This time four years ago, pollsters were picking Hillary Clinton to be the next President of the United States.
The New York Times gave her an 85 percent chance of beating Donald Trump, then best-known for his real estate empire and hit TV show The Apprentice. The Huffington Post's calculations gave the former First Lady a 98 percent chance of victory.
Only election polling specialty site FiveThirtyEight rated Trump's chances - but still only at a measly 29 percent.
Trump of course went on to defy the polls and win, prompting many to ask whether polling this year suggesting he'll be crushed by challenger Joe Biden are also wrong.
"Pollsters in the United States learned a lot from some of the errors that happened in 2016, and they've made adjustments to how they build likely voter models and such as a result," Brookings Institution Center for Effective Public Management senior fellow John Hudak told The AM Show on Friday.
"But in addition to those improvements, Biden's lead right now is significantly higher than Clinton's was in the days leading up to the [2016] election - so right now, he's in a fairly comfortable position."
Clinton actually got nearly 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016, but lost thanks to the arcane way US Presidents are actually elected - the Electoral College. Each state is worth a certain number of points, and most give all their points to whoever gets the most votes in that state - Trump managed to win a few close races, negating Clinton's crushing victories in populous Democrat strongholds like New York and California.
That's why Biden's massive lead in nationwide polling - about 10 points, according to the latest averages - might still not result in victory.
Reuters' pollster Ipsos gave Clinton a 90 percent chance of victory in 2016, and a three-point lead in the popular vote, pretty close to the actual result. Ipsos said it's made changes to how it weights responses to its polls, admitting its previous methodology undercounted uneducated white voters - who overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2016.
Ipsos' spokesperson Chris Jackson told Reuters there are far fewer undecided voters this time around too, making polling at least temporarily more accurate, and more focus has been put on individual states, since it's those results that determine the victor, not nationwide polling.
Referendum on Trump
Hudak said people have had four years to make their mind up on Trump, and his woeful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic recession would have helped those on the fence make up their minds.
"Right now it's not clear to most Americans what the President's plans are on either of those, and over the course of the campaign the President's approval ratings on those two issues in particular have dropped, while Biden's have increased as he's been more clear about what his plans are.
"In a moment of crisis people are looking for leadership, and right now they're seeing that leadership in Biden."
In contrast, New Zealand is a "great example of what happens when an incumbent handles a crisis in an effective way", he said, referring to the Labour Party's landslide win in our own election just two weeks ago.
"That incumbent is rewarded and yours just was. In the case of Trump however, Americans... see this as an unmitigated failure."
Hudak said while there isn't as much enthusiasm for 77-year-old Biden as there was for Barack Obama, the last Democrat to win the presidency, his naming of Kamala Harris as his running mate has helped. If elected, Harris will be the first African-American and Asian-American to hold the vice-presidency.
What if Trump loses, but refuses to admit defeat?
Trump has hinted he won't leave the White House peacefully if he loses the election. Hudak says there are three scenarios that could happen next month - either Trump wins narrowly; Biden wins big and Trump has little choice but to go; or Biden wins narrowly. The third scenario has Hudak concerned.
"If Biden wins, I think the President is going to try his best to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election and the legitimacy of the Biden presidency... He's already laying the groundwork for that."
Trump has repeatedly made claims such as mail-in voting would result in "fraud like you’ve never seen", despite no evidence to back this up. Millions of Americans have already voted, many by mail, seeking to avoid hours-long queues at the ballot boxes amid the pandemic.
If Trump's deemed to have lost the election, come noon on January 20, he won't be President - and if he refuses to leave the White House, he'll be deemed an "intruder", Hudak said.
"I imagine the Secret Service would take care of it."
And if Trump pulls off another upset win?
"If the pollsters are wrong this time, I will never make another political prediction for the rest of my career."
