POTUS/General Election Thread 2020 + Aftermath

[Papewaio]

Why do you think there is a systematic tendency across elections?

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...partisan-bias/
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...te-polls-been/

If you skim through those articles, you will see that in US presidential elections the national polling bias changes every election, often toward alternating parties, and state polls may have their own bias divergent from national polls' bias.

The 2012 Obama-Romney election was the latest episode of significant Republican bias in polling. Usually problems with polls can be explained in methodological terms. For example, in 2016 it was found that a major factor underrepresenting Republican support in polls was nonweighting of education (i.e. non-college voters, especially non-college whites). These and other oversights have been adjusted for this cycle.

Partisan bias in sub-presidential races also constantly fluctuates.
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...ard-democrats/


Another recent non-American case, but where the polls were off:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features...-were-way-off/



Sorry, but this just seems like one of those common political myths.

I wouldn't use French politics as the basis. They have a very strong united but small right wing base, and a very broad disjointed left. In the first round it is quite common to have the right wing candidate poll higher than most if not all of the left wing candidates. Then in the final round all the left wing voters rally around a single choice.

What works differently in the USA is that it isn't a two round system nor a preferential voting system. Nor is there compulsory voting either, and by all means it seems stacked with gerrymandering (straight out corrupt in most nations) and making it difficult to vote. So whilst the polls are of a random sample of the voting age people, it doesn't reflect how many are going to actually vote.

UK has a slightly different issue where it is difficult for the younger lefter crowd to take time off to vote at the elections.

Australia - election boundaries are set by an independent commission, voting it is on a weekend, postal votes are common, preferential voting is (technically) compulsory with a fine for not attending. The votes still tend to be more right voting than left than indicated in polling. This might be due to the preferential voting and the more extreme right wing groups with a smaller base not getting polled (literally had an idiot Senator from One Nation in on 12 votes - need a massive sample size to capture that in a poll).