And doubled his Hispanic and female margins. And tripled his margin with black voters. And outperformed himself from 2016 in every county IN AMERICA except for four. Yeah, Biden won.
Trende ceased being even handed a long time ago. ‘Laxalt is best shot for Pick Up? Nevada is a total purple state. Georgia is GOP +3. Walker has at least as good a chance as Laxalt. Skip all the wonderful graphics. RCP 2020 continued to showcase BS polls like one that had Wisconsin +12. Then he and his cronies dropped their numbers down to an even race end of Oct. Hype Biden vote for 3 months and then say they got it right. Ignore RCP. How about Kelly and Hassan?
RCP doesn't "showcase" polls - they report polling from what are recognized as legitimate polling organizations. They don't do the polling. I just looked at the data you referred to - there is no evidence that they "hyped" Biden and then dropped his numbers to say they got it right; in fact, their polling average was fairly consistent for Biden throughout the fall and the same polling average was only 0.2 percentage points off for the total Biden vote. The fact that the undecided or vote of those who would not answer went to Trump is not surprising, seeing how there was a "movement" among Trump voters to not respond to pollsters for a variety of reasons. I don't think that many people pay attention to polling - and most that do do not understand it enough to interpret correctly (I work in a mathematics field and have training in statistics), but elections are often driven by momentum and perhaps by not responding accurately to polling, some Trump voters hurt their cause.
Yes, you are correct that the Wisconsin polling was way off - by multiple polling firms. Anyone who pays attention to elections - esp. the ones since 2020 - should have recognized a problem; Wisconsin has had the smallest or second smallest margin in 4 of those 6 elections, even as there were significant shifts among rural, suburban, and urban voters. To his defense, Mr. Trende has previously analyzed and reported on the Democratic bias of pollsters - on a statewide level, it is particularly difficult to quantify the extent of that bias.
In response to your comment about Georgia, one difference is that Nevada - due to being heavily working class and Hispanic, has been trending toward Republicans for several election cycles, as Mr. Trende points out. Georgia, due to a huge influx of college-educated voters in general and in particular black suburban voters, has been trending blue. I have been anticipating Georgia going blue as I have watched these trends. Despite being an empty suit as a candidate, Stacy Abrams does receive credit for an incredible mobilization effort that the Republicans ignored. (The same thing happened in Arizona). When you put that on top of unattended drop boxes concentrated in Atlanta and its Democratic leaning suburbs and other questionable voting practices, it's hard to overcome. I still believe that if we Republicans had not been neglecting the trends and had worked more aggressively at voter identification and mobilization, the wrongful actions at various county levels (Zuck bucks) or outright ignoring of state laws (esp. PA/WI) may have been overcome. But Republicans should not live under the illusion that Georgia remains a lean-red state. Plus, Walker is a weak candidate - there are many questionable things in his personal record as doubts as to his political history, let alone what qualifications he has to be a US Senator. I don't live in Georgia, but the few times I have seen him interviewed, Walker seems to struggle to give solid answers beyond talking points or express them in well-spoken English. Yes, Laxalt is a far superior candidate - as is Schmitt in MO and Johnson in WI. I am hopeful about Masters in AZ and a couple others. I think the GOP will pick up NV. If they lose any they currently hold, NH & AZ will determine the control of the Senate.
And who counts the votes?
I like how they say the country was moving away from Trump, yet he gained 12 million more votes.
And doubled his Hispanic and female margins. And tripled his margin with black voters. And outperformed himself from 2016 in every county IN AMERICA except for four. Yeah, Biden won.
Thank you for your objective analysis. Greatly appreciated.
Trende ceased being even handed a long time ago. ‘Laxalt is best shot for Pick Up? Nevada is a total purple state. Georgia is GOP +3. Walker has at least as good a chance as Laxalt. Skip all the wonderful graphics. RCP 2020 continued to showcase BS polls like one that had Wisconsin +12. Then he and his cronies dropped their numbers down to an even race end of Oct. Hype Biden vote for 3 months and then say they got it right. Ignore RCP. How about Kelly and Hassan?
RCP doesn't "showcase" polls - they report polling from what are recognized as legitimate polling organizations. They don't do the polling. I just looked at the data you referred to - there is no evidence that they "hyped" Biden and then dropped his numbers to say they got it right; in fact, their polling average was fairly consistent for Biden throughout the fall and the same polling average was only 0.2 percentage points off for the total Biden vote. The fact that the undecided or vote of those who would not answer went to Trump is not surprising, seeing how there was a "movement" among Trump voters to not respond to pollsters for a variety of reasons. I don't think that many people pay attention to polling - and most that do do not understand it enough to interpret correctly (I work in a mathematics field and have training in statistics), but elections are often driven by momentum and perhaps by not responding accurately to polling, some Trump voters hurt their cause.
Yes, you are correct that the Wisconsin polling was way off - by multiple polling firms. Anyone who pays attention to elections - esp. the ones since 2020 - should have recognized a problem; Wisconsin has had the smallest or second smallest margin in 4 of those 6 elections, even as there were significant shifts among rural, suburban, and urban voters. To his defense, Mr. Trende has previously analyzed and reported on the Democratic bias of pollsters - on a statewide level, it is particularly difficult to quantify the extent of that bias.
In response to your comment about Georgia, one difference is that Nevada - due to being heavily working class and Hispanic, has been trending toward Republicans for several election cycles, as Mr. Trende points out. Georgia, due to a huge influx of college-educated voters in general and in particular black suburban voters, has been trending blue. I have been anticipating Georgia going blue as I have watched these trends. Despite being an empty suit as a candidate, Stacy Abrams does receive credit for an incredible mobilization effort that the Republicans ignored. (The same thing happened in Arizona). When you put that on top of unattended drop boxes concentrated in Atlanta and its Democratic leaning suburbs and other questionable voting practices, it's hard to overcome. I still believe that if we Republicans had not been neglecting the trends and had worked more aggressively at voter identification and mobilization, the wrongful actions at various county levels (Zuck bucks) or outright ignoring of state laws (esp. PA/WI) may have been overcome. But Republicans should not live under the illusion that Georgia remains a lean-red state. Plus, Walker is a weak candidate - there are many questionable things in his personal record as doubts as to his political history, let alone what qualifications he has to be a US Senator. I don't live in Georgia, but the few times I have seen him interviewed, Walker seems to struggle to give solid answers beyond talking points or express them in well-spoken English. Yes, Laxalt is a far superior candidate - as is Schmitt in MO and Johnson in WI. I am hopeful about Masters in AZ and a couple others. I think the GOP will pick up NV. If they lose any they currently hold, NH & AZ will determine the control of the Senate.