Your post, none of it denounces the overall accuracy of presidential polling in the United States.
It wasn't my intention to denounce anything.
But I'll add this; polling tends to be more accurate when voters fit neatly into traditional categories. That doesn't appear to be the case this year
I think it's more the case than it isn't. 3rd party will probably get a couple of percentage points more, Democrats and Democratic leaners will vote D and the same for the GOP. I don't see why polls won't pick up on this. They are still going to poll Ds, Rs and Is like they always do and if one group votes non traditionally then it should show up in the polling.
Other than your usual battleground states I'd add Pennsylvania and Arizona to that list with Texas and Georgia edging closer (but not quite) to toss up status. Like every other Presidential election, unless it is extremely tight then we'll know before election day who is going to win.
If I remember correctly the polls had Gore losing Florida by 7 points just a couple day before the election. The vote came out even.
Have a link? Not that going back 16 years to look at a single state doesn't already poke holes in your argument.
Clinton was the presumptive favorite in 2008. The polls didn't tell us that Obama would gain momentum after Iowa in the primaries and go on the dominate the contest.
Yep, Clinton was the favorite, I wouldn't use the word 'presumptive'. But what does that have to do with polling? Obama campaigned well and convinced most Democratic primary voters to vote for him, the polling followed that closely. You're confusing people making up their minds with flawed polls.
I don't think the polls predicted Reagan's landslide victories, but I can't remember those days clearly as I was an elementary school kid.
Reagan was predicted to win in both his elections before the voting began. Polls are also much more accurate now. Not sure why we are going back this far or even presenting an argument without any actual numbers.
I think the secret to polling is you don't look at single polls, you go to places like realclearpolitics.com or huffingtonpost.com who aggregate the polls to come up with a much clearer idea. fivethirtyeight.com also has it's general election ratings up and as of now they are the kings.
I don't claim all polls are accurate, sometimes things happen but for you to pull out a couple of instances over 3 decades should show you something about how accurate polls usually are. Don't ya' think?
Or bury your head in the sand and pout when the polls tell you that your candidate is losing, makes no difference to me.