I'm skeptical about the polls showing Biden ahead

19 weekends to go

Dear Friends - 

I can’t stop thinking about politics; it is my consuming obsession. Some of what I’m seeing out there seems misguided to me, so in the spirit of that xkcd cartoon (“I can’t go to bed; someone on the internet is wrong.”) I’m sharing my thoughts. I might do this a handful of times between now and the election; if you don’t want me to send this to you just let me know or click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. And to be clear: I welcome argument or other observations. All that said:

The polls look good for Biden: In recent national polls, Joe Biden has a substantial lead over Donald Trump (from yesterday: 47% to 38% among registered voters, up four points from his lead in April).  Recent state polls show Joe Biden with double-digit leads in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and smaller but growing leads in Florida, North Carolina, and Arizona.

But polls don’t tell the full story and at this stage in the race, polls can be very misleading. 

• Polls are too simple to tell you what’s going on: Journalists are over-reliant on polls to provide simple explanations of the presidential election for readers, but this means they miss a lot of critical nuance. I learned this from Tom Patterson, and it is widely accepted in the academic research — and has been as far back as 1988. 

• This early, polls are pretty meaningless. To paraphrase FiveThirtyEight, Polls are snapshots of a moment in time, “not predictions”.

• Like it or not, Trump has a point about the polls: There is some evidence of growing problems with polling. In short, most polls undercount a key Trump demographic: non-college educated white men. Recent work suggests that biases of polling skew towards women, more educated, and more suburban and urban -- producing a coverage gap. Two recent studies on this are here and here (although you’ll need to scroll down to see the Patrick Ruffini study).

• There is trouble for Biden buried in the polls: In what’s called the “generic ballot” -- where you don’t use any politicians’ names, just Republican or Democrat -- some polling shows that Republicans hold a 1-point advantage over Democrats. That suggests that if Republicans can make this race about Democrats (and not a referendum on Trump), they can be competitive. (For more on this, see the GOP’s internal memo to Members of Congress on their own summary of the polling and what it means for campaign messaging.)

• Read some of the above polling links carefully and you’ll notice a common theme regardless of the poll: The economy is still voters’ biggest concern -- and across most polls, the one thing voters approve about Trump is his handling of the economy. 

Remember Michigan: if you need any more cold water thrown on your face: Romney lost Michigan in 2012. Trump won Michigan in 2016. But Romney got more votes than Trump. Why? In 2016, a lot of Democrats didn’t vote, especially in the Detroit area. It is more complicated than just about Black voters but there is no doubt that Black voters are a critical piece of the Democrats winning Michigan. So this piece from Tim Alberta is deeply troubling -- “Can Biden Survive the Despair of the Black Democrat?”:

“We are four-and-a-half months from the election, Washington. So much can change in a single day, in a single news cycle, in a single tweet from the president of the United States. None of what I will relay to you in this letter should be considered predictive. But make no mistake: If what I heard Sunday in southeast Michigan is at all representative of the Black community across America, Democrats should be disturbed and afraid. Not because they risk losing an election, but because they risk losing the loyalty of an entire class of voters.” 

The GOP has an electoral college advantage; don’t forget that the last two GOP presidents both lost the popular vote (Trump & George W.). We’ve got a long way to go and lots of volatility all around. 

If you like this one, a few things I’m thinking about for future write-ups are the Senate; the House; vote-by-mail; misinformation and its impact on the election; and the various wildcards that might throw things into even greater chaos. 

Comments welcome…

adios nicco