Are the polls really tightening or are the overpaid pollsters simply trying to preserve their credibility now that the election is right around the corner?
Democrats are growing concerned about a “potential late shift” toward President Trump in Pennsylvania that could threaten Joe Biden’s supposed current dominance in the polls in the Keystone State.
Those fears manifested in Biden’s recent two-day blitz in Pennsylvania just as President Trump held four rallies in the state on Saturday.
According to the Washington Post, Democrats’ worries include problems with mail-in ballots (which they have encouraged in recent weeks), as well as a “voter surge” in “white, rural areas,” along with signs of a lower-than-expected turnout among the Democrat Party’s base.
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The newspaper reports:
Most Democrats still believe Biden will capture Pennsylvania, and he maintains a modest polling lead there, but their confidence has eroded in recent weeks with emerging signs of a tightening contest in the state, according to elected officials, strategists and party activists. Both sides believe the outcome in Pennsylvania will be crucial in determining who wins the White House.
Some Democrats also fear recent looting and violence in Philadelphia will make Biden look anti-police and weak on crime. Additionally, concerns remain about Biden’s remarks on oil and gas. At the final debate, the Democrat declared he would end the oil industry. When the president asked Biden if he would “close down the oil industry,” Biden responded, “I would transition from the oil industry, yes.”
Neil Oxman, a Democrat strategist, told the Post that he worries Trump’s base “will come out just a little bit stronger than our base.” Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, also told the paper that the president “has a very strong, sturdy base here, and what he’s doing is juicing turnout in those small counties.”
Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) said ballot issues are his top concern. Democrats fear their voters’ ballots will be disqualified if they are not returned correctly. While Democrats had previously been pushing vote-by-mail due to the pandemic, they are now encouraging voters to drop them off in person.
“I am absolutely convinced that we have a lot of enthusiasm, too, on our side,” Fetterman told the Post. “But there’s a lot of factors you can’t extrapolate into a poll that are absolutely significantly in play in Pennsylvania.”
Many polls used by the mainstream media continue to give Biden the edge, such as a Monmouth poll that has him up by seven points in Pennsylvania.
But a new Des Moines Register/Selzer and Co. poll from Iowa that has President Trump up by seven points in that state has Democrats worried because, four years ago, the final Selzer poll had Trump up by an identical seven points in Iowa. Trump won by nine points. The belief is that if Biden isn’t doing much better in Iowa than Clinton did in 2016, then he may be falling behind in other places as well. In fact, a Trump victory by a wide margin in Iowa may foretell trouble for Biden in other states, such as critical Midwestern battlegrounds such as Michigan and Wisconsin.
In addition, Biden may be in hot water in the Sunshine State as Republicans are outpacing Democrats in in-person voting in Miami-Dade County, Florida, a stronghold for Democrats. This is due to sub-optimal turnout among the crucial black and Hispanic demographics. Republican Hispanics have turned out at 57 percent compared to 48 percent of Democrat Hispanics.
Moreover, a recent Rasmussen poll suggested that black support for the president is nearly 50 percent. Historically, Rasmussen has been one of the more reliable polling outfits. As for its methodology, the organization reports that daily “tracking results are collected via telephone surveys of 500 likely voters per night and reported on a three-day rolling average basis.”
“The margin of sampling error for the full sample of 1,500 Likely Voters is +/- 2.5 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence,” Rasmussen also explains.
As in 2016, the election is certain to be close in some of the key battleground states such as Florida, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Will either of the two candidates score wins in unexpected states, such as Biden in Georgia or President Trump in Minnesota?
With the differences between the contenders so stark and so much at stake for the country, this is one election sure to have Americans up all night.
