Pollsters are active across the country in testing political campaigns and seem to be routinely delivering starkly different results for the same contests over a similar time frame. We have four such examples in Senate races.
Three different pollsters tested the Arizona Senate race between appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R) and retired astronaut Mark Kelly (D). While the three polling firms active during the first week of September all find Mr. Kelly leading, the point spread ranges from six all the way to 17 points. The high pollster for Kelly is Fox News (8/29-9/1; 772 AZ likely voters) and the six-point low is Democratic pollster Change Research (9/4-6; 470 AZ likely voters). Four pollsters were testing Michigan in early September, and the spread here ranges from a one-point deficit for Republican businessman John James opposite Sen. Gary Peters (D) to a dozen percentage points. Here, the most favorable James pollster is the Republican Tarrance Group (9/1-3; 569 MI registered voters) and the strongest Sen. Peters’ survey comes from the London, England based Redfield & Wilton Strategies (8/30-9/3; 967 MI likely voters). The Minnesota race between Sen. Tina Smith (D) and former US Rep. Jason Lewis (R) is attracting more attention. Three survey research firms were conducting polls in early September and found Sen. Smith’s advantage extending between two and eleven points. The high Smith poll came from Survey USA (9/4-7; 553 MN likely voters) and the best for Mr. Lewis is from Republican Harper Polling (8/30-9/1; 501 MN likely voters). North Carolinians are regularly polled, and the beginning of September is no exception. Again, brandishing wide ranges, seven surveys and/or iterations within such were conducted during the same time frame, and the margin stretches between an even race for Sen. Thom Tillis (R) and former state Senator Cal Cunningham (D) to a ten-point spread. The even poll came from Monmouth University’s (8/29-9/1; 401 NC likely voters) low turnout model (but the high turnout model suggested only a two-point difference), while the high spike came for Mr. Cunningham from Redfield & Wilton Strategies (8/30-9/3; 951 NC likely voters). A number of polls were conducted over the Labor Day period and we generally see a closing of the presidential race. In Florida, NBC News/Marist College (8/31-9/6; 1,047 FL registered voters; 766 likely voters; live interview) discovers President Trump forging ahead to record a one-point, 48-47%, edge among registered voters, while he and former Vice President Joe Biden are tied at 48% among likely voters.
Turning to another swing state, Michigan, the Glengariff Group (9/1-3; 600 MI likely voters) finds Mr. Biden leading 47-42%, which is a closer spread than seen in most current surveys. The latest three polls from the international research firm Redfield & Wilton Strategies, Hodas & Associates, and Morning Consult, all of which conducted studies between August 11th and September 3rd, projected Mr. Biden to leads of 11, 11, and 10 points, respectively. A pair of new Pennsylvania surveys also see the contest closing. Redfield & Wilton Strategies, the London, England based firm (8/30-9/3; 1,053 PA likely voters; online), found a five-point spread, with Mr. Biden up 47-42%. Local Pennsylvania research firm Susquehanna Polling & Research (8/26-9/4; 498 PA likely voters; live interview) sees the margin between the two national candidates dropping to two points, 44-42%, again in Mr. Biden’s favor. Still closing, but in a reversed manner, We Ask America (9/1-3; 500 MO likely voters; live interview) projects that President Trump’s Missouri advantage over Mr. Biden is dropping to five percentage points, 49-45%. This, while the same sampling universe detects an expanding margin for Gov. Mike Parson (R) in his election battle with State Auditor Nicole Galloway. That contest is breaking 54-41% in Mr. Parson’s favor. As is seemingly typical in North Carolina campaign years, polling in the Tar Heel State appears inconsistent. Again, we see two pollsters simultaneously in the field arriving at much different results. Fox News released their latest NC survey (8/29-9/1; 722 NC likely voters) that projects Democratic nominee Cal Cunningham leading Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, 48-42%. Conversely, East Carolina University, in the field during the same period (8/29-30; 1,101 NC likely voters), forecasts a 44-44% tie in the Senate race.
Presidential numbers are also diverse. Fox finds Joe Biden leading President Trump, 50-46%, while ECU sees a 49-47% Trump edge. The result diversity is another indication that the North Carolina presidential race is a toss-up, and that Mr. Cunningham likely enjoys a slight lead in the Senate campaign. Both races, however, should be considered within the polling margin of error. Public Policy Polling again surveyed the Michigan electorate and this time found an unusual pattern. While other pollsters are seeing the Senate race again tighten, PPP’s latest survey (8/28-29; 897 MI voters) finds Sen. Gary Peters (D) leading manufacturing company business owner John James, 47-39%, but the same sample favors Joe Biden over President Trump by just a 48-44% split. Recently, Mr. James has been faring better than President Trump in the Michigan ballot test polls.
Last October, the Commission on Presidential Debates announced the entire series schedule for both the presidential and vice-presidential forums and the details have only slightly changed. Because of the COVID crowd restrictions, the University of Notre Dame declined to host the first forum, which has been re-located to Case Western University in Cleveland but remains on Tuesday, September 29th. The lone Vice Presidential debate then follows on Wednesday, October 7th. We return to the presidential debate series on Thursday, October 15th, with the finale a week later on October 22nd.
The Vice Presidential forum will be held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. The October 15th session is scheduled for the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami and will be a town hall format. The final session, on October 22nd, will originate from Belmont University in Nashville. All of the forums will consume 90 minutes and begin at 9 pm Eastern time. Aside from the Miami town hall, the debate format will cover specific topics over pre-determined time segments. The chosen moderator will choose the topics, but the subjects will be publicly released several days before each session commences. The new Trafalgar Group poll was released for the battleground state of Michigan (8/14-23; 1,048 MI likely voters) and, has often been the case, finds a result opposite that of most other pollsters. According to the Trafalgar results, President Trump holds a 47-45% Wolverine State lead over Joe Biden. In 2016, Trafalgar came to national prominence because it was the only firm to correctly predict a Donald Trump victory in Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The reason for the discrepancy is Trafalgar attempts to account for what is now being termed as the “shy Trump voter”, that is, a person who is voting for the President but will not say so publicly or to a pollster. Most people believe there is an under-poll for Trump, and Trafalgar is attempting, as they successfully did in 2016, to determine that number. Other pollsters surveying Michigan during the same time period as Trafalgar project a clear Biden lead, but at least one of them, from the Civiqs polling firm surveying for the Daily Kos Elections website (8/13-17; 631 MI registered voters), isn’t so far away. They see Mr. Biden leading only 49-46%. Change Research (8/21-23; 809 MI likely voters) posts the Biden lead to 50-44%. Redfield & Wilton Strategies is much further away (8/16-19; 812 MI likely voters), seeing Biden with a large 50-38% margin. All four of these surveys point to how much the sample selection methodology means in forecasting a polling result. Democratic pollster Public Policy Polling released their latest of the Florida surveys (8/21-22; 671 FL voters) and finds former Vice President Joe Biden leading President Trump, 49-46%. Florida is a must-win state for President Trump, and polling has in the past predicted slight Democratic leads going into Election Day that resulted in close Republican wins for the most recent presidential, US Senate, and gubernatorial campaigns.
In the last ten Florida polls conducted in this 2020 campaign from the July 17 – August 22 period, Mr. Biden’s average lead has dropped to 3.2 percentage points. In the previous ten surveys, conducted from June 8th through July 21st, the Biden lead averaged just under seven percentage points. Further signs are occurring showing the presidential race getting closer. Democratic pollster Change Research just released a series of surveys in six crucial 2020 swing states, Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, during the August 21-23 period with sample sizes ranging from a low of 344 likely voters in Arizona to a high of 1,262 similarly chosen poll participants in Florida.
While CR projects former Vice President Joe Biden to be leading in all six states, at least four of which (AZ, FL, NC, and either MI, PA, or WI) are must-wins for President Trump, the Democratic nominee’s lead has dwindled to between one and six points in all of these places. The FiveThirtyEight statistical organization just released some new information about presidential survey research history. They charted the races from 1976 to the present, looking at where each stood in terms of the national popular vote polling average 83 days before the election. They found that an average swing of 8.04% occurs from this period to the end of the election. The high was Jimmy Carter dropping from a 26.6% lead to barely surviving with only a 2.1% win. The low swing occurred for Bill Clinton in 1996 as he lost just 1.5 percentage points from his advantage established 83 days before the election.
In seven of the eleven elections since 1976, inclusive, the swing has favored Republicans. The current Joe Biden national average is +8.2%, meaning we could be in for another razor-thin electoral margin if the historical patterns prove indicative for this current 2020 political contest. Ending months of speculation, former Vice President Joe Biden announced that he has chosen California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate for the 2020 presidential election. Mr. Biden pledged to choose a woman as his Vice Presidential partner and fulfilled his commitment with Sen. Harris. As time progressed, the pressure became intense for him to choose a woman of color, which he also now has done. It remains to be seen, however, if she can deliver key votes in the swing states. During her presidential run, which ended even before the Iowa Caucus was held, Sen. Harris averaged only 5.4% in 94 publicly released polls from June until her exit day in the ten states most likely to be determinative in the general election.
|
The Rundown BlogLearn more about the candidates running in key elections across the United States. Archives
May 2024
Categories
All
|
|
BIPAC© 2022 BIPAC. All rights reserved
|