So the polls are starting to move. WOOT WOOT

[Statistical]

Usually I don't care much about day to day polls (up one, down two) because the margin of error means a lot of that is just sampling noise. Especially if one poll goes up 1 and another one goes down 2 on the same day. You probably aren't looking at anything real. Even when there is zero actual change in preference among voters the polls will move around a bit day to day.

However since the debate the polls have been improving pretty consistently for Biden. I am not sure if it is the debate, Trump getting sick, Trump acting insane while sick, or all of the above but it IS having an effect. Prior to the debate, nationally Biden was up around 6 to 7 pts. There were outliers both high and low but that is where the averages were.

Since the debate the poll have been:
Ipsos - Biden +10
YouGov - Biden +8
U.S.C. Dornsife - Biden +11
NBC News/The Wall Street Journal - Biden +14
The Hill/HarrisX - Biden +7
U.S.C. Dornsife - Biden +11 (a second one)

Since most of the aggregate sites keep polls from the past couple weeks the averages are around +8 but that is up from around +6 prior to the debate. The averages are slowly inching up as older polls fall off. The other good news is in most averages Biden is now over the magic 50% mark. It also is not just Biden picking up "undecideds" either, Trump has pretty consistently lost around 2 points in most polls (outliers aside).

Yeah yeah all the standard disclaimers apply: only election day matters, GOTV, don't take your eye off the prize, etc, etc. It is still good news.

[redstatebluegirl]

1. I think these were all post debate but pre Covid.

[Statistical]

6. You are right none of them are completely post COVID but many of them sample over multiple days

so they are at least partially post COVID.

USC DORNSIFE is a rolling average through 10/4.
New York Times is through Oct 2nd.

So the impact is partially included although yeah the first polls taken completely after the COVID announcement will also be interesting so will be the first polls taken completely after the hospitalization.

[jayfish]

2. My Favorite "Numbers Guy"...

is going over the NBC/WSJ numbers now. The gain among Seniors is pretty huge. ...like 22%.

[calimary]

32. You mean Steve "PLEASE switch to decaf" Kornacki?

If I were his boss, I'd give him a long pointer and a private lecture about NOT STANDING IN FRONT OF THE NUMBERS!!!

And NOT WAVING AND SAWING YOUR HAND BACK AND FORTH IN FRONT OF THE NUMBERS! You make it almost impossible to see the numbers you're supposedly taking such pains to analyze for us.

It's tremendously annoying, not to mention annoyingly distracting!




And Yes, I'm YELLING!

[samsingh]

3. we should sweep every single election up and down the ticket so that we can save our Democracy.

the gop is like cancer or covid. Any pocket of them surviving can still hurt the rest of the country.

[Claustrum]

4. Yes, all of the polls have a shift of about 2-4 points

So it's a noticeable trend. Trump has been always losing when COVID is a top topic and his COVID positive news doesn't help him much. I will wait till his joyride numbers to come because I think it will backfire bigly on him.

[Thekaspervote]

5. Now... if everyone votes we'll be fine. The kind of cheating they are already employing wipes

Away some of our lead..

[ProudMNDemocrat]

7. Voters will take into account Trump's recklessness regarding COVID and his getting it...

As well as his publicity stunt yesterday, that is receiving condemnation from all over the country, again a sign of recklessness and stupidity. Not a care for those around and exposed to him.

[beachbumbob]

8. polling numbers this week will have debate performance and trumps COVID incident

invovled in the output

won;t see the secondary infections of the GOP as part of the results until later in the week

[Iwasthere]

9. In a sane world Biden should now be 20+ points ahead

After recent events.

[DarthDem]

10. Nice! Thanks!

But this is still good news, see?

[Claustrum]

11. In a sane world, Hillary would have won in 2016 n/t

[Silent3]

17. In a totally sane world, NOBODY would vote for Trump

But even by the metrics of the best public sanity and awareness we might date expect, it's still damned surprising and disappointing to me that Trump's numbers aren't much worse.

The glaring awfulness of Trump is so extreme that if you'd created a fictional character like Trump before the real Trump came along, it would at best be consider an extremely unsubtle parody. If you told literary critics that you didn't intend parody, but intended to portray both a real person, and a realistic public reaction to that awful person's behavior, you'd be laughed at for losing your grip on reality.

[FakeNoose]

23. Or Putin would have been a nice guy who minds his own business

[Silent3]

24. Even if Putin weren't minding his own business, the propaganda techniques he has used...

...seem so incredibly crude to me, the kinds of things only idiots should fall for, and/or people with a lot of internal ugliness inside that they're happy to have someone cater to.

[FakeNoose]

25. Another way of saying that our intelligence community was gutted

... just like the rest of our government.

[NewJeffCT]

27. In a sane world

Trump's candidacy would have ended the day he came down the escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy and to say that Mexico was sending drugs & criminals to the US

[liberalla]

12. WOOT WOOT!!! Yes!!!

[Cicada]

14. The magic national poll number is 53, not 50

Nate Silver thinks Biden has a three point electoral college tilt this year

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. I'm also seeing polling for down-ballot races where

Democrats are suddenly leading in safe Republican strongholds.

Heck, Bollier in Kansas is now looking like she might possibly win the open Senate seat there. If that happens, it would be the first Democratic Senator from Kansas since 1932. I realize that's still far from a sure thing, but lately the polling has been moving in her direction, and away from the Republican.

[deurbano]

26. I donated to her last week! (From CA) And here is more encouraging news on that front:

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/05/democratic-super-pac-dives-into-kansas-senate-race-426299

Democratic super PAC dives into Kansas Senate race
By JAMES ARKIN 10/05

A top Democratic super PAC is investing $7.5 million in the Kansas Senate race in the final four weeks of the election, an additional sign Democrats have expanded their offensive opportunities as they aim to reclaim control of the Senate.

The spending from Duty and Country, a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority PAC and run by allies of Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, is for the race between GOP Rep. Roger Marshall and Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier. Duty and Country is spending $5.5 million on TV and $2 million on digital advertising, starting Tuesday and running through Election Day, according to details shared first with POLITICO. It is the first spending in the race from any of the affiliated organizations since the August primary.

Democrats' move comes on the heels of Senate Leadership Fund, a Republican super PAC run by allies of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, investing $7.2 million in the race for October.

“Roger Marshall has become a $19-million-dollar headache for Mitch McConnell’s allies, who are forced to burn through precious resources to prop up his embarrassingly weak candidacy,” said Rachel Irwin, a spokesperson for Duty and Country. “Marshall is no match for Dr. Barbara Bollier, who is the only candidate that Kansans can count on to lower their health care costs during a global pandemic. The more voters learn about Roger Marshall’s history of selling out his community to make a profit, the more vulnerable he becomes.”…

…There has been sparse public polling, but internal surveys recently have shown a competitive race. Marshall led Bollier by 4 percentage points in a poll commissioned by a pro-Marshall super PAC, as first reported by McClatchy last week. Bollier's campaign responded by releasing an internal poll showing her leading the Republican congressman by 2 percentage points.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

28. Thanks for that.

I know that at this point it's still somewhat unlikely, but there's still four weeks left.

[Blue Owl]

16. K&R

[IronLionZion]

18. Great, let's take the Senate too

DUers have claimed the DNC has neglected some winnable races in some red states

[ffr]

19. Don't tell democratic voters this however. We need their votes, every vote.

It's not good enough to win. America needs a decisive win for Biden/Harris and down-ticket democrats.

[crimycarny]

30. Democratic voters aren't stupid

No one is going to stay home after what happened in 2016. We’re the neurotic party, remember? Biden could be ahead in every single state by 30 points and Dems would still vote “just to be safe”.

This.Is.Not.2016.

[CaptainTruth]

20. I agree. I look for steady, consistent change across many polls.

I'm also seeing a statistically significant shift in Biden's favor of 2-3 points.

[Fiendish Thingy]

21. Despite a few outliers with tiny margins or huge MOE's, 538's avg is Biden +8.4%

Another week like this, and the campaign’s focus will just be to keep Joe healthy...

[bucolic_frolic]

22. I'm viewing these polls like the stock market

The market has consolidation (sideways movement)? Voters are weighing their choices, and they have made up their minds. Democrats are trending. This is like 2018, when we never had a real surge, just a slow steady pace upward that continued as ballots were counted. You'd have to be brain-dead and comatose not to have an opinion at this point. I'm not hearing about volatility in the polls. Trump's base plateaued in 2016 and it's still there. All undecideds are questioning him at the least. Converting independents in a massive way ... you need voter anger at incumbents. Biden is not an incumbent. Trump's only tool is ginned up fear. He's tried boogeymen from the Ukraine to Brooklyn to Beijing. He's tried them in the suburbs. He's tried them in different colors that he doesn't like. So far, voters aren't buying what Trump is selling. Now he's trying sympathy. How much sympathy can you feel for Trump? You can't feel any, you'd be an emotional pretzel and a really hot mess to feel sorry for Trump. Because ... he brought all this on himself. Even COVID. It was a hoax, a scamdemic, it was going away, in the summer, in the masses, in herd immunity. Now the hoax has bit Trump. He looks like the fool he is. The long arm of karma, of a cycle completing, rarely completes in so timely and complete a manner. This looks like a loop closing in a few weeks at this point. Buckle up though. Cheating, a non-functioning government, we are teetering as a country. I expect a very bad economy over the next 6 months. I'm seeing scarcity in small parts and popular items. Used computers and used car prices are up. Yet we're not producing as much.

[SlogginThroughIt]

29. The best part about the polls right now

The best part about the polls right now and frankly in the last week or two is the early voting should reflect those polls. And that is a disaster for team red.

[OAITW r.2.0]

31. I think we are seeing the movement from "undecideds".....

at least the segment that waits to see who will win and then joins the winning team. And perhaps a few Republicans who are finally realizing that Trump is a walking disaster for this country. The numbers are going to continue in this direction for Biden and the Democrats, IMHO.

[Tribetime]

33. Looks like 10.17 % avg 😁

[Johnny2X2X]

34. Morning Consult +9

Up from +7 a week ago.

[Sympthsical]

35. The debate and Covid back-to-back drove a stake through the heart of his campaign

Now we need only decapitate it and burn the body on Nov. 3rd.

[Wounded Bear]

36. Individual polls are kind of meaningless, what matters are trends...

and trends have been in the right direction.

They've even been giving up on the traditional "polls will narrow as the election nears." We haven't seen much of that so far.