Kamala’s lead keeps dwindling. JFC this is pitiful.

[StormHawk42]

She needs to get her fuking ass on tv doing town halls. The statistics show that when people see and hear her, they like her and want to know more about her.

The thing with Oprah doesn’t count. She needs to be on CNN or one of the prime time networks. People will watch so idk why her campaign isn’t setting those up. Frustrating.

Having said all that, the pollercoaster goes up and down. Even though the margins are tightening, she’s knocking on the door of 50% in a lot of states and nationally. Trump outperformed polls in 2020 but still has a cap of around 48% and that’s where he’s polling. Many pollsters, including NYT, have said they’ve adjusted methodology to try to recapture some of the hidden Trump vote.

 

[binsfeldcyhawk2]

The thing with Oprah doesn’t count. She needs to be on CNN or one of the prime time networks. People will watch so idk why her campaign isn’t setting those up. Frustrating.

I agree but her campaign thinks she'll F it up. Which is why she avoids it.

 

[3 and Out on D]

In the corporate and right wing media, there are no standards for Trump in the same sentence he can contradict himself and they are all good with it.

 

[Aardvark86]

It's hard to get a grasp on the polls. Some of these shifts make no sense. Take the NYT poll for example. Trump has an insanely bad month, while Harris has a really good one, and the NYT gives him a 9 point bump. What drove this 9 points? It makes no sense.

1. Honestly, in these big picture national polls, Kamala is doing just fine. I doubt that any changes are material, taking account margin of error, even taking account averaging across multiple polls. And in any event, national polls are 90% irrelevant; only the state ones matter. I continue to think she'll win, though I was talking with a buddy last night without skin in the game who thinks Trump will.
2. The NYT polls are indeed odd this year Huey, and it got me wondering. I suspect, frankly, it is bad sample construction, though I won't really speculate on motivation one way or the other. To wit, I was reading about their pa results the other day, and saw a note to the effect that in their PA sample, something like 42% of respondents were high school education or below (which the cross tabs would suggest favor Trump). Now as a native Pennsylvanian, I can attest that there are a lot of stupid, or at least below-the-mean educated, people in the Commonwealth, but I strongly doubt that is what the final electorate demographics are going to look like. (For comparison, Dr. Google tells me that among Pa adults 25 and older, only about 22% are at the high school education level. So are they twice (or more) as motivated to vote? I doubt it, but if they are, it doesn't say much for the effect of post-secondary education on civic participation...which i kinda doubt too.)

As I've been saying for months now...Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania.

 

[Aardvark86]

I've been polled once back in 2016 when I had a hard-line...no demographic questions were asked

could be a bad poll; could also be that they already know your demographics

 

[nelly02]

I keep seeing these statistics of record numbers of new voters registering. Tell me how in the hell polls are accounting for that? If they have some method to account for that then kudos. Until then you can't convince me she doesn't have a much bigger lead than what these polls are showing.

 

[Joes Place]

While Trump and Vance continue to prove themselves to be complete jokes, somehow half of America - and the overwhelming majority of white, Christian America - continue to support the anger, bigotry, and lunacy that we can no longer view as the downside but is actually the appeal.

Lead is now just 2.4%

National : President: general election : 2024 Polls

The latest political polls and polling averages from FiveThirtyEight.

projects.fivethirtyeight.com

White, "Christian" America is no longer "Christian", at all...

 

[Aardvark86]

In the corporate and right wing media, there are no standards for Trump in the same sentence he can contradict himself and they are all good with it.

I tend to be a little more charitable to the press of all stripes on that front, both vis a vis him and her -- who wants to spend their day deciphering word salad from either of them, and really, maybe that's not really their job

 

[MichaelKeller99]

Or the real reason is that Democrats are “running” a terrible candidate with shitty policies. Turns out people don’t like having the country overrun with illegals and her love of all things Hamas is disgusting.

Maybe the Dem base just don’t appreciate having their candidate selected by Pelosi & Schumer, Inc?

 

[RileyHawk]

I find it amusing that we have some of the regular Trump defenders talking about Harris changing her position on some issues while completely ignoring the massive changes Trump has made.

From 538:

Harris wins 55 times out of 100
in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump wins 45 times out of 100.

The angst over all this reminds me of the "red wave" a couple years ago.

 

[Hawkman34]

I have no idea who is going to win....but if you really believe all the polls then I don't know what to tell you. They could say either candidate is up by 20% and I would simply laugh. Polls are a joke at this point.

 

[DFSNOLE]

ok.

Your answer doesn't address her avoidance of answering any of her policy shifts directly. She avoids it...you can call that observation stupid but it's what she does.

But how does that help Trump with all of his baggage?

 

[seminole97]

You are expecting Americans to a)pay attention and b)behave rationally. They do neither.

I really thought the Dick Cheney endorsement was going to put her over the top. Maybe people don’t remember his era fondly anymore.

Frankly, we have to save democracy from the voters.

 

[artradley]

I find it amusing that we have some of the regular Trump defenders talking about Harris changing her position on some issues while completely ignoring the massive changes Trump has made.

From 538:

Harris wins 55 times out of 100
in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump wins 45 times out of 100.

The angst over all this reminds me of the "red wave" a couple years ago.

Now do the Clinton/Trump statistics.

 

[Aardvark86]

Now do the Clinton/Trump statistics.

Exactly ... didn't 538 suggest Trump's probabilities at the time were something like 1 in 3 (which Silver bragged about afterwards when everyone expressed shock)?

 

[RileyHawk]

Now do the Clinton/Trump statistics.

Why?

 

[Huey Grey]

I keep seeing these statistics of record numbers of new voters registering. Tell me how in the hell polls are accounting for that? If they have some method to account for that then kudos. Until then you can't convince me she doesn't have a much bigger lead than what these polls are showing.

My guess is that they largely don't account for them. A huge portion of new registrants are young people. Young people typically don't vote. So the pollsters continue this assumption and largely ignore them. Same goes for any other group that traditionally doesn't vote.

Maybe they get it right and young people stay home. Or maybe they get it wrong, like 2022, and young people turn out. That by itself could shred any polling results were seeing right now.

 

[ButtersHawk]

OP I truly think polls are worthless. Think of the caliber of person participating in these polls. Think about the mouth breathers that take time out of their day to do these.

Don't stress it. After all a great man once said we need to be more concerned about 2028 anyway.

 

[Tom Paris]

The polls are really meaningless. They just no longer are capturing the true demographics of people who are going to vote. The only thing I know is turnout is king and momentum and passion is most important. It’s why Trump won in 2016 despite polls. The opposite is true 8 years later. The MAGA movement has lost its passion and momentum and a decent amount of republicans and independents will not vote for Trump. There is truth in how we see a much decreased amount of public support for Trump in yard signs and on cars compared to 2020. His base IS embarrassed to admit it now. Meanwhile, on the other side there is a major fired up base of women, minority and youth voters growing by the day who can’t wait to stand in line and vote for Harris.

I hope you're right. This is what SHOULD be happening. There are too many lifelong Republicans out there saying they will be voting for Harris. Democrats aren't changing to Trump.

 

[artradley]

Exactly ... didn't 538 suggest Trump's probabilities at the time were something like 1 in 3 (which Silver bragged about afterwards when everyone expressed shock)?

Yes,Silver had Clinton with a 70% chance of winning. But Trump had a clean sweep in states that were decided by about 1%. Harris with a 55% chance of winning is not good. And it’s just plain depressing to think that with all of Trump’s faults so well documented people still love him.

And it ain’t because of policy.

 

[markfromj]

They love the anger. They love the bigotry. They love the vile.

Sadly, I think this is true.

Too many people want to see themselves as victims and thus support a nut who pushes back against the alledged source of their plight.

 

[Tom Paris]

ok.

Your answer doesn't address her avoidance of answering any of her policy shifts directly. She avoids it...you can call that observation stupid but it's what she does.

This is another example of holding Kamala to a standard nobody holds Trump to. I think her policies are basically Joe Biden's policies. Trump has NO policies other than what The Heritage Foundation tells him, yet he lies about knowing them.

 

[RileyHawk]

Yes,Silver had Clinton with a 70% chance of winning. But Trump had a clean sweep in states that were decided by about 1%. Harris with a 55% chance of winning is not good. And it’s just plain depressing to think that with all of Trump’s faults so well documented people still love him.

And it ain’t because of policy.

Which demonstrates the point that polls are unreliable.

 

[DPUboiler]

The problem for Harris is she never explains her policy shifts. Avoids answering the tough questions and hasn't been able to dispel the doubt that's she's actually shifted to the "center" on policy.

That's it in a nutshell...

The problem for Harris is we still live in a country where half of the electorate still harbors sentiment against people of various minority status and looks for any reason whatsoever to vote for the man who represents everything we teach our kids not to do.

That's it in a nutshell...

 

[Huey Grey]

I find it amusing that we have some of the regular Trump defenders talking about Harris changing her position on some issues while completely ignoring the massive changes Trump has made.

From 538:

Harris wins 55 times out of 100
in our simulations of the 2024 presidential election.
Trump wins 45 times out of 100.

The angst over all this reminds me of the "red wave" a couple years ago.

Or that Super Tuesday election we saw around November of last year. Dems vastly over performed in the polls

 

[Aardvark86]

OP I truly think polls are worthless. Think of the caliber of person participating in these polls. Think about the mouth breathers that take time out of their day to do these.

Don't stress it. After all a great man once said we need to be more concerned about 2028 anyway.

To Art's point about the art and science of polling though, it doesn't matter whether "mouth breathers" are more or less likely to pick up the phone and answer the call, or how many of them do so. What matters is, once the pollster has a data universe of respondents, the pollster has to 'contruct' a sample of demographic cohorts based on what the pollster thinks the electorate demographics are actually going to look like.

 

[Chishawk1425]

It's hard to get a grasp on the polls. Some of these shifts make no sense. Take the NYT poll for example. Trump has an insanely bad month, while Harris has a really good one, and the NYT gives him a 9 point bump. What drove this 9 points? It makes no sense.

Not concerned

 

[Huey Grey]

the pollster has to 'contruct' a sample of demographic cohorts based on what the pollster thinks the electorate demographics are actually going to look like.

Which is a near impossibility this time around. Frankly if the polls get it within 2-3 points that would be a huge feat, imo.

 

[SoProudNole]

How many here actually answer the phone surveys when they call? I always say no thanks and hang up.

My neighbor was at my house a couple years ago helping with something. He took a call from a group doing a survey. Answered every question. When he hung up, he was laughing and enjoyed that he'd lied his ass off to them.

 

[Tom Paris]

As someone that hasn't voted since 1980, I have a different perspective. Our system does a terrible job getting well qualified candidates through to the primary process.

Example...On the Republican side, Nikki Haley would have been a much better/stronger candidate. But to win the republican primary, you have to run so far to the right, that she is considered a RINO. She can't win in the primary. I thought her policies were more in the center and pragmatic.

On the Democratic side it's the same situation. In order to win the primary, you have to run to the far left. In the current case, what happened in the Democratic party to discard Biden and coronate Harris was the largest disenfranchisement of voters in this country that I can remember. Harris is a horrible candidate. She has no core beliefs that she's not willing to change from day to day. That's why she won't articulate what her real policies are. If she's elected, undefined little men behind the curtain will be pulling the strings. Just like they have been with Biden...who clearly hasn't been running the country for a while.

This country needs a 3rd party that represents people in the middle. Unfortunately, that option is not currently available.

As I said above, I don't vote...but if I had to choose a candidate this year, I'd probably vote for Trump. I can't stand him personally, but his policies are better for the country, especially since no one can really say what Harris will do...

This is a both sides argument dressed in sheep's clothing. The Democrats do NOT run to the far left. The FAR left doesn't have that much influence over the party decisions. Biden is a moderate Democrat. Harris will govern as a moderate democrat. It's hilarious to me that you guys cry about not understanding what her policies are. You pretty much just watched them for the last 4 years. Some of you make things far more complicated than they are.

 

[Tom Paris]

She's a Democrat. That's not flip flopping, that's evolving.

You don't even realize it but you're correct.

 

[Aardvark86]

Which is a near impossibility this time around. Frankly if the polls get it within 2-3 points that would be a huge feat, imo.

no doubt very difficult. I mean obviously, they start with historical baseline assumptions and tweak them from there. Some of the tweaking is quasi-scientific, eg, by looking at historical data to do things like correlating economic indicators to voting patterns among cohorts, "what issues matter to voters" surveys and the like, but there's an awful lot of it - probably more so this time around - that will end up being gut instincts. Whoever 'wins' then makes a ton of money next election cycle touting themself as the svengali.

 

[Chishawk1425]

 

[Hoosierhawkeye]

"No labels" not running a ticket was a lost opportunity. If a "third party" candidate ever had a shot this would have been the year.

2016 would have been the year as neither Clinton or Trump were well liked.

Honestly though it's bad logic to think that 2 unlikeable candidates is good for 3rd parties. In reality it seems to be the opposite as people clearly dislike one candidate enough to be afraid and start voting for the major party opponent to stop them.

I would be voting for Peter Sonski if not for Trump.

 

[Titus Andronicus]

How many here actually answer the phone surveys when they call? I always say no thanks and hang up.

I usually respond to these things, and I actually responded to one yesterday. It seemed legitimate at first, but gradually transitioned into a Push Poll, focusing on the Nevada Senate and House races ... plus the phone rep's lack of English fluency and inability to speak clearly made it difficult to follow the questions.

I do not even know if these push polls, (where they first remind me that a particular candidate is a low-down-dirty pony-soldier or a similarly misguided and despicable person ... and then proceed to ask if this new-found insight will affect how I vote) gets tabulated and reported. I suspect the results are used to identify voters who can be targeted by one side or the other and then discarded.

In any case, I always respond truthfully and suspect that most people do so as well. Lying about your political beliefs in America seems very disloyal to the cause of democracy in my view. I think it would leave one with a bit of cognitive dissonance/dissatisfaction.

 

[Chishawk1425]

 

[Rifler]

I truly think polls are worthless. Think of the caliber of person participating in these polls. Think about the mouth breathers that take time out of their day to do these.

This is the big problem with polls anymore,.. Serious people don't participate in polling.

 

[artradley]

Why?

You seem to think my angst is misplaced. I don’t see how a 55% chance of winning should bring me comfort.

 

[artradley]

This is the big problem with polls anymore,.. Serious people don't participate in polling.

I would argue that when it comes to politics, most Americans are not serious.

 

[RileyHawk]

You seem to think my angst is misplaced. I don’t see how a 55% chance of winning should bring me comfort.

I think having angst over these poll numbers is foolish.