Commentary

U.S. Election Pollsters: Keep An Eye On Florida

ESOMAR’s “The Pollsters’ Survival Kit for Election Night… And the Days After” webinar Monday illustrates how divided America is weeks before the 2020 Presidential election.

Based on an Economist/YouGov poll of 1,363 likely voters conducted October 4-6, 59% of Joe Biden voters will vote by mail, while 59% of Donald Trump voters will vote in-person on Election Day. 

The respondents also said they anticipated potential long delays on the overall final results.

Moderator Kathy Frankovic, a member of ESOMAR’s Professional Standards Committee and former Director of Surveys at CBS News, said the “toss-up” states are Arizona, Ohio, Georgia, Florida, and North Carolina, and that the weight of the massive population in California on past Presidential polls in relation to the actual Electoral College vote has been addressed by pollsters.

She cited improved respondent profile weighting to properly balance the profile of respondents who are “likely voters” -- the population base for most election polls.  

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Clifford Young, president-public affairs at Ipsos USA, emphasized that the U.S. election is reflective of 50 state-by-state elections and that “the constellation of indicators has never been more complex.”

However, he did posit that polls become more predictive the closer we get to Election Day. All the pollsters noted the stability of the polls over the past several months and that about 9 million Americans have already voted by mail. So, are the current results likely to hold?  

Ipsos’ Young underscored that COVID-19 and its handling is unequivocally the No. 1 issue and restoring trust in government is second, and that Biden currently leads by 11 points on both issues. A strong economy and job creation are the No. 3 voter concern, for which Trump has a three-point lead.  

Ipsos’ Young said the states to watch -- Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- are all currently leaning toward Biden.

Jean-Marc Leger, president of Leger, Market Research and Analytics, said turnout will be the cornerstone, and it is closely related to “enthusiasm” levels that boost it. Likely voters of either candidate are showing remarkably high interest in the election: close to 90% for each group. Levels of enthusiasm have all declined for Trump, but have increased for Biden.  

Leger echoed that Trump supporters “are far less afraid of the virus at the ballot box” as well as the huge mail-in versus in-person disparity between the parties in voting method. He also revealed that for 94% of likely voters, “my choice is final.” So, with three weeks to go, only 6% are likely to change.

He agreed with Ipsos’ Young that the Bill Clinton-era campaign mantra -- “It’s the economy, stupid,” has been eclipsed by a more contemporary “It’s Covid, stupid.”  

Joe Lenski, co-founder and executive vice president of Edison Research, revealed a potential significant difference in final voting methods between the two camps and the possible profile based on experience from extensive exit polls during the Primaries earlier in the year.

He said Edison estimates that in-person voting on Election Day will account for 40-50%, that in-person early voting will represent 15-20%, and absentee/vote-by-mail voters will be 40-45% of the final vote.

Lenski made it clear that with states having different procedures on how they process mail-in ballots, the final results in some states could take days, if not weeks. He identified New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania as potentially the slowest.

Based on these anomalies and the high mail-in proportion of votes cast, he noted that “some of the networks would be reporting results based on the “expected” vote. 

Deborah Mattinson, founding partner of BritainThinks, offered potential parallels between the recent U.K. election, in which the Labour party were trounced notably in their “Red Wall” stronghold areas, and the current U.S. situation, notably in the Rust Belt.

Do they hold insights for the Democrats?  Labour lost in the Red Wall areas due to being taken for granted and not being wooed, failing to show empathy and respect, and lack of expected resources and investment in the local areas.  

Mattinson’s most impactful U.K. research result was that 84% of those who wanted to remain in the European Union (remember that debacle) want Biden as the next U.S. President. Maybe Biden could engineer the U.K.’s return to the EU?  

Florida, North Carolina, and Texas will have close to 100% of the results by around midnight on November 3, which could make the ultimate result clear.  If it’s muddy, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania become critical, and results from these states “may take a while.” 

Florida, despite its disparate collection of ethnicities and cultures, remains a bellwether state on Election Day. How the various Hispanic groups (Cubans & Venezuelans versus Puerto Ricans, etc.) vote, the turnout levels in the suburbs versus the rural areas, the simple age/sex and education breaks, etc. will be revealed in the exit polls. They will provide invaluable clues to how the night and the next many days will ultimately turn out not only for the presidency but for the all-important races in the Senate and the House.  

Sadly, the whole process may evolve into a brutal legal travesty for democracy, but as the Lincoln Project has championed, the Election is about saving America and its Democracy.  

May you vote safely. And may it count properly.

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