Of course they beat polls. Polls are overwhelmingly operated by partisans in big media that are trying to act as an influence on the vote, not trying to figure out which way it's going to go. That's the very obvious reason the polls keep missing in such a humiliatingly outsized way. They don't care that they miss - otherwise they'd do the easy thing and adjust properly for factors like intimidated / scared / threatened voters - when their purpose is to try to manipulate the vote through propaganda.
- The polls missed by just about the historic average (this year as well as four years ago)
- Someone running (and selling) a poll has far greater incentives to be better than everybody else than whatever use they would personally get out of some minor increase in one party's chances
- I have no idea why you believe erring in the Democrat's favour would benefit them at the polls. The one theme I remember is Dems trying to lower expectations, because they were afraid people would be so certain, they wouldn't show up
In 2012 the polls missed in favor of Romney... how do you fit that in?
And in 2020 the polls were more accurate in most areas than in 2016, but had misses in particular areas (e.g. south Florida) that led to an early "deja vu" narrative that didn't pan out. So maybe some of these "easy things" were done... and what's left (like missing more on the congressional races than the presidential one) are not actually the same thing after all.
