So, what about the election?

After 2016 I'm loathe to make any predictions although I did suspect that Trump was going to pull an upset then because the trends were clearly moving in that direction.

On November 7th, 2016 I said:

"As for the presidency, I don't like the numbers I see. I think Trump has the inside track and based upon my most recent analysis he wins by a ridiculously close 270-268."

So, I had the winner but blew it on the scope of the win.

People keep talking about how wrong the polls were in 2016 but they weren't really that wrong. The popular vote came out about where predicted. Some of the state polls were off and that's where things came apart.

The Trafalgar Group, who correctly predicted 2016, thinks the pollsters are going to have an even bigger debacle this time around. They're claiming that Trump will win thanks to what they're calling "shy Trump voters."

This is similar to the Bradley effect where people won't tell pollsters that they're not voting for a black man. This Bradley effect was much ballyhooed in 2008 and 2012 only to turn out to be pure myth.

In this case people are supposedly ashamed that they're voting for Trump so they lie or they're purposely misleading the pollster.

The idea that people are ashamed they're voting doesn't seem right. I haven't seen all that many Trump supporters not being very open about their choice. This would only make sense in live polls and Biden does do better in live polls. But it doesn't explain the Internet polling and other anonymous poll results.

The idea that people are lying to mislead the pollsters strikes me as more probable and wouldn't surprise me one bit.

So what do I think?

I think it's going to be a mess especially with the huge number of mail-in ballots. My fear is that Trump will eke out another electoral count victory while again losing the popular vote. Five-Thirty-Eight thinks he has about a 10% chance to win and several other analysists seem to think that we will in fact get another electoral vote vs. popular vote contradiction in Trump's favor.

I hope they're wrong. I think four more years of Trump would cause an enormous amount of damage.