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While most national and swing state polling shows former Vice President Joe Biden with a substantial lead over President Donald Trump in the 2020 race, the numbers are being eyed with some wariness by voters.

That's due in part to the fact that polling in the 2016 presidential race missed the reality on the ground in key swing states, which led to spurious predictions of a strong win for then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. Those key states went on to go for Trump, of course, resulting in one of the biggest perceived political upsets in modern history.

So how seriously should we take horse race polling in 2020?

To find out what's changed in polling since 2016, WBUR's Morning EditionhostBob Oakes spoke with Steve Koczela, president of the MassINC Polling Group.

On how polling got the story wrong in 2016

Koczela:It was a combination of things, really. Polls were showing Hillary Clinton in the lead in key states. Then those polls were taken by aggregators and forecasters and so forth, and basically used to make a probability that Hillary Clinton would be the president.

Now, unfortunately, there was not very much polling in some swing states, polls that weren't very good in some swing states and then polls that didn't account for the education level of voters and basically had too many college-educated voters in their samples. What that does because education is such an indicator of partisanship is that if you don't account for that, you end up with a sample that is too Democratic. That hasn't always been the case. Education college education hasn't always been as partisan of a thing as it is now.

There were some other things going on too: The election was still moving at the last minute. Polls that were done you know, seven to 10 days out missed undecided voters breaking for Donald Trump at the last minute. One of the reasons that 2016 turned out the way that it did was that voters who didn't like either Trump or Clinton broke very heavily for Trump and they broke very late for Trump.

On what's changed in polling since 2016

Koczela:[In 2016,] national media outlets were focused on national polling which, of course, as we all know is not how we pick the president. So one thing you're seeing [in 2020] is a lot more state polling from groups like The New York Times and the Siena Poll ... The Washington Post. ... We never know if there's going to be some new wrinkle that's come up that we didn't anticipate, like education was in 2016, but at least we can say that the things that happened in 2016 pollsters and the broader polling community have addressed those things.

What pollsters will be watching for in 2020

Koczela:If there's one thing in 2020 that I think does pose a special challenge for pollsters, it's all the changes to the rules and not knowing exactly what that's going to do to who actually turns out. Will there be a swell of young people? Will there be a swell of Democrats early and Republicans late and does that somehow change the balance of party turnout? Does it change, you know, where voters turn out if it's more difficult to turn in ballots in some places than in others?

On the limits of polling

Koczela:I think polling sometimes has a level of precision that people want from it, that it just is not designed to provide. You know, it can describe the race it can show where the race is within a relatively wide level of precision. But it can't predict the future. It can't predict that [James] Comey is going to, you know, write a letter and change everything with a week to go, and that undecided voters are going to swing for Trump at the last minute. It can't do those things. So I think it's also just important for pollsters to be clear about what it is that we can do and what it is that polls really aren't designed to be able to do.

... People that don't do numbers in polling everyday, you know, they read Trump has a 30% chance of winning as Clinton is way ahead. Instead of: '30%, that's a lot!' You know, imagine a 300 major league hitter. That's a really good hitter. You wouldn't think, 'Well, that guy's never gonna get a hit because 70% of the time he doesn't.' That was basically the situation in 2016. That's what Five Thirty Eight was saying: that Clinton is probably going to win, but there's still a really good chance Trump's going to win.

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Have Pollsters In 2020 Learned The Lessons Of 2016? - WBUR

Noah Benjamin Reisman, a native of Port Washington who assisted presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, has died.

Reisman, whose family says he died following a tragic accident, was 26.

Born on May 22, 1994 to Steve and Elizabeth Reisman, the young Reisman attended Carrie Palmer Weber Middle School and went on to serve as as captain of the debate team at Schreiber High School, finishing second in the New York State Debate Championship. He also served as a student representative on the Port Washington Board of Education in his senior year, just before graduating in 2012.

In 2016, Reisman graduated from Dartmouth College with a degree in government. During his senior year, he began serving on the advance team for Clinton, and eventually reached a position as advance motorcade lead.

Following the election, Reisman traveled to Israel, Jordan, and countries throughout Asia. He then returned to Manhattan to work as a paralegal at the law firm Morrison & Foerster LLP, in its capital markets group. He then attended the George Washington University Law School for one year, where he made the schools Law Review. He then transferred to Columbia Law School, where he was selected as a member of the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law.

Port Washington school board President Nora Johnson paid tribute to Reisman at the boards meeting on Tuesday night.

He was a wonderful young man who was loved by everyone who had the privilege of knowing him, Johnson said. While at Schreiber, Noah served as a student representative on the board so some of us knew him, which is typical of him. He was involved, he was a doer. He was outgoing, brilliant, incredibly kind, and committed to making the world a better place during his very short 26 years, and he actually did make the world a better place. Our hearts go out to his family and friends. May his life be a blessing.

Reismans former colleague and friend Ian Mellul recalled him in a Medium post, remembering when the two of them transported the Clintons to their polling place in upstate Chappaqua on Election Day in 2016.

Significant does not even come close to describing his presence in a room, Mellul wrote. From his eye contact to his gentle, warm greetings, Noah always made you feel like you were the only person in the room.

Following his funeral two weeks ago, at which his family says Bill and Hillary Clinton were present, Reisman was buried at Mt. Ararat Cemetery in Lindenhurst and is survived by his parents, brother Sam, sister Rachel, his grandparents, and various relatives.

The family asks those who would like to honor Reismans memory to make a donation to the Noah Benjamin Reisman Foundation, which supports the values that Reisman embraced, including racial justice, educational equity, and helping those in need. Donations can be made to: The Noah Benjamin Reisman Foundation Inc.c/o Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP, attn: Lorissa Garcia, 525 W. Monroe Street, Chicago, IL 60661, or online at http://www.noahbenjaminreismanfoundation.org.

If anyone would like to share a memory, the family encourages emails to liveanoahlife@gmail.com

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Port native, Clinton campaign aide Noah Reisman dies at 26 - Featured - The Island Now

The Clinton emails scandal marked a turning point in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential elections - and mere weeks before the 2020 polls, US President Donald Trump has brought them back into the news.

Trump has called on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to publicly release emails Hillary Clinton had on a private server while working for the Barack Obama administration - tens of thousands of which had already been leaked in 2016.

While observers in the US are chalking up the renewed discussion of Clinton's emails to Trump's re-election campaign, curiously, the topic has attracted a lot of attention in the Middle East.

Hillary Clinton emails: Why the Saudi-led disinformation network is recycling old news

Between 2009 and 2013, Clinton served as secretary of state during a crucial period in the history of the Arab region, including the early years of the so-called Arab Spring, when a wave of revolutions and popular uprisings spread across several countries.

With her tenure coinciding with such a momentous era of Arab political history, there has been plenty of conjecture in Arab media - perhaps revealing as much about those writing the news as the correspondence being discussed.

The Egyptian Institute for Political and Strategic Studies (EIPSS), a research organisation operating from Turkey, has launched a project to analyse the Clinton emails.

"Revealing these confidential correspondences that have dealt with this era is of great importance," read areport published on Wednesday, "regardless of the evaluation of these emails and the political position behind it."

The institute said one document revealed that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was ousted in February 2011, had "sought to promote a Western conspiratorial plan to control Egypt, just as Chinese propaganda used to justify any popular uprising that takes place in the country".

The institute has called on researchers and experts to join the study, which will be published on the institute's website, in order to achieve a deeper understanding of this phase of Egypt's modern history - and to understand US policy regarding the events that took place at the time.

In a matter of hours on Sunday, Saudi and Emirati social media accounts circulated tens of thousands of tweets misleadingly reporting that new Clinton emails had been leaked, Arabic website Noonpost reported - despite the news being five years old.

But why such a flurry of coverage, the website asks.

"It is clear that this systematic campaign aims to distract the world from the crises that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are currently facing, and achieve an imaginary victory by using misleading information to cover up the political and economic failure of the policies of [Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad] Bin Salman and [Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammad] Bin Zayed," Noonpost wrote.

The news outlet noted bin Zayed had been "facing a massive wave of criticism due to the normalisation agreement his country signed with Tel Aviv in Washington on 15 September", adding that MBS, as the Saudi crown prince is known, had also been dealing with dissent, including the creation of a new opposition party earlier this month calling for democracy in the Gulf kingdom.

Meanwhile, Abu Dhabi-owned news website Al-Ainpublished a column alleging that that "Clinton's emails have revealed the political abuses and moral degradation of political elites in some countries in the region, coupled with a lack of awareness and naivety on the part of US elite, which has dragged the Arab region into an endless chain of chaos and division".

The article added: "Those who read Clinton's emails will be surprised by the wise and courageous role that countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have played in preserving the integrity of Arab states, as both countries have embarked in recent years on the path of eliminating plans aimed at sowing chaos in the region.

"The information leaked through Hillary Clinton's emails could force the next US administration to reprioritise its strategic relations in the Arab region by giving greater influence to the moderate Arab coalition led by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi," the columnist went on to write.

Meanwhile, Qatari newspaper Al-Sharq took aim at the Trump administration for bringing the Clinton emails back to the fore, pointing out how the news has been a boon for Doha's rivals, namely Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.

"As soon as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pledged to publish the emails of the former secretary of state and presidential candidate... the Emirati media machine has been working to launch misinformation campaigns against Qatar," the publication wrote.

"The UAE tried, through its suspicious media, to transmit messages against Qatar and Al Jazeera to Arab and Gulf public opinion, hinting that both parties have a connection to an alliance between the Democrats in the US and the Muslim Brotherhood," al-Sharq added.

Why has this issue come back to the fore now, some news outlets have wondered. UK-based Alkhaleej Online spoke with Khaled al-Jaber, director of the MENA Center for Research in Washington DC.

"These emails, which Trump and his administration are betting on, are just a storm in a teacup and will not prove to be a real boon in the coming elections," Jaber predicted.

"Trump has become unable to attract undecided voters, especially since his Democratic rival does not have major scandals to be unveiled, so he ordered the disclosure of these emails as a tactic to win the elections," he added.

Jaber stressed that the emails concerned Hillary Clinton alone and not current Democratic candidate Joe Biden or his entourage, and "do not reveal any major scandals within the Democratic Party", adding that, while these materials are of great interest to people in the Middle East, they are unlikely to sway a significant portion of the American electorate.

*Arabic press review is a digest of reports that are not independently verified as accurate by Middle East Eye.

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Arabic press review: What is Arab media saying about the Clinton emails? - Middle East Eye

Former Senator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is calling for the Pentagon tobuy morenew B-21 Raider Long Range Bombers as part of a broader argument that the Air Force is in need of massive, fast-paced modernization.

We should welcome the arrival of the B-21 Raider, a long-range bomberunder developmentthat is designed to thwart advanced air defenses, Clinton wrote in aForeign Affairs essay.

Clinton is by no means alone. In fact, many senior Air Force leaders have been hoping to increase the number of acquired B-21s above the currently projected 100 planes planned.

An essay in Air Force Magazine, as cited byMilitary.com, quotes Global Strike Commander Timothy Ray calling for more than 200 bombers.

Weve said publicly that we think we need 220 bombers overall75 B-52s and the rest B-21s, longterm, Ray told Air Force Magazine earlier this year.

Clinton also makes theargumentthat the Pentagon should acquire fewer tactical fighter jets in favor of adding more bombers. However, many in the Air Force would also like to see both.

The U.S. Air Force will have to focus less on short-range tactical fighter planes and more on long-range capabilities, Clinton writes. By extension, Clinton says the U.S. should acquire fewer F-35s.

Upon examination, while many are in agreement that more B-21s are needed, Clintons reasoning seems somewhat flawed. B-21s, and especially stealth fighter jets such as the F-35, are needed for both longer range and closer-in short-range attacks.

Interestingly, despite the necessary and much-discussed technical emphasis now placed upondeveloping long-range, precision-guided Stand-Off weapons, Stand-In operations for Direct Attack are still very much in need, given the set of specific advantages they provide, according to a recent study released by the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies.

The report, called Long-Range Strike: Resetting the Balance of Stand-in and Stand-off Forces, makes a specific and decided point of stating that a carefully calibrated mixof both approaches is what a fast-evolving modern Air Force needs. The study points to a series of significant variables with which to make this point, such as size, shape, scope and timing of attacks.

For instance, long range attacks can lack the needed immediacy or short-response time necessary for combat operations, and larger numbers of closer-in attack platforms are vital to increasing dwell time over targets. Needless to say, a larger number of bombers can also carry a larger number of bombs. More bombs might also be important when it comes to attacking heavily defended areas with many countermeasures expected to thwart, disable or intercept attacking weapons. Hitting penetrating targets, also, can be a tactical advantage somewhat specific toStand-in weapons attacksconducted by stealthy, penetrating aircraft, the study explains.

B-2s can deliver 5,000-pound direct attack bunker buster weapons and even the 30,000-pound GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator on hardened targets, the study states.

Essentially, there will remain a clear and pressing need for attacking forces to retain an ability topenetrate heavily fortifiedand defended areas from both closer-in and longer ranges to successfully optimize offensive operations. This fundamental concept is why attack plans often follow a certain logical sequence,typically startingwith stand-off weapons to soften air defenses, to be followed by stealth bombers intended to achieve air supremacy to open a crucial air corridor through which less stealthy, fast-maneuvering fighters can attack. There may becircumstanceswherein close-in attack tactics are needed to assess shifting targets or track fast-changing combat circumstances.

Air-to-air engagements, especially when it comes to the prospect of any kind of great-power war, would doubtless be necessary as well, a circumstance underscoring the importance of having larger numbers of fighter jets such as the F-35in the force.

Kris Osborn is the new Defense Editor for the National Interest. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the ArmyAcquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Image: Reuters

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Hillary Clinton Wants Lots of B-21 Stealth Bombers - The National Interest

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) In an article by Hillary Clinton that was published Monday (Oct. 12) in Foreign Affairs, the former secretary of state argued that the U.S. is gravely unprepared for a range of 21st-century threats.

In her article entitled A National Security Reckoning: How Washington Should Think About Power, Clinton stated that the U.S. has been unable to bolster its national security and has failed to consider an approach that encompasses a wide range of threats, including intercontinental ballistic missiles, insurgencies, cyberattacks, viruses, carbon emissions, online propaganda, and shifting supply chains.

She argued that the U.S. must modernize its defense capabilities by moving away from costly legacy weapons systems built for a world that no longer exists. She also said the nation should focus more on domestic renewal, which involves supporting domestic innovation and bolstering strategically important industries and supply chains.

These dual strategies, she wrote, are mutually reinforcing. Modernizing the military would free up billions of dollars that could be invested at home in advanced manufacturing and R&D, she said.

This move, Clinton remarked, would help the U.S. compete with its rivals and prepare for non-traditional threats such as climate change and future pandemics. Furthermore, she said that it will assuage some of the economic woes caused by budget cuts at the Pentagon, adding that integrating foreign and domestic policy in this way will be an effective strategy for America to regain its foothold in an uncertain world.

The Pentagon is at risk of being caught unprepared for the very different demands of competing with China, Clinton warned.

She noted that powerful players in the Pentagon, Congress, and the private sector have built careers doing things the same way. They have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, she wrote.

Clinton stressed that the Pentagon must adapt to a strategic landscape vastly different from the one it faced during the Cold War or the War on Terror. She also noted that new technologies such as artificial intelligence have rendered many old systems obsolete and created opportunities that no country has yet mastered but many are seeking.

Clinton stated that while the American military has been fighting costly wars in the Middle East, China has been investing in cost-effective anti-access/area-denial weapons, such as anti-ship ballistic missiles, which pose a threat to U.S. aircraft carriers.

She suggested that a renewed commitment to diplomacy would strengthen the U.S. military position. Additionally, Clinton warned that the U.S. should not be lulled into a false sense of security by its continuing firepower advantage or the fact that its defense budget remains orders of magnitude larger than Beijings.

She said that Chinas advances have become a new type of asymmetric threat, which means that Americas air and sea superiority in the Indo-Pacific region is no longer ensured.

Deep savings over the next decade can and should be found by retiring legacy weapons systems, Clinton wrote. She stated that the U.S. should significantly reduce its reliance on aging intercontinental ballistic missiles, pursue a newer and fewer approach to modernization, and revive the arms control diplomacy that the Trump administration scrapped.

In terms of domestic renewal, Clinton recommended that the country pursue a plan similar to the one proposed by former Vice President Joe Biden to invest US$700 billion in innovation and manufacturing and impose stronger Buy American provisions. This, she believes, will help boost domestic production in key sectors, such as the steel, robotics, and biotechnology industries, which in turn will assist in reshoring sensitive supply chains and expanding strategic stockpiles of essential goods.

Massive new investments in advanced manufacturing and R&D will be costly, Clinton acknowledged, but she stressed that they are necessary for the nation's long-term economic and security interests. She added that military modernization and domestic renewal must be simultaneous in order to bring advanced manufacturing and R&D to the places most affected by defense cuts.

Clinton concluded by saying that if done properly, the U.S. can minimize the economic damage and maximize its ability to compete with China and prepare for future challenges.

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Hillary Clinton addresses current threats to US in Foreign Affairs article - Taiwan News