Can we trust the polls?

 

It's easy to dismiss the polls by saying they got it wrong in 2016 and President Trump frequently does exactly that. But it's not entirely true.

Most national polls did have Hillary Clinton ahead by a few percentage points, but that doesn't mean they were wrong, since she won three million more votes than her rival.

Pollsters did have some problems in 2016 - notably a failure to properly represent voters without a college degree - meaning Mr Trump's advantage in some key battleground states wasn't spotted until late in the race, if at all. Most polling companies have corrected this now.

But this year there's even more uncertainty than normal due to the coronavirus pandemic and the effect it's having on both the economy and how people will vote in November, so all polls should be read with some some scepticism, especially this far out from election day.