Polls: 2016 vs. 2020

[Proud Liberal Dem]

Because a lot of people seem to like to preface statements about Biden's good polling this year with statements about how well Hillary seemed to be doing in 2016- and then she lost the EC vote, I would like to ask everybody here, should we or should we not feel encouraged about the polls? Granting, of course, that polls are polls and that Election Day is the only "poll" that matters and nobody should live or die by the polls, is there a likely difference between this year's race of Trump vs. Biden and 2016 Trump vs. Hillary? Should we feel better? The same?

[mucifer]

1. One commentator said that a huge factor is that there is very little undecided voters

and that works in Joe's favor. Also, people now know more about both candidates.

Of course doesn't mean they won't cheat and "win"

[Awsi Dooger]

4. Fewer undecideds, and low right track/wrong track number works in our favor

It is extremely difficult and illogical to make a comeback into the teeth of a terrible right track/wrong track percentage, when you are the incumbent.

GOP surrogates properly suggested throughout 2016 that Trump's chances were greater than the polls suggested, due to the low right track number, especially in the key midwestern states.

This time the same reality slants against him

[Bettie]

2. Hell, I don't know at all

depends on how much they cheat and suppress the vote.

[Karadeniz]

3. I feel more optimistic. In 2016, we had Comey announce an investigation into Hillary, but not

Revealing a probe into Trump and Russia. I was glad to hear Yates today confirm that this was rogue behavior. We didn't have Covid in 2016. Trump is being called out for his lying. It's still a tough climb because we can't reach his based malignant brains. Also, we don't know what the reaction will be to Barr s surprise...will people be disgusted or what?

[msongs]

5. IMO hillary lost mostly because she is woman nt

[Meadowoak]

6. In 2016, (Michigan) I knew a lot of Democrats that didn't like Hillary and just stayed

Home because they thought Trump was just a joke and no way could he win. I don't think they will make the same mistake in 2020.

[Midnight Writer]

7. I reckon we can all agree it is better to be ahead in the polls than behind.

But we always need to keep swinging the hammer.

[Fiendish Thingy]

8. Cautiously optimistic due to a shift in methodology

Many pollsters are now balancing their samples for education levels, something not done in 2016, when college educated people were oversampled.

Remember, the polls in 2016 weren’t wrong, not significantly- 538 gave Trump a one in three chance of winning, and the critical Rust belt states were won by 1% or less, within the margin of error.

The polls I am most comfortable with are the ones that have Biden at 50+%, with a margin that is a least twice the margin of error. Surprisingly, there have been quite a few of those.