Many readers have observed that the election of our next president will be decided not by a national popular vote, but by the states and the District of Columbia in the Electoral tally. The problem with the states as they relate to opinion polling, is that while the national polls have some points of concern, the state polls are relatively even less certain. The folks at Real Clear Politics show forty-nine different polling groups which have published results for states since the end of August, and few of these have publicly-released verification of their methodology, let alone access to their internal data. Caveat Emptor indeed , in these waters!
Even so, such information as has been presented can serve a purpose, to address curiosity if nothing else. I have reviewed and collated the information presented by RCP, and once again it is all here at the link if you want to do the same yourself. I would warn the reader that an average of polls is not statistically valid, but it does satisfy a certain curiosity. More, while there is a range of opinion among the pollsters, it is interesting to see how many polls were done for a given state. So, in the interest of public service, I am posting here a reference for the current polling average, along with the historical average since 1988, and the statistical trend for the state over the last 20 years. Please also note the columns for undecided, “Clear” and “Polls”, which will be explained below the report:
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