What the new polling on the US election tells us

Parse out the details of The Independent’s latest polls and you get to an interesting story, writes Dave Maclean

The Trump-Biden debate (AP)

Election polling, unfairly, gets a bad reputation. Stats show that polls of the 2016 presidential election were about as accurate as the average of polls going way back to 1972.

Most polling was off at a state level, but correctly predicted the popular vote. Hence Hillary Clinton’s 3 million vote margin but ultimate defeat.

Polling this time around is showing landslide levels of support for Biden, but the states themselves are a lot harder to call.