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Some early theories on went went wrong with the pre-election polling this

 Before we go into what went wrong, let's just call a spade a spade here: this was a bad polling error. It's comparable to 2016 in size, but pollsters don't have the excuses they did last time.
This year's polls would have been *way* worse than 2016 with a 2016 methodology
There are really two halves of polling: the quality of the sample you get, and the adjustments you take to improve the representativeness of your sample.
Since 2016, pollsters got better at the adjustments, but the underlying sample got worse
To my mind, the easiest way to see it: the crosstabs on white voters nationwide, particularly whites without a degree
In 2016, the polls *did* show Trump doing way better among those voters.
In 2020, they did not. And they were dead wrong.
Same story with seniors.
So what happened? How did the samples get that much worse over the last four years, especially among white voters without a degree and seniors?
At this stage, it's really just speculation. We'll know more later--it's too early for an autopsy.
But here's some early speculation
Let's start with the most interesting bit of theorizing I encountered, from always interesting @davidshor.
He thinks it's the pandemic: Dems took it seriously, stayed home and started responding to polls more. GOP did not.
This theory's almost too smooth to be true, but it's elegant and fits a lot of things together.
Remember those studies that said Biden does better in a COVID hotspot?
Well, Biden didn't do better in COVID hotspots.
So maybe... that just means the polls were biased by COVID
Another interesting thing it helps explain.
Our 10/19 battleground polls were... pretty accurate!
So were the state polls conducted from Jan-Mar 20.
Now, maybe these polls were just as bad--and Trump actually led big back then!
Or maybe... the bias started since then
Shor also put forward some data that's at least plausibly consistent with it. The increase in Dem response clearly happens before the pandemic, in the primary. But maybe it held because of the primary
There are some other theories worth consideration, too.
It's possible that four more years of Trump did four more years worth of damage to the credibility of media/polls, creating a 'hidden Trump' vote that didn't really exist in 2016
On the flip side, another possibility is the resistance: the huge surge of political activism on the left. We know political engagement is correlated with survey response. Maybe the folks now donating 100 millions to Senate races are now taking polls way more than four years ago
And a final possibility--and ultimately a falsifiable one--is the turnout.
There were a lot of polls showing no LV/RV gap or even a D turnout edge. Not sure that will hold up with final data.
It certainly didn't hold up in FL, where we have great data already.
Anyway, I do think it will take a while to get some better answers here. If you're looking for a polling autopsy, then I'd say the 'body' of polling is still at the scene of the crime and won't make it to the morgue for a bit.
But the fact that we don't have an autopsy wouldn't stop the police from acknowledging the existence of a dead body, and we don't need to shy away from the obvious, either: the poll results were quite bad, and the final numbers won't fundamentally change that

More from Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn
Nate Cohn
@Nate_Cohn
A lot for Democrats to like in the early voting data over the last few days, as they are now running ahead of where they stood at a similar point of the general election--thanks to a stronger Black turnout


The Black share of in-person early voters was basically identical to the general election over the first few days of voting, but that began to diverge late last week--and even more so over the weekend, which is typically a strong period for Black turnout in Georgia


As most of you know, the Black turnout in Georgia (and nationwide) was relatively weak v. other groups in the general election. That's been a matter of some consternation for progressives who wish it weren't so, but it's also the big source of upside for Democrats in this runoff

At the moment, the higher Black share of in person early voting is enough to cancel out the smaller share of mail-in absentee voters, who were overwhelmingly Democratic in the general--giving Democrats, in my view, a slightly more favorable electorate at this stage of voting

Looking ahead, we're about to lose a certain amount of clarity in our day-by-day comparison, since the holidays will dampen (and outright eliminate) turnout on GOP-friendly days. We'll probably watch the Dems expand their lead v. the general, and then the GOP try and claw it back
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Nate Cohn
Nate Cohn
@Nate_Cohn
Another day of strong early voting in Georgia, with another 154k voters turning out in person yesterday. That's similar to but slightly behind the fourth day of early voting in the general, which was at 164k

Cumulatively, we're still running ahead of the general election on in-person early voting, but I don't think anyone expects that to last--and there's a very long time left for that flip to happen


As I've said, the big takeaway is that the turnout looks like it will be healthy and high, and it's not obvious who it will help v. the general. As I've mentioned, there are crosscutting patterns at play that make it difficult to sort out where we'll end up. Let's look at a few

One is that there are fewer absentee votes--and those are heavily Democratic.
This is expected: far fewer realistic opportunities for voters to request a ballot for this special than the general. And some counties may be behind


Now, of course, if in-person and election day voting drop just as much (or more), then this isn't actually an issue for Democrats at all. That would have been a very reasonable assumption before early voting. Now I'm not totally sure! We'll have to wait and see
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Nate Cohn
Nate Cohn
@Nate_Cohn
Georgia early voting took a few days off over the holidays, like most everything else, but it was back near general election levels on Monday


As we've expected from the start, this creates a challenge for comparing where we stand now v. the general election.
Day 11-13 were fairly good days for the GOP in Oct.; they run farther behind without those days, but we have no reason to think that's for a meaningful reason

I'll offer two ways of trying to account for this. It's not perfect, but there are many circumstances in which it still permits useful analysis. 1) Remove those same days of in-person voting (not mail) from the advanced vote in October; 2) A direct day-to-day comparison

That first comparison--removing ipev from GE holiday-equiv. --will be represented with a dotted line, shown here.
This isn't perfect: one could imagine, for ex., that someone who would have voted on day 12 will now vote on day 18, boosting later tallies. But still useful context


With that in mind, it still seems Democrats continue to show a lot of strength. Yesterday, they continued to run well ahead of the general election, including excluding holiday equiv. days
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Nate Cohn
Nate Cohn
@Nate_Cohn
One question I keep getting about the Georgia early voting is about age: isn't the electorate older, and how much does it hurt the Democrats?
So far the answer is 'not really' and 'not at all.'

The first question is easy enough. As of today, youth turnout is basically keeping pace with the general, controlling for the slightly reduced opportunities to vote. This augurs for an unusually young


The second question is more interesting: are the Democrats hurt by lower youth turnout? So far the answer is no, and there are two reasons.
One reason: there's not a *huge* gen. gap. Maybe young voters are D+20 while >65 are R+15. You need a big gap for modest changes to matter.

The second reason is maybe more interesting: the young voters who have voted are just a lot more Democratic than the young voters who turned out at this stage of the general election

By party primary vote history, the 18-29 year olds who have voted so far are D 38, R 12. They were D 33, R 14 in the general at this stage.
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Nate Cohn
Nate Cohn
@Nate_Cohn
Joe Biden leads Donald Trump in Pennsylvania and Florida, according to new Times/Siena polls taken after the first debate.
Biden leads in Pennsylvania, 49 to 42 percent among likely voters. He leads in Florida, 47 to

In an analysis of interviews conducted yesterday, including in Arizona (where a poll is ongoing), there was modest evidence of a shift in Joe Biden's direction after Trump's COVID diagnosis. That said, one day of interviews is not nearly enough to reach any firm conclusions

The shift, though, would be material if confirmed and it was statistically significant, controlling for the demographic and political variables used in weighting. That said, it's still just one day of interviews. We'll have to wait and see here.

Of the two results, the biggest surprise was probably Florida, where we found Biden+5 with a R+4 sample. This is a fully updated voter file that reflects some meaningful GOP registration gains in the states.

It's just a subsample, so big MoEs here, but we found no evidence of the big Trump gains among Hispanic voters in Florida or in Miami-Dade County. Biden even narrowly led a (very small) sample of Cuban voters; they were R 47-28 by registration. Again, small samples but...
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TRUMP: "I've decided to eat babies."

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TRUMP, on TV, eating babies, not even cooking them first: "People are saying that I really am the best baby-eater, folks."

NYT: "Trump Vs. Babies: The Rhetoric On Both Sides Must Stop"

Jeff Flake tweets: "It is a sad day in America when this callous man can eat babies live on TV"

Jeff Flake, 10 seconds later, votes to help him install a series of 4,000 new judges that are very, very pro-babyphagia.

Judge Kavanaugh, found drunk in a Capitol Hill closet: "I LIKE BEER. OKAY? I LIKE BEER AND I LIKE BABIES AND THAT'S NOT SO WRONG. THAT'S RIGHT. I LIKE BABIES DIPPED IN BEER. I JUST DIP EM. IN THE BEER. THE BABIES. THE BABIES I EAT. OKAY? THAT'S AMERICA."

Mike Pence, wringing his hands about the baby-eating: "We must take care of our children. Our youngest must be protected on this troubling day."

Mike Pence then invites a Baby Chef to say a prayer.

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Henry Farrell
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1. Short thread - on the various claims we're seeing from Republican politicians over the last few days that the Democratic push for accountability is "divisive." Damn right it's divisive - that is what it has to be.

2. It is intended to enforce a clear division between those who accept and are committed to democracy and those who are willing to turn to violence when the vote doesn't turn out the way that they want it to.

3. One of the basic implications of Adam Przeworski's theoretic work is that democracy is made out of mutually reinforcing expectations, and those expectations are fragile. If some actors think they would be better off defecting from the democratic bargain, they will.

4. In other words: democracy and armed factionalism are far closer than we think, or we would like them to be. This means that it is incredibly important to police the boundaries between them. Allowing some to turn to violence can lead to expectation collapse and cascading ruin.

5. When we allow the divisions to become blurred, that means that we are running the perpetual risk of things getting fucked up. If a major faction turns to violence, and no-one responds, things can get really fucked up really, really fast.
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Met a Brazilian-American Lyft driver from San Diego who passionately attacked the racism of Republicans, then switched to passionately defending Bolsonaro.

If I were Thomas Friedman, I could tell you what this means.

Met a Haitian-American in a restaurant who said he'd always vote for Democrats because of the immigration issue, but that he has conservative beliefs too. "I don't want to pay for someone's abortion!", he declared.

Met a Latino Lyft driver from San Jose who said that while he was liberal, California was getting too liberal for him and he was considering moving to San Antonio.

Again, not being Tom Friedman, I am unable to offer any commentary on the political and policy implications of these conversations.

I guess my only thought is that political opinions are pretty complex and multidimensional, out there in the real world.

(end)
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The Dude
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@JurisDudence
This is partly what makes it impossible to have a constructive conversation nowadays. The stubborn refusal to accept that opposition to Trumpism and GOP nationalism is about more than simply holding different beliefs about things in and of itself. 👇


It's fine for people to hold different beliefs. But that doesn't mean all beliefs deserve equal treatment or tolerance and it doesn't mean intolerance of some beliefs makes a person intolerant of every belief which they don't share.

So if I said I don't think Trumpism deserves to be tolerated because it's just a fresh 21st century coat of cheap paint on a failed, dangerous 20th century ideology (fascism) that doesn't mean I'm intolerant of all beliefs with which I disagree. You'd think this would be obvious.

Another important facet. People who support fascist movements tend to give what they think are valid reasons for supporting them. That doesn't mean anyone is obliged to tolerate fascism or accept their proffered excuse.


Say you joined a neighborhood group that sets up community gardens and does roadside beautification projects. All good, right? Say one day you're having a meeting and you notice the President and exec board of this group are saying some bizarre things about certain neighbors.
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Tim - Efficacious vs the Mutants\U0001f489 NO trampVE\U0001f3db\U0001f985
Tim - Efficacious vs t...
@tmstrickl_tim
"these people are not going to take it any longer..
do not want to see our election victory stolen by a bold and radical left Democrats.
We will never concede.. when there's theft involved...had enough. We will not take it anymore, and that is what this is all about."
1/

"We will not let them silence your voices. We're not going to let it happen.

Not going to let it happen.

CROWD: Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump. Fight for Trump.
TRUMP: Thank you."
2/

"those tens of thousands of people ..
..the military, the Secret Service and we want to thank you and law enforcement ..you're doing a great job..
..but I would love it if they could be allowed to come up with us. Is that possible? Can you just let them, please?"
3/

"if Mike Pence does the right thing, we win the election.
..he has the absolute right to do it..States want to revote, the states got defrauded..they want it back. All Vice President Pence has to do is send it back to the states to recertify, and we become president"
4/

"I actually I just spoke to Mike. I said, Mike, that doesn't take courage, what takes courage is to do nothing. That takes courage, and then we are stuck .. and we have to live with that for four more years. We're just not going to let that happen. "
5/
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