Oh God. I know a lot of people believe that the polls were all wrong in 2016 and therefore are not worth paying attention to, but that’s really a myth. The polls showed a tight race with Clinton winning by about 2 points, which she did — with the popular vote. The individual state polls were very tight and within the margin of error. There was always a chance he’d win and I think we just didn’t want to believe it could be possible.
As of today, Biden is ahead by 8.2 points in the polls of polls. That includes the outlier CNN poll from the weekend which showed the race tightening substantially with Biden only ahead by 4 points. None of the other weekend polls had that result. CBS/YouGov shows a 10 point lead. T he Washington Post/ABC poll has Biden ahead by 12 points. The NBC/WSJ poll has him ahead by 9. Last week’s Marist poll has Biden up by 11.
Having said that, polling is only part of the story. We have a pandemic going on and the GOP has completely gone over the edge, everything is in terrible shape and Trump is openly trying to sabotage the results. So, we can’t assume anything. But if you want to check the temperature of the public as we start the final descent, this is the best method we have.