Stop using 2020 as your crystal ball for the current presidential election | Opinion

The 2020 U.S. presidential election is being used as the baseline for analysis of 2024 in three key ways: In analyzing the early vote, making voter targets and in polling. All are misguided.

Early Voting shows that, in California, nearly two million voters have returned ballots. We are quickly approaching 20 million votes cast nationwide, either by mail or using in-person voting centers. Within this data we can see trends — like the percentage of Democrats or Republicans who are voting early.

But comparing this data to voting patterns in 2020 is nonsense.

In the 2020 presidential election, most states were in some state of a COVID lock down. For many of us, going to the mailbox was an excuse to get out of the house for a moment, and walking to a drop box or voting center was like taking a vacation.

In 2020, we also saw early versions of the “Big Lie,” with former President Donald Trump calling vote-by-mail into question, and causing Republicans to switch from their historic early voting patterns and, instead, vote in-person on Election Day.

In our polarized political environment, Democrats saw these messages and did the opposite: Voting early became a way of signaling trust in the election system, and posting selfies at the local drop box became a performative act for online progressives.

Comparing the votes cast in California so far to 2020 would show a wildly different partisan, age and ethnic breakdown. But does that speak to final turnout? Absolutely not.

Using 2020 to project voter behavior, particularly in swing states, is an additional way to trip up a campaign. Applying vote performance in the 2020 election of President Joe Biden versus Trump as a measuring stick for the current 2024 Vice President Kamala Harris versus Trump race is similar to mistakes made in 2016 when polls in the upper Midwest dramatically missed the mark.

In the 2016 race, voter targeting was done largely on who had voted in 2008 and 2012 when former President Barack Obama was the Democratic nominee. In those elections, a Black Democratic presidential candidate caused higher turnout among younger minority voters in rust belt cities like Detroit and Pittsburgh, and a drop in turnout from disaffected white working-class Democrats in suburbs and rural communities. Targeting in 2016 in those states was off because analysts were missing some key white voters and overestimating the impact of younger minority voters.

Similarly, but in the inverse, campaigns can’t just cut-and-paste expectations from 2020 to an election today with a Black woman as the Democratic nominee. Some of the “Scranton Joe” blue collar voters who lean Democratic may simply sit out this election while non-white college students may turnout in much higher numbers. Data from 2020 would be a poor guide.

Data from 2020 can also be misused when it comes to polling, particularly a recent trend of pollsters using “recalled vote” to weight a final survey.

In a poll, a voter will be asked who they voted for in 2020 — Trump or Biden. Then, when finalizing their results, pollsters make sure the percentages for each candidate in 2020 lines up with the actual results from their area.

This sounds simple, but it is a trap, largely because voters in surveys often don’t answer this kind of question honestly.

Research shows that voters will lean toward giving a pollster a “socially desirable” answer; if you asked voters in a poll if they floss their teeth, respondents will say they do, whether they really do or not, because they know that is the answer which has the greatest social acceptance.

In the case of prior presidential vote, if in 2020 they voted for Biden but now feel like the Biden presidency was a failure, they are likely to say they voted for Trump. Similarly, if they voted for Trump in 2020 and now regret it, they will say they voted for Biden.

Bottom line: If you’re treating 2020 as a crystal ball, stop.