The mystery of misfit polling of the Presidential election may never be solved, so I decided to come up with an armchair theory as good as anyone else’s armchair theory of voting behavior. Speculation is the least reliable information of all, so deeper analysis of the polling data could still reveal unrecognized voter tendencies.
Which states performed the most defiantly against the polls? Wisconsin leads the pack with a whopping nine points, followed by Ohio and Iowa with 7 points. The next group is Michigan and Florida with five points. Five of the six unpredictable states are typically considered midwestern states. All of the six were considered “battleground” states with the possible exceptions of Iowa and Ohio. Pennsylvania and Texas each had a four-point discrepancy, so that would make three of seven surprises were part of the touted “Blue Wall” that Donald Trump punctured in 2016.
The November surprise was based on three conditions that defied polling:
- The Myth of a monolithic “Blue Wall”
- The volatility of the midwestern voter
- The late-deciding voter falling for Trump
By The New York Times
The first myth of polling is that the “Blue Wall” is a real phenomenon of polling. Midwestern states are fickle and may not vote together. The voting behavior of neighboring states of Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio could not be more different.
Michigan is the state that has flipped Republican and Democrat over the past fifty years. It is hard to characterize the state as Blue or Red. It loved Nixon and Reagan, Clinton and Obama, and it did not always vote with the winner. So it will probably kick the ass of polling every year.
Wisconsin used to be reliably Democrat, but state politics turned it red over the last decade. It was probably not so surprising that it supported Trump in 2016, and that it had a close finish in 2020. Like most states, its voters divide between urban and rural interests.
Like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania used to be considered a Democratic finisher in the Presidential elections. Like Wisconsin, its internal politics have bended toward Republican candidates in Congress in the past decade. Of all the midwestern states, Pennsylvania appears most inconsistent in its support of Presidential candidates.
To consider the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin as a “wall” is totally misleading. Whether that creates a polling bias is debatable, since presumably polling methods are consistent among the states. But there is no sense in which the three states are unified in their voting behavior.
However, if these three states are as unpredictable as they seem, it is possible that a lot of decisions are being made on, or around, Election Day, beyond the scrutiny of the polls. We know that Republicans were encouraged to vote on site, rather than by mail, so they could afford to remain undecided until the last minute. Late decisions could explain why the Republicans did better than expected in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. It would be interesting to poll Republicans about when their final decision for President was made.
What if the final decision for Republicans was based on Party loyalty, more than the candidate himself? President Trump made a lot of mistakes in 2020 that could have disqualified him in the eyes of a lot of voters. Yet he made a strong showing with traditional Party themes, such as law and order and economic liberty. Perhaps the undecided voter just defaulted to Party tendencies, rather than the candidate himself?
Polling will never be perfectly reliable until it interviews a random sample of voters on Election Day. The problem is by Election Day, it is too late to use the polls for campaigning. The candidates did identify the important states in the final week of campaigning, which focused on Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. Those are the states that defied the predictions of the polls. It is possible that Donald Trump made substantial gains during those final days, but only because voters did not believe Joe Biden’s’ reassurances about the economy and defunding the police. They chose the traditional traits of the Party to vote. It was an impulse vote.
The good news is that the polls did not discourage citizens from voting. The good news is a record turnout on Election Day of citizens believing they could make a difference.
Maybe the unreliability of the Presidential polls is a good thing.