How to Skew a Poll: Texas 2020 Edition

Another Texas poll, another skewed sample.

This is the poll that purports to show Joe Biden beating Donald Trump by five points and Senator John Cornyn under 50% against either M.J. Hegar or Royce West.

The nice thing about this Dallas Morning News/UT Tyler poll is that it tells you how the poll weighting is skewed right up front:

Democrat 39%
Republican 42%

So it oversamples Democrats by at least 7% compared to the 2016 Presidential election. I assume that they’re using Beto O’Rourke’s narrow loss in a semi-blue-wave year against Ted Cruz in the 2018 U.S. Senate race as the baseline, not Lupe Valdez’s twelve point pasting by Greg Abbott in the Governor’s race. Neither Hegar are West are going to be awash in money and fawning media coverage the way O’Rourke was.

Presidential year voter turnout has distinctly different patterns than off-year election turnout. The 2020 general election is more likely to resemble the 2016 election, when Trump beat Clinton by nine points in Texas, than the 2018 election.

Even money says that the next Texas Tribune and Texas Lyceum polls you see will be just as skewed.

There are plenty of things to worry about in November. Trump and Cornyn losing Texas should not be among them.

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