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 | ||