Any poll of LIKELY VOTERS in a true battleground state that doesn't have the race within 5% either way should be discarded.
I donāt even like polls from ālikely votersā. They should only be from registered voters. Nearly every self reporting ālikely voterā winds up not voting. Itās an odd thing humans do when they lie to complete strangers asking for honest opinions to improve their image to that stranger. Whether it be scientific studies, doctors, pollsters, nobody wants to look bad even if it hurts their health or messes with data. This is also why whatās being called the āshy voteā is going to make an even bigger impact this year.
The topline data (who ya voting for, trump or Biden) isnāt all that useful. Pay attention to cross tabs and methodology. Cross tabs will show you the demographic break down. A lot of these polls are under sampling republican voters for whatever reason. May not be on purpose, may just be pubs donāt answer, idk. Either way many polls are clearly building in 5-10 pt advantages for Biden by under sampling Republicans. Thatās just what happens when you poll 60% dems and 40% pubs in a county that went for trump in 2016. That poll is basically garbage. The fact that many of the pollsters arenāt coming out and announcing āhey we only managed to sample 40% pubsā like they should, tells me it may be on purpose in some of these cases.
Another thing Iām noticing is in methodology. I believe it was the recent Ramuessen that stated only some 70% of republicans say they planning on voting trump vs 94% of dems voting Biden. Even those on the left will admit thereās no way that number is true for republicans. So you wonder what type of questions theyāre asking voters. Some of the questions Iāve seen get asked like this. āDo you agree with Bidenās message that America should be more united.ā Dogshit loaded question. What if, like in the case of basically all right leaning voters, you donāt view Bidenās message as unifying at all. Youāre probably all for a more unifying message, but donāt believe Biden is going to deliver. Better way to ask would be along the lines of āDo you believe Bidenās message is unifying.ā Or the inverse that Iāve also seen is āDo you agree with trumps divisive rhetoricā is also a dogshit loaded question. No one wants to be viewed as being or agreeing with ādivisive rhetoricā. If you want accurate data, you simply CANNOT frame questions these ways. Thereās far to much of this type of this nonsense going on to give these polls much weight.