The usual rule for outlying poll results is to discard them in the average and not dwell on them too much due to the fact that they are inevitable and occur by chance. However, the recent ABC/Washington Post poll has presented a case that is hard to ignore. According to the poll, both Donald J. Trump and Ron DeSantis are leading President Biden by seven percentage points. This revelation has caused a stir in the media and has forced people to break away from the usual rule of thumb. The survey has been described as an outlier and even the Post article reporting the result acknowledged that. Nonetheless, this poll is proving to be quite useful, and it may help readers understand something that they might have found hard to believe without such a stark survey result: Mr. Trump is highly competitive at the beginning of the race.
The usual approach would be to dismiss this poll result as an outlier and assume that Mr. Trump will not win, but this could be counterproductive. While it is true that the poll reported the results among all adults and not registered or likely voters, it did report a result among registered voters which still found Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis ahead by six. Moreover, a few months ago, a different ABC/Post survey that asked about the presidential matchup among registered voters in the typical way found Mr. Trump leading by three points. The same survey also showed Mr. Trump leading by two points in September. These surveys showed the same peculiar results by subgroup, such as Mr. Trump’s lead among young voters (18 to 39) and the staggering Democratic weakness among nonwhite voters.
While this poll may not be entirely alone in showing weak support for Mr. Biden, the ABC/Post poll is the only one that shows Mr. Trump leading by seven points. Nonetheless, the demographic story that the poll reveals is consistent with other polls; Mr. Biden is vulnerable and weak among usually reliable Democratic constituencies, especially among nonwhite voters. This poll is different because it uses the traditional, live-interview, random-digit-dialing telephone surveys which dominated public polling for much of the last half-century. This could explain why it produces different results, despite it not being clear why it produces them.
Overall, this poll is serving a useful purpose, and while it might be an outlier, it’s not entirely alone in showing a weak Biden. At the very least, it’s an important reminder that a robust democracy requires accurate and reliable polling to provide feedback that candidates, voters, and policy makers can trust.
