If Dems “found” ballots in ‘20 in order to win then Biden would have outperformed polls

Hypothesis: If Biden won swing states in 2020 due to the Democrats “finding the votes necessary” in the middle of election night to flip the outcome, then the actual election results would show Biden outperformed the polling leading up to the election.

Method: I determined the polling average going into the election by averaging the final polls that included all candidates that would be on the ballot. The poll results I used can be found on wikipedia and 270towin.com.

Conclusion: The data shows Biden did not outperform the polling in any of the swing states.

Georgia
Actual Result: Biden +0.2%
Poll Avg: Biden +0.6%

Pennsylvania
Actual Result: Biden +1.2%
Poll Avg: Biden +2.8%

Michigan
Actual Result: Biden +2.8%
Poll Avg: Biden +5.8%

North Carolina
Actual Result: Trump +1.3%
Poll Avg: Biden+1.0%

Wisconsin
Actual Result: Biden +0.7%
Poll Avg: Biden +9.0%


Average of the swing states results: Biden +0.7%

Average of the swing states polling: Biden +3.8%

Trump’s swing state average actual result was 3.1% better than the average swing state polling.

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Taking out Wisconsin, the state with the largest discrepancy between polling and the actual result:

Average of the swing states actual results (not including WI): Biden +0.7%

Average of the swing states polling (not including WI): Biden +2.6%

Trump’s swing state average actual result was 1.9% better than the average swing state poll (not including WI).

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Trump also outperformed polling in 2016. I completed the same exercise for 2016 swing states to compare how much better Trump did than the polling in the ‘16 and ‘20 elections, and the results are very similar.

2016:

Florida
Result: Trump +1.2%
Poll Avg: Trump +1.3%

Michigan
Result: Trump +0.2%
Poll Avg: Hillary +2.5%

Pennsylvania
Result: Trump +0.7%
Poll Avg: Hillary +2.2%

Wisconsin
Result: Trump +0.7%
Poll Avg: Hillary +5.5%

Average of the swing states results: Trump +0.7%

Average of the swing states polling: Hillary +2.2%

Trump’s swing state average result was 1.5% better than the average swing state poll (2.2% minus 0.7%).

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Taking out Wisconsin, the state with the biggest discrepancy between polling and actual result:

Average of the swing states results: Trump +0.7%

Average of the swing states polling: Hillary +1.1%

Trump’s swing state average result was 1.8% better than the average swing state poll.