Why was Biden so overestimated in Florida?

[Samof94]

Why was Florida overestimated in this cycle? The state sold itself as "Freer", albeit exclusively in a Covid context.

[TDAS04]

Florida was decided by 1.2% in 2016. That’s a close enough of a margin for a state to be viewed as a battleground for the subsequent election in any case. The extant of the state’s rightward trend wasn’t quite realized that year, even though it was pretty clear Florida was trending right. The extant’s what surprised people in 2020.

[Sir Mohamed]

Because it was close in 2016 and it was widely believed 2020 would be an even bluer year than 2018. Since latter was decided by razor thin margins at the senate and gov level, it seemed like another small shift towards Dems would be enough to flip the state. Especially since its older population was disproportinally affected by the COVID pandemic and Trump completely screwed up at that front.

The polls also showed a competitive race or even leaned in Biden's favor. And just as it was the case nationally, people assumed pollsters fixed their issues from 2016. The fact polls were relatively accurate in 2018 (at least outside FL) seemed to prove the point polls were indeed more reliable again.

[GAinDC]

I recall Biden leading most of the Florida polls in 2020

The 2018 Gov and Sen races were close enough there that you could chalk it up to bad candidates/campaigns on the Dem side. That was the conventional wisdom ahead of 2020, but now hindsight tells us that it was largely due to the state's rightward shift.

[Vice President Christian Man]

Because the polls didn't pick up on the massive migration of conservatives moving to that state during Covid.

[President Johnson]

Because it was close in 2016 and it was widely believed 2020 would be an even bluer year than 2018. Since latter was decided by razor thin margins at the senate and gov level, it seemed like another small shift towards Dems would be enough to flip the state. Especially since its older population was disproportinally affected by the COVID pandemic and Trump completely screwed up at that front.

The polls also showed a competitive race or even leaned in Biden's favor. And just as it was the case nationally, people assumed pollsters fixed their issues from 2016. The fact polls were relatively accurate in 2018 (at least outside FL) seemed to prove the point polls were indeed more reliable again.

Agreed. Additionally, I often heard and repeated myself the expression that Trump had pretty much done nothing to expand his coalition from 2016, when his victory was just based on razor thin margins against an unpopular opponent. I think many political pundits and even more posters in this forum underestimated or missed the Trump campaign targeting Hispanic voters in Florida, especially of Cuban and Venezuelan descent.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Pres Mike said that according to behind-the-scenes books of the 2020 election, unlike public polls Biden's campaign internal polls showed Trump ahead by a substantial margin. But they decided to contest the state anyway to keep local donors happy and tie down Republican money in the state.

[Pericles]

2020 polling overestimated Biden by a lot with non college-educated whites and seniors. So there was the idea that he could balance out a swing against him with Hispanics, and that just wasn't even close to being true.

[Pres Mike]

Pres Mike said that according to behind-the-scenes books of the 2020 election, unlike public polls Biden's campaign internal polls showed Trump ahead by a substantial margin. But they decided to contest the state anyway to keep local donors happy and tie down Republican money in the state.

Exactly! Thank you!

Because it was close in 2016 and it was widely believed 2020 would be an even bluer year than 2018. Since latter was decided by razor thin margins at the senate and gov level, it seemed like another small shift towards Dems would be enough to flip the state. Especially since its older population was disproportinally affected by the COVID pandemic and Trump completely screwed up at that front.

The polls also showed a competitive race or even leaned in Biden's favor. And just as it was the case nationally, people assumed pollsters fixed their issues from 2016. The fact polls were relatively accurate in 2018 (at least outside FL) seemed to prove the point polls were indeed more reliable again.

Democrats won the national popular vote by 8 points in 2018, but lost Florida by less than a point

While polls did show Biden winning by 8 points, neither the Biden nor Trump campaign expected such a huge gap.

[TML]

Most statewide races in FL during the 2010s were decided by less than 2 points, so some analysts initially interpreted the 2018 results to be a continuation of that long-standing pattern, and thus also expected this pattern to continue in 2020. In 2020, Democrats' decision to drastically reduce their ground game as a result of the pandemic ended up hurting them in many places across the country, and Florida was certainly no exception (especially in South Florida). Of course, as mentioned before, the magnitude of such an effect ended up shocking many observers.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

By late October the signs were abundantly clear that Biden would not be carrying the Sunshine State based off the early vote and other factors especially in Miami-Dade. Even people who had blue NC, viewed Trump has favored in Florida by that point. Dem pundits refused to listen and ended up getting burned on election day.