BTW, Biden's internals were spot on.

[Drunken Irishman]

We dunk on polling but it seems their internals read the electorate right.

From an article dealing with the internals of the campaign:

But “our stuff was always much, much more pessimistic than the public stuff,” Siegel said, explaining that her department believed public polls were underrepresenting non-college-educated voters and underappreciating a partisan nonresponse effect during the pandemic. Democrats were more likely to be home and to answer the phone.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/11/election-night-with-bidens-data-guru.html

We spoke of this back in mid-October.

A lot of people dismissed this as a campaign tactic. They said they were just trying to keep people engaged and not overconfident.

But now in retrospect, we know they did not, in fact, mislead the public. They were being 100% transparent, despite what a lot of people wanted to hear. The results were closer than the media was indicating.

This, to me, is a sign of one helluva campaign staff.

They knew, maybe based on 2016, that polling was not accurate nationally.

For whatever reason, though, they found the formula and it worked. They understood where the race stood and knew their best bets remained Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. That was the campaign's Plan A to 270. Their plan B was Arizona and Georgia - and they saw movement in Georgia late, which is why they sent Biden there, then Harris and then Obama. Arizona always looked like the most non-traditional Democratic state to flip. I suspect the campaign, based on that article, knew they weren't likely to win Florida, though did put in an effort there late hoping to drive turnout.

Regardless, that's solid strategy.

A big reason Hillary was so blindsided on election night in 2016 was that their internal polling was wrong too.

Biden's internal polling allowed for them to not panic at any point on election night.

Whoever ran their data team should get a role with the DNC because they did a damn good job.

[msongs]

1. they knew the blue wave was a myth and planned accordingly nt

[mattclearing]

7. Either that or they adjusted well for mail non-delivery. nt

[elleng]

2. Glad to hear (I guess) that they could and did get it right.

Would be good if we the Party would make use of that, for the party and nation as a whole.

[Doodley]

3. They saw their path as did 538 based on polling averages, with the rustbelt seats

Hillary lost, and then AZ and GA as the next states beyond 270.

[Cha]

4. That's the article I was thinking of..

TY for referring to it

Jen O'Malley Dillon: "We're not ahead by double digits. We're just not."

[Drunken Irishman]

5. Everyone wanted to believe.

I am glad the campaign took a cautious tone and believed their numbers and not the media's because they likely would have spent the last few weeks of the campaign in North Carolina, Florida and Texas. Maybe they do manage to win those states ... but with how close it was in PA and WI, I wouldn't bank on it. Then Imagine wasted time in those three states, just to lose 'em, plus, say, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

They still win but now their win comes down to 14,000 votes in Georgia or 10,000 votes in Arizona.

Eke.

[Cha]

8. I know.. Eke & Scary.. & now we have

Won but we still have to fight a coup.. but thank goodness we're here to at least fight it.. I don't want to seem ungrateful!

And, after PE Biden gets Inaugurated the fascists are saying they won't confirm any of his cabinet.

Hopefully we'll win 2 more Senate Seats in Georgia

Good on Team Biden for having the real internal polls.. & Jen O'Malley Dillon did try to warn people.

[DFW]

6. One of the smartest things they did

They didn’t make a lot of noise about knowing where their real battles were. It was like Eisenhower tricking Hitler into thinking he wouldn’t invade at Normandy. The Biden campaign did their homework, correctly assessed their best path to victory, and got it right.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

9. Title made me expect an MRI, or at least an x-ray.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. Or Dems thought people cared about covid, they didn't..

Yikes, what a sentence..
"underappreciating a partisan nonresponse effect during the pandemic".

[Buckeyeblue]

17. I still maintain covid drove the turn out of the Luke warm Trumpers

Because they didn't/don't want another shutdown. They were convinced that Biden will shutdown the country again.

[radius777]

11. Their internal polling was better but not much better

than public polling, from what I saw posted here.

Most polling - both internal and public, both Repub and Dem - was wrong again, in some states very off.

Nate Cohn recently posted a good article about why the polling industry got it wrong again. In 2016 the issue was the composition of the electorate, where working class white turnout was underestimated. This time it had more to do with preference. Biden was thought to be doing better with working class whites and seniors but in actuality it was no better than what Hillary did with these groups. Our outreach to Latinos was terrible and we underestimated Trump's message and appeal with several Latino subgroups. The outreach to blacks wasn't that great either as the turnout was basically the same as '16. Young voters and new voters turned out better, and the suburbs came through for us. Thank the Lincoln Project for this, as their messaging was sharp. But alot of those swing voters then voted downballot for Repubs, why it's not a sustainable strategy to rely on such voters. We have to message better to our base voters and turn them out.

[Rstrstx]

12. A reminder this was their "leaked" internal poll

It was in fact too optimistic by at least 3 points for most states and at the time I remember people panicking over it, but aside from Arizona you can see the clear trends they were catching: North Carolina and especially Georgia were looking better than Florida, Nebraska’s 2nd looked really good, Ohio and Iowa were further behind than Texas, etc.

[Azathoth]

13. I take these "We knew it all along" stories with a grain of salt

I'm sure the campaign knew the public polling was too rosy, but I can't help but think there's more than a little creative remembering going on. The DCCC and most of the national party were, by all accounts, pretty rattled by what happened on Election Day. I doubt they would have been that surprised if the Biden campaign internally was 100% accurately predicting the race.

I'm honestly more interested to find out what the Trump campaign really knew. The wackiness and delusion in the GOP has become so top-to-bottom pervasive that it's impossible to judge when they really know something, when they're lying, and when they're just completely delusional. At the very least, they seemed to have Florida worked out with enough certainty to pull ads several days before the election, and they clearly knew their make-or-break move had to be in the rust belt. They also clearly didn't buy the idea that Texas was seriously in play, although I think AZ was a legit shock for them (hence their outrage).

[Drunken Irishman]

15. I mean, the campaign literally said their polls were showing a tighter race...

...back in October. The campaign manager literally was out there saying their polls were far closer than the national polls and that Biden wasn't up by almost 10 points.

That fits what was said in the article.

[BainsBane]

14. The public polling was further off for Biden than Clinton

by a substantial margin.

[applegrove]

16. Giving the win to Biden by 8 points publlicly would have kept some

'fun' oriented millenials and young adults home.