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2024 Pre-Election Political Polls | POLL - Trump would have had 7 point lead over Biden
- Thread starter nycfan
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lawtig02
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I’m sorry but this is dumb as hell in light of recent high quality polling.
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Which raises the question, how are polls conducted these days? I'm 70 and don't have a landlines, don't answer unknown numbers, and delete without reading any emails/texts I don't recognize. And I am in the age group that is supposedly oversampled?
superrific
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The NYT poll suggests that the Genocide Joe idiots are still there in the voting sample. In the "other" category (which includes don't know, refused, and green/lib party candidates), 7% of the respondents are Middle Eastern, compared to less than 1% of the Kamala and Trump respondents. And of the most important issues among the others, Palestine ranks second, just below cost of living (13% total).
The good news is that 48% of the other group wants to know more about Kamala, as opposed to only 18% who want to know more about Trump. And what they want to know is about her policies. This tells me that the uncommitted folks are listening for Kamala to spell out her policies about Gaza.
Also, 17% of "other vote" is black, as is 17% of the Kamala support (no, this does not mean that "other" black voters are as numerous as Kamala black voters). And Trump is getting only about 17% of the two-candidate black vote. So there are a fair number of black undecideds. Pair that with them wanting to hear more about Kamala's policies, and I think there is upside there for her. If we assume that the "other" black voters are likely to break for Harris 5-1, that could give her an extra point. I suspect that there are also RFK supporters in there, who don't know, perhaps, that he has dropped out. They are low-information voters, after all.
Kamala also does better with the "almost certain" to vote folks than with the "likely to vote" folks, though the difference is modest at most. The "other" voters disproportionately voted for Biden last time, and they generally have a very unfavorable view of Trump (more than Kamala). The "other" voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice, and the plurality report household income between 100-200K.
So what I'm seeing in the other vote are three primary groups of about equal size, making up 60-75% of the total cohort.:
1. Libertarians.
2. Black voters who soured on Biden but haven't yet warmed up to Kamala. These voters might also have been supporting RFK.
3. "Uncommitted" Dems. This group is actually a bit smaller than the first two, but not so much.
One presumes that Kamala has some upside in groups 2 and 3.
The good news is that 48% of the other group wants to know more about Kamala, as opposed to only 18% who want to know more about Trump. And what they want to know is about her policies. This tells me that the uncommitted folks are listening for Kamala to spell out her policies about Gaza.
Also, 17% of "other vote" is black, as is 17% of the Kamala support (no, this does not mean that "other" black voters are as numerous as Kamala black voters). And Trump is getting only about 17% of the two-candidate black vote. So there are a fair number of black undecideds. Pair that with them wanting to hear more about Kamala's policies, and I think there is upside there for her. If we assume that the "other" black voters are likely to break for Harris 5-1, that could give her an extra point. I suspect that there are also RFK supporters in there, who don't know, perhaps, that he has dropped out. They are low-information voters, after all.
Kamala also does better with the "almost certain" to vote folks than with the "likely to vote" folks, though the difference is modest at most. The "other" voters disproportionately voted for Biden last time, and they generally have a very unfavorable view of Trump (more than Kamala). The "other" voters are overwhelmingly pro-choice, and the plurality report household income between 100-200K.
So what I'm seeing in the other vote are three primary groups of about equal size, making up 60-75% of the total cohort.:
1. Libertarians.
2. Black voters who soured on Biden but haven't yet warmed up to Kamala. These voters might also have been supporting RFK.
3. "Uncommitted" Dems. This group is actually a bit smaller than the first two, but not so much.
One presumes that Kamala has some upside in groups 2 and 3.
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I answered a pollster a couple of months ago and since then my phone has blown up. I don't really recall ever getting a call from a pollster, but I'm probably misremembering. But yet and still, I am certain I've never gotten more than a few calls from pollsters ever. This year I've received dozens of calls and texts (I've answered 3 or 4 of them). Sample size of one (me), obviously, but it sure seems like if you answer a pollster, your name get put into the nationwide "we've got a live one" pool...
lawtig02
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Key things to know about U.S. election polling in 2024
Polls are more useful to the public if people have realistic expectations about what surveys can do well – and what they cannot.
www.pewresearch.org
superrific
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No, it's true. If Kamala wins the popular vote by 2%, it means Trump probably wins the presidency.
I'm a couple of years older and do exactly the same thing.
aGDevil2k
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Does this forum have the option to super ignore posts that feature Nate Thiel?
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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This reminds me of the folks saying that Nate was dumb as hell giving Trump a 25% chance in 2016.
Remember: Biden won the popular vote by 4.5% and barely won the election in the EC. I know you know that, because above you wrote that the lead needs to be 5-7 to feel comfortable headed into election day.
I feel pretty confident that Nate's model is solid. It isn't necessarily better than the current 538 model, but there's no reason to think that Nate made his model worse. You can question his choices about the inclusion of junk polling, but there are good arguments both ways on that.
superrific
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Nate Silver has his issues, but I see no reason to think that he's putting his thumb on the scale in his model. It would be professional suicide.
Unless he's found a comfortable sinecure.
aGDevil2k
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I don't think he is.
I just find him repulsive at this point. Just in it for the $$ and the fame. Dude loves to get clicks and attention. He didn't used to be like that. But it got exponentially worse after ABC let him go
lawtig02
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Let’s just step back from the polling for a second. Nate’s model just gave Trump his highest odds of winning at any point in this campaign — EVER. Higher than after the catastrophic Biden debate. Higher than after Trump was almost assassinated. Higher than anytime in the following weeks when Biden was a dead man walking. Higher than at any point before Kamala’s recent surge.
What could possibly have happened in the last couple of weeks that would move the election so strongly in Trump’s favor? There’s literally nothing. If Kamala bombs tomorrow’s debate, that could do it. If Russia nukes Kiev, that could do it. If Covid 4.0 — The Reckoning, starts laying waste to our cities over the next couple of months, that could do it. But there’s just no reason a model should be swinging that much based on anything that has actually happened in real life.
I don’t have any beef against Silver. I agree he’s trying to do a good job. But whatever he’s picking up on now is almost certainly BS, and I don’t see any way around that.
superrific
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1. In fairness, you kind of have to do that if you're trying to make a living off substack. When he built 538, he was the only game in town. No longer.
2. OTOH I think he considers himself a professional poker player at this point. No idea how much he makes off that. So maybe the professional suicide isn't as big a deal to him.
superrific
Legend of ZZL
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1. There is still a convention bounce in there for Kamala, as I understand it. It's small, but it's present. So maybe Trump would be doing 5% worse if not for that.
2. More importantly, the model is designed to do exactly this. I don't think I need to go through a hypo for you, but I'll do so for the sake of the general reading population.
Suppose there's a presidential race, and one candidate is winning by 10 points in February. What are the odds that the candidate will win the election? If you go by the polls alone, probably close to 100%. It would take a massive polling error to make up 10 points, even with the EC. But it's still Feb, which means a lot can change. I would guess that the model would give about a 70% chance for the winning candidate to win -- the other 30% being uncertainty about what will happen in the future.
Now, over time, the polls do narrow a bit, but on November 1, the leading candidate is still up 6. The odds of that candidate winning the election would be much higher, like 90%+. The reduced uncertainty more than compensates for the reduced poll margin. At this point, really the only thing the losing candidate can hope for is a really pronounced EC effect or a large polling error.
3. In a way, this is a lot like pricing stock options. A 1-Y call option with a strike price of 50 for a stock trading at 40 will usually trade for more than a 1-mo option with a strike price of 45, even though it's less favorable on its own terms. The time to maturity makes a huge difference.
lawtig02
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Yes, I agree with that analysis of the modeling. I just don’t get what Nate’s model is seeing, especially anticipating the next two months. If he had Kamala favored 60-40, or even 55-45, I would get it. But I don’t see anything in the data, or in future prognostications, that should put Trump ahead in the modeling by his largest margin to date.
Ddseddse
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What Trump is doing, you're not seeing, because you are not in a media bubble primarily comprised of one of the following 4 constituencies (all of which represent "secret" upsides where trump can gain new voters outside of what we view as his hard upside limit:
- protestant (evangelical) Hispanics
- disaffected young black men
- disaffected bro culture young (primarily white) men
- Anti-communist hispanics (e.g. Cubans, but many others; here's where the Komrade Kamala attacks and memes are pointed)
In any event modest gains in those constituencies could swing a close election. Take a moment to be scared, and then go work your ass off to save the country you love. If you've never knocked on doors before it may seem intimating, but if an introvert like me can do it, you can too.