I agree, it is a very bad sign, but the idea that we are either a “failed state” on the way to oblivion, or doing great, and there’s nothing in between, is silly. We’re a lot better now than we were when only landowners could vote, right? Or before the civil war and the second founding? Or before women gained suffrage? Or in the leadup to our entry in WWII, when it looked like we might just join the Axis powers? Or the nineteen forties, when “separate but equal” was basically unchallenged? Or in the nineteen fifties, when a woman was a housewife or nothing? Or the nineteen nineties, when “don’t ask don’t tell” was actually considered a victory for LGBTQ+ rights? Or the twenty-aughts when people were noy allowed to marry based on gender? We’re trying to decide, right now, if a former president can be tried for crimes - it seems wild that this should even be a question, but when it was Nixon, Johnson pardoned him, and that was it - we might be on the verge of a huge step forward, in even just going ahead with the trial, no matter the outcome. Does all this mean everything is awesome now? Oh, oh, HELLS NO! It’s a mess, but it doesn’t mean we are a “failed state”, it just means we aren’t there yet, and we gotta keep struggling.

polling data has be broken since 2019. it’s almost like a bunch of old people died that answer their landline home phone from unknown numbers around that time. I wonder what happened? /s

young people just don’t answer their phone and polling groups just don’t have a good solution to capture data from that group yet.

They probably aren’t changing from Trump to Biden or vice versa. Instead, they are changing back and forth from undecided.

If a Trump voter goes back to undecided and an undecided voter commits to Biden, that’s a net movement of one Trump voter to one Biden voter.

I suspect they poll different groups of people, who don’t change their individual minds often.