CBS/YouGov: Biden +6

[ElectionsGuy]

The breakdown of this poll is 40% D / 32% R / 27% I. 35% Liberal, 35% Conservative, 27% Moderate. That is quite a bit more Dem and liberal than the electorates that showed up in 2016 and 2018. I reweighted it to the 2018 electorates for both party ID and ideology, and here's the result:

Party ID

Biden: 46.6%
Trump: 45.0%

Ideology

Biden: 46.5%
Trump: 45.4%

Even the 2012 electorate ended up only being a 3.3% Biden lead. If the subsamples are correct, this is much closer than Biden +6. The good news for Biden is that undecided and supposed third-party voters skew towards Demographics favorable to him.

[ElectionsGuy]

The breakdown of this poll is 40% D / 32% R / 27% I. 35% Liberal, 35% Conservative, 27% Moderate. That is quite a bit more Dem and liberal than the electorates that showed up in 2016 and 2018. I reweighted it to the 2018 electorates for both party ID and ideology, and here's the result:

Party ID

Biden: 46.6%
Trump: 45.0%

Ideology

Biden: 46.5%
Trump: 45.4%

Even the 2012 electorate ended up only being a 3.3% Biden lead. If the subsamples are correct, this is much closer than Biden +6. The good news for Biden is that undecided and supposed third-party voters skew towards Demographics favorable to him.

Unskewing polls by party ID and/or ideology is a terrible idea (see: 2012).  These are self-reported identifications that can change for an individual voter, unlike invariant characteristics such as race, gender, and birth year.  Weighting by the latter kind of demographics is appropriate and necessary, but guess what: the pollster has already done that for this poll.  From the methodology statement:

This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 presidential vote and registration status.

I'm not even saying the numbers I got are accurate (I think Biden is leading by a little more than the 1-2% based on who's still undecided) but unless there's much higher Dem enthusiasm than expected (R's have an enthusiasm edge in this election at the moment) or the subsamples are off (more likely) I'm suggesting the poll shouldn't be so Dem friendly. I purposely used the 2018 electorate to show even in that year when Democrats had the enthusiasm edge the electorate wasn't as D friendly as is shown in this poll. The big difference between this poll and the 2018 electorate is independents were D+12 in 2018 but are Trump +2 in this poll.

[ElectionsGuy]

The breakdown of this poll is 40% D / 32% R / 27% I. 35% Liberal, 35% Conservative, 27% Moderate. That is quite a bit more Dem and liberal than the electorates that showed up in 2016 and 2018. I reweighted it to the 2018 electorates for both party ID and ideology, and here's the result:

Party ID

Biden: 46.6%
Trump: 45.0%

Ideology

Biden: 46.5%
Trump: 45.4%

Even the 2012 electorate ended up only being a 3.3% Biden lead. If the subsamples are correct, this is much closer than Biden +6. The good news for Biden is that undecided and supposed third-party voters skew towards Demographics favorable to him.

Unskewing polls by party ID and/or ideology is a terrible idea (see: 2012).  These are self-reported identifications that can change for an individual voter, unlike invariant characteristics such as race, gender, and birth year.  Weighting by the latter kind of demographics is appropriate and necessary, but guess what: the pollster has already done that for this poll.  From the methodology statement:

This sample was weighted according to gender, age, race and education based on the American Community Survey, conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census, as well as 2016 presidential vote and registration status.

I'm not even saying the numbers I got are accurate (I think Biden is leading by a little more than the 1-2% based on who's still undecided) but unless there's much higher Dem enthusiasm than expected (R's have an enthusiasm edge in this election at the moment) or the subsamples are off (more likely) I'm suggesting the poll shouldn't be so Dem friendly. I purposely used the 2018 electorate to show even in that year when Democrats had the enthusiasm edge the electorate wasn't as D friendly as is shown in this poll. The big difference between this poll and the 2018 electorate is independents were D+12 in 2018 but are Trump +2 in this poll.

Is this true? Sure, Trump himself has more enthusiasm than Biden himself, but to say that the anti-Trump fervor is not just as, if not stronger than the pro-Trump fervor (which is essentially what Biden, being a pretty generic dem, allows the determination to bee) is a stretch that isn't backed up by data.

Look at any poll so far that's asked this question (the most recent one from Emerson here, hell even look at the registered voter pool in this poll and who isn't in the 'definitely will vote' category (disproportionately young, black and Hispanic, largely D voting blocs). No poll that I've seen asks it in this way, though I'd be curious how the 'anti-Trump' enthusiasm stacks up to the 'pro-Trump' enthusiasm.