Biden maintains big polling leads as Trump shifts from trying to win votes
This post was originally published on this site
The secret of public opinion is that it doesn’t change. We’re locked into our beliefs, and especially so when it comes to the presidency and Donald Trump. No better example of that than the pandemic: 200,000 people are dead, and it cost Trump a measly net three points in his approval ratings.
It is frustrating to see Trump avoid greater consequences for his rank incompetence, but on the other hand, it makes coming back from his deep electoral deficits incredibly difficult, and this week, just like every other week since this summer, Trump is lagging far behind Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the race for the White House.
Before we take a look at the latest polling composites, it’s important to understand that Trump is no longer trying to win this election. He’s not trying to appeal to the disaffected college-educated suburban white women who voted for him in 2016, but migrated en masse to the Democrats in 2018 (when Democrats won 38 suburban House seats, out of their total 41-seat pickup).
No, he’s not trying to win the election, he’s trying to stay in power. He’s not even hiding his goal anymore. So keep that in mind every time he opens his mouth. Nothing he does is geared toward winning a majority of the vote. Rather, it’s all geared toward sowing doubt, division, inviting foreign meddling, and installing a friendly judiciary that will allow him to steal the election. The quicker everyone understands this, including the media, the better we’ll be able to handle this serious threat to our democracy—a democracy that is far more fragile than we could’ve ever believed.
Let’s start with our baseline map, which for the first time has Texas as a battleground contested state. Texas!
Maine and Nebraska both apportion electoral votes statewide and by congressional district, and each has a battleground vote at stake. Hillary Clinton won Maine handily in 2016, yet Donald Trump won its rural 2nd congressional district. Trump won Nebraska handily, yet Clinton came within two points of picking up the Omaha-based 2nd. Polling this year has shown Biden carrying both of those districts this year. Also, polling has shown Alaska and Montana as competitive. Both are hard-to-poll states with minimal polling, so I’m leaving them in the Trump column for now, but if you want to wow your friends with your political acumen, predict that both will be close this year. In fact, predict that Alaska will turn Blue, and odds are good you’ll come out looking like a genius.
Here are the polling aggregates for the battleground states, using The Economist’s data. The baseline assigns the Nebraska and Maine district-level electoral votes to Biden:
| – | – | 234-125 | |
| 16 | Biden +7.6 | -0.2 | 250-125 |
| 10 | Biden +7 | none | 260.125 |
| 20 | Biden +5.2 | -0.6 | 280-125 |
| 11 | Biden +2.6 | -0.8 | 291-125 |
| 29 | Biden +2.4 | -1.0 | 320-125 |
| 15 | Biden +1.2 | -0.2 | 335-125 |
| 16 | Trump +1.0 | -0.2 | 335-141 |
| 6 | Trump +1.6 | +0.2 | 335-147 |
| 18 | Trump +1.6 | +0.4 | 335-165 |
| 38 | Trump 2.2 | -0.8 | 335-203 |
Pennsylvania remains the tipping-point state, by a long shot. In fact, Biden is leading by over 5 points in enough states to clinch the victory. I wouldn’t be upset if he and vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris merely rotated through Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, lather, rinse, repeat.
I’m also going to go on record as saying that I think likely voter screens are undercounting Democratic support. For example, look at this Pennsylvania poll by Franklin & Marshall College. It has Biden leading 49-40 among registered voters, and 48-42 among likely voters. This “likely voter screen” is used by pollsters to predict actual turnout, since who votes is as determinative of the final outcome as how each demographic votes. If 100% of 18-35 year olds voted, results would look a lot different than if only 50% vote (which is more likely).
This likely voter screen is an educated guess, and each pollster approaches it differently. If you want to know how a Republican pollster like Rasmussen gets such rosy numbers for Trump, it’s via their screens. You want a Trumpier result, just weigh more strongly toward old white men.
So historically, pollsters haven’t really gone wrong by assuming that actual turnout will be more Republican than the registered voter pool. Indeed, old white people are the most likely demographic to vote, while those least likely to vote are our base groups—young voters, people of color, and single women.
But I suspect pollsters that make that assumption this year will have egg on their face. Are we really going to argue that conservatives are currently more fired up to vote than base liberals? In fact, I’m going to predict that we’ll see more new voters than anytime in history, and those new voters (young, or with no history of past voting) are exactly the voters who are excluded in “likely voter” screens.
Yet the early vote suggests massive new voters—in the Georgia early vote, over 20% are new voters, while in North Carolina, it’s currently almost 23%. Those are not voters that will be reflected in most likely voter screens.
For context, we saw 14 million new voters in 2018, and they preferred Democrats by a 20-point margin. As a percentage of the total electorate? Only 12%. This year is shaping up to be lights out.
Of course, it’s okay if the polls underestimate Biden a bit. So many of you want to pretend we’re losing, so a seemingly tighter race plays to those fears of complacency.
But I prefer to look at the possibilities of an utter blowout, a mass repudiation of the Republican Party and its efforts to subvert our American democracy. Either way, we work hard. Victory is just over five weeks away. Let’s make it a Blue Wave.
Oh, and this: