… Democrats need not fear. This, my sixth published biennial election prediction essay, is perhaps my easiest: Former vice president Joe Biden will win comfortably unless we experience the greatest polling failure in modern history. Democrats will also gain control of the Senate and expand their majority in the House. […] Read more »
Why You Can’t Rely on Election Forecasts
… With all the anxiety about Tuesday’s vote, it’s understandable that many of us look to statisticians’ election models to tell us what will happen. If they say your candidate has an 80 percent chance of winning, you feel reassured. But after Donald Trump’s surprising victory in 2016 seemed to […] Read more »
On Election Night, these are the first states to watch
Election Day may well turn into Election Week this year with late returns deciding the presidency, but there still will be a large group of Americans tuning in on Tuesday trying to read the tea leaves of the early results. For those politically-obsessed souls, the Data Download is happy to […] Read more »
Why this race likely comes down to Arizona and Pennsylvania
President Donald Trump is trying to stop former Vice President Joe Biden’s pathway to 270 electoral votes. The polls released over the weekend suggest that this will be a difficult, but not an impossible task. Trump’s best path to stop Biden is for there to be a larger than average […] Read more »
To Trump, ‘the Polls That Matter’ Point to Victory. The Rest Are ‘Fake.’
When President Trump talks about polling, his focus is very much on survey-takers that he thinks are good for him. Polls that show him trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. — virtually all national polls — are simply “fake news.” The president’s blinkered view has created something of an alternate universe, […] Read more »
Why Trump needs more than a 2016 polling miss to win
The 2020 election is down to the home stretch. And like most of the year, former Vice President Joe Biden continues to lead President Donald Trump nationally and in the swing states that matter. There are some who dismiss the polls because of their perceived inaccuracies in 2016. But while […] Read more »