2020 Poll Hype Thread

[GeorgiaModerate]

New Fox News poll later today apparently

According to Nate Silver, Fox will be releasing state polls tonight.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

New Fox News poll later today apparently

According to Nate Silver, Fox will be releasing state polls tonight.

Omnomnom

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

If UNH's previous releases are anything to go by, we should get presidential and congressional numbers tomorrow for NH.

[Pollster]

I have a busy day tomorrow so I might have to miss the Atlas meltdown that comes with this one.

https://twitter.com/monmouthpoll/status/1301274056747036675?s=21

[Granite City]

Last month, we had an extremely good poll for Biden from Monmouth in PA followed by something more tepid from them in GA and IA.

There’s no reason to expect the reverse to occur with NC tomorrow but I would like to see the amusing reaction from the forum.

To the more knowledgable polling gurus: is it actually a bad thing for a polling firm to be releasing seemingly contradictory polling? This would seem to be a sign of normal sampling error but “BOTH SIDES” (sorry, but for this it seems pretty accurate) seem to use it as an excuse to brush off polls and then ignore it when it’s favourable.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Last month, we had an extremely good poll for Biden from Monmouth in PA followed by something more tepid from them in GA and IA.

There’s no reason to expect the reverse to occur with NC tomorrow but I would like to see the amusing reaction from the forum.

To the more knowledgable polling gurus: is it actually a bad thing for a polling firm to be releasing seemingly contradictory polling? This would seem to be a sign of normal sampling error but “BOTH SIDES” (sorry, but for this it seems pretty accurate) seem to use it as an excuse to brush off polls and then ignore it when it’s favourable.

It's not a bad thing at all.  Polls *will* vary around the actual result, and an occasional one will be a wild outlier.  This is an inescapable occurrence in sampling.  An honest pollster releases whatever results they get, unless they find that something was flawed in their methodology (I've seen that happen at least once).  This demonstrates that they're not herding.  

I also recall a poll in the last cycle from one of the high quality pollsters (Monmouth, I think) that was an obvious outlier.  They released it anyway, but included a caveat to the effect of "we think this is an outlier, but it's what we got, so take it for what it's worth."

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1301287697886056448

[Dr. Arch]

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1301287697886056448

Atlas spirit animal

[Gass3268]

I have a busy day tomorrow so I might have to miss the Atlas meltdown that comes with this one.

https://twitter.com/monmouthpoll/status/1301274056747036675?s=21

Will be interesting to see how this compares with the Fox News poll.

[Roronoa D. Law]

I have a busy day tomorrow so I might have to miss the Atlas meltdown that comes with this one.

https://twitter.com/monmouthpoll/status/1301274056747036675?s=21

Will be interesting to see how this compares with the Fox News poll.

Going by the past polls from Monmouth they probably take a cop-out and put out a tie.

[Ferguson97]

https://twitter.com/ForecasterEnten/status/1301287697886056448

Atlas spirit animal

He's easily the best of the pundits by virtue of not being a so argumentative

[republican1993]

i'm getting nervous joe biden got this locked up :/ ugh i hope NC is a good poll for trump tomorrow, NC needs to be locked up for trump soon.

[Roronoa D. Law]

i'm getting nervous joe biden got this locked up :/ ugh i hope NC is a good poll for trump tomorrow, NC needs to be locked up for trump soon.

It's ok I heard Trafalgar and Rassmussen are about to swoop in and mess up the average.

[Buzz]

I’m gonna say the Monmouth NC poll shows
Biden 47
Trump 46

[Pollster]

Last month, we had an extremely good poll for Biden from Monmouth in PA followed by something more tepid from them in GA and IA.

There’s no reason to expect the reverse to occur with NC tomorrow but I would like to see the amusing reaction from the forum.

To the more knowledgable polling gurus: is it actually a bad thing for a polling firm to be releasing seemingly contradictory polling? This would seem to be a sign of normal sampling error but “BOTH SIDES” (sorry, but for this it seems pretty accurate) seem to use it as an excuse to brush off polls and then ignore it when it’s favourable.

It's not a bad thing at all.  Polls *will* vary around the actual result, and an occasional one will be a wild outlier.  This is an inescapable occurrence in sampling.  An honest pollster releases whatever results they get, unless they find that something was flawed in their methodology (I've seen that happen at least once).  This demonstrates that they're not herding.  

I also recall a poll in the last cycle from one of the high quality pollsters (Monmouth, I think) that was an obvious outlier.  They released it anyway, but included a caveat to the effect of "we think this is an outlier, but it's what we got, so take it for what it's worth."

With Monmouth, the issue (for Atlas at least) is that their sample sizes are usually small, making them prone to large but ultimately statistically insignificant swings due to high margins of error that are even higher for subsamples.

Polls traditionally have a 95% confidence level (some are higher, some lower, this is usually noted in the methodology section) meaning that out of 20 methodologically equivalent polls that one pollster produces, one is likely to be an outlier. This isn’t distributed evenly, so it’s certainly possible that a pollster can put two outliers out in a row, and then 38 non-outliers, or some other combination of the ratio.

With regards to one pollster putting out contradictory numbers, there’s a lot going on there. The only true way to produce separate polls of PA and NC that would be indicative of the same national environment would be to use the exact same methodology for both of them down to a T (sampling frames, field dates, vendors, etc), have representative samples for both, and use the same post-stratification weights. And both would still be vulnerable to MOE and other systemic polling error. Many pollsters go to great lengths to make these accommodations, but public pollsters often have to cut corners because of costs.

[wbrocks67]

Considering now we've had subpar Monmouth polls for Joe ever since that original PA+13 poll, I'm gonna assume the worst here. Their samples have been terrible for GA, IA, and now PA

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

I’m gonna say the Monmouth NC poll shows
Biden 47
Trump 46

Going one further, I wouldn't be shocked if it showed a Trump +X result. 

[wbrocks67]

FL and PA Q-pac incoming today

[Buzz]

FL +6 Biden
PN +9 Biden

Q Pac predictions

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

PN +9 Biden

I don't think Panama is ready to go to Biden yet, but it all depend on how Costa Rica trends. 

[wbrocks67]

I'm sure the FL poll will certainly come down back to earth though from their last +13 Biden one

[forza nocta]

The Florida Q poll will be like Biden +5 or 6 after that massive +13 outlier, and people will start screaming about "tightening" again

[tagimaucia]

I think Quinnipiac is a mostly fine pollster, and they have a pretty good track record in other states like Texas, but I won't pay any attention to their FL polls.  I don't know what the deal is, but even in the years when they got close to the final result (unlike 2018), their results are way too volatile and swingy from poll to poll in FL to be taken seriously.

[°Leprechaun]

There is a significant difference in averages of rcp 538 and this site:

https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2020/Pres/Maps/Sep04.html

Then there is the one on this site:

https://uselectionatlas.org/POLLS/PRESIDENT/2020/polls.php

All of them have Biden leading but some have it as close and others not so close.

Yet, RCP has a no tossup map where the prediction is 352-186 for Biden.

They could end up being right or coming close, although I am not confident yet
about NC and OH.

One of the keys to understanding the differences is which polls are possible outliers
Trafalgar is usually higher for Trump and Rasmussen is certainly not in line with the other polls either.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

A WI-Marquette poll will be released in two days.