Brexit polls are likely of little comfort to Trump

Posted on: October 18, 2016 at 18:39:34 CT

for starters, the "stay" camp was only slightly ahead of the leave camp - well within the margin of error: http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster/uk-european-union-referendum

Trump, however, is outside the margin of error in many states that he would need to flip. For example, every poll in New Jersey (http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/new-jersey/#plus) is past the margin of error. And it's getting worse by the week. Same with Wisconsin save for a poll before the first debate: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/wisconsin/#plus

On top of that, you add in fivethirtyeight's aggregation of multiple polls -- sort of a meta-analysis -- that reduces the margin of error. This is their current electoral map: http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/#plus

Relying on the polls being wrong is maybe a nice mental saving exercise but not a viable belief system. If the polls starting moving in Trump's direction so that he's closing the margin as the election gets near, then maybe that argument would be more realistic.