by Charlotte Calick
Since the last presidential election, when any candidate who is trailing is asked for a reaction to their lagging poll numbers, it usually elicits the same response:
“You can’t believe the polls. Look at what happened with Trump in 2016.”
It is the go to response, but is it correct?
With President Trump trailing Joe Biden in most national polls, the pundits are comparing today with where we were four years ago and showing the similarities. To fairly evaluate you have to keep in mind the two October surprises from 2016: the James Comey news conference and the release of the John Podesta emails. Both events began Hilary Clinton’s downward trajectory with final polls only having her up 3-4 points nationally. Clinton ended up winning the popular vote by slightly over 2 points, well within the margin of error. So as you can see, the polls were not that far off.
But polls aside, the reason we have President Trump not President Clinton is that we do not elect the president by popular vote. We use the electoral college. With that in mind one must focus on the polls from what was called the “Democratic Firewall.” Also known as the states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.
Those three Rust Belt states were states that the pundits just assumed would be in the Clinton column back in 2016. The former Secretary of State thought so as well, barely visiting those states during the campaign. As a result there was very little focus on the methodology of those state polls and they ended up being very far off from the final results. Most polls had Clinton up 5-10 points in each state. She lost all three states by less than one point.
As to not make the same mistakes again, pollsters revisited their methodology and made the necessary changes. Today, the polls better reflect the white non-college degree vote and correctly lowered the percentage of minority voters. With four years to make these corrections, pollsters are much more confident in their numbers today and they show Biden poised to win all three states.
The final thing to keep in mind is that in the majority of the national and battleground polls today, there is a “5” in front of the Biden numbers. With Biden garnering more than 50% of the vote, Trump needs all of the undecided vote and he needs to peel off some Biden voters. Even when she had her big leads, Clinton never got to 50% leaving a large swath of undecided voters still in the mix. Many of those voters, who did not like either candidate, decided to give the newcomer a chance. With fewer undecided voters and most of them having a positive view of Biden, a repeat of 2016 will be much more difficult for the President.
November 3rd is only a few days away, so soon we will have our answers about the polls. Can President Trump pull off another inside straight or is former Vice President Biden holding the winning hand?
Presentation created by Trevor Stern in Dr. W’s current events class.
