Yesterday afternoon the NYTs released a trio of polls that had Biden walloping Trump in AZ, FL, and PA. Yeah, sure, we thought, the NYTs. Then we checked the crosstabs. In all three the GOP was ahead by a couple of points in the partisan breakdown. Gulp, we thought. Then we went through the rest of the polls, and not only do they show Trump losing, they show the GOP getting wiped out in a blue wave. That was a rough 20 minutes.
Then we pulled ourselves together.
Historian Larry Schweikart has a pair of long threads here and here that match our own thinking on the matter. We don't agree with him, he agrees with us. We didn't find Schweikart and decide, oh yes that makes sense. No, we've been saying the same thing as Schweikart since 2016.** He even points out that in 2018 he got the House wrong, but was right about the Senate and governor's races. This matches our own record exactly.
This week, a CBS News poll says Biden is leading by 10*** and NBC says he's leading by 14(!). These polls said the same thing back in 2016. Meanwhile we looked at the massive enthusiasm gap and said Trump's gonna win. We say the same thing now.
*We obsessed over polls in 2004 thanks RCP! There was no point in obsessing in 2008, we all knew who was going to win. 2012 was the last year we obsessed so.
So reader(s), it just comes down to which measure you believe. We say check the track record first.
**He's broadened our understanding though, Zen Master indeed.
***We'd Rather not. Heh.
No comments:
Post a Comment