2020 Presidential Election Results & Exit Polls commentary thread

[Pollster]

My apologies if already posted, but seems that JOMD and the team are projecting a good amount of confidence in early numbers in relation to how many paths they've built for Joe.

If I'm pulling for Joe I'd keep an eye on AZ + GA + TX + OH + IA + NV + MI + WI. Seems like these, though not all are equally important, will be the keys to a win.

https://twitter.com/CharlotteAlter/status/1323666259993649157

This sounds like the language of a campaign which is losing Florida and Pennsylvania.

That, or a campaign with a very basic understanding of the electoral map.

[Pollster]

AZ: https://www.saguarostrategies.com/arizona-ballot-returns

R 1,025,991 (+42,204)
D   983,787
O   711,727

I think Trump takes Florida and Arizona tonight. I am a little worried about the rust belt and North Carolina but it will be a lot closer then the rats think.

I hope throughout this election night and the future we can be more respectful of our fellow posters on this board.

[Pollster]

In case it hasn't been posted yet, the NYTimes portal is up.

[Pollster]

Susan Collins would, unironically, be a fairly good and qualified Transportation secretary in a Biden administration.

[Pollster]

Susan Collins would, unironically, be a fairly good and qualified Transportation secretary in a Biden administration.

She's become such a hated figure to Democrats that Biden would never dare select her for his cabinet. The way partisan Democrats talk about her, one would guess she's about on par with Graham or McConnell himself.

I can't stand her either, but if every Republican was more like Collins the Party would be much much different.

I agree with this, and am personally no fan of Collins, though I think Democrats would accept her in a relatively low-profile cabinet role in exchange for a Dem governor appointing her replacement.

[Pollster]

Susan Collins would, unironically, be a fairly good and qualified Transportation secretary in a Biden administration.

She's become such a hated figure to Democrats that Biden would never dare select her for his cabinet. The way partisan Democrats talk about her, one would guess she's about on par with Graham or McConnell himself.

I can't stand her either, but if every Republican was more like Collins the Party would be much much different.

I agree with this, and am personally no fan of Collins, though I think Democrats would accept her in a relatively low-profile cabinet role in exchange for a Dem governor appointing her replacement.

She wouldn't take it though would she? Just won a tough reelection bid and is now 6th in republican seniority in the senate, at least 10 years younger than the five ahead of her.

Yeah, I'm being speculative. I highly doubt Collins leaves the Senate, especially if it winds up being 50/50. She'd probably wield more power than ever before.

[Pollster]

Comparing the pre-election polls to the exit polls as well as the results, 2 things stand out in terms of what the pre-election polls, both at the state level and national level appear to have got wrong.

1. Consistently in state and national polls, the swing towards Trump among Hispanics was picked up as was his marginal gains with blacks and losses among college whites vs 2016, what the polls failed to capture was that there would be no large swing of non-college whites towards Biden, the only explanation is the polls were reaching a disproportionately anti Trump group of non-college whites.

2. The polls accurately captured how democrats would vote as well as how independents would swing to voting for Biden this year compared for Trump in 2016 what the polls missed was how many Republican defections there would be, the NYT/Siena poll in NV for example only had Trump winning Republicans by an 82% margin. For whatever reason the polls were reaching a particularly anti-Trump group of republicans.


Basically it seems the pre-election polls got two things wrong, they were sampling a disproportionately democratic leaning group of non college whites and they were sampling a disproportionately anti Trump group of Republicans, the two things can of course be related.

I guess it was something like the NYT calling random towns in PA and the non-college whites who picked up the phone were librarians who were democrats and that threw off their whole non-college white sample. Would not surprise me if pollsters oversampled the types of non-college whites who vote more democrat like librarians, teachers etc and under sampled those who vote Republican. 

Stricter likely voter screens have a lot to do with this as well. Great analysis.