Nov. 1, 2020, 10:42 p.m. ET4 hours ago
2 days until Election Day
No matter the polling method, Biden is ahead.
Online polls or automated phone polls, the lead stays steady.
Another 20 polls today, another 20 polls without signs of gains for the president.
State polls
Pollster Margin Diff. from ’16 result | Ariz. |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 732 L.V.
| Biden +2
48-46
| +6D | | Ariz. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 3,933 L.V.
| Biden +6
52-46
| +10D | | Colo. |
Keating Research/OnSight Public Affairs/Melanson
Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 502 L.V.
| Biden +12
53-41
| +7D | | Colo. |
Data for Progress (Dem. pollster)
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 709 L.V.
| Biden +12
54-42
| +7D | | Fla. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 7,807 L.V.
| Trump +2
48-50
| <1R | | Fla. |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-30, 849 L.V.
| Biden +6
52-46
| +7D | | Iowa |
Civiqs
Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 853 L.V.
| Biden +1
49-48
| +10D | | Maine |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 611 L.V.
| Biden +11
54-43
| +8D | | Maine 1* |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 310 L.V.
| Biden +19
58-39
| +4D | | Maine 2* |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 301 L.V.
| Biden +3
50-47
| +13D | | Mich. |
Ipsos
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 654 L.V.
| Biden +9
53-44
| +9D | | Mich. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 4,202 L.V.
| Biden +6
52-46
| +6D | | Mich. |
Mitchell Research & Communications
Oct. 29-29, 817 L.V.
| Biden +7
52-45
| +7D | | Minn. |
St. Cloud State University
Oct. 10-29, 372 adults
| Biden +15
54-39
| +13D | | N.C. |
Data for Progress (Dem. pollster)
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 908 L.V.
| Biden +2
50-48
| +6D | | N.C. |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 855 L.V.
| Even
47-47
| +4D | | N.C. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 5,274 L.V.
| Biden +5
52-47
| +9D | | Nev. |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-31, 720 L.V.
| Biden +2
49-47
| <1R | | Ohio |
Civiqs
Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 1,136 L.V.
| Trump +1
48-49
| +7D | | Pa. |
Ipsos
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 673 L.V.
| Biden +6
52-46
| +7D | | Pa. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 5,750 L.V.
| Biden +4
51-47
| +5D | | Pa. |
Emerson College
Oct. 29-30, 823 L.V.
| Biden +5
52-47
| +6D | | Texas |
Data for Progress (Dem. pollster)
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 926 L.V.
| Biden +1
49-48
| +10D | | Texas |
Gravis Marketing
Oct. 27-28, 670 L.V.
| Trump +5
45-50
| +4D | | Wis. |
Civiqs
Oct. 29-Nov. 1, 789 L.V.
| Biden +4
51-47
| +5D | | Wis. |
Ipsos
Oct. 27-Nov. 1, 696 L.V.
| Biden +9
53-44
| +10D | | Wis. |
SurveyMonkey
Oct. 18-31, 2,554 L.V.
| Biden +10
54-44
| +11D | National polls
It’s not just the live phone polls. This morning, a big wave of polls showed Joe Biden with a clear lead. Nearly all of these were sponsored by major media organizations and conducted via live phone interviews. If you want to check out what we had to say about them, you can scroll down a bit farther on the page. TLDR: Biden’s still ahead by a lot.
This afternoon, we got a big wave of polls showing a very similar result, but by very different means. Nearly all were conducted online or by automated phone calls. Emerson, Ipsos, YouGov (here as part of the Cooperative Election Study) and SurveyMonkey are all fairly familiar pollsters with this approach.
These polls differ from the live phone polls in several respects. Most obviously, they don’t require respondents to divulge their attitudes to a human, which ought to make the respondents likelier to voice an unpopular view. If there really are shy Trump supporters, this is where you would think they would finally feel free to speak out.
Less obviously: The online and automated firms usually take different strategies for ironing out bias, like weighting on party identification or on whether respondents said they voted for President Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016.
I don’t want to get into the ins and outs of which methods might be best. What’s important: Mr. Biden seems to hold a significant lead, no matter the methodology. It suggests that his lead doesn’t hinge on, say, a certain set of choices common to the major pollsters. It also suggests that his lead doesn’t instantly vanish once you stop using live phone calls and the shy Trump voters start getting real.
The Trump pollsters are all alone. There are some polls showing Mr. Trump ahead today, and they’re mainly from a familiar quartet: Trafalgar, Susquehanna Research, Insider Advantage and Rasmussen.
These are also automated or partly online surveys. But they differ from the other online and automated surveys in an important respect: They’re tough to distinguish from partisan pollsters. They’re generally not very transparent, they’re vocal about their support for the president, and they often have partisan sponsors. The Susquehanna and Insider Advantage polls are sponsored by the Center for American Greatness, which has a website that leads with an article comparing this election and 1776. Rasmussen and Trafalgar will undoubtedly be familiar to most anyone reading this page. For the uninitiated: These results are no surprise.
It is still possible that Mr. Trump will ultimately win this election. If he does, some of these pollsters will probably say it vindicates their methodology. I wouldn’t say so. There’s nothing about their methodology, as described, that explains how they arrive at results so different from other pollsters using seemingly similar means — including those described earlier in this post. The easier explanation is that these pro-Trump pollsters get pro-Trump results because they’re pro-Trump, not because they and they alone have unlocked the secrets to public polling.
But take note: Even these polls show Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump essentially tied in Florida, with Mr. Biden leading in Michigan, and with the president underperforming his standing from four years ago. If the tie went Mr. Biden’s way in Florida, that would all but certainly be enough to make him president.
Nov. 1, 2020, 11:09 a.m. ET |
