Nate Cohn

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

If you can even remember back then, the needle had to figure out how to quarantine what seemed like some bad data out of a few counties. A week later, some of those hangups are still there--and I'm not quite sure what to make of them — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I do have pause about one thing, though, and I wonder whether it's a factor for any of the decision desks: some of the oddities in the results that I was tweeting about on Election Night — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As far as I can tell, there are not nearly enough provisional and absentee ballots left for Ds to have a credible chance of making up their deficit. Biden's down 75k votes; but there are 40k provisionals (won't all count) and maybe another 35k absentee ballots. Doesn't add up. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I haven't tweeted much about NC since Election Night, but with Cunningham conceding today let's take a look in at what's going on there — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

(This is a reference to some tweets purporting to a show a suspicious 'surge' for Biden in a few counties. In fact, they're typical of basically everywhere that the country has wrapped up) — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Biden 'surged' over Hillary Clinton's vote tally by 10 percent or more... basically everywhere (two darkest blue colors) where the count seems to be complete https://t.co/D5I0gbrUiN — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

It does seem to me that most of the precinct-level data that I've seen, though, suggests a *relative* decline in black turnout. That's true in the data we collected in GA/NC/FL for the needle. Also true in Philly here. https://t.co/MAsCX7XMGJ — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

In part as a result, turnout also seems to have increased more in areas where Trump won in 2016 than those where Clinton won. This analysis excludes all of the places that I don't think have finished... but I could be wrong about that so call this very preliminary — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Nationwide, a simple regression on the county-level data suggests a 8 percent increase in black turnout, v. 19 for non-black turnout. This is a very rough way of looking at things--importantly, doesn't control for population growth, and has ecological inference issues — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I should note that the county-level data is not perfect for evaluating black turnout, especially since many majority black counties in the so-called 'black belt' are in population decline. But those counties stand out for relatively small turnout increases, as well — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

This is part of what seems to me to be a broader pattern, at least at the county-level: black turnout did not increase to the same extent as non-black turnout. It was up! But the black share of the electorate probably fell, as non-black turnout increased more — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

I'd also note something similar in Wisconsin. Yeah, there's higher turnout in Milwaukee County. It also happens to be up by less than the state as a whole https://t.co/HfM5xhCRUS — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Similarly, it should be no surprise that they have a lot of vote to count--whether it's in absentee or provisional ballots. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

One thing you might have overlooked: Philly. For all the complaints about the count there... it's still the only place in PA that's counted fewer ballots than 2016 https://t.co/0JL3PJZw9i — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

As you can see, there's a ton of vote left to count in Chicago, New York state, and parts of MD/CA. I'd guess these ballots generally break Democratic, padding Biden's national lead. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Let's look at the change in turnout *so far,* based on number of votes cast compared to 2016 turnout. Let's start nationwide, at a high level: areas in purple have counted *fewer votes* than 2016. Most of those areas still just have lots of votes left to count https://t.co/cOQ3GM5AG6 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

RT @jon_m_rob: I want to lightly push back on Shor's drumming on this. I've talked to several folks who do high-quality web + poll data oft… — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

But the fact that we don't have an autopsy wouldn't stop the police from acknowledging the existence of a dead body, and we don't need to shy away from the obvious, either: the poll results were quite bad, and the final numbers won't fundamentally change that — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Anyway, I do think it will take a while to get some better answers here. If you're looking for a polling autopsy, then I'd say the 'body' of polling is still at the scene of the crime and won't make it to the morgue for a bit. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

And a final possibility--and ultimately a falsifiable one--is the turnout. There were a lot of polls showing no LV/RV gap or even a D turnout edge. Not sure that will hold up with final data. It certainly didn't hold up in FL, where we have great data already. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

On the flip side, another possibility is the resistance: the huge surge of political activism on the left. We know political engagement is correlated with survey response. Maybe the folks now donating 100 millions to Senate races are now taking polls way more than four years ago — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

There are some other theories worth consideration, too. It's possible that four more years of Trump did four more years worth of damage to the credibility of media/polls, creating a 'hidden Trump' vote that didn't really exist in 2016 — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Shor also put forward some data that's at least plausibly consistent with it. The increase in Dem response clearly happens before the pandemic, in the primary. But maybe it held because of the primary https://t.co/aH9Q3rMqpp — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Another interesting thing it helps explain. Our 10/19 battleground polls were... pretty accurate! So were the state polls conducted from Jan-Mar 20. Now, maybe these polls were just as bad--and Trump actually led big back then! Or maybe... the bias started since then https://t.co/t6pY7fcb8O — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

This theory's almost too smooth to be true, but it's elegant and fits a lot of things together. Remember those studies that said Biden does better in a COVID hotspot? Well, Biden didn't do better in COVID hotspots. So maybe... that just means the polls were biased by COVID — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Let's start with the most interesting bit of theorizing I encountered, from always interesting @davidshor. He thinks it's the pandemic: Dems took it seriously, stayed home and started responding to polls more. GOP did not. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

So what happened? How did the samples get that much worse over the last four years, especially among white voters without a degree and seniors? At this stage, it's really just speculation. We'll know more later--it's too early for an autopsy. But here's some early speculation — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

To my mind, the easiest way to see it: the crosstabs on white voters nationwide, particularly whites without a degree In 2016, the polls *did* show Trump doing way better among those voters. In 2020, they did not. And they were dead wrong. Same story with seniors. — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

There are really two halves of polling: the quality of the sample you get, and the adjustments you take to improve the representativeness of your sample. Since 2016, pollsters got better at the adjustments, but the underlying sample got worse — PolitiTweet.org

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn

Before we go into what went wrong, let's just call a spade a spade here: this was a bad polling error. It's comparable to 2016 in size, but pollsters don't have the excuses they did last time. This year's polls would have been *way* worse than 2016 with a 2016 methodology — PolitiTweet.org