The Homa Files

There are 2 pollsters who are generally credited with getting the 2016 election right: IBD/TIFF and the Trafalgar Group.

The Trafalgar Group leans right, emphasizes state polls & predictions (especially the swing states) and claims to have a magic sauce that elicits replies from the “shy Trump voters”.

Here’s what Trafalgar is currently reporting:

Here’s how to read the chart and what it means…

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In the 7 swing states, Trafalgar has Trump leading by 2.3%.

More important, state-by-state, Trump leads in 5 of the 7 states … with his biggest lead in AZ (4%).

Biden leads in 2 states: PA by 2.3% and WI by 1.3%.

My take: The only significant outcome of last night’s debate was Biden getting pinned down about dissolving the oil & gas industry and fracking.  That directly impacts PA and should switch votes.

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To put the Trafalgar numbers in perspective, let’s compare them to RCP’s polls-of-polls:

RCP has Biden leading Trump in the swing states by 3.6%.  Trafalgar has Trump up by 2.3%.

RCP has Biden leading in all of the swing states except Ohio.  Trafalgar has Trump leading in 5 of the 7 states.

On average, RCP has Biden doing 4.6% better than Trump.

The biggest state difference is Arizona … RCP has Biden up by 3.2% … Trafalgar has Trump up by 4% … that’s a wide difference – 7.2%

Bottom line: Both can’t be right.

We’ll see in a week or two (or three or…).

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P.S. IBD/TIFF has Biden up by 4 points nationally, with the gap narrowing.

This entry was posted on October 23, 2020 at 10:30 am and is filed under 2020 Election - Odds & Polls. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.