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2024 Pre-Election Political Polls | POLL - Trump would have had 7 point lead over Biden

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HeelYeah2012 said:
Gotcha. So basically if Trump wins the Sun Belt states, he only needs one of the blue wall states to win the election. Then where it gets complicated is if Trump loses a sun belt state or two but wins a blue wall state or two. I need to play around more with that “270 to win” website.

So with Trump leading in the consensus polling, I guess your confidence comes from some combo of a) some biased Republican polls are included in RCP, and b) maybe the pollsters as a whole have over corrected after underestimating Trump in 2016 and 2020?

I read this board so that I don’t find myself in an echo chamber on the right, but now I’m wondering if by getting a good portion of my political news here it’s caused me to be in an echo chamber of the left and now I’ve been underestimating Trump’s chances too much.
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Correct, if Trump wins the Sun Belt then he only needs to pick off one of the Blue Wall states- doesn't matter which- to win the election.

Everyone's mileage may vary, but I'm not someone who puts too much stock into the polls, so I'd say that my confidence comes from having virtually every single one of the fundamental intangibles in Harris's favor and almost none in Trump's favor. I'd feel that way whether Harris was up in the aggregate polling or down in the aggregate polling. I trust things like: grassroots volunteer efforts, fundraising totals, new voter registrations, trends in Democratic turnout over the last 8 years, overperformance of Democrats vs. underperformance of Republicans since Dobbs, the economy doing so well at present, and Trump completely unraveling on the stump before our very eyes. All of those things combine to make me believe Harris is winning, has been winning, and will ultimately win the election. I've felt that way since shortly after July 21 and nothing has occurred to change my view in the slightest. I had definitely resigned myself to Trump winning between June 27 and July 21. I haven't felt like Trump would win since around the week of the DNC, and my belief that he will win has only retreated further since then.

I'd say you've only been underestimating Trump's chances if you felt like he only had like a 25-35% chance of winning. It's much closer to 40/60 or 45/55 in my estimation.
 
CFordUNC said:
Correct, if Trump wins the Sun Belt then he only needs to pick off one of the Blue Wall states- doesn't matter which- to win the election.

Everyone's mileage may vary, but I'm not someone who puts too much stock into the polls, so I'd say that my confidence comes from having virtually every single one of the fundamental intangibles in Harris's favor and almost none in Trump's favor. I'd feel that way whether Harris was up in the aggregate polling or down in the aggregate polling. I trust things like: grassroots volunteer efforts, fundraising totals, new voter registrations, trends in Democratic turnout over the last 8 years, overperformance of Democrats vs. underperformance of Republicans since Dobbs, the economy doing so well at present, and Trump completely unraveling on the stump before our very eyes. All of those things combine to make me believe Harris is winning, has been winning, and will ultimately win the election. I've felt that way since shortly after July 21 and nothing has occurred to change my view in the slightest. I had definitely resigned myself to Trump winning between June 27 and July 21. I haven't felt like Trump would win since around the week of the DNC, and my belief that he will win has only retreated further since then.

I'd say you've only been underestimating Trump's chances if you felt like he only had like a 25-35% chance of winning. It's much closer to 40/60 or 45/55 in my estimation.
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25% Trump and 75% Harris is about where I am, so yeah maybe I’m underestimating DJT.

As to your other point, I’ve always viewed the things you mentioned as the “inputs” and the polls as the best “output” we have.

To use a basketball analogy, the items you mentioned are like a team showing crisp ball movement, high IQ plays, boxing out well, taking smart shots, etc… things that all normally lead to good outcomes in a vacuum. But if a team is doing all those things but still trialing on the scoreboard, all it means is they’d be losing by even more if not for some other subset of things, like maybe the other team is just better.

I know polling is an inexact science so it’s not really “the scoreboard” per se - we won’t know the real scoreboard until election night - or maybe a couple days after depending on how it looks for Trump :) - but what I’m saying is, it’s possible all the factors you mentioned are why Harris even has this thing in toss-up territory when otherwise she would be losing by more based on inflation, immigration, gender nonsense, wars breaking out, etc. Biden was about to lose badly for those same reasons, and Harris becoming the nominee has resulted in most of what you mentioned, to get everything back to basically even, where the polling is…
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
25% Trump and 75% Harris is about where I am, so yeah maybe I’m underestimating DJT.

As to your other point, I’ve always viewed the things you mentioned as the “inputs” and the polls as the best “output” we have.

To use a basketball analogy, the items you mentioned are like a team showing crisp ball movement, high IQ plays, boxing out well, taking smart shots, etc… things that all normally lead to good outcomes in a vacuum. But if a team is doing all those things but still trialing on the scoreboard, all it means is they’d be losing by even more if not for some other subset of things, like maybe the other team is just better.

I know polling is an in exact science so it’s not really “the scoreboard” per se - we won’t know the real scoreboard until election night - or maybe a couple days after depending on how it looks for Trump :) - but what I’m saying is, it’s possible all the factors you mentioned are why Harris even has this thing in toss-up territory when otherwise she would be losing by more based on inflation, immigration, gender nonsense, wars breaking out, etc
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Oh yeah, if you've got Trump's chances at 25% you're wayyyyy underestimating him, IMO.

There are enough variables that polls don't/can't capture for me to put too much stock in them either way, and like I said, I'd feel that way regardless of which side the polls showed to be "winning." It's why when the Siena/NYT polls last week that were so great for Harris came out, I didn't feel like it changed my view of where the race stands. Essentially what has happened is that Trump had a very small but very steady lead leading up to the June 27 debate, and then after the debate disaster for Biden, Trump maintained that small but steady lead up through around the first few weeks of August, when Harris assumed a very small but very steady lead, where she's been ever since, obviously with some variability allowed due to MOE.

The reason why I think that the inputs that I described are a better tell of where the race stands rather than simply going by polls is because I can't think of another presidential campaign- certainly not one in my lifetime- where one side has run such a crisp, efficient, organized campaign with almost limitless money and volunteers, and the other side has run a campaign that would be too unserious even for an SNL skit in normal times, and yet the side with less money, less grassroots efforts, and less enthusiasm wins the election. Trump won in 2016 because his campaign had the grassroots efforts, the energy and enthusiasm, the excitement, etc. and Hillary's campaign was essentially running out the clock.
 
aGDevil2k said:
He said tonight is been going very well so far in turnout, we have the far better ground game and more money, both of which are key down the stretch.

He said he's very happy to be us
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Definitely agree with that. You'd much, much rather be in the D's position right now than the R's, IMO. That's not to say that the R's can't win, of course. But they are currently at a disadvantage in terms of money, volunteerism, general energy and enthusiasm, messaging, etc.
 
CFordUNC said:
Oh yeah, if you've got Trump's chances at 25% you're wayyyyy underestimating him, IMO.

There are enough variables that polls don't/can't capture for me to put too much stock in them either way, and like I said, I'd feel that way regardless of which side the polls showed to be "winning." It's why when the Siena/NYT polls last week that were so great for Harris came out, I didn't feel like it changed my view of where the race stands. Essentially what has happened is that Trump had a very small but very steady lead leading up to the June 27 debate, and then after the debate disaster for Biden, Trump maintained that small but steady lead up through around the first few weeks of August, when Harris assumed a very small but very steady lead, where she's been ever since, obviously with some variability allowed due to MOE.

The reason why I think that the inputs that I described are a better tell of where the race stands rather than simply going by polls is because I can't think of another presidential campaign- certainly not one in my lifetime- where one side has run such a crisp, efficient, organized campaign with almost limitless money and volunteers, and the other side has run a campaign that would be too unserious even for an SNL skit in normal times, and yet the side with less money, less grassroots efforts, and less enthusiasm wins the election. Trump won in 2016 because his campaign had the grassroots efforts, the energy and enthusiasm, the excitement, etc. and Hillary's campaign was essentially running out the clock.
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Yeah I don’t disagree. If Trump wins it’ll be because people at the margins think the Biden/Harris administration was a disaster and their dollar stretched further during Trump’s presidency. It certainly won’t be because Trump ran a flawless campaign.
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
Yeah I don’t disagree. If Trump wins it’ll be because people at the margins think the Biden/Harris administration was a disaster and their dollar stretched further during Trump’s presidency. It certainly won’t be because Trump ran a flawless campaign.
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Yep. I think that's right. In general, my belief for quite a while now has been simply that the only way that Trump wins is if Democrats, Democratically-inclined independents (I'd put myself in that camp), Never Trump Republicans, etc. don't get their asses out and vote. And if they don't, they have nobody to blame but themselves.
 
And I maintain that the best way for Republicans to get good candidates back, that moderates can vote for, is to vote for Harris and we have to rid our country of maga. Do that and republicans can do very very well in coming elections.
 
lightbluenc said:
And I maintain that the best way for Republicans to get good candidates back, that moderates can vote for, is to vote for Harris and we have to rid our country of maga. Do that and republicans can do very very well in coming elections.
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That's definitely the first step, for sure. Hell, I'd absolutely love to have a reason to be able to pull the lever for a Republican presidential candidate in the future. It will certainly be fascinating to watch what happens post-Trump (hopefully we can begin the process of finding that out in just a hair over two weeks). I don't think that the GOP is going to be able to seamlessly switch from MAGA to non-MAGA. It's going to take getting rid of not just Trump, but the JD Vance's, Ron DeSantis's, Ted Cruz's, MTG's, Nancy Mace's, etc. as well. None of them have the ability to command the cult following like Trump, IMO, but none of them are going to fade silently into the non-Trump night, either, IMO.

I actually think that what is more likely to happen in the shorter-to-mid-term is that the Democratic Party will move even more towards the center as it incorporates many of the non-MAGA moderate conservatives into the tent. I think that we are probably looking at an era of center-right governance; I think that the progressive flavor of the mid-2010's and early 2020's has passed for now (I don't mean that to seem like I'm implying that progressivism is inherently bad or anything). I also think that once Trump is truly vanquished, and nobody on the right wing has the ability to commandeer the cult, the Republican Party as it is currently constructed is going to struggle to win national elections until the MAGA movement is once again relegated to the fringes.
 
Here is a really good analysis of the importance of the gender gap in this year’s election. It essentially says that if the gender gap stays the same as 2020, Kamala Harris will have a good election. If women turnout higher than 2020- which I think we all expect- thus widening the gap, Harris could have a really damn good election.

www.brookings.edu

How gender gaps could tip the presidential race in 2024

Elaine Kamarck looks at how the gender gap among voters will affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
www.brookings.edu www.brookings.edu
 
CFordUNC said:
Here is a really good analysis of the importance of the gender gap in this year’s election. It essentially says that if the gender gap stays the same as 2020, Kamala Harris will have a good election. If women turnout higher than 2020- which I think we all expect- thus widening the gap, Harris could have a really damn good election.

www.brookings.edu

How gender gaps could tip the presidential race in 2024

Elaine Kamarck looks at how the gender gap among voters will affect the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.
www.brookings.edu www.brookings.edu
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Great link. Thanks for this.

“… In the last presidential election,women accounted for 54.7% of the electorate and men accounted for 44%. And of course, there are simply more adult women than men in the population, especially among the elderly.2 In the seven swing states we looked at for this analysis, women composed a larger share of the electorate in 2020 than men, with one exception, Wisconsin, where, according to exit polls, 50% were men and 50% were women. …”
 
HeelYeah2012 said:
My wife and I welcomed a new baby girl so I’ve been stretched a little thin and not following the race as closely. Saw a lot of doomsday posts on this thread so I was looking around some, and I’ll admit I didn’t realize that Trump is ahead in the RCP average for every single swing state.

Georgia: Trump +1.8%
Arizona: Trump +1.6%
Michigan: Trump +1.2%
Nevada: Trump +0.8%
Pennsylvania: Trump +0.8%
North Carolina: Trump +0.5%
Wisconsin: Trump +0.2%

Question for the board - who wins the election if Trump wins Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina and Pennsylvania but Harris wins Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin? Would Pennsylvania be the tipping point state in that fact pattern and thus Trump would win?
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Congrats on your baby girl, HY2012!
 
treblkickd said:
I just read through a few things that popped up, and what I saw was no clear consensus - some papers seem to argue that betting markets are better predictors (e.g., your link, and this), others argue that they are worse (example, example), some argue that it's unclear what performs better (example) or that they contain the same information (link). So in short, I don't see how any sensible person could survey that literature and come to the conclusion that betting markets are more accurate than polls.

As someone who's career is built around figuring out ways to measure things robustly, one thing that has irritated me in the post-538 era (these poll-conglomerating "models") is that there is never an honest discussion about actual information content. Or to put it another way, what, if any, significance is there to someone's fancy model assigning 55% "probability" for one candidate to win? It doesn't take a fancy model to quickly assess that the range of plausible outcomes for the US presidential election has 2 possibilities. The simplest model one could build would then be a coin flip - in fact I've just constructed such a model! I even ran 10,000 simulations of the election, and guess what, it's a real horse race with Kamala Harris winning 50.7% of the time, and Trump winning 49.3% of the time. How in the world would one ever construct a statistical test to robustly show that my coin flip model is less predictive than the NYT or 538 or whatever simulator giving one candidate a 53% chance and the other a 47% change. Do you know how many elections for which you'd have to have actual data (results) to be able to distinguish in a statistically robust way that the NYT/538 models are fundamentally different from a coin flip? The answer is a lot, but we just get the one.
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This is a very strong 8th post. Coming from a man with 1000% more posts than you no less.
 
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