Well, the latest RCP Polling Average has Biden with a lead of 8.5%. It's beginning to look like the debate has given Biden a definite polling bump. On the day of the debate Biden's lead stood at 6.1%.
Trump was released (or released himself) from the hospital yesterday. His loyalists in the media are clearly attempting to spin the story of his encounter with COVID as one of personal triumph and, as Heather MacDonald calls it, positive masculinity. This is the hero's return. The strong man appeared on his balcony and saluted his people.
Many medical people think Trump was released too soon. The virus hasn't run its course, and there is often a kind of second wave of distress after a few days of feeling a little better. If that second wave does happen to the president, I suspect we will not know about it.
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I began this series of posts more than 3 weeks ago because so many people I talked to had what seemed like an irrational or information-free expectation for this election. That is, the Biden voters I knew were mistrustful of the polls and some were convinced that even if their candidate won the popular vote Trump would steal it in the Electoral College. At the same time, many Trump voters were simply ludicrously optimistic, utterly dismissive of the polling.
I decided to follow the polling closely and make note of it here so as to have a more informed understanding. This doesn't make me an expert, mind you. I'm just logging the numbers. The most important thing to remember about polls is that they represent a snapshot in time, not a prediction.
Trump's supporters are actually counting on all the polls, hundreds of them, being dead wrong. They always point to 2016 as their gotcha argument, but contrary to popular memory, the national polls were remarkably accurate in the end. It was some of the state-level polling that proved deficient.
But there are reasons to believe that will not be so this year. Those deficient polls underestimated the white non-college-educated voter, who showed up in greater numbers than expected in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, among other states, tipping those states into the Trump column. Without doubt the pollsters have attempted to correct for that failing this time around, and some may actually over-correct. It is also possible that their algorithms are under-representing Biden voters this time. We just won't know until after November 4.
But what we do see clearly is that the trend is toward Biden. Of the last 11 polls, 9 show Biden's lead at 7% or higher. As noted, the average lead has been increasing lately. And if you look at particular pollsters, those who have conducted multiple polls in the past few weeks (and who we assume are using the same algorithm each time), the trend is always a steady lead for Biden or an upward curve.
At the state levels, where the pollsters had problems last time, Trump is leading in virtually all the battleground states, though some of them are within the margin of error. I'm not putting a lot of confidence in these polls, which is why I don't mention them often, but it should be noted that they would have to be seriously wrong in a number of states if Trump is to have an Electoral College chance. It should also be noted that no one has ever won the popular vote by more than 3% and lost in the Electoral College.
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