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With less than a week left before the US elections, the Democratic candidate for the White House, Joe Biden, continues to comfortably lead the main North American polls.
The latest NBC poll, for example, leaves Barack Obama’s former vice president with 51.7% of the preferences, ahead of the current President, Donald Trump, who obtains only 43.9%.
The scenario is practically the same in the swing states or hinge states, where Biden appears as the first option to occupy the Oval Office, which puts in check the intentions of the American tycoon to specify his re-election.
However, not everything is said. In 2016 the polls also gave Trump a loser, who ended up rising in numerous states and managed to wrest the presidency from the Democrats.
“We have had a lot of fake polls, just like we have fake news. It’s a terrible thing when you look at them, but it was the same four years ago. I was losing everywhere … there were numbers that said that no state (hinge) was going to win and I ended up winning each of them, “Trump lashed out in the middle of this year, when the measurements of this new process began to be known, which -as said- they relegate Trump to defeat again.
But… why did the polls not predict the businessman’s victory?
It could all be due to two factors. First, because the measurements underestimated a key demographic factor for Trump’s intentions. And second, because of the role that the voters who decided at the last minute to go to the polls.
At least that is how the expert Doug Schwartz, associate vice president and director of the renowned Quinnipiac University Survey, explains it. During an international activity organized by the Foreign Press Centers of the US State Department – which BioBioChile had access to – analyzed the influence of these polls in the electoral process.
According to the professional, despite criticism from Trump himself, “the polls were very accurate” when it comes to general preferences.
“For example, national measurements showed Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote by three percentage points and she ended up winning by two,” he notes.
However, he warns, there were surveys in hinge states in which the measurements did err.
The main reason?
“Some pollsters they underestimated white voters without a college degree. This is important, because those voters supported Trump and were undervalued in some polls in major states like Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, where Trump won by a very tight margin, “he explains.
As he comments, the poor estimation of these voters was the result of a null weighting of the education of the respondents in their samples, something fundamental in a process of these characteristics.
“What ended up happening was that they overrepresented white voters with college degrees and underrepresented those without that academic degree,” he says.
In the analyst’s opinion, this last category became “a fundamental piece of the support that Donald Trump received”, which ended up tilting the balance in his favor.
October surprise
As anticipated, the second factor that made pollsters unable to predict Trump’s then surprising victory was the last minute decision of some voters.
This occurred mainly in the three states already mentioned (Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania), where a large part of the voters ended up voting “overwhelmingly for Trump”According to Schwartz, which ultimately prevented the pollsters from “noticing the last-minute movement,” despite taking measurements as close as possible to the day of the official results.
And although the reasons are not clear as to what prompted them to leave their static position, there are those who argue that it could be due to a phenomenon known as October surprise (OR the October Surprise).
In good accounts, the term refers to disclosures from the press (may or may not be planned) that occur a few days before the election and which may spell an unforeseen hit on the board.
This happened in 2016, with the famous role played by the then director of the FBI, James Comey, who decided to open an investigation against Hillary Clinton 10 days before the voting … to close it a week later.
“The Clinton campaign’s argument that Comey determined the outcome of the election is based simply on mathematics. The data shows that the majority of people who decided to vote in the last week backed Trump, and in considerable numbers. Comey’s double ad was the biggest reveal of the week; ergo, it should have changed the course of the elections, “reported the Huffington Post. A scenario that Schwartz sees as plausible.
The current scenario
According to the latest survey by Quinnipiac University – whose director is Schwartz himself – Biden (51%) outperforms Trump (41%) by 10 points.
In the demographic breakdown, the largest differences are precisely among those white voters, depending on whether or not they have a college degree.
Thus, 62% of white and highly educated respondents favor the Democratic candidate, while 37% lean in favor of Trump. The picture is reversed with those without higher education: 57% support the Republican letter and 37% the former vice president.
By the same count, Biden gets an overwhelming majority among the black population, with 81% of the preferences. Trump, by contrast, gets only 5% on this item.
Although with narrower figures, the same occurs with Hispanics, who deliver 51% to the Democratic letter and 35% to the tycoon.
The women consulted, meanwhile, favor Biden (60%) and leave Trump behind (34%), while men favor the latter, with 48%, and 41% for the right arm of Obama.
“We’re seeing Biden increase its lead in key states,” adds Schwartz.
“For example,” says the expert, “in our latest surveys of Pennsylvania and Florida, we found that Biden has widened his lead and is now comfortably ahead in both states, where Trump won by about one percentage point in 2016.”
As he emphasizes, Biden is ahead in Florida by 11 points and in Pennsylvania by 13. “In Ohio, however, the race is essentially tied, but it is still a big change from the results of 2016, when Trump won there by eight points.” .
Thus, he warns that we must be attentive to the surprise this October … if there is one.
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