Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst, is warning Dems to not believe the polls that show Joe Biden leading President Trump.
Via Politico’s Tim Alberta: “They fundamentally undercounted the Trump vote” in 2016, she says. “I believe that same thing is happening right now.”
? DON’T BELIEVE THE POLLS showing a Biden blowout, Elissa Slotkin warns fellow Dems?
She thinks the data is dead wrong.
“They fundamentally undercounted the Trump vote” in 2016, she says. “I believe that same thing is happening right now.”https://t.co/XXnyo66QDg
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 10, 2020
She explained that she used her past as a CIA analyst when interviewing pollsters and discovered only one of them admitted they undercounted Trump voters in 2016 and made the necessary change going forward:
If you think Elissa Slotkin is being a faux alarmist …. here’s the story of how a CIA analyst hires a pollster. Pretty darn interesting.https://t.co/XXnyo6oruO pic.twitter.com/niG5Da7AYN
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 10, 2020
This is EXACTLY the argument Trump supporters make, so hearing from a Dem is interesting at the very least:
Trump allies have been making this point lately. Now a Democrat in a swing district of a key battleground state is saying the same thing. https://t.co/frNGdSAqO5
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) July 10, 2020
Nate Silver adds this caveat, noting that even with undercounting taking into account, Biden is still doing better than Hillary in 2016:
If polls underestimated Trump to the same extent they did in 2016 (by ~3-ish points in the average swing state) then Biden would still win MI, WI, PA and FL in an election held today, and AZ, NC, OH and GA would be toss-ups. https://t.co/pJFdwArSHY
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) July 10, 2020
Yes, but:
Whole lot of “but the polls were right!” today. Yes, national averages were pretty good. Ditto for some states.
But Michigan—Elissa Slotkin’s point of reference—was a disaster.
Trump’s average in the month pre-Election Day was 41. He wound up at 47. That is a catastrophic miss. pic.twitter.com/L4GJo9L9dO
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 10, 2020
There’s still a lot of time left, too:
Oh, and Pennsylvania was almost as bad, and Wisconsin was even worse.
That was your ballgame in 2016– those three states. So, no, the polls were not right.
— Tim Alberta (@TimAlberta) July 10, 2020
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