Quote (thundercock @ 23 Oct 2020 02:59)
There would have to be systematic polling error in A LOT of states with varying demographics. Undercounting the white vote in PA is VERY different than undercounting the white vote in AZ. My gut tells me that there's only about a 5% chance of winning the election without any funny business. It's possible but it's just extremely unlikely. Frankly, there's probably something systematic that the models are missing that will surprise everyone i.e. Gen Z turning out much higher than expected or Hispanics pulling for Trump in numbers similar to GWB. I think people focus too much on 2016 when evaluating 2020 when the landscape is very different.
Honestly, my biggest fear is a massive popular vote gap (5%+) and states throwing out ballots by following the law to the T.
You misunderstood the point I was making: the disagreements between the polls are so huge this year, even between quality pollsters, that some of them necessarily have to be way off. The spread is so big that the usual approach of assessing the race purely based on polling averages can be misleading. If the better polls for Trump are the correct ones, then we're back where we were 4 years ago, with Trump needing only a normal-sized polling error among one demographic in one region to pull an EC win out of his ass. It is not the most likely outcome, but it's a distinct possibility.