News Information and Media Site: Stability amid a storm ... what to watch for when you're electing

From NBC's Ben Kamisar

If it's Sunday, the national polling remains stable.

One of the few constants in a chaotic campaign year has the stability of the national polling— except for the brief plunge in President Donald Trump's numbers after the first debate.

That remains true in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, released Sunday, which found former Vice President Joe Biden maintaining a double-digit lead over Trump with majorities believing the country is on the wrong track and disapproving of Trump's virus response.

Biden leads 52 percent to 42 percent, the poll shows, the latest evidence that amid one of the most unstable times in recent American history, there has been some remarkable political stability.

Biden's lead is built on a strong showing with Black, young, older, women and independent voters, along with whites with college degrees.

Trump's base is powered by white voters and specifically white voters without college degrees.

Biden leads by 6 points among those in the 12 combined battleground states of Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

And history has shown that an incumbent president's final job approval rating can be a solid predictor of his final re-election percentage: Trump's is at 45 percent approval in the new NBC News /WSJ poll.

Trump has always had the ability for his Electoral College total to overperform his popular-vote total. And the poll's margin of error suggests a tighter race is possible.

But unlike in 2016, when Trump began gaining in late polling, the 2020 polling is still staying relatively stable.

Click on the photo below to watch our interview with the pollsters who helped bring us the latest NBC News/WSJ poll.

A '100-year flood of voters'

With early-vote turnout going through the roof — with Texas and Hawaii already passing their total 2016 turnout — Tuesday will mark a truly unprecedented election.

The big question for many, though, is, how will states fare while counting the vote? And will lawsuits or administrative missteps frustrate attempts to declare a rightful winner?

Today on "Meet the Press," Chuck spoke with one of those key officials tasked with counting the vote — Pennsylvania Sec. of State Kathy Boockvar.

Boockvar pushed back against the idea, pushed by President Trump, that all votes need to be counted on Election Day, arguing that "elections have never been called on election night" and that military ballots have always come in days after Election Day.

As she pushes to "make sure that every single vote of every valid voter is securely and accurately counted," Boockvar had a message for voters: "Ignore the lawsuits, ignore the hype, just get your ballots in today."

Nate Persily, the Stanford Law School professor and NBC News legal analyst, noted that there have been already more than 300 election lawsuits across the country this election.

But he cautioned that with a "100-year flood of voters" we're seeing this election, that there's no indication of a "big problem" and that local election administrators are the "unsung heroes" of this election.

"This is sort of the legacy of Bush versus Gore 20 years ago is that the lawyers are becoming an important part of the campaign as well."

—Nate Persily on "Meet the Press."

Click to watch the full interviews with both Boockvar and Persily.

Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images

TWEETS OF THE DAY: Polls on polls on polls

DATA DOWNLOAD: What to expect when you're electing

With key swing states sporting variable poll closing times and a myriad of complex ballot-counting procedures, it may be easy to feel overwhelmed trying to suss out what to make of the election results trickling out on Tuesday.

But that's where this week's Data Download comes in.

Click on the graphic below for a guide on what to watch for, and when to watch for it.

ICYMI: Biden leading Latinos by 2-to-1 margin

In the quest to leave no stone unturned ahead of Tuesday's election, NBC News/WSJ/Telemundo took a deeper dive into Latino voters and found Biden's lead similar to that of Hillary Clinton in 2016.

But the numbers from our new poll also found that those Latino registered voters aren't as engaged as some other demographic groups.

A clear majority (67 percent) rate their interest in the election at a 9 or a 10 out of 10, but that's a smaller portion than white and Black voters who feel that way.

Click here to read more from the poll, including analysis of the striking gender gap.