Updated |
What Went Down At The Fourth Democratic Debate
As Sanders talks about general election polling, it should be remembered that it is highly un-predictive. Sure, Sanders may end up beating Donald Trump, but the polling right now shouldn’t be used to support that argument. The average error for general election polling at this point is over 10 percentage points.
| POLLING ACCURACY A YEAR BEFORE THE ELECTION | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ELECTION | AVERAGE GOP POLL LEAD | GOP ELECTION MARGIN | ABSOLUTE ERROR |
| 1964 | -50.3 | -22.6 | 27.7 |
| 1992 | +21.0 | -5.6 | 26.1 |
| 1980 | -15.5 | +9.7 | 25.2 |
| 2000 | +11.9 | -0.5 | 12.4 |
| 1984 | +7.2 | +18.2 | 11.0 |
| 1988 | +18.0 | +7.7 | 10.3 |
| 2008 | -0.3 | -7.3 | 6.9 |
| 1956 | +22.0 | +15.4 | 6.6 |
| 1944 | -14.0 | -7.5 | 6.5 |
| 2004 | +8.7 | +2.5 | 6.2 |
| 1996 | -13.0 | -8.5 | 4.5 |
| 1960 | +3.0 | -0.2 | 3.2 |
| 2012 | -2.8 | -3.9 | 1.0 |
| 1948 | -3.8 | -4.5 | 0.7 |
| Average | 10.6 | ||
Sanders has recently been making an electability argument against Clinton (mostly by citing polling) — is his argument persuasive?
Q:I hear a lot of comparisons between Sanders and Obama vs. Clinton. What would the 538 models have said about Obama in Iowa and NH at this stage in that election? — commenter Benjamin Jones
A:At this point in 2008, our “polls-plus” model would have had Clinton and Obama almost exactly tied in Iowa, with John Edwards not far behind. It would have had Clinton slightly ahead of Obama in New Hampshire.