The polls are very, very accurate when they come to predicting Trump’s number. Much more so than I expected when I looked at the numbers on Sunday.
About a 1% variation across all of the contests so far.
The polls way underestimate Cruz overall, though. On average, Cruz scores right at 27% higher in his actual results than the final polls indicate. This is especially true in contests where there is more than 10% undecided voters.
This indicates two things to me. First, heavy amount of last day deciders go toward Cruz. This could be a number of reasons why, but Occam’s Razor suggests that it is because these voters don’t know who they support, but they do not support Trump. So they are voting against Trump by voting for the candidate they think can most easily beat him.
Second, I believe there is a reverse Bradley effect going on. Because Cruz is perceived to be a “not nice” candidate, people who do support him are embarrassed to tell the poll taker. But when they get their ballot, they vote for him.
Mississippi results should be similar to Alabama for Trump. We shall see in about 8 hours or so.
That 20% undecided could also mean that Trump tops 50% and he takes all the delegates in Ms. New FL poll has Trump at 42 to Rubio’s 22. Ms is also an open Primary which Trump does better in.