Biden in the Battleground States

Biden in the Battleground States

Why the polls were inaccurate and led Democrats to believe they had voting blocks they didn’t have.

News Analysis By Trevi Ray

BEFORE the election, Biden anticipated to win with healthy numbers in projected polls. Though it would be slim in the battleground states early numbers still gave Biden the win. These numbers did not come to fruition on Nov. 3. In this unexpected and shifting election, a few key states will decide the leadership of the United States of America for the next four years.

Like in 2016, the polls have shown significantly different numbers than the actual vote. There is no conclusive reasoning on why this is the case. Several theories from 2016 are plausible explanations for the poor prediction of last night’s numbers.

Who?

The first theory involves who answers polls. It seems the people likely to answer a poll are the ones likely to vote Democrat. The strong anti-establishment, populist sentiment within Trump’s base and elements of the Republican Party contribute to a lack of accurate polling data. This theory, while compelling, is not likely to be the sole cause of these skewed numbers.

Why?

Next, is the “shy Trumper” theory. Due to the social pressures surrounding voting for Trump people are less likely to give a live interviewer a truthful answer. However, if this were particularly significant, it would show a different trend in online polls where there is no live interviewer. This theory does not follow those trend lines though and online polls show similar results to live polling.

How?

The most plausible answer to this issue is the difficulty in modeling who will vote. Polls have the difficult job of attempting to predict who will vote then contacting them to ask how they will vote. Voter turnout this year is roughly 62 percent. This is much higher than in previous years. High voter turnout rendered these polls incorrect as they relied on who they thought would vote.

Battleground States in the South

Biden’s numbers put him in lead months ahead of time, yet the numbers did not turn out this way on election day. Outside of these poll errors, what other mistakes occurred in the battleground states? emocrats as a whole have verbally claimed the ethnic votes. On issues such as immigration, race relations, and socioeconomic welfare are

Democratic policies catered to largely ethnic voters. However, this verbal claim did not come to pass perfectly at the ballot box.

Florida

In battleground state, Florida Biden lost many key counties. The New York Times reports, “Mr. Biden underperformed in many precincts with a majority Hispanic population, particularly those in the Cuban-American communities of Miami-Dade County, which overwhelmingly supported Mr. Trump. The surge among Cuban-American voters boosted Mr. Trump’s vote totals in the county, where he picked up nearly 200,000 more votes than four years ago. Florida County by County Election Analysis”

Many characterize this support to be a result of the socialist movement within the Democratic Party. Many Cuban Americans hold close to their history, and that history is marred with socialist/communist destruction. President Trump exploited this often in rhetoric, characterizing Biden as a future dictator.

Biden, in turn, was put in a tough position. Many of his big-government policies, that are tagged as socialist are also the policies that garner him the support of voters seeking meaningful change in the federal government.

Texas

Hispanic voters are another block verbally claimed by the democrats who did not execute as expected. Texas, with its growing young and minority population, is quickly becoming purple-tinged rather than blood red. In Texas, Trump won by a thinner margin than 2016, but with different voters.

The New York Times reports:

“Demographic changes and a suburban backlash did not stop President Trump from taking the Lone Star State, though he did so with a smaller margin than in 2016. Even as urban and suburban areas moved in large numbers toward Democrats, many Hispanic voters in the south abruptly exited the Democratic coalition.”

In 2016 immigration was one of the most contentious issues between the two candidates. Much of this had to do with Hispanic immigration and the Mexican American border.

In this election, due to the events of the summer and the growing power of the Black Lives Matter movement and the pandemic, immigration fell to the wayside. This was perhaps a crucial error on the part of the Biden campaign.

While Biden may still win the election, he will have to contend with the loss of Hispanic support as he begins his time in office.