(3-minute read)
Nope.
At his rallies the rapist Trump claims that he’s winning in all the polls. Is he? Nope. Not even close. Out of the last 85 national polls that I checked Trump was ahead only in 3 of them by 1 point and 5 had them even. There are LOTs of polls and various interpretations as to what they all mean.[1]
As we get through the last month before the 2024 election, polls are currently showing a tightening of the increase in support for the Harris Walz ticket. According to 538 the Harris/Walz ticket is consistently running over 2.5% over the Trump/Vance ticket.
Just briefly a note about the 538 polls. Nate Silver sold 538 a couple of years ago and is no longer involved with 538.[2] Silver took his polls with him. ABC now owns 538. Those that staff 538 use a variety of criteria to establish the weight/accuracy of all the polls that they aggregate together. They simply provide a snapshot of potential outcomes in various races.
Keep in mind that poll aggregators lump low quality polls with those that do a much better job like the New York Times/Siena College polling.[3] 538 says they weed those out but that still leaves mixed quality polls factored together. At best the trends are what prognosticators look at.
A man named Allan Lichtman doesn’t use polls at all for his election predictions. Lichtman has been doing this for 40 years and 10 races. He uses something he calls keys to predict outcomes and has been consistently right with the exception of Gore v Bush. (He actually predicted that result correctly except for the interference of the Supreme Court).[4] He predicts that VP Kamala Harris and Tim Walz will win.[5]
Harris and Walz trended upwards when they became the nominees of the Democratic Party and finally stabilized around an aggregated 2.5% lead in the national polls. While leading in some battle ground states they are behind in others. In red states independent voters appear to be breaking for Trump. I do think that Trump’s support is being underestimated.
The red battleground states are why MAGA Republicans will never go for eliminating the electoral college. It’s where their strength is; that and being willing to overturn votes and ignore their oath of office.
There are a lot of unknown factors in polling. Newly registered voters are not being polled but there are educated guesses about which way they might break. Red state MAGA Republicans have purged a few million voters from the rolls nationally. The leftist candidate Jill Stein could pull a few hundred thousand votes nationally and enough votes in battleground states to throw the election to Trump. Some Muslim and Arab voters will withhold their votes from VP Kamala because they’re upset about what’s taking place in Gaza. They could also be the deciding factor in getting the rapist Trump elected. The phrase cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face comes to mind.
Here are a couple of takeaways. Polls in past elections leading up to this one have been notoriously wrong in picking winners and losers. Pollsters will argue about the “wrong” part because they always have the caveat that they’re just making educated guesses. The main takeaway is this. It’s going to be close.
Every vote counts.
[1] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4889632-latest-polls-white-house-race/
[2] https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/05/fivethirtyeight-hires-g-elliott-morris-loses-nate-silver.html
[3] https://www.newsweek.com/kamala-harris-pennsylvania-poll-lead-donald-trump-1968067
[4] https://www.usatoday.com/story/graphics/2024/09/29/allan-lichtman-election-prediction-system-explained/75352476007/
[5] https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4920904-allan-lichtman-kamala-harris-october-surprise-2024/
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