movers are going to break towards Biden.

All the usual caveats apply. This thing is not over. But if Trump had these leads, we would be packing our bags to move to Ireland. 

No comments: