The benefits of Biden in those states are nothing new and match what the average shows.
Specifically, CBS News / YouGov poll indicates that the potential for a popular vote for voters and elections in 2020 is as strong as in 2016. Meanwhile, traditional live polls suggest that Biden may be in a tight spot to prevent disproportionate elections stronger in the city-state of Great Lake than Hillary Clinton did.
CBS News / YouGov polls online and has been investigating since the beginning of July the nine closest states Trump won in 2016. As first reported by New York Times ‘Nate Cohn’ on Twitter, CBS News / YouGov has shown that Biden does it better than Clinton’s margins by a very consistent margin.
Biden’s improvement over Clinton has been within a point of seven points (that is, between six points and eight points) in every state they have reached, except Arizona.
Across the four Great Lake field trip states (Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin), Biden is about 6.7 points better than Clinton.
Across the five Sunbelt field trip states (Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Texas), Biden is about 6.5 points better than Clinton.
Biden is about 10.4 points better than Clinton in the same Great Lake Battleground that CBS News / YouGov polled. In the same Sunbelt states, he is only 8.1 points better.
You will notice two things here.
First, Biden does it better in general live interviews than online polling, which is also nationally true.
Second, Biden does disproportionately better than Clinton in live interview polls in the Great Lakes. The same cannot be said about CBS News / YouGov.
The regional distribution of live interview questions makes a lot of sense, given the live interview’s national interview. Biden has done much better than Clinton among White voters. And, as I pointed out last week, the Great Lakes have far more White voters as part of the electorate than the nation as a whole.
The regional distribution difference between CBS News / YouGov and the live interview polls may seem trivial, but it could make all the difference in the world if the race got closer.
Currently, CBS News / YouGov poll indicates that Biden would be wise to spend as much energy and time on the Sunbelt as the Great Lakes. The live interviewers suggest that Biden may be better off putting more energy into winning in the Great Lakes.
Perhaps more importantly, a disproportionate overperformance by Biden in the Great Lakes could help close the Electoral College and split the popular vote of 2016. Since June, Biden has done a little less than nine points better in live interview polls nationwide than Clinton. That’s less than the 10.4 shift we see in the Great Lake field battles.
If the interviews about live interviews were accurate, the difference between the tipping point in the electoral university (i.e. state containing the median electoral vote plus one) and the national vote would be below two points and perhaps closer to one point. It was almost three points in 2016. A little under hole in two points is much more in line with what has historically happened.
Put another way, Biden would probably win in the Electoral College if the national margin were the same as in 2016.
Meanwhile, CBS / YouGov polls suggest another emergency could occur. Biden’s margin over Trump is no greater than six points in one of the states investigated by CBS News / YouGov. This includes all Great Lake field trip states. In other words, the tipping position in the electoral university (or state that contains the median electoral vote plus one) gives Biden a margin of six points.
At the same time, the one national poll CBS News / YouGov did had Biden 10 points up. (This is usually similar to other YouGov polls done during the same period.)
If CBS News / YouGov were accurate, the difference in margin between the tip-type status and the voting college would be at least as large as it was in 2016 and conceivably larger.
In the CBS News / YouGov universe, Biden would probably lose if the national margin were the same as in 2016.
Again, this does not really matter if Biden continues nationwide with a fairly wide margin. If Biden’s national margin shrinks, this could potentially become a very big deal.
Now which group of polls is correct? The honest answer is that I do not know. Polls for interviews are mostly a little more accurate over the long term. Not to the extent, however, that we can count on the possibility of a big election vote and a popular vote split like what happened in 2016.
.
