Quote:
Originally Posted by V
I don't follow any of this very closely, but weren't the polls showing an obvious Clinton win in 2016? I'm surprised how confident people are of a Biden victory. Is everyone completely oblivious that 2020 is obviously the darkest of timelines?
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Clinton had a 4% or so advantage in the popular vote going into the election. National polling error was about 2% and a few critical states, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin were 3-4% wrong. This is considered a normal polling error.
Biden is up 8-9 nationally and 4-5 in Pennsylvania and more in Wisconsin and Michigan. So Biden can withstand a similar polling error to the Clinton error and still win.
Secondly the source of the polling error was under sampling white voters without college degrees who voted significantly different from whites with college degrees. This error was corrected in 2018 elections.
That said 538 still gives Trump a 10% chance so even without suppression which is not taken into account he still has a reasonable but small chance of victory.
So I think trusting the polls is very reasonable but that doesn’t mean a certain Biden victory and a Trump Victory is in the range of errors that the polls predict.