The central count at the KI Convention Center on election day, November 3rd, 2020.
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ) — It was a very, very bad night for public opinion polling in the United States of America.
As of press time, we still have no idea who the next President of the United States is going to be. Democrat and former Vice President Joe Biden leads in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Nevada, but all by less than 1% over President Donald Trump. This is in stark contrast to what public opinion polls were saying ahead of the election.
“Even in states that Trump might lose, polls had Biden up by high single digits, or even double digits,” Lawrence University Professor Arnold Shober told WTAQ’s ‘The Morning News with Matt and Earl’. “Polling, again, had a really bad night.”
That was the case here in Wisconsin, where the Marquette University Law School Poll constantly had Biden in the lead by between four and seven points on average, but that’s nothing compared to an October 25th ABC/Washington Post Poll.
“They came out with a poll that had Biden winning by 17 points,” said Shober. “That’s not even laughably close.”
Other polls conducted around that time, like the November 1st Reuters/Ipsos poll and the New York Times/Siena poll on October 30th were nearly as bad at 11 and 10 point leads for Biden, respectively.
Shober expects to see less reliance on public opinion polls in the 2024 race as a direct result.
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