Donald Trump has a small, but clear, advantage over Joe Biden right now. This makes Biden just the second president since scientific polling began to trail in his reelection bid at this point in the campaign.
It’s not a sample size of 1. It’s a sample size of 20 elections over an 80 year period.
In 18 elections, the incumbent polled higher than the challenger one year out from election. In all 18 of those elections, the polls predicted the winner. The incumbent won. (Edit: this part is a bit too much of an oversimplification for me and isn’t entirely accurate. There have been incumbents who did not run for or win reelection since 1943, but these results were still predicted by polling.)
In one of those elections, the incumbent polled lower than the challenger one year out from election. In that election, the polls predicted the winner and the challenger one. This also seems to be the case for the 2024 election.
Since the development of scientific polling in America, there has never once been an incumbent who both: polled lower than their challenger one year from voting and won their re-election.
If I flip a coin five times and four times it comes up tails and the last time it comes up heads, that doesn’t mean the next flip will necessarily come up heads. And elections are a national coin flip.
This is without a doubt the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You need to go back your high school civics class (or, more likely, wait until you can take it in sophomore year) if you genuinely believe presidential elections are a 50/50 random result with no way to make educated predictions of the results.
A sample size of 1 is not especially compelling evidence.
It’s not a sample size of 1. It’s a sample size of 20 elections over an 80 year period.
In 18 elections, the incumbent polled higher than the challenger one year out from election. In all 18 of those elections, the polls predicted the winner. The incumbent won.(Edit: this part is a bit too much of an oversimplification for me and isn’t entirely accurate. There have been incumbents who did not run for or win reelection since 1943, but these results were still predicted by polling.)In one of those elections, the incumbent polled lower than the challenger one year out from election. In that election, the polls predicted the winner and the challenger one. This also seems to be the case for the 2024 election.
Since the development of scientific polling in America, there has never once been an incumbent who both: polled lower than their challenger one year from voting and won their re-election.
If I flip a coin five times and four times it comes up tails and the last time it comes up heads, that doesn’t mean the next flip will necessarily come up heads. And elections are a national coin flip.
This is without a doubt the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. You need to go back your high school civics class (or, more likely, wait until you can take it in sophomore year) if you genuinely believe presidential elections are a 50/50 random result with no way to make educated predictions of the results.
Stopped reading at the insult. If you want to have a conversation with me, I will only participate if it is a civil one.