Michigan

[Admin Twaddleford]

16 electoral college votes

[bigfatron]

TIPP poll 9th - 11th June
Biden 51%
Trump 38%

[johng]

TIPP have produced very few polls so 538 don't have much to analyse. Though it does suggest they have a slight Republican bias which is interesting.


American polling is infuriating though. There's a Florida Michigan Trafalgar poll (16-18 June) that shows Biden with a single point lead of 46-45. 538 gives Trafalgar a C- which means it shouldn't be taken seriously, but it's just so annoying for those of us who aren't US poll experts to see which are serious and which aren't.

[thinwhiteduke]

Jun 23, 2020 18:28:40 GMT johng said:

TIPP have produced very few polls so 538 don't have much to analyse. Though it does suggest they have a slight Republican bias which is interesting.


American polling is infuriating though. There's a Florida Trafalgar poll (16-18 June) that shows Biden with a single point lead of 46-45. 538 gives Trafalgar a C- which means it shouldn't be taken seriously, but it's just so annoying for those of us who aren't US poll experts to see which are serious and which aren't.

I presume you mean the Michigan poll that Trafalgar released a few days ago, showing Biden one point up..?

Despite being a Republican pollster, they surprisingly have a relatively decent track record in the state..

2018 Senate Race - Stabenow 53% James 44% ( actual result - Stabenow 52% James 45% ).
www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2018/senate/mi/michigan_senate_james_vs_stabenow-6325.html


2016 Presidential - Trump 49% Clinton 47% ( actual result - Trump 47.3% Clinton 47% ).

www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/mi/michigan_trump_vs_clinton-5533.html#polls

[johng]

Of course I meant Michigan - slight brain blip I think!

[thinwhiteduke]

[johng]

Trump is really closing in on Biden in the two polls released today where Biden is +5 and +6.

FiveThirtyEight doesn't massively rate the polling companies though.
Interestingly for the one you posted above, more respondents said they get their news from Fox News than any other source. It was 24% Fox, 23% other and 18% local news. That can't be right surely? 3.3 Million watch Fox's most watched show whilst 9 million watch ABC World News Tonight and 7.5 million NBC Nightly News.

[johng]

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%


In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

[Bert]

Jul 23, 2020 15:35:29 GMT johng said:

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%


In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

very sharp narrowing in polls over the last few days, I know not many A+, more B/C, but I guess the GOP narrative of 'it's too close to call' can turn into 'stolen election' fairly easily 

[jamie]

Jul 23, 2020 15:35:29 GMT johng said:

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%

In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

That pollster is complete bollocks. All other polls show the president and senate being similar margins yet in this poll there is a 15% difference. The other polls they’ve released are also very contradictory, with Trump improving in states like Michigan while collapsing in demographically similar states like Ohio. They also ‘accidentally’ missed off the main Democratic senate candidate in their Georgia poll, which isn’t exactly a sign of quality workmanship. 

[conservativeestimate]

Jul 23, 2020 15:35:29 GMT johng said:

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%


In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

This looks like Rasmussen polling on steroids.

[adlai52]

Jul 23, 2020 17:55:30 GMT conservativeestimate said:

Jul 23, 2020 15:35:29 GMT johng said:

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%


In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

This looks like Rasmussen polling on steroids.

From what I can tell this set of polls are Republican internals and the pollster has a pretty sketchy record, so closer to the likes of McLaughlin when it comes to reliability. A shame, because it's been a while since we've had a high quality poll out of Michigan or Wisconsin.  

[adlai52]

After complaining that there haven't been any high quality polls of the MidWest, we get three from Fox

Pretty consistent with the national polling that we're seeing at the moment, but might add weight to the Rustbelt still being the easier path for Biden in the Electoral College than the Sunbelt.*

*These aren't mutually exclusive oc.

[conservativeestimate]

[minionofmidas]

Jul 23, 2020 17:53:28 GMT jamie said:

Jul 23, 2020 15:35:29 GMT johng said:

First poll in Michigan in a while - americanprinciplesproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/APP.Michigan.pdf

Results look fairly unbelievable. When Biden is so far ahead nationally, and other polls in Michigan all show him ahead, it's hard to believe Trump has such a margin. It's a partisan poll as well.

Trump: 50%
Biden: 45%

In the Senate, looking better for the Dems.
Gary Peters (D): 47%
John James (R): 37%

That pollster is complete bollocks. All other polls show the president and senate being similar margins yet in this poll there is a 15% difference. The other polls they’ve released are also very contradictory, with Trump improving in states like Michigan while collapsing in demographically similar states like Ohio. They also ‘accidentally’ missed off the main Democratic senate candidate in their Georgia poll, which isn’t exactly a sign of quality workmanship. 

that sounds like a sign of quality piece-of-workmanship to me!

[johng]

So the Trump campaign have stopped buying ads over the last few days in Michigan.

www.nytimes.com/2020/07/29/us/politics/michigan-trump-biden-2020.html

''Since the end of June, Mr. Trump has spent more money on ads in 10 other states — with Michigan falling behind even much smaller states like Iowa and Nevada — and in recent days, Mr. Trump’s campaign stopped buying ads in Michigan entirely.

The Biden campaign has more than tripled what Mr. Trump spent on television in Michigan in the last month, by far the most lopsided advantage of any swing state where both are advertising. ''

[jamie]

If Trump doesn’t even think he can compete in Michigan then he’s admitting defeat (or the campaign in stupid, probably the latter). Michigan had very similar margins to demographically similar Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and current polling (at least the quality stuff) doesn’t show them diverging much, so if he doesn’t think he can win here then he almost certainly can’t win the other 2 states either in which case he’s lost the electoral college.

[johng]

It does seem an odd choice. Trump has a fairly narrow path to 270.

If he takes the whole of the rest of rust belt except Michigan, he still has a difficult path in taking most of the swing states EC vote. Biden could take just Texas or just Florida and Arizona and still win.
Though we have been here with the blue wall before.

[curiousliberal]

Jul 29, 2020 13:50:44 GMT jamie said:

If Trump doesn’t even think he can compete in Michigan then he’s admitting defeat (or the campaign in stupid, probably the latter). Michigan had very similar margins to demographically similar Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and current polling (at least the quality stuff) doesn’t show them diverging much, so if he doesn’t think he can win here then he almost certainly can’t win the other 2 states either in which case he’s lost the electoral college.

The polling does suggest a slight divergence, actually (and that is reflected in their 538 averages being about 1% apart). This may have happened because of localised issues as I’ve mentioned before and it now seems likely MI won’t be a tipping point state. Trump is almost certainly better off focusing on PA, WI, FL, AZ, NE-02, NC and even NH at this point.

[jamie]

Jul 29, 2020 15:20:32 GMT curiousliberal said:

The polling does suggest a slight divergence, actually (and that is reflected in their 538 averages being about 1% apart). This may have happened because of localised issues as I’ve mentioned before and it now seems likely MI won’t be a tipping point state. Trump is almost certainly better off focusing on PA, WI, FL, AZ, NE-02, NC and even NH at this point.

I agree Michigan looks to be slightly more Democratic, and I personally expect it to be, but it’s close enough that this could change by November and its not worth risking when the Trump campaign has ample resources and only needs to really focus on ~half a dozen states.