Post-ABC poll: Biden maintains lead over Trump nationally in stable presidential race

[lanlady]

Source: Washington Post

September 27, 2020 at 12:01 a.m. EDT
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After two political conventions, the continuing spread of the novel coronavirus, economic dislocation, more racial upheaval and a coming battle over a Supreme Court vacancy, the race for the White House remains stable, with former vice president Joe Biden holding a steady advantage over President Trump, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Biden and vice-presidential nominee Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) lead Trump and Vice President Pence by 53 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, statistically unchanged from the 12-point margin in a poll taken in August just before Democrats and Republicans held their conventions. Biden and Harris also have a 10-point advantage among likely voters, 54 percent to 44 percent.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-trump-biden-post-abc/2020/09/26/940ef678-ff7f-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

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My sense is that that 10-point advantage among likely voters is only going to grow as Republicans race to confirm an extremist judge to the Supreme Court. Am I wrong?

[Cicada]

1. Yes, you are wrong. Focus on a judge reduces focus on covid

Of course I may be wrong, not you. But dOnt spreads usually narrow over time?

[lanlady]

5. According to Nate Silver's 538 podcast

Spreads do tend to narrow as election day nears. But the gap between Biden and Trump hasn't followed that pattern - another way that the 2020 race is different from all others.

[David__77]

12. A lot of media articles seem to me to assume "tightening" is occurring or will occur.

I'm not so sure.

[Maxheader]

2. Be an interesting few weeks...

coming up..Any predictions on the level of absurdity the gop will go to?

Trying to pin a pedophile label on Joe didn't work...

I'm sure stumpy will press the usual b.s. lies..

They could try to create a gas shortage like cheny and rove did. Drove the layoffs and

prime mortgage fiascos....

Bastards.....

[Scruffy1]

3. At this point I don't think we will see much change before the election.

Nothing is going to change the support for the incumbent because facts don't matter to his supporters. The more crazy it gets the more they like it. It's really about pissing the majority off. i guess it makes them feel good. They would literally cut off their nose to spite their face. With only 2-4% undecided there is no room and these numbers have held steady for nearly four years no matter what the Mango Menace does. The big thing is as always GOTV.

[luv2fly]

4. And in the unstable presidential race...

Clearly the orange anus leads in that one.

[OneBro]

6. What good are national polls?

I can see how state and local polls can be used to tailor messaging, particularly in swing states, but I don’t get the value of national polls. Red states and their senators clearly don’t care about the nation, so who is doing what with national polling results?

[kiri]

10. Trumpists only care about EC votes--polls mean little

There is a concerted effort organized quietly via RW churches to lie to pollsters. The notion is to have a surprise like in 2016, where Hillary was clearly expected to win, but Trumpio won, ergo the polls are wrong.

This sadly, is a true fact. The polls misunderstood the voters in key states.

The RWNJs are shrewd and clever, and numerous. But I think they can distort the polls by only at most by about 5 points.

However, as often said, national polls mean little (except maybe for Senate races). What matters is: Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Arizona. 5 pts is a lot in these states.

An aggregate of polls show that Biden has a meager, tenuous advantage. These states are volatile. What will energize the cultists or discourage them has proved hard to understand or predict.

[Tommymac]

14. They matter in the sense that a 6%+ margin means it is extremely difficult to cheat.

There is a correlation between the national numbers and individual state numbers. Especially in Battlegrounds.

Doesn't mean the National vote total leader will win, but it is a good indicator.

Without that huge national margin, it is much easier to 'justify' fake close votes in states and hide election (not voter) fraud.

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Depends on how well Democrats make loud noises about her pro-pollution, anti-human agenda

So far the MSM merely casts her as conservative. The public doesn't know the details.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. "among registered voters"

Here is where these polls start diverging. Right now they are using "registered voters" and that metric is pretty useless if later, they are not considered to be "likely voters", and when those polls start switching to that particular metric, it will be a battle to determine, in an era of lying poll-respondents, voter suppression, and COVID fears, who will end up being considered a "likely voter".

Here is their blip on "likely voters", where despite the fact that Libertarians seem to garner more votes than Green Party candidates in states where they appear, this poll still manages to minimize how much a Libertarian candidate would generally pull from the GOP ticket vs the Greens pulling from Democrats' ticket, with an assumption that both candidates would "lose 2%" when factoring in those 3rd parties ) -

Biden’s lead narrows to six points among likely voters (49 percent to 43 percent) and among registered voters (47 percent to 41 percent) when Libertarian Party nominee Jo Jorgensen and Green Party nominee Howie Hawkins are included as response options in the survey.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/poll-trump-biden-post-abc/2020/09/26/940ef678-ff7f-11ea-9ceb-061d646d9c67_story.html

As a comparative note, here in PA, the Libertarian Party garnered almost 3 times as many votes as the Green Party in 2016 (147k vs 50k) and has consistently been as much of a difference in previous Presidential elections.

Here is how the poll was sampled (the MOE of 3.5% is sortof moving into a high range IMHO) -

The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted by telephone Monday through Thursday among a random national sample of 1,008 U.S. adults, including 889 registered voters and 739 likely voters. Three-quarters of the sample were reached on cellphones and the remaining quarter on landlines. Results among adults and registered voters have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points; the error margin is plus or minus four points among the sample of likely voters. Error margins are larger among subgroups.

and their graph -

[noneof_theabove]

13. here is the fail....

889 registered voters.

889 is NO WHERE near a valid sample size.

That gets skewed very easily just by "where" the sample was taken.

Since there may be 180 million voters, get a 180,000 sample, now you have real data.

[BumRushDaShow]

15. Exactly

and I was going to post about that sample size, which is probably why the MOE is what it is. But then this is how they have been doing it for years, other than now increasing their sampling by calling more cell phones than landlines.

The other issue is who they consider as "likely voters" and that is where all kinds of mess can happen. The misjudgement of the "likely voters" is what killed Gallup in 2012, although their sample size was over twice that of this poll.

[BlueWavePsych]

9. 71% prefer Biden to handle our Covid19 pandemic.

The pandemic, of course, has disrupted far more than balloting plans. Sixty-two percent of adults worry that they or an immediate family member may catch the virus, which has claimed more than 200,000 American lives. Likely voters who express this concern favor Biden, 71%-27%.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/economy-coronavirus-pandemic-biden-advantage-nationally-poll/story?id=73252425

Dems should stay on message. Drumpf is literally killing us. GOTV!

[paleotn]

11. The most stable presidential race I've ever seen...

and I've been watching this stuff since Carter / Ford in 76. Numbers junky since childhood. I don't think even Barrett the Nut will move things appreciably. There's just not much undecided and not much shallow support on either side. Opinions on Donnie were made long ago and have become internalized and calcified. Donnie can't pick up Biden supporters and Joe can't pry away trumptrash in any significant numbers. The die is cast, and thankfully in our favor.

Two frozen ropes.....

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/national/