Q&A of the Day – How reliable is polling in Florida?
Each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Today’s entry: People keep talking about how Trump’s trailing in the polls in Florida but wasn’t that the case in 2016? Weren’t we told DeSantis and Scott would lose too? When is it that pollsters will have to be accountable for their polls? I’m tired of hearing about fake news Florida polls but like clockwork, every new one that comes out is reported as though it’s news.
Bottom Line: I’m about the last person who will make excuses for poor pollsters or reporting, however context is key in this conversation. When it comes to polling, we tend to remember broadly reported polling around Presidential elections, like for example national polls generally showing Hillary Clinton well ahead of Donald Trump four years ago. As I’ve pointed out however, the national polls in context were generally correct in 2016. An average of national polls showed Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote four years ago and she did. The mistake that was commonly made was using national polling to assume an outcome in the Electoral College. Those are two different animals. To your first question no, the polls didn’t generally have Trump losing in Florida four years ago. The Real Clear Politics average of Florida Presidential polling from 2016 showed Donald Trump with a slight advantage on Election Day in Florida. In fact, over the past four Presidential Elections in Florida, the average of the polls have been pretty accurate.
Here’s a breakdown:
- 2016 – Final polling average – Trump+.2 - actual Trump +1.2%: GOP +1%
- 2012 - Final polling average – Romney+ 1.5% - actual Obama +.9%: DEM +2.4%
- 2008 - Final polling average – Obama+ 1.8% - actual Obama +2.8%: DEM +1%
- 2004 – Final polling average – Bush +.6% - actual Bush +5%: GOP + 4.4%
So three of the past four Florida Presidential elections have been accurately determined by final polling averages and the only miss was actually in favor of Republicans, as Romney was indicated ahead of Obama on Election Day 2012. The net-net of it is that national pollsters have underrepresented the Republican candidate’s performance in our state by an average of 0.5%. That’s a pretty solid track record. The biggest misses have been during the midterm cycles, like in 2018 as you cited. In 2018, the average pollster was off by 4% in the Governor’s race and 3% in the Senate race, a margin that turned what looked like safe margins for Bill Nelson and Andrew Gillum into close wins for Ron DeSantis and Rick Scott. In fact, going back to the 2004 election cycle, the margin of error by pollsters has been about double the margin of error in Presidential Election cycles, and most commonly under sampling Republican performance. Republicans have performed about 1% better in midterms than the average of the polls – which in Florida’s commonly close elections has meant a different outcome than what the polls indicate about a third of the time. Why’s this the case?
There are a few different variables between Presidential Election cycles and midterms – most notably turnout - Florida’s turnout in 2018 was 63%, compared to 75% in 2016, however the biggest variable is the amount of polling that’s conducted. There are an average of seven pollsters which poll Floridians during Presidential election cycles compared to an average of five during midterm elections. The smaller sample size of pollsters allows for a rouge poll to weigh more heavily and potentially skew the performance of polling in the state as a whole. It just so happens that the worst pollster in Florida’s history, Quinnipiac, polls in both midterm and general elections. Their extraordinarily poor record weighs heavily on Florida’s overall polling when they’re a fifth what’s conducted and averaged. Just how bad is Quinnipiac in Florida?
Quinnipiac’s projected winners:
- 2018: Governor – Andrew Gillum, Senate – Bill Nelson
- 2016: President – Hillary Clinton, Senate- Rubio
- 2014: Governor – Charlie Crist
- 2010: Governor – Alex Sink, Senate- Rubio
That’s a brutal track record. Over the past decade the only statewide race won by a Republican Quinnipiac was correct about was Rubio’s Senate race both times. That also isn’t saying much as Rubio has won comfortably both times. The takeaway is this. It’s never a good idea to take a look at only one poll and assume it’s accurate but that's especially true when it comes to Quinnipiac. If you leave them out and look at an average of final polls for Florida’s statewide races, the other pollsters have been more accurate than not.