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USC Pollster: Our Experimental But Accurate Model Shows Trump Winning the Electoral College Again
Townhall ^ | 10/28/2020 | Guy Benson

Posted on 10/28/2020 10:12:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

Earlier this week, we wrote about the Trafalgar Group, an outlier pollster that routinely produces rosier results for President Trump's re-election prospects than any of its competitors. If you're on the Trump Train, you love Trafalgar, and you likely already know that its data was much more predictive of some of Trump's upset victories in 2016 -- not to mention calling the 2018 Florida governor's race correctly when basically no one else did. That said, you may be less interested in the outfit's big swings and misses, like overestimating Brian Kemp's victory margin in Georgia's gubernatorial contest last cycle by ten points. True to form, Trafalgar's latest survey shows President Trump inching into the lead in Pennsylvania:

Our new @trafalgar_group #2020Election #BattlegroundState #PApoll conducted Oct 24-25 shows undecided shrinking and a narrow Trump lead for the first time:
48.4% @realDonaldTrump,
47.6% @JoeBiden,
2.2% @Jorgensen4POTUS,
0.7% Other,
1.0% Und. See Report: https://t.co/qf16dkxcCX

pic.twitter.com/Vv3i8R4cK1— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) October 27, 2020


For context, the previous six Keystone State polls gave Biden an average lead of 5.5 points (though another right-leaning pollster also shows Trump surging ahead). Trafalgar's chief pollster told me that part of their "secret sauce" is asking questions that reduce the impact of "social desirability bias" in respondents' answers. The idea is that given the loud opposition to Trump across much of mass media and other taste-making institutions, some people may not want to admit to a stranger over the phone that they plan on voting for him. Part of the way Trafalgar tries to home in on someone's true intentions is to ask them more indirect questions that may reveal their actual preferences. As it turns out, USC's pollster has been doing something similar for a number of years, and here's what they've found:

From our previous research on social judgments, we learned that people seem to know their immediate social circles quite well. Their answers about the distribution of income, health status — even the relationship satisfaction of their friends, family and acquaintances — were often in the right ballpark. And when we averaged the data from their responses across a large national sample, it provided a surprisingly accurate picture of the overall population…in all five of the elections in which we tested this question, the social circle question predicted election outcomes better than traditional questions about voters’ own intentions. These five elections were the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the 2017 French Presidential election, the 2017 Dutch Parliamentary election, the 2018 Swedish Parliamentary election, and the 2018 U.S. election for House of Representatives. In both the U.S. elections, the social-circle question predicted national and state level results better than the “own intention” question in the same polls. In fact, data from the social-circle question in 2016 accurately predicted which candidate won each state, so it predicted Trump’s electoral college victory

Five for five thus far. So what is their data showing this year? Their traditional polling model gives Biden a double-digit lead in the national horserace, pointing to an easy win and a brutal GOP night. But their "social circle" data, which "predicted outcomes better than traditional questions" is telling a different story:

When we calculate how many electoral votes each candidate could get based on state level averages of the own-intention and social-circle questions, it’s looking like an Electoral College loss for Biden. We should note that our poll was not designed for state-level predictions, and in some states we have very few participants. Even so, in 2016 it predicted that Trump would win the electoral vote.

Small sample sizes, bank-shot methodology, strange year. Every asterisk applies. But still. Allahpundit notes that asking people how they think their state will vote produces an even bigger Trump electoral college win, but also offers some compelling counterpoints:

It’s possible that the traditional polls are right and the “social circle” data is wrong, of course. Both parties this year seem convinced that Trump will do better than his current numbers, righties because they’re convinced that Trump fans are a “silent majority” despite the fact that he’s never had a job approval average north of 50 percent and lefties because they have hardcore electoral PTSD from 2016 that makes them fear Trump fans are perennially underestimated. But neither of those things is necessarily true. USC speculates that the pandemic might be throwing off people’s assessments of how their friends intend to vote this year for the simple reason that we’re all spending less time around our friends...

...One obvious question about “social desirability bias,” though. If it’s true that that’s distorting the traditional polls and producing more encouraging numbers for Biden, whether because people are embarrassed to tell pollsters the truth or because they fear being punished somehow if their community knew their support for Trump, why are we seeing Biden faring better than Clinton in blood-red states? People who live in Montana, say, shouldn’t have reason to feel shy about telling some anonymous polling apparatchik that they’re MAGA and proud, yet Trump’s leading Biden there right now by single digits. He won the state by 20 four years ago. If anything, you might expect social desirability bias to *overstate* Trump’s support in very red states: If you’re a closet Biden supporter surrounded by hardcore Trumpers, maybe you want to keep that information to yourself.

I've wondered about these exact same effects myself. The guessing game will be over soon enough -- but as I've been saying, either Biden wins fairly comfortably, or American political polling will be viewed with even more deep-seated suspicion. The former vice president leads comfortably nationally (although a few of the latest results on RCP's aggregator are creeping closer), and must be considered the strong favorite. And as I mentioned on Monday, the canary in the coal mine for Hillary Clinton four years ago was district-level polling that deviated dramatically from the national and even state-level numbers. And in that realm, Trump is doing quite poorly this cycle, which could be a meaningful red flag for his campaign. Yet another example of that phenomenon, out of Pennsylvania:

District-level polling is painting a hugely different picture of the race right now. This was a Clinton +1 district.

https://t.co/tNbpHENq9a— Jackson Bryman (@kilometerbryman) October 27, 2020


If Trump winds up winning or coming close, people may be talking about the Trafalgar and USC models a lot more. If he ends up losing big, ominous district-level data could end up being a harbinger yet again. I'll leave you with this -- and the numbers in places like Florida and North Carolina have moved in the incumbent's favor since this was tweeted:

RCP battleground poll average:

??????. ????, ????????
• Florida: (Tied)
• Pennsylvania: Clinton +5.6
• Michigan: +7
• Wisc: +6.2
• NC: +3.2

??????????
• Florida: Biden +1.2
• Pennsylvania: +5.1
• Michigan: +7.8
• Wisc: +4.6
• NC: +1.5

???? https://t.co/ZBRpAvXwZT https://t.co/GZmTCAxlSI— Frank Luntz (@FrankLuntz) October 25, 2020


I'd also caution against excessive doom or exuberance based on partisan breakdowns of early voting turnout or returned ballots. Trump opponents are starting to freak out about Florida, for instance, but there are so many unknowns at play -- and the breakdown of independents seems like a really big X factor that could very well favor Biden. Wait and see:

Whispers: *What if Republicans are just cannibalizing their Election Day turnout? What if registered Rs vote for Trump at lower rates than 2016? What if Biden blows the roof out with voting among registered Is who vote? This tells us almost nothing.* https://t.co/N9HZ10a4XE— Sean T at RCP (@SeanTrende) October 28, 2020



TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 2020; 2020election; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; election2020; electoralcollege; landslide; mediawingofthednc; model; partisanmediashills; poll; polls; presstitutes; smearmachine; trafalgar; trafalgargroup; trumplandslide; uscpolls
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1 posted on 10/28/2020 10:12:59 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Psst. Trump will win the popular vote, too.

Blacks will be down minimum of 3m, “Yut”s will be down 1m.

That’s the old PV.


2 posted on 10/28/2020 10:14:42 AM PDT by LS ("Castles made of sand, fall in the sea . . . eventually" (Hendrix))
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To: SeekAndFind

Read this piece from Hotair.com:

Read this new piece from USC Dornsife and you’ll find some familiar themes on social desirability bias. That’s the same problem that Trafalgar pollster Robert Cahaly has sought to address in his surveys of battleground states, which he claims is why his data is reliably rosier for Trump — much, much rosier in some cases — than the rest of the polling industry’s. Cahaly’s baseline assumption is that there are many more Trump supporters out there than the commentariat realizes but that they’re being overlooked in polling for complicated reasons. Some may be embarrassed about their support for Trump and don’t want to admit it to another person. Some may fear harassment by neighbors or other antagonistic forces (reasonably or not) if their support for Trump became known. Some may simply not pick up the phone when a pollster calls, or give an insincere answer just to mess with the person on the line. Cahaly’s methods aim to remove social desirability bias from the equation, to peer through the haze of some MAGA fans’ reluctance to admit their support and see the true picture of the electorate.

USC’s trying to do the same thing. How do you get an accurate sense of how people are planning to vote if some of them are unwilling to be honest about their intentions? You ask them about other people’s intentions. Not “Will you vote for Trump?” but “Do you think your friends and neighbors are voting for Trump?” According to USC, that type of “social-circle question” — similar to Trafalgar’s approach — shows Trump faring better than most polls indicate. And not just better, but well enough to pull another rabbit out of the hat in the electoral college next Tuesday.

From our previous research on social judgments, we learned that people seem to know their immediate social circles quite well. Their answers about the distribution of income, health status — even the relationship satisfaction of their friends, family and acquaintances — were often in the right ballpark. And when we averaged the data from their responses across a large national sample, it provided a surprisingly accurate picture of the overall population…

[I]n all five of the elections in which we tested this question, the social circle question predicted election outcomes better than traditional questions about voters’ own intentions. These five elections were the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, the 2017 French Presidential election, the 2017 Dutch Parliamentary election, the 2018 Swedish Parliamentary election, and the 2018 U.S. election for House of Representatives.

In both the U.S. elections, the social-circle question predicted national and state level results better than the “own intention” question in the same polls. In fact, data from the social-circle question in 2016 accurately predicted which candidate won each state, so it predicted Trump’s electoral college victory

When we calculate how many electoral votes each candidate could get based on state level averages of the own-intention and social-circle questions, it’s looking like an Electoral College loss for Biden. We should note that our poll was not designed for state-level predictions, and in some states we have very few participants. Even so, in 2016 it predicted that Trump would win the electoral vote.

USC is also asking people which candidate they think will win their home state and those results show an even steeper Biden electoral-college loss than the “social circle” results do. What’s especially noteworthy about this is that USC has been conducting its own daily “panel” poll on the presidential race and has had Sleepy Joe ahead the entire time — comfortably. Today they have him up 11 points nationally, indicating a Democratic bloodbath.

What they’re doing here with the “experimental” questions, in other words, is giving readers reason to believe that their own horse-race poll is wildly, embarrassingly wrong.

It’s possible that the traditional polls are right and the “social circle” data is wrong, of course. Both parties this year seem convinced that Trump will do better than his current numbers, righties because they’re sure that Trump fans are a “silent majority” despite the fact that he’s never had a job approval average north of 50 percent and lefties because they have hardcore electoral PTSD from 2016 that makes them fear Trump fans are perennially underestimated. But neither of those things is necessarily true. USC speculates that the pandemic might be throwing off people’s assessments of how their friends intend to vote for the simple reason that we’re all spending less time around each other now. Our information about the day-to-day happenings of our social circle is poorer, therefore our knowledge of their political inclinations is weaker. And our opportunities to influence each other on how to vote are fewer. Your MAGA buddy may have twisted your arm in 2016. Nowadays he’s busy trying not to get COVID and stay afloat financially, just like everyone else.

There’s an obvious question about “social desirability bias” too. If it’s true that it’s distorting the traditional polls and producing artificially encouraging numbers for Biden, whether because people are embarrassed to tell pollsters the truth or because they fear being punished somehow if their community knew their support for Trump, why are we seeing Biden faring better than Clinton in blood-red states? People who live in Montana, say, shouldn’t have reason to feel shy about telling some anonymous polling apparatchik that they’re MAGA and proud, yet Trump’s leading Biden there right now by single digits. He won the state by 20 four years ago.

3 posted on 10/28/2020 10:17:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Experimental but accurate? Perhaps, but time will be a better judge, in my opinion. But either way I think they are right that President Trump will be reelected.


4 posted on 10/28/2020 10:18:56 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: SeekAndFind

I am no fan of Guy Benson. He is a 2016 Never Trumper, LOVES Meghan McStain and talks out of both sides of his mouth.

He wrote an article supporting the appointment of Meghan McCain to fill her father’s Senate seat.

Sorry, I don’t care for Guy Benson.


5 posted on 10/28/2020 10:19:12 AM PDT by DMD13
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To: LS

RE: Psst. Trump will win the popular vote, too.

Hey Professor, The last time (2016), California and New York combined gave Hillary the popular vote. You seem to be telling us that these two states won’t be a factor in the popular vote this year?


6 posted on 10/28/2020 10:19:29 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

www.primarymodel.com


7 posted on 10/28/2020 10:20:27 AM PDT by Signalman
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To: DMD13

RE: I am no fan of Guy Benson. He is a 2016 Never Trumper,

Regardless pf how you feel about him, he is REFERRING to pollsters and QUOTING THEM. At least look at what the pollsters are saying, you can ignore Benson’s own take on this if you wish.


8 posted on 10/28/2020 10:20:55 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

That’s nice.
Keep fighting like we’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark… and brother, it’s starting to rain.


9 posted on 10/28/2020 10:21:42 AM PDT by Little Ray (The Left and Right no longer have anything in common. A House divided against itself cannot stand.)
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To: Little Ray

That, is a good one.


10 posted on 10/28/2020 10:24:54 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer”)
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To: LS

After having to deal with Pelosi and Schiff PDJT deserves a 50 state win.


11 posted on 10/28/2020 10:31:19 AM PDT by cnsmom
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To: LS

What do you think about the latest ABC News/Wash Post poll that has Biden up +17 over Trump in Wisconsin and +7 in Mich?

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3898889/posts

How can they predict these numbers and keep any semblance of credibility by next week, or do they know something we’re not being told?


12 posted on 10/28/2020 10:32:04 AM PDT by Alas Babylon! (The only thing worse than COVID-19 is Biden-20!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Well, I’m in PA. Seeing more Biden signs than there were Clinton signs, though still very few.
Nevertheless, I can’t see the voters backing a candidate who would deliberately steer this country into a ditch.


13 posted on 10/28/2020 10:37:44 AM PDT by Buttons12
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To: Little Ray
”Keep fighting like we’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark… and brother, it’s starting to rain.”

Oh man, I’m stealing that one. Still laughing.

14 posted on 10/28/2020 10:40:56 AM PDT by noiseman (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.`)
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To: SeekAndFind

I think President Trump will get more votes in California than he did in 2016. He will not win California but his percentage will increase. Probably the same for New York.


15 posted on 10/28/2020 10:43:22 AM PDT by Parley Baer
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To: noiseman

16 posted on 10/28/2020 10:48:41 AM PDT by Covenantor (We are ruled...by liars who refuse them news, and by fools who can not govern. " Chesterton)
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To: SeekAndFind

I believe the author is correct. If Trump wins Florida, then all he needs to win the EC is just one of the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin or Minnesota, assuming he carries all the other states he won in 2016 outside of those states. I believe he’ll win at least one of those four states.

So Trump Winning Florida is the key here, which substantially improves Trumps path to victory.


17 posted on 10/28/2020 11:06:30 AM PDT by ScottfromNJ
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To: Little Ray
Keep fighting like we’re the third monkey on the ramp to Noah’s Ark… and brother, it’s starting to rain. I want that embroidered on a pillow
18 posted on 10/28/2020 11:39:10 AM PDT by spudville
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To: ScottfromNJ

Trump - 322


19 posted on 10/28/2020 11:42:13 AM PDT by Hessian (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana.)
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To: Alas Babylon!

What do you think about the latest ABC News/Wash Post poll that has Biden up +17 over Trump in Wisconsin and +7 in Mich?

https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3898889/posts

How can they predict these numbers and keep any semblance of credibility by next week, or do they know something we’re not being told?
_______________________________

Really, some of the media polls are producing numbers that border on comedy.


20 posted on 10/28/2020 1:01:03 PM PDT by Ikemeister
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