General Election Polling Discussion Thread (August 16, 2020) - Politics

General Election Polling Discussion Thread (August 16, 2020)
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General Election Polling Discussion Thread (August 16, 2020)

Posted: 16 Aug 2020 06:27 AM PDT

Introduction

Welcome to the /r/politics polling discussion thread for the general election. As the election nears, polling of both the national presidential popular vote and important swing states is ramping up, and with both parties effectively deciding on nominees, pollsters can get in the field to start assessing the state of the presidential race. Please use this thread to discuss polling and the general state of the presidential or congressional election. Below, you'll find some of the most recent polls, but this is by no means exhaustive, as well as some links to prognosticators sharing election models.

As always though, polls don't vote, people do. Regardless of whether your candidate is doing well or poorly, democracy only works when people vote, and there are always at least a couple polling misses every cycle, some of which are pretty high profile. If you haven't yet done so, please take some time to register to vote or check your registration status.

Polls

Below is a collection of recent polling of the US Presidential election. This is likely incomplete and also omits the generic congressional ballot as well as Senate/House/Gubernatorial numbers that may accompany these polls. Please use the discussion space below to discuss any additional polls not covered. Additionally, not all polls are created equal. If this is your first time looking at polls, the FiveThirtyEight pollster ratings page is a helpful tool to assess historic partisan lean in certain pollsters, as well as their past performance.

This is likely to be one of the last clear snapshots of polling until at least mid-September. Historically speaking, the party conventions impart a statistically significant 'bump' in candidates' poll numbers. This convention bounce averages around 5 points for candidates (though some candidates have far surpassed this number), but the trend of high bounces has seen a decline in recent elections. With increased coverage of each party during their respective conventions (DNC: August 17-20, RNC: August 24-27), and this year's conventions taking place in a mostly-remote setting, it is hard to predict how large or any impact on the polls will be.

Poll	Date	Type	Biden	Trump
NBC News	8-16	National	50	41
SurveyUSA	8-15	Connecticut	52	32
Redfield & Wilton Strategies	8-14	California	61	25
Data for Progress	8-14	National	51	41
Data for Progress	8-14	National	52	39
YouGov	8-14	Massachusetts	61	28
Global Strategy Group	8-14	National	52	42
Marist College	8-14	National	53	42
Fox News	8-13	National	49	42
Léger	8-13	National	46	--
Léger	8-13	National	47	39
Pew Research Center	8-13	National	53	45
Morning Consult	8-13	National	51	42
Morning Consult	8-13	National	50	43
Morning Consult	8-13	National	50	43
Harper Polling	8-13	North Carolina	45	44
Morning Consult	8-13	National	51	43
Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group	8-13	Mississippi	43	53
SurveyUSA	8-13	California	56	28
Rasmussen Reports	8-13	Wisconsin	55	42
Harris Insights & Analytics	8-12	National	44	40
Ipsos	8-12	National	47	38
Ipsos	8-12	National	43	37
Ipsos	8-12	National	56	43
Ipsos	8-12	National	58	42
SurveyUSA	8-12	Kansas	41	48
YouGov Blue	8-12	National	51	45
Rasmussen Reports	8-12	National	49	43
Critical Insights	8-12	Maine	45	38
YouGov	8-12	National	49	39
Morning Consult	8-12	National	49	40
Change Research	8-12	National	50	44
Change Research	8-12	Wisconsin	47	43
Change Research	8-12	North Carolina	47	48
Change Research	8-12	Arizona	45	44
Change Research	8-12	Florida	50	44
Change Research	8-12	Michigan	48	43
Change Research	8-12	Pennsylvania	48	44
MassINC Polling Group	8-12	Massachusetts	63	27
Emerson College	8-11	Pennsylvania	53	46
Emerson College	8-11	North Carolina	49	50
Emerson College	8-11	Arizona	53	46
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine	44	36
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine CD-2	39	38
Critical Insights	8-11	Maine CD-1	49	33
Marquette University Law School	8-11	Wisconsin	50	45
Marquette University Law School	8-11	Wisconsin	50	46
Monmouth University	8-11	National	52	39
Monmouth University	8-11	National	51	41
Emerson College	8-11	Minnesota	51	49
SurveyUSA	8-11	Georgia	46	44
Public Policy Polling	8-10	North Carolina	49	46
Rasmussen Reports	8-10	North Carolina	47	48
HIT Strategies	8-10	North Carolina	47	37
HIT Strategies	8-10	Georgia	44	40
Trafalgar Group	8-10	Arizona	44	46
RMG Research	8-10	National	45	37
RMG Research	8-10	Maine	50	39
Georgetown University (Battleground)	8-10	National	53	39
OH Predictive Insights	8-10	Arizona	49	45
Strategies 360	8-10	Nebraska CD-1	46	48
YouGov	8-10	Wisconsin	49	43
YouGov	8-10	Michigan	47	43
YouGov	8-10	Pennsylvania	50	41

Election Predictions

Prognosticators

Prognosticators are folks who make projected electoral maps, often on the strength of educated guesses as well as inside information in some cases from campaigns sharing internals with the teams involved. Below are a few of these prognosticators and their assessment of the state of the race:

Cook Political Reports - Charlie Cook's race ratings are well regarded in the political field, and he's been in the business for a while. Cook is known to incorporate both public and nonpublic (ie. internal polling) information in his projections. Also covers (and is perhaps better known for) Senate and House races.
Larry Sabato's Crystal Ball - Larry Sabato has also been in the political prediction business for a while now, and the team at the UVA Center for Politics has been fairly successful in past cycles. Towards the end of the election cycle, Sabato has a policy of making a call in each state, refusing to leave any race in the tossup category. Also covers Senate and House races.
Inside Elections - Inside Elections, run by Nathan Gonzales, is the successor to Stu Rothenberg's Rothenberg Political Reports, which used to be a part of Roll Call. This prognosticator did fairly well in 2018, though Rothenberg himself boldly (along with some other pundits) predicted in 2016 that Donald Trump's path to the presidency was nonexistent. Also covers Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
Daily Kos Elections - Daily Kos Elections is the direct successor to the Swing State Project website, which merged with Daily Kos in 2010. Despite the liberal lean of the site as a whole, the Daily Kos Elections predictions tend to be fairly even-handed, if not even slightly bearish for Democrats. Presidential numbers aren't up yet but they have Senate, House and Gubernatorial races.
RRH Elections - Red Racing Horses Elections is a site founded by former conservative-leaning members of the Swing State Project community. Despite the conservative nature of the commentary, like DKE, the race predictions tend to be fairly neutral, if slightly bearish for Republicans. Like the Crystal Ball, RRH will call all races before the election so that none are left in the tossup category. The presidential rankings have not been published but they do cover Senate, House, Gubernatorial and Row Officer (statewide elected officials, such as state Attorney General, Secretary of State etc.) races.
Media predictions - CNN | U.S. News | NPR | POLITICO

Polling Models

Polling models are similar to prognosticators (and often the model authors will act like pundits as well), but tend to be about making "educated guesses" on the state of the election. Generally, the models are structured to take in data such as polls and electoral fundamentals, and make a guess based on research on prior elections as to the state of the race in each state. Below are a few of the more prominent models that are online or expected to be online soon:

FiveThirtyEight - after months of work, the model is live! 538's team of analysts have put together a beast of a forecast for 2020. It runs 40,000 simulations of the election and uses that data to come up with a projected winner out of 100 sampled outcomes. It also breaks down the projection to show potential electoral college results, popular vote share, tipping point state likelihood, and it can even be broken down into state-level analytics.
Princeton Election Consortium - this is the model run by Dr. Sam Wang, a neuroscience professor at Princeton University. This model has run in the past two cycles as well, though Sam Wang famously said he'd eat a bug if Donald Trump won the election because his model predicted no path to victory for the eventual winner of the 2016 election. Also includes projections for Senate and House.
JHK Forecasts - the earliest model on the scene this cycle. Jack Kersting's model is one of the newer ones this year and also includes projections for Senate and House.
The Economist - this is the model run by G. Elliott Morris, who previously had a midterm election model under The Crosstab.
Niskanen Center - Rachel Bitecofer's projection, which only seems to update a couple times a cycle. Part of this has to do with Bitecofer's central argument that there are generally no swing voters, and electoral fundamentals drive the outcome of the election. This was put to the test in the 2018 midterms, where Bitecofer very early on predicted a Democratic pickup of 40-45 seats in the House, which fell about where the election ended up.
Lean Tossup - a foreign model from Canada. This model did relatively well in the 2019 Canadian election, but this appears to be the first time they've tried forecasting the US Presidential election. Also includes Senate and House projections.
Primary Model - Helmut Norpoth's model does not actually change with inputs anymore. The outcome it predicts, stated as a 91% chance for President Trump to win reelection, is premised entirely on the primary vote totals in the New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries from earlier this year. Despite being a bit of an outlier against other models, this one was among the only to forecast that then-candidate Donald Trump was a favorite to win election in 2016, and has been applied to correctly predict the winner of 5 of the past 6 presidential elections.

Prediction Markets

Prediction markets are betting markets where people put money on the line to estimate the likelihood of one party winning a seat or state. Most of these markets will also tend to move depending on polling and other socioeconomic factors in the same way that prognosticators and models will work. Predictit and Election Betting Odds are prominent in this space, although RealClearPolitics has an aggregate of other betting sites as well.

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'Trump warns presidential election result may not be known for 'years,' as allegations grow he's undermining the USPS to rig the election

Posted: 16 Aug 2020 04:33 AM PDT