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Election 2020: IBD/TIPP: Tie @ 43 | The Hill: Biden 42, Trump 40 | Betting Odds

So as the pandemic starts to turn ever so slowly, Joe Biden faces sexual assault charges, the election polling has become interesting. What we are starting to see is exactly what we saw in the early and middle stages of election polling in 2016. That being two completely different sets of polling. One subset coming in with are likely realistic results showing a close race between flawed candidates, with the other subset showing impossible to believe results that point to some sort of monumental blow out.

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Well we all know what happened in 2016. First and foremost, pretty much every pollster eventual came back to reality and by election day they were only overstating Clinton support be two or three points (rather than suggesting double digit leads). Secondly, the election proved many assumptions about Clinton and Trump to be wrong. Lastly, Clinton suffered a defeat which was all the more humiliating exactly because so much polling ended up so wrong. How could she have blown such a lead? Well perhaps because she never actually had one.

Over the past 30 days or so we have had multiple polls showing this to be a dead heat or within two points one way or the other. Over the same 30 days we have had multiple polls showing Biden to be leading by double digits just as these same polls showed Hillary leading by double digits. If experience is our judge, then quite obviously we should know which of these polling subsets will end up more accurate.

I think the underlying issue that everyone deep down knows is true is that voter enthusiasm is heavily favoring the President and will continue to heavily favor the President as long as Joe Biden remains the Democratic candidate. It's not enough to ask people who they would vote for. You have to find out if they actually intent to take the time to vote. Ultimately the 2016 polling discrepancies came from two completely different ideas about who would turn out and why. To be honest, the numbers are worse (right now) for Biden than they were for Clinton when it comes to voter enthusiasm, especially among the key groups that they need.

At the end of the day, some of most accurate polling isn't about who people would vote for, but rather it's about who people think will win. In many of these polls showing hefty Biden leads, the same people (when asked) believe Trump will win. That tells us that they do not have much faith in Biden and people just don't go the extra mile when they have no faith. Secondly, there is a reason why the betting odds only give Joe a 42% chance to win. Even his supporters are unwilling to put their money where their tepid support is.