As November 3 approaches, many pollsters are showing polls to convey that former Vice President Joe Biden has a commanding lead and on pace to win the presidency much like what they said about Hillary Clinton's chances in 2016. Just as in 2016, there are tea leaves indicating that President Trump is potentially on pace to make this race very close and perhaps repeat the result of 2016.
As a disclaimer, I am not a pollster, but just simply put, a national poll having a sample size of 800~1000 people seem to be a rather small sample size for a large and diverse country like the US. At the same time, I am not implying that these polls are poorly constructed or biased though there are some polls being published that are funded by either of the two parties. Compared to Taiwan, the US voting process is quite different from Taiwan in that firstly, one has to register to vote, and on the registration one could also select one’s party affiliation. Throughout the registration and voting process, states are quite transparent on these data, and those who “read the tea leaves” will then compare these data to past elections to discern if the trend is similar or different in order to deduce election outcomes. So I will point out some factors that I have observed and refrain from any discussion of policies and recent events.
Voter Registration and early voting observations
American presidential elections are decided by the Electoral College as President Trump and Joe Biden both know, though when the democrats loses they want to abolish the electoral college.
In 2016, Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes were key to President Trump’s victory. He won Pennsylvania by a slim 44,292 votes out of nearly 6 million. That November, the Democrats had nearly a 900,000 voter registration advantage over the Republicans. That number is now down to a 700,000 registration advantage and has narrowed by 100,000 in the last year. According to the final PA voter registration update, the number is that Republicans have gained 200,000 voters and the Democrats have lost 10,000 voters. This is why though polls suggest Biden, who was born in Scranton, has a lead above the margin of error, Obama’s first event for Biden was in Philadelphia while Trump has focused his efforts in rural PA, having stops in counties such as Eerie.
In 2008, Democrats held a 700,000 voter registration advantage and Barack Obama carried the state by 236,148 votes. By 2012 that advantage was 558,272 registrations and Obama won there by a mere 74,309 votes. In 2016, Democrats had a 327,483 registration advantage and Trump won by 112,991 votes. The Democrats' voter registration advantage is currently nearly 200,000 to just a 134,242 lead, which Politico called a “historic low.”
Let’s look at the most important Miami Dade county, in 2016, Clinton won Miami Dade by close to 300,000 votes. Currently, the margin is very slim in early voting and state wide, Democrats’ lead is also within 10% which is too close to comfort as Republicans tend to vote on the day of election. That is also why Obama’s next campaign stop is Miami Dade.
One should also note that in 2018, polls conducted for Florida’s gubernatorial election was also inaccurate showing a large lead for Democrats. Desantis, the GOP winner, was polled as far as losing by 14% but he eventually won by 0.4%. At the same time, Ben Nelson led in polls over Rick Scott consistently by about 3~5%, but eventually lost by a margin of 2%. Not to mention in 2016, most poll showed that Clinton had a small lead with Trump winning the state. Therefore, we could assume that polls have a slight favor for Democrats, and that a lead of less than 5% for the Democrats may actually be a small Republican lead.
National polling from Pew Research indicates that “55% of voters who plan to cast their ballot in person before Election Day support Biden, compared to 40% who support President Trump.” In other key battleground states of Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin the early voting indicates that registered Republicans are returning ballots at about the same rate or just behind registered Democrats. The parties are even in Michigan, Democrats up 2% in Wisconsin and the Republicans up 2% in Ohio. At the same time, in Arizona, GOP is underperforming compared to their voter registration pace from four years ago as the general trend has been showing that the state is turning blue. Even if GOP manages to squeak out a victory, I would suspect that this would be the last time they carry Arizona.
In terms of party identification, according to Gallup, by the end of September, when the polling firm asked voters this question, “In politics, as of today, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat or an independent?” the answer came back as follows: 28% said Republican, 27% said Democrat and 42% said independent which is relatively on par with 2016 but a small edge to Republican. That is meaningful because many of the polls giving Biden the lead appear to be sampling more Democrats than Republicans that is wider than the margin Gallup has polled, therefore one could potentially infer that the gap in poll should be smaller than they suggest.
At the same time, Gallup poll shows that 56% of Americans say they are better off now than they were four years ago. That could well be the telling in this case given that just four years ago marked the end of the Biden vice presidency. At the same time, there was also a poll that suggests Americans think their neighbor support Trump more than Biden, a possible hint that the so called “Shy Trump Voter” factor at play.
Again, this is not to suggest that the polls are inaccurate, but just to offer more angles to make well rounded assumption. These data also can not identify whether these voters will vote straight ticket Democrat or Republican, as we all know there are some prominent Republican analyst that have formed an anti-Trump group called “Lincoln Project”. I am making the assertion that polls showing Biden is way ahead could be under-polling Republican participation like they did in 2016 when they said Hillary was up by 14% just a week before the election.
Minority turnout
Polling aside, for minority turnout, Trump could improve in both Hispanic and African American vote for 2020. In Florida, a NBC/Marist poll had Trump leading among Latinos 50% to 46% over Biden in 2016, Hillary won among Latinos in Florida 62% to 35%. That would be a 15% swing toward Trump if it held up on Election Day.
After the first debate between Biden and Trump, a Telemundo poll showed Trump winning the debate overwhelmingly 66% to 34%. Snap media polls tend to reflect the sentiment of their viewers such as CNN viewers said Biden won the debate. This is also a contributing factor for Trump’s surging popularity in Florida, where there is a large Cuban American community where Trump is liked for his anti socialist stance.
In September, according to polling done by Rasmussen, a right leaning pollster, Trump’s approval rating among African Americans reached 45%. President Trump only received 8% of the Black vote in 2016. If Trump received just 16% of the Black vote this November, let alone an even higher number, that would all but secure states like Michigan for Trump.
Trump has had famous retired NFL player Herschel Walker serving as one of his major surrogates, while another retired NFL player Burgess Owens running for a house seat that they previously lost in Utah. At the same time, he has reached out to Kanye West and Ice Cube to collaborate on prison reform and other issues pertaining to the African.
American Community. Recently, Ice Cube was criticized for accepting the outreach, in which he responded that the Biden team told him to wait until after the election, but Trump’s team was more receptive of his outreach. At the same time, rapper 50 cent recently voiced his opposition to Biden’s proposed tax increase, saying he does not want to be known as 20cent. Of course Democrats will still win the African American vote, but to make a dent in it will be a plus for the Republicans, and again, that was why Obama was in Philadelphia, and one can assume he will eventually make his way to Detroit, which he will indeed be doing on 10/31 (This was written on 10/24). Also recently Lil Wayne posted his support for Trump on his social media citing his support for Trump’s “Platinum Plan”, all the of examples above shows Trump has put in effort on wooing the African American vote. Simply put, if the Biden camp is confident about his support amongst African American voters, he will not be in Detroit shoring up support, but would be appearing in other swing state metropolitan area such as Atlanta.
I will not dedicate too much time to Asian American voting preferences partly because Asian Americans do not make up a large segment of the US population, and also they are predominantly congregated in coastal states that are solid democrat states and usually vote democrat though of course there is a large contingent of Taiwanese that thinks 我川威武, but obviously Asian Americans voting trend is irrelevant at the end of the day.
Ultimately, this election is not about convincing the undecided voters, I find it shocking how numerous TV outlets are still conducting focus groups at the end of debates or having a townhall of “undecided voters”. Of course, some of these “undecided” turns out to be “decided voters” and I think there are probably just 1 or 2% of undecided left. These trends that I have pointed out suggest that the election may be similar to the result of 2016. Of course, the uptick in Republican registration in swing states may also end up cannibalizing their support amongst independent so this trend may also be misleading.
PS.
As a side note, for those who wants to understand more about polling in the US, I would like to share this interview from National Review.
執行編輯：邱佑寧
核稿編輯：張翔一
