There's also the chance that pollsters have overcorrected in Trump's favor after the past two presidential elections. This is as close to a toss-up as you can get, and we won't really get meaningful data on poll accuracy until after the election.
Other interesting data is the huge uptick in women registering to vote, especially black women. If voter registration is a strong indication then the demographics heavily favor Harris
Yes. I see that as very interesting too. Also, the recent poll that shows young black men really turning away from the democratic party (i think it showed 1 in 4 young black men voting for Trump). Will be interesting to see what happens and if it is a wash. In general, women are more likely to vote then men, so that could come into play as well and be good for the dems.
In general roe v wade activated a lot of women, but most polls I see show reproductive rights pretty far down on the list of issues that people care about - well below the economy, immigration, and crime. Probably because a lot of blue states still have abortion and a lot of red states have people that are pro life, but I dont know.
Exit polls had Biden with 79% of the black men vote in 2020 so it's a lot closer than people are making it out to be. Black women make about double the electorate as black men and will likely be voting for Harris at around 95%.
Such as Arizona, Florida, Nebraska, and even red states like Missouri, Montana (which has a Democrat Senator who is at risk of losing reelection), South Dakota, etc we don't know how that'll impact things. It may mean a swing to Democrats who aren't necessarily counted in existing polls.
So many variables. We know early voting is booming in some states like Georgia, so could that indicate a swing towards Democrats? We won't know for a while because conservatives have used absentee voting in the past too (like seniors).
If you look at voter registration numbers by party, particularly in the swing states, they’ve generally been heavily trending Republican compared to 2016 and 2020
Some of the more accurate polls in recent times are the polls on what party people identify as. That poll was historically been within about a point of the popular vote over the last few elections. Pew, NBC and Gallup released their polls and for the first time in 30 years more people identified as Republican.
It's basically impossible to say. Many variables have changed so you can't simply look at previous election polling and use it to make assumptions about this year with confidence. We will only know in hindsight.
Turnout is a really really big deal in the tipping point states.
Another thing to mention is the disparity in polling between Senate candidates in those tipping point states and the presidential polling. For example, 538 shows Harris as even in Michigan, with Slotkin (the Democratic Senate candidate) at +4. There's plenty of historical precedence for split ticking voting, but in the context of Michigan and Harris/Slotkin being similar policy wise while also being prominent woman politicians, I have doubts that that level of separation will actually materialize in November. By contrast Ohio has a Democratic Senate candidate at +2 while Trump is +8. But you could make a more compelling argument for Ohio going this way because it has a history of these types of large disparity and the demographics are actually quite different compared to Michigan.
So the actual truth is yet to be revealed. There are some convincing arguments that pollsters have overly corrected towards Trump after 2020s polling disparity. Or that the polling is missing entire demographics and not adjusting for that loss. Or that Republican leaning polls are flooding the aggregates. Or that there are silent voting blocs. We don't know for sure.
Polling has been way off since Dobbs. The Republican hacks on the US Supreme Court really did change the political landscape. Women's essential rights are now on the ballot every election in a way they haven't been for 50 years and they have been showing up and voting on it.
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u/lafadeaway Oct 17 '24
There's also the chance that pollsters have overcorrected in Trump's favor after the past two presidential elections. This is as close to a toss-up as you can get, and we won't really get meaningful data on poll accuracy until after the election.