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Still doubt polling? UNF professor says they've learned lessons of 2016 election

“We are learning, trying to get better and do the best that we can to truly reflect what the electorate looks like.”

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — A recent poll of likely voters by the University of North Florida's Public Opinion Research Lab shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a slim lead, 48-to-47 percent, over President Donald Trump in Florida in the 2020 race for president.

I know what you're thinking.

National and state polling favored Hillary Clinton in 2016 and they were wrong, so why should I trust them?

For one, Dr. Michael Binder is well aware of what happened four years ago and feels even more pressure to be as accurate as possible this time around.

“I’d be lying to you if I said I wasn’t nervous about the outcome of the election and how it relates to the polls," said Binder, a professor at UNF who's responsible for the PORL's methodology and its survey process. "Just from my perspective of what we do as an industry, if we are wrong, and we are wrong by a lot, I don’t know how polling recovers, to be frank with you."

Good thing they've course-corrected, so they say.

Binder's team puts out polling through the university and is also contracted to provide polling data to the New York Times and Sienna College. Their work is used and seen on a national level.

In 2016, some polls, especially nationally, consistently showed Clinton with a lead that seemed to be nonexistent come the wee hours of election night. Trump seemed to hit the margin of error in many public polls, especially the key battleground states, that put him in the White House.

Presidential polling wasn't far off, with Clinton winning the popular vote within a percentage point, but on a state level, things were less accurate. Binder said that's one of the key adjustments made this time around.

There's a much bigger focus on state-polling, specifically battleground states since they're essential in the electoral process. They also expanded their social strata to increase their urban reach and include hard-to-reach voters.

Most importantly, they're now factoring in education level, a critical whiff in previous election cycles.

“Historically, that hadn’t been a problem, but in 2016, vote choice and levels of education began to correlate with each other," Binder said. "If you had a college degree or more, you were much more inclined to vote for Clinton. If you didn’t, you were much more inclined to vote for Trump...we have now included that in our methodology and something we take account of now.”

Binder's team, made up of university employees and students, have spent months on the phone. They'll dial 10,000 or so phone numbers to get an accurate sample. There's also a weighting process, to make sure the sample is a reflection of the population. The key, again, was adding in that education factor to give a more accurate read of the state -- and avoid a clear miss from four years ago.

“What that did was, that narrowed our margins from a little over two points for Biden, down to one point for Biden," Binder said, referring to their final election poll, released on Oct. 20. "There is a little bit of hidden Trump voters out there. It’s not overwhelming. It’s not enough to overcome a 10-point lead nationally let’s say, but certainly, there’s a little bit there. 

“We are learning, trying to get better and do the best that we can to truly reflect what the electorate looks like.”

Binder will be watching intently on Tuesday, especially with Florida's ability to process and count ballots before Election Day. We should know results, and which way the state is trending, within hours of polls closing.

We'll also learn quickly if Binder's team nailed it, or not.

“That’s the difficulty with polling Florida," he said. "We get all the attention because we’re so important...and we’re always so close. When you’re dealing with Floridian elections, it’s one point, maybe two in a blowout…you can be in the margin of error, but be wrong. 

"Listen, we don’t get judged on being inside the margin of error. We get judged on being right or wrong…and for the next four years, I’m going to be judged on Biden +1.”

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