Subject: Re: Today's Election College Odds
Are those differences larger than the margin of error in the polls
In 4 of 6 swing state polls, yes, they are outside the margin of error. Sometimes wayyy outside, even double. It’s on the cusp in 1, and ahead in only Wisconsin (but within the MoE.)
In a head-to-head matchup, Trump leads Biden by 12 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, by 10 points in Georgia, by 7 points in both Michigan and Arizona, and by 3 points in Pennsylvania. Biden leads Trump in Wisconsin by 2 points.
https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroug...
The typical margin of error is 3 points, plus or minus when you have a reasonably selected sample of 1000-1200 valid entries. One trick that 538 (and others) use is to combine polls; as you enlarge the sample base you decrease the MoE, so adding two polls with 1000 recipients each will bring the MoE down to 2% or so, and improve the confidence levels a couple points as well. Of course if one of the polls is methodologically verklempt you make things worse, not better.