Then, there was the final debate, then the one year tally on the hostage crisis,then Reagan surged and in the final poll (again, Gallup I think) he led by three.
However....Reagan won by TEN.
And of course this article is from late October 2016 and the "fact checkers" are doing their very best to distinguish what happened with Reagan from what was soon to happen with Trump....they desperately wanted 1980 not to be repeated, and well, while not as dramatically decisive, in terms of shock value and result, well, it did.
And now here we are, late October 2020.
The needle is moving from Biden and moving away fast because despite the MSM/social media blackout, word is getting out on his flagrant treasonous corruption.
As the final week of Reagan/Carter showed, there can be big moves in the last few days and we are seeing that now.
Biden's corruption may well turn this into 1984 :). That's the hope anyway
Again.....let’s not forget that Reagan ran seven points ahead of his final polling numbers.
And he absolutely crushed Mondale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
What did the polls say about that race?
And that was back in the day when the polls were much more honest than today, FWIW.
I remember 1980, and there was no indication, at least according to the MSM at the time, that Reagan would win in a landslide.
This is true, but keep in mind that early voting and vote-by-mail made up a very small portion of total ballots back then. And this year thanks to a huge media push for it and the conveniently timed Chinese virus we are seeing more of it than in even 2016. Record breaking numbers. I believe this shift to a month-long election is intentionally designed to work against the best interests of this nation.
They do their post election analysis and then they make up a story. Truth is probably closer to, Reagan was always up by about 10. Plus, its not the final polls its how they shape the debate throughout the year, especially these days where the issues aren’t the topic,the polls are
I remember watching “Washington Week in Review” the weekend before the 1980 election. Two of the four panelists predicted Carter would win. I was shocked to hear this, as I had recently attended a Reagan rally at an Ohio airport, and saw the same spirit and enthusiasm that is at the Trump rallies this time. I even got to shake hands with RR as well!
The one honest pollster at the time was the late Pat Caddell.
He went to Carter on Saturday before the election and told him not only that he would lose, but he was accurate to within about 1% of the actual total.
I recall news footage of Carter looking like a deer in the headlights that weekend.
Can anyone tell me what happens with unspent campaign contributions?
It seems clear that Biden has all but stopped campaigning, and that obviously saves a ton of cash.
he ran for senate and lost after Wellstone died
FWIW, as of 11/1/1980 the (always unbiased and nonpartisan) New York Times had Reagan ahead of Carter 235 to 145 in electoral votes with the remainder, they said, being too close to call.
At his last campaign appearance, Jimmuh signed off with the let's win message, but his voice cracked. It was noted in retrospect that he probably was seeing the real polling (the stuff the parties use is much better than the published stuff) and they'd known they were behind for probably weeks.
There are no “big moves”. Trump was ahead the whole time. Polls are heavily weighted towards Democrats to depress Republicans. Now a week out they try to regain cred.
I guess you would say “Carter had a 95% chance of winning.”
. . . but not 55-45 but rather 50-40-10.Even then there were Republicans voting independent rather than for the best president of their lifetimes.