Quinnipiac: Biden +7 in GA, +1 in OH

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I appreciate that pollsters aren't herding but Q looks increasingly detached from the consensus. A fitting name for the times.

Q has Biden getting 36% of Whites in GA and 89% of Blacks. On a good night for Biden, I don't see how that's impossible. If anything, he likely hits 90%+ with Blacks, and if Whites are really turning against Trump, Biden getting to 36% is not that out of the realm of possibility.

Except that it would be in defiance of the longest and stubbornest trends of all: the movement of Deep South white voters, particularly rural/small-town southern white voters, away from the Democratic Party. If Biden's managing mean reversion, this isn't going to be where it happens much, if at all.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

GA
October 8-12
1040 likely voters
MoE: 3%
Changes with September 23-27

Biden 51% (+1)
Trump 44% (-3)
Someone else 1% (n/c)
Don't know/no answer 4% (+2)

OH
October 8-12
1160 likely voters
MoE: 2.9%
Changes with September 17-21

Biden 48% (n/c)
Trump 47% (n/c)
Someone else 2% (n/c)
Don't know/no answer 4% (n/c)

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I appreciate that pollsters aren't herding but Q looks increasingly detached from the consensus. A fitting name for the times.

Q has Biden getting 36% of Whites in GA and 89% of Blacks. On a good night for Biden, I don't see how that's impossible. If anything, he likely hits 90%+ with Blacks, and if Whites are really turning against Trump, Biden getting to 36% is not that out of the realm of possibility.

Except that it would be in defiance of the longest and stubbornest trends of all: the movement of Deep South white voters, particularly rural/small-town southern white voters, away from the Democratic Party. If Biden's managing mean reversion, this isn't going to be where it happens much, if at all.

I thought the trend was that Democrats were starting to win suburban/college-educated whites (or at least improve their margins) while basically hitting their floor with rural/non-college-educated whites?

They probably haven't quite hit the floor yet in the pure rural areas where the GOP hasn't gone all-out until recently. They certainly didn't in 2016 because they did worse in 2018.

If you look at extremely polarised states like MS, there is still a contingent of very old boomers/Silent Gen rural white voters holding the ancestral Democrat candle. They have yet to pass out of the electorate.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

In fairness to Quinnipiac, it does little good to obsess over crosstabs when they aren't severely out of whack because the MoEs for them are much higher. National polls that suggest Trump is at 15%+ with African-American voters, for instance, can still have credible toplines even if they look really weird under the hood.

That said, Q's toplines seem to be coming out of an authoritarian NUT map these days. Biden +7 in GA would be shocking and erodes their credibility a bit.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The +7 is probably a stretch, but it's more noteworthy that this is 4 points better for him than the last Q poll of Georgia (end of September)

Georgia was R+7 last year, if you take off 7 points from Joe's 10 point NPV lead, Joe is up 3. That is without Georgia continuing its lightning fast D trend. Georgia is likely to trend D another 2-3 points this year, bring Joe's margin up to 5-6 points.

It isn't likely to continue this trend. The state will continue to march in a Democratic direction, but Biden's fairly large nationwide margins imply he's winning over large numbers of persuadable, high-propensity voters and there are very few of those in Georgia, so the swing will be underwhelming. The Democratic vote share and floor will rise in the state, but it will "trend" Republican this year just as evangelical voters sometimes trend Democratic when there is a big swing to Republicans.