This is a classic early Presidential Poll

Biden Maintains Lead 

West Long Branch, NJ – Joe Biden holds a 4 point lead over Donald Trump in the race for president, which is similar to his 3 point lead in last month’s national Monmouth (“Mon-muth”) University Poll. Public opinion is mixed on whether Trump’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak will help or hurt him in November, but the president’s favorability rating has taken a dip while Biden’s has remained stable. The poll, which was conducted before Bernie Sanders suspended his presidential campaign, also finds most voters agreeing that it is time for him to get out of the race.

So we can start with the idea that this is registered voter poll that invariably tilts left. Generally likely voter polls are better for Republicans by one to two percent. So this poll which has shown Biden up three and four points in consecutive months is likely more like a two or three point lead (at best).

 But the other problem with many of these polls are the demographics. I know liberals don't like hearing about it, but one of the major reasons why early polls are so favorable to Democrats (think Hillary having double digit leads, Gore and Kerry leading Bush) is the fact that these Demographics are just poorly managed. In this particular poll, the partisan make up of the poll was overwhelmingly "Independent" which absolutely never happens. 38% Independent, 35% Democrat, and only 26% Republican.

In fact if you look at the last four Presidential elections and average it out, Democrats have held an advantage of 37.5 to 33.50 (four points) over Republicans. Independents come in at 28.75. The fact is that part of being an independent is that you are simply not enthused enough about things to pick a side, which means you are probably not enthusiastic enough to vote as often. More importantly, however, is the skew that comes with a sample that under counts Republican voters by a margin of seven and a half points.

Every year I hear the same thing from liberal pundits defending these god-awful polls. They believe that THIS is the year that Republicans will stop voting or that somehow someway there are just going to mysteriously be less Republicans in THIS upcoming election. Yet if you look at the past four elections, it has been remarkably consistent. In fact, if you toss out the 2008 and 2012 elections (with Obama at the top of the ticket) the average gap between the two Parties is less than three percent.

The reality is that there is no reason to believe that Democrats will do any better demographically than they have done in any of the past elections. If I was a betting man, I might offer that Democratic support will be underwhelming based on the underwhelming enthusiasm for the presumed man at the top of the ticket. I would generally predict something in the vicinity of a 37-33-30 break down (Dem, GOP, IND)... but who knows if the Democrats will even maintain their usual four point margin?

What I do know for a fact is that there is no way that the 2020 election will only have 26% Republicans or that Republicans will be nine points behind Democrats. If this poll had a reasonable sample that was accurately demographically represented, it's likely that the two candidates would be virtually tied, or come back with a small lead for the President.