The US Election Polling / Data Thread

[peter12]

Originally Posted by _Q_

Florida is a weird place. You got that right.

I was in Miami in May of this year. That place is a very liberal, very urban city where more people speak Spanish than English. It felt more like I was in Latin America than the US honestly.

Weeks later I was in Panama City in Northern Florida. Man what a stark contrast. All Walmarts, trailer parks, 90's Ford Trucks with confederate flags and NRA bumper stickers.... and all white people. Essentially, stereotypical hillbilly country.

So the fact that Clinton is leading by only 2% shouldn't be much of a surprise.

Latin America isn't really all that liberal.

[mrkajz44]

So the national lead is around 4-5 points now for Clinton. That is not very much and somewhat in the margin of error this far out from November.

Debates still don't start for almost another full month, but I think that will be the deciding point. If Clinton's lead remains around 4 or so going into the debates, I think the race would still be pretty wide open if they go well for Trump. Big "if" there, but it's not the runaway I thought it was going to be after the conventions.

[troutman]

I still don't see Trump winning any big states other than Texas.

[Senator Clay Davis]

The big thing to watch the next two weeks is can Trump break 40% consistently in 4 way races? Because to date he hasn't (I don't think we've seen a single post-convention poll where he has) and until he does he remains unlikely to win. He can only bring Hillary's numbers down so much without also raising his own. But who knows what impact his immigration cluster #### will have on his numbers. Probably very little ultimately.

[octothorp]

Yeah, I agree that Trump's high-water mark is a big problem for him. There might be people shifting from Clinton to undecided or to third parties (who have low willingness to vote for Trump), who would shift back to Clinton if they perceive the race tightening. I also think that the ground game advantage Clinton has likely isn't reflected in the polls, which could be worth a couple of points in swing states.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well there's a new high watermark in a 4 way for Trump, he leads Hillary 45-43 in CNN's latest poll. He also leads in the latest Rasmussen poll and the Reuters online poll, but trails in the NBC poll with his usual high 30's. These really are by far the most hated candidates ever. If Trump bombs the debates we could very likely see three straight months with 10 point swings in the polls. But the state numbers still seem to show a different tale. A CBS poll yesterday had him down 8 in Pennsylvania and 4 in North Carolina, and obviously election over if those results occur.

And if you believe this new 50 state poll by the Washington Post, Trump has a path through the rust belt....but is losing Texas??? Have not looked in depth at this, but that seems highly unlikely.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit....html#comments

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Yeah I don't know if I believe that Clinton is leading in Texas. One way to look at that is that the Clinton campaign likely has more data than we do, and if they were in striking distance in Texas they would almost certainly have started opening field offices and building a ground operation there.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

And further to that, if Clinton's camp also believes that Trump has a "path through the rust belt," they should be sweating bullets right now.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Iowa_Flames_Fan

Yeah I don't know if I believe that Clinton is leading in Texas.

Yeah, I don't believe that for a second. I dislike polls that are in the field that long (23 Days). It doesn't provide the snapshot that polls are supposed to be.

[Iowa_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Parallex

Yeah, I don't believe that for a second. I dislike polls that are in the field that long (23 Days). It doesn't provide the snapshot that polls are supposed to be.

Yeah I didn't notice the huge field time. That does create a huge issue, I agree.

[ernie]

NBC poll has the Clinton lead holding steady at 6% with a two-horse race and 4% for the 4-horse race.

[Drak]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...24d_story.html

With nine weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump is within striking distance in the Upper Midwest, but Hillary Clinton’s strength in many battlegrounds and some traditional Republican strongholds gives her a big electoral college advantage, according to a 50-state Washington Post-SurveyMonkey poll.

The survey of all 50 states is the largest sample ever undertaken by The Post, which joined with SurveyMonkey and its online polling resources to produce the results. The state-by-state numbers are based on responses from more than 74,000 registered voters during the period of Aug. 9 to Sept. 1. The individual state samples vary in size from about 550 to more than 5,000, allowing greater opportunities than typical surveys to look at different groups within the population and compare them from state to state.
WP

State by state breakdown: https://www.washingtonpost.com/graph...oll/?tid=a_inl

[Ducay]

Tough to look at that WaPo poll given the huge-mongous time period it was sampled over (A lot changed in the last month)

I'd imagine the truth lies somewhere between the new CNN results (Trump lead) and new NBC results (Clinton lead), and we're basically at a wash.

That said, a wash nationally means nothing given it is shaping up to come down to the usual swing states deciding.

[driveway]

Listening to the 538 podcasts, and the appearances by people like Harry Enton on other podcasts and they're pretty much certain this race is polling where their model has put it for ages and ages: a 4-5 point lead for Clinton, nationally, and a significant advantage in the State-by-State EC race.

[Caged Great]

Here's one about those CNN numbers. They over sampled white people to an unprecedented amount in recent elections and that's why it shows Trump ahead. They also had 4% more republicans than democrats in their polling methodology, which is also inaccurate as there are more registered Dems than GOP voters. If you use the same percentages of the demographics that voted in 2012, it shows Hillary up by 4. Never mind the fact that the minority vote has steadily grown by about 2% each election for the last 60 years.

[HotHotHeat]

IMO CNN has completely discredited themselves with this latest poll. The most obvious omission is the N/A of the 18-34 demographic. What in the actual flying crap is that?

[Senator Clay Davis]

Pretty amazing that two months out almost 1 in 4 people are undecided. Obviously the party who loses this election will rue not nominating a better candidate. Still this shows Arizona is for sure in play.

Arizona is a too-close-to-call presidential battleground between Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Donald Trump, according to a new statewide Arizona Republic/Morrison/Cronkite News poll.

The live telephone survey found Clinton, the former secretary of State, leading Trump, the celebrity billionaire, 35.1 percent to 33.5 percent among likely voters in the traditional red state, well within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

Third-party candidates captured another 8 percent or so: Libertarian Gary Johnson was supported by 6.9 percent; Green Party nominee Jill Stein by 1.5 percent.

Another 22.9 percent haven't decided yet.

Because people were asked concretely about what they plan to do, the poll got to the heart of how many Arizonans are undecided about the presidential race, said Eric Hedberg, director of research for the Morrison Institute for Public Policy. “I think that’s the big finding: There’s still the 20 percent out there who haven’t made up their minds.”

Even when undecided likely voters were asked who they were leaning toward supporting, the results remained similarly tight, with Clinton at 39.9 percent and Trump at 36.8 percent.

http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/...rump/89919308/

[Senator Clay Davis]

Besides that Arizona poll, a bevy of other state polls today:

- PPP has Trump ahead by 1 in a four way in Florida, and behind by 1 in the straight up. As always this will be a close state.

- Emerson has basically the entire Northeast done today. Hillary comfortably up in Connecticut, Vermont, Maine (outside one congressional district that has Trump ahead by 5) and Massachusetts; ahead of the MOE in New Hampshire, but surprisingly close in Rhode Island (+3) and New Jersey (+4).

[troutman]

Hard to fathom that Trump would get even one vote in NJ, after all the people he stiffed in Atlantic City.

[Parallex]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

Here's one about those CNN numbers. They over sampled white people to an unprecedented amount in recent elections and that's why it shows Trump ahead.

Legitimate concern with the poll.

Originally Posted by Caged Great

They also had 4% more republicans than democrats in their polling methodology, which is also inaccurate as there are more registered Dems than GOP voters.

Not a legitimate concern. You don't screen by party identification or at least you shouldn't.