Winning ugly is still winning

Remember last week, when Josh Barro, Tim Carney, Christine Emba and special guest Gustavo Arellano made some predictions about the election outcome? With votes still being counted in the critical states — with Joe Biden leading the popular vote and the electoral college — the LRC panel revisits its predictions. Why wasn’t this a landslide for the Democrats? Why are we still watching for results on Friday? Why isn’t the Left happier about this outcome? What happened in Florida and South Texas? How did congressional Republicans improve so much over their performance in the 2018 midterms? What do we know about what motivated voters this cycle? How much did the pandemic matter in the end?

Steven Shepard, Politico’s chief polling analyst and senior campaign and elections editor, joins the panel to answer questions about the polls. How wrong were the polls and why were they wrong, and why was it so hard for polling to reflect support for Donald Trump?

*This episode was recorded Friday morning.