Who Are These Pollsters Biden Is Talking To?
July 6, 2024
In yesterday’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, President Biden said all the pollsters he’s talked to say the race is a toss-up. It made me wonder who he has been talking to because the public polls are not saying that. And thanks to a leak from the Biden campaign, we know the internal polling is certainly not saying that. So, it’s a real head scratcher.
At the debate, it was fair to say the national race was a toss-up. The polling average during that week was the definition of a toss-up: a few days with Biden barely edging a lead and a few days of the reverse. However, in the eight days between the debate and yesterday’s interview Biden’s numbers tanked. While the polling average was Trump +2.5 on the day of the interview, individual polling was showing even bigger margins. The New York Times/Siena College poll - one the highest rated in the country - had Trump ahead by six points among likely voters and eight points among registered voters. In a race in which it has been difficult for either candidate to pick up much ground over the course of a month, Biden went from even on the day of the debate to two and a half points in the hole a week later.
The important numbers are in the battleground states, however. We are fairly confident that Biden cannot win the electoral vote simply by squeaking out a victory in the national popular vote.1 So for the national polling to tell us much about Biden’s chances at winning the electoral vote, he probably needs to be up consistently by at least two points just to make the race a “toss-up.” When looking at battleground state polling thus far, Biden has been behind Trump in almost every state polled. He’s definitely not talking to public pollsters who are telling him the battleground state polling is a toss-up.
Maybe his internal polling has better news? No, it doesn’t. First, let’s remember that internal polling runs a higher risk of of the “house effect” bias than nonpartisan polling (although there are house effects there as well). It’s not clear whether there is any average bias that can be discounted in internal polls. We almost never see the results and we never see any transparency concerning methodology and modeling. This makes it hard to know what the house effects are, never mind whether there is any relationship across campaigns. And there is a good chance house effects vary wildly from one campaign to another.
The internal polling for Sen. Mitt Romney’s (R-UT) presidential campaign in 2012 missed some states by seven or more points. I remember being at Copley Plaza at the Democratic victory party on Election Night that year and hearing a Boston cop tell one of my colleagues that Romney had a whole fireworks program ready to go because the campaign was certain he was going to win. They really believed their own polling, even though it was clear to the rest of us following that race that the only question left was whether Obama was going to win a state he did not need to win, Florida (which he did). Internal polling needs to be good for campaigns to make good decisions, but it is not unusual for it to be off - even way off, as in Romney’s case. A good rule for campaigns is if your internal polling is telling you something dramatically different than all of the available public polling, you might have yourself a serious house effect going on.2
Okay, so how do we know Biden’s internal polling does not have better news than the public polling? It’s not speculation based on an assumed house effect. Someone leaked an internal poll to Puck Magazine this week. And the results were terrible for Biden. In 12 battleground states, the vote shifted away from Biden by an average about two points since the debate. It appears from what we could see that the poll found that if the election were held last week, Biden would only win 203 of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win to be reelected. Now, if there is a house effect bias in this poll Biden would be in even bigger trouble. So it’s safe to assume the president was not referring to his internal pollsters when he said the pollsters he has been talking to say the race is a toss-up.
The polling that was done immediately after the debate showed serious problems for Biden. However, we know big events during a political campaign have the tendency to move the polling quickly, but that gain or loss tends to fade. Is that what is happening here? Possibly. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll of battleground states was released today and the news was not that bad for Biden. Overall, he is down two points to Trump across these states (the poll had large enough sample sizes for each state to survey them individually, but also surveyed the entire sample as a group). For this poll, Biden has actually improved since the last time it was in the field. This poll was not in the field until four days after the debate, so one could make the argument that enough time had elapsed for any initial shock at the debate to wane (I still think it’s better to wait at least a week). However, there was plenty of bad news in the poll for the president. Fully a third of Democrats think he should drop out, and over eight in ten voters think he is too old for another term. And considering the other polling we have seen this week, this poll might just be an outlier.
Perhaps the Morning Consult poll is not an outlier and is onto something. Maybe Biden is back to gaining ground on Trump, but I would not bet on it. There is way too much polling and anecdotal data out there telling us he is in serious trouble. A lot of Democrats are going to support him even if they personally think he should withdraw. I am not sure the problem is keeping current Democratic voters on board (although I am not sure it is not either). The problem is independents, and the polling in the past week shows them moving away from Biden. Biden cannot win if he loses too many independents. Likewise, the double-haters may start to lean Trump and that won’t help either since there are so many of them. There are not enough solid Democratic voters out there to ensure Biden can win if all others abandon him.
So that’s where we are this weekend. Only one good poll for Biden, and he’s still losing and most people want him to withdraw - including a sizable portion of Democrats. I really would like to talk to these pollsters who are telling Biden it’s a toss-up right now. What do they know that the rest of us don’t?
Although such a scenario is not out of the question. If Biden barely edges out Trump across a number of battleground states but does worse in safe Democratic and Republican states without them flipping, he could lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote. The scenario is not ridiculous considering the polling we’ve seen thus far, but it is unlikely.
This is easier said than done. Outside of presidential elections, there is often not enough public polling to regress to the mean, so to speak. There is always a chance in a lower-profile election that your campaign’s internal polling is better than the public polling available.
Thanks Robb! Keeping busy these days. And wow, nationally, what a wild (scary, but perhaps hopeful?) time! Enjoying your writing! Best to you during these coming weeks!
Nice analysis. Thanks.