At what point do polls become predictive due to early voting?

[Wanderlust988]

Never in our history will this many people will have cast ballots before election day. I have never seen this mentioned by anyone, but at which point do the polls become "entry polls" and basically tell us the victor before Nov. 3rd due to people already voting? Pollsters can then use their science to determine likely voters close to 100% as people would've already cast ballots. Maybe a week before the election?

I just don't understand how polling will be off like in 2016 with so many people already casting ballots and they can tell pollsters who they voted already. So basically there's no question mark or variability. The margin of error could be very low.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

1. I am under the impression that for the past twenty years or so, early voting

has made Election Day less predictive. Early voting has certainly made exit polling less reliable.

[elleng]

2. Might be able to compare w '16' if a 'Comey' event occurs.

[List left]

3. Seems like a tRumpey event occours almost every day.

He keeps stacking the deck against himself.

No slacking ... GOTV!

[jorgevlorgan]

4. If the early vote number reaches 150m maybe?

At that point it would be difficult to think the election day vote would be able to offset it by much. Once we are at least 90% of the 2016 election, I'm pretty sure we can start drawing conclusions.

[beachbumbob]

5. polling was not off in 2016, Hillary never had Biden's polling lead. 2016 has NO bearing on 2020,

refer to 2018

[whistler162]

6. Tghe second after all the votes

are counted.

[Johnny2X2X]

7. Perhaps 100 million people will vote early

So the polls reflect the 9 million people who have already voted.

I think a 10.4 point lead is massive 3 weeks out. And it’s still going up, Trump is running out of time!

After the Access Hollywood tape, Hillary built her lead to 6.6, but that fell to 3.9 on Election Day. So that’s important to look at as a gauge for how much movement is possible in the final weeks. Comey was a bombshell, but it only swing things a few points. So that level of event for Biden and we might see his lead fall to 7 at lowest.