NYT/Siena Polls of 6 Battleground States

[Frenchrepublican]

I know Sienna is very accurate, but some of these numbers are hard to swallow. Michigan being to the right of Florida and Arizona being the biggest red flag.

I totally agree. PA/NC/WI are very plausible but MI and FL numbers are hard to swallow

[Frenchrepublican]

My takeaways (keeping in mind that this is just one poll):

- Is there really a good reason to believe that NC is more likely to flip than GA? I could see it voting 1% to the left of GA, but not more than that. It doesn’t make much sense to rate NC a Tossup and GA Lean R, if you ask me. Agree
- MI can’t be taken granted by Democrats and is not Lean/Likely D in a close race (although I don’t buy the Trump +6 result vs. Warren in particular--their MI numbers might be too R-friendly). Agree
- WI can’t be taken for granted by Republicans and is not Lean R in a close race, especially if there’s a collapse in R support in WOW (in line with the suburban trends we’ve seen across the country) and urban WI (especially Milwaukee) looks more like 2018 than 2016. That said, I still think it’ll be more Republican than PA at least. Hmm, partly agree
- Democrats would be colossally stupid if they didn’t go all in on Florida. Conceding 29 electoral votes when their path to 270 is already fairly narrow and other swing states might be trending away from them would be beyond dumb. It will definitely require some effort, but it’s not unwinnable even in a close race. They surely must go after Florida, nobody is telling that. But FL has a lot of older white voters who prefer moderate candidates. I buy that Biden will win, while Sanders and Warren will lose FL. Don't forget they overestimated Gillum in FL as well.
- IA isn’t a swing state and certainly not as "elastic" as people are making it out to be, but I’m not going to dwell on that. We could see a regression to the mean here (similar to NV 2012), but if IA is even close, Democrats already have the Senate + presidency. It's elastic and still winnable for Democrats. IA might end up being close or swing state, but I agree with your take that if IA flips, the presidency is already taken
- I’ve said repeatedly that AZ is one of the (if not the) shakiest states for Trump, and I don’t see it voting Republican if he’s losing other swing states like WI or FL. I’d argue that this one is actually a must-win for Democrats. I disagree. I think AZ will be fairly close, but still favouring Trump.
- Overall pretty bad numbers for Democrats considering that Trump seems to be trailing nationally by 5-8%. They’re probably slightly favored, but the PV/EC split will probably be even more dramatic this time if they can’t win the PV by 3.5-4%. I agree

Biden would still lose FL, being a white, old, boring dude is not a guaranteed winning key.
Example : Bill Nelson

[Frenchrepublican]

Obviously these polls are good for Trump. What I don't get, though, is Biden in a tie w/ Trump in MI but ahead in FL? MOE and everything, but I don't see a scenario where FL is blue and MI isn't.

Based on Cohn's comments about their trouble polling MI I think their poll there should be taken with a grain of salt. The others are likely accurate though.

[Frenchrepublican]

A 13 point difference between this and Emerson for Warren in Michigan.  Yeah one of these is really wrong, and it isn't Emerson this time.

Emerson’s Michigan sample was 46% college educated. Michigan is around 32% educated. Emerson is much more wrong.

[Frenchrepublican]

Im not gonna pick apart Siena, especially after 2018. Its not surprising that Trump is holding up better in the midwest compared to the other regions of the country.

I also wished they polled his job approvals. He was at 45/54 in 2018 exit polls, that seems about where he still is in these states too. Maybe a few points better than that.

In the swing states in the 2018 exit polls he was at 51% approval in Florida, 50% in Arizona, 48% in Wisconsin and 45% in Pennsylvania & Michigan.

Yeah, Democrats should not count on FL