2024 Political Polls

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aGDevil2k said:
Nate's always been in the "well you release what you get and it evens out over time" kind of mindset. Which is fair...but also why one poll can just seem soooo off. Polls never were supposed to be a media story (not a singular poll). But alas....

It also happens as polls are getting worse because no one answers them. Not only are landlines basically gone, but now with screening people arent answering unknown numbers or texts.
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The risk of NYT polling is that, unlike most major polling companies, it gets an enormous built-in platform and an aura of authority because of the NYT’s (well-deserved) reputation. If this were a Gallup or Ipsos poll, nobody would struggle with seeing it as an outlier within the MOE. But because it has the NYT imprimatur, it gets outsized attention.

The reality is it changes nothing. Kamala still has a modest lead nationally, and is doing fine, albeit not great, in the battleground states. I continue to stand by my view that, barring a major mistake, Kamala will win. That’s not likely to change unless something truly historical (like Covid) happens in the next two months.
 
Geisterfahrer said:
Seems unlikely to me Nate Cohn would knowingly sanction a poll with obviously slanted sampling.
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Indeed. Not coincidentally, I can't find anything obviously slanted in the poll sample. The 56% evangelical number was BS. The 45% "too liberal" versus 9% "not progressive enough" is exactly what you'd expect. Most of Trump's supporters are going to view her as too liberal, so 45% is a good estimate. 9% of "not progressive enough" also seems about right, given that the majority of these people are saying they will vote for Harris. The vast majority of her supporters said she was the right ideology, which isn't surprising given that they are going to vote for her.
 
superrific said:
Indeed. Not coincidentally, I can't find anything obviously slanted in the poll sample. The 56% evangelical number was BS. The 45% "too liberal" versus 9% "not progressive enough" is exactly what you'd expect. Most of Trump's supporters are going to view her as too liberal, so 45% is a good estimate. 9% of "not progressive enough" also seems about right, given that the majority of these people are saying they will vote for Harris. The vast majority of her supporters said she was the right ideology, which isn't surprising given that they are going to vote for her.
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Agree. It’s basically just one poll that’s on the lower side of the MOE. If anything, it suggests the 2-4 point national lead for Kamala reflected in the modeling is probably about right. That number needs to be 5 or 6 for everyone to sleep well on election night, but she has a much better chance of getting to that margin than Trump does of bringing it down to 1 or 2.
 
Polling is always sketchy, especially for Trump support. I think the Kamala campaign is probably at least a little concerned at this point. You'd have to wonder if she regrets not selecting Shapiro, which would have all but guaranteed a win in the state.
 
Polls deserve scrutiny and reasonable skepticism, along with all the usual accurate caveats about being a snapshot in time, subject to MOE and necessarily use models based on past voting habits rather than being able to predict the future.

All that said, the side unskewing the polls is usually losing.
 
ZenMode said:
Polling is always sketchy, especially for Trump support. I think the Kamala campaign is probably at least a little concerned at this point. You'd have to wonder if she regrets not selecting Shapiro, which would have all but guaranteed a win in the state.
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Why would selecting Shapiro as VP “guarantee” a win in PA but Shapiro campaigning even more frequently in PA on Harris’s behalf while not on the ticket, not guarantee it?

I don’t think you have to wonder at all if Kamala regrets her VP pick. Her selection of Tim Walz has been even more resoundingly spectacular of a success than even the most hopeful and optimistic Democratic partisan could have envisioned.
 
CFordUNC said:
Why would selecting Shapiro as VP “guarantee” a win in PA but Shapiro campaigning even more frequently in PA on Harris’s behalf while not on the ticket, not guarantee it?

I don’t think you have to wonder at all if Kamala regrets her VP pick. Her selection of Tim Walz has been even more resoundingly spectacular of a success than even the most hopeful and optimistic Democratic partisan could have envisioned.
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Walz has been a home run. Shapiro is working his tail off to help in PA, and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference if he was on the ticket.
 
aGDevil2k said:
. . .. It also happens as polls are getting worse because no one answers them. Not only are landlines basically gone, but now with screening people arent answering unknown nunumber or texts.
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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?
 
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.
 
aGDevil2k said:
It also happens as polls are getting worse because no one answers them. Not only are landlines basically gone, but now with screening people arent answering unknown numbers or texts.
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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...
 
05C40 said:
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?
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www.pewresearch.org

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 www.pewresearch.org
 
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