Until the results started pouring in on Election Day in 2016, some national polls showed that Hillary Clinton had a double-digit lead over Donald Trump. Owing to being completely wrong, very serious doubts were raised about the validity of the polling industry. Will the national polls that show Joe Biden with a huge lead over Trump in 2020 also turn out to be dead wrong? A few days ago, Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon made headlines all over the nation when she told supporters “we are not ahead by double digits” and that they should not believe the “inflated national public polling numbers”. Just like so many others, Jen O’Malley Dillon fully understands that most of the big national polls simply cannot be trusted. They are creating a perception that we are likely to see a landslide victory by Biden today, and the mood in this country is likely to shift dramatically when that perception does not become a reality. Without further ado, here are three reasons the national polls are not reflecting reality. I. Oversampling Time and time again, most of the polling organizations that the mainstream media relies upon insist on oversampling Democrats. This is something that the Trump campaign has complained about repeatedly, and yet it just keeps on happening. During a recent appearance on Fox News, Trump’s senior campaign advisor Steve Cortes used the phrase “massive oversampling” to describe what is happening: Speaking on Fox News’s “Bill Hemmer Reports,” Cortes said, “I think polls matter. We pay some attention to them. It’s very critical to look at the inputs into these polls because the inputs often determine the final output numbers. And many of these polls — I haven’t looked at this one yet specifically, but many of these polls have massive oversampling of Democrats". Likewise, according to Zero Hedge, a (relativily) recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll that showed Biden with a huge lead represented an “egregious oversampling of Democrats - with 45% of those asked identifying as either 'Strong Democrat' , 'Not very strong Democrat' , 'Independent/lean Democrat' – vs. the 36% of those asked identifying as the same degrees of Republican. 13% of those asked are 'Strictly Independent'." Furthermore, most surveys that have been done on party affiliation show a very even split, and those numbers have not moved very much at all over the last several years. On that account, by including far more Democrats than Republicans in their surveys, these pollsters are going to come up with skewed results that are unreliable. On a side note, if you are still not convinced, here is the full report of "Polling and Media Recommendations" from "The Atlas Project", confirming this strategy to manufacture double-digit leads to effectively chill the vote of the opposition. II. Shy Trump voters Moving on to the second factor, this may be an even bigger one than oversampling. Unsurprisingly to most, Biden voters are far more eager to talk to pollsters than Trump voters are, making it very difficult to come up with truly accurate numbers. In fact, the head pollster for the Trafalgar Group (which I am going to talk about later on), Robert Cahaly, says that his numbers show that Biden voters are "five times as likely to talk to a pollster” as Trump voters are. Just think about it. If a pollster from CNN or the Washington Post called you, would you be eager to talk to that individual? I sure wouldn’t (were I an American). Thus, many Trump supporters are also hesitant to disclose who they are voting for because they are suspicious there might be repercussions. Every polling organization understands that “shy Trump voters” were a major factor in 2016, and it appears that those voters will once again be a major factor this time around. III. Enthusiasm Gap Finally, the third factor making the national polls misleading is that Trump supporters are far more enthusiastic about their candidate than the Biden supporters. The truth is that the race is much closer than the mainstream media is leading people to believe. In addition, one of the biggest stories will be the fact that so many Biden supporters are voting by mail this year. In fact, one recent survey found that Trump voters are more than twice as likely to vote in person on Election Day as Biden voters are. By the same token, another survey found that 74 percent of those that “strongly disapprove” of President Trump are likely to vote by mail. If these numbers are accurate, then we should expect President Trump to have a strong lead when the first votes are counted tonight, although Joe Biden and his entourage will not concede no matter how large the lead looks, for his campaign will be counting on the mail-in ballots to put him over the top. Unbiased polls give Trump the victory Now that I have demonstrated the polls are immensely inaccurate, let us check out what are the polls who correctly predicted a Trump win in 2016 forecasting for the 2020 election. Currently, the major polls give former Vice President Biden more than a 7-point lead nationally against President Trump – according to RealClearPolitics National Average, which is a slight inflexion from a month ago. Similarly, the Predictit markets imply a 61% probability of Biden winning today's election. Additionally, those markets suggest that Democrats will win both the Senate and House (58% and 86% probabilities, respectively). Quite simply, it appears that a Blue Wave is fast approaching. Something which the market has not only priced in, but has successfully digested as a favorable narrative for risk assets. In the following Election Review from Camelot Portfolios, we look at what some of the polling firms that called 2016 correctly are seeing today. "Shocking", their polling suggests that President Trump will be re-elected, either narrowly or by a large margin. Therefore, capital allocators today cannot easily assume tonight’s results. Truthfully, it is extremely possible that Trump will win Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. If so, a win in Pennsylvania or Michigan will likely put him over the top in the electoral college. And speaking of "shocking", Camelot notes that as far as the Senate and House are concerned, it also appears that Republicans will keep control of the Senate, especially if Trump has a strong night. On the flip side, the House is highly likely to remain in Democratic control. In 2016, Secretary of State Clinton received 65,853,514 votes, or 48.2% of the popular vote. Donald Trump received 62,984,828 votes, or 46.1%. In terms of the electoral college, however, Trump handily beat Clinton with 306 votes versus 232 for Clinton. So as to be the next Commander-in-chief, Trump won the key swing states in the Rust Belt: PA, OH, MI and WI, as well as the key swing states of FL, NC and AZ. This outcome was not predicted by virtually any pollster in 2016, when most of the major polls were wrong, though not all. More accurate pollsters incorporated likely voters and attempted to adjust for "shy voters". Among these was Trafalgar Group, which was named best polling firm of 2016 presidential race, for being one of few pollsters to predict a Trump win in Pennsylvania and in Michigan and Trump's victory too. The secret to Trafalgar's success is that it best adjusted its polling to include those "shy Trump voters" and the votes missed in other polls. It begins by presenting the likely firewall states for Trump and Biden. Then, the punchline, what Trafalgar sees as the outcome of tonight's election, based on Trafalgar swing state polls, Trump is going to win with 275 electoral votes. In terms of the Senate race, Trafalgar is foreshadowing another Republican sweep with 52 seats. Likewise, Democracy Institute also correctly predicted Trump’s victory in 2016 (besides Brexit). At its latest poll for October, fresh from the presses, Trump leads 48%-47% on the popular national vote, and has a four point lead of 49% to 45% in the key swing states, including Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Moreover, it only asks likely voters, and asks about so-called "shy votes", which according to this latest poll 79% of Trump supporters would not admit it to friends and family compared to 21% of Biden supporters. The poll digs deeper, enquiring on some hot topics. In a nutshell: i) 57% thought businessman and former Biden associate Tony Bobulinski, who has levelled accusations against the former vice President, was telling the truth about the Biden family allegations; ii) 52% felt that Biden is “a corrupt politician”, with 21% saying they are less likely to vote for him and 75% saying it makes no difference; iii) 54% agreed the allegations made him a national security peril; iv) President’s job approval rating it now at 52% which, according to the Democracy Institute director Patrick Basham, is now at “normal levels” to be reelected; v) almost four in ten black voters approve of his presidency and 21% are prepared to vote for him; vi) Trump’s two strongest issues among voters are still ranked the most important, the economy and law and order, both at 29%; vii) while coronavirus is fourth as the most important issue, pulling 20%; viii) at last, 61% think Trump will be better for the economy, though only 45% approve of his handling of the kung-flu, while 49% disapprove. To sum up, Mr Basham, the director of the Democracy Institute, put it best: "Biden’s comparatively inefficient vote is likely to mirror Hillary Clinton’s from four years ago. Biden will do incredibly well in the heavily populated states of California, Illinois, New Jersey, and New York. In these states, and in others reliably painted a deep Democratic blue, he will rack up enormous margins of victory over Trump, providing him with the potential to score a national popular vote victory, yet probably depriving him of sufficient votes in Iowa, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida to turn Trump into a one-term president." In conclusion, in what may be the worst possible news for the markets that are now convinced a Blue Wave is inevitable, a Trump victory along with a Red Sweep in the Senate will surely wreak a lot of havoc in the markets, as well as in the streets of America (powered by Antifa and BLM radicals), creating much more uncertainty about the future. However, after the initial shock, I am sure the markets will eventually accept the results as bullish - bad news are good news after all -, making markets to rally, like it happened four years ago.
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AuthorDaniel Gomes Luís Archives
March 2024
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