Official Election Poll Thread: Part 6

Part 5.

Thread watch

Suicide watch

I remember how much water Jennifer Rubin, then known as the Post's conservative opinion writer, carried for Romney in '12. Oh, the Great Realignment.

I just want this over. Harris to win. And for Trump to slither away forever so we can get back to our normal levels of crappy policy, petty fighting and culture wars that lead to nowhere.

I remain hopeful.

[quote] The Blue Wall being Harris's best path, but PA lagging a point or so behind WI and MI, is pretty much exactly the scenario where She Shoulda Picked Shapiro.

Shapiro would’ve lost Michigan.

I would love to see PA polling and FL senate polling done after Shitler’s little Nazi rally.

Will we get anything before the election?

Yeah I wish people would just stop it with Shapiro. Tim Walz is great, he’s a great addition to the ticket. Shapiro is teeing up to be the first Jewish president.

I read that this is the final Quinnipiac poll for PA this cycle. Interesting that Trump loses 2 points when including Stein and Oliver, while Harris loses 1.

The Amish are coming out to vote with Trump flags on their buggies. It's all over but the shouting.

Link, please, R15.

Jon Ralston's updated voting blog.

Republicans are voting early because Trump told them to vote early AND vote on Election Day. He thinks the system won’t catch the double vote.

[quote] Harris leads Trump 49%-47% among likely voters in the latest Economist/YouGov survey out Wednesday, with 2% unsure and roughly 3% backing other candidates (margin of error 3.6)—a slight narrowing from Harris’ 49%-46% edge last week.

[quote] Harris is up 51%-47%—with just 3% still undecided—in a very large likely voter poll by the Cooperative Election Study, a survey backed by several universities and conducted by YouGov, which polled around 50,000 people from Oct. 1 to 25.

[quote] The economy is still the No. 1 issue in the presidential election. Voters rated it as their top priority in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll, as they have in every Times/Siena poll this year.

[quote] And while former President Donald J. Trump remains the more trusted candidate in terms of handling the economy, Vice President Kamala Harris has closed much of the gap.

[quote] In a September Times/Siena poll, likely voters favored Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy by 13 percentage points; that lead had shrunk to just six percentage points in the latest Times/Siena poll, which was conducted last week. Other pollsters have shown similar gains for the vice president on the issue.

[quote] Shapiro is teeing up to be the first Jewish president.

That’s never gonna happen.

[quote] In the final days leading up to the 2024 presidential election in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, with 19 electoral votes, former President Donald Trump for the first time is on the upside of a race with Vice President Kamala Harris that is too close to call, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of likely voters in Pennsylvania released today.

[quote] Trump receives 47 percent support among likely voters, Harris receives 46 percent support, Green Party candidate Jill Stein receives 2 percent support, and Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver receives 1 percent support. Two percent of likely voters refused to respond and 1 percent are undecided. This is the closest this multi-candidate race has been in Pennsylvania.

[quote] In Quinnipiac University's October 9 poll, Harris received 49 percent support, Trump received 46 percent support, and Stein and Oliver each received 1 percent support in a race that was too close to call.

[quote] Men back Trump 57 - 37 percent, while women back Harris 55 - 39 percent. In Quinnipiac University's October 9 poll, men backed Trump 52 - 41 percent, while women backed Harris 55 - 40 percent.

I can't believe it's all going down just 6 evenings from now.

[quote] The survey, released Wednesday, finds Harris and Trump tied among likely voters in the expanded ballot with 48% each, while just 3% say they are supporting a third party. In September, Trump had a 1-point edge over Harris and 4% favored someone else.

[quote] In the two-way matchup among likely voters, Trump is up by 1 point (50% to 49% Harris).

[quote] Among registered voters, however, Harris is up 2 points in both the expanded ballot and two-way head-to-head. All the results among registered and likely voters are within the margin of error.

[quote] With less than a week until Election Day, the final Fox News Poll of Michigan likely voters finds Vice President Kamala Harris up 2 points over former President Donald Trump on the expanded ballot. That’s in part due to Michigan voters being divided over who would better handle the economy.

[quote] The new survey shows Harris with 48% support among likely voters, Trump with 46%, and third-party candidates at 5%. When it’s just the two major candidates, the race is dead even: 49% each.

[quote] Among registered voters, Harris is up by 4 points in the expanded ballot, a 6-point shift since July when Trump was up by 2 points. The July results were conducted shortly after President Joe Biden dropped out and endorsed Harris, but before she was conclusively the nominee and Kennedy dropped out.

[quote] North Carolina likely voters put former President Donald Trump ahead of Kamala Harris in the presidential contest, according to a new Fox News survey. That’s unchanged since September.

[quote] Trump is ahead by 49-47% among likely voters, while third-party candidates receive 4%. In the two-way contest, his edge narrows to 1 point -- a useful indicator as pre-election surveys often overstate support for third-party candidates.

[quote] Among the larger universe of registered voters, Harris is up by 1 point on both the expanded ballot (48-47%) and head-to-head (50-49%).

[quote]Shapiro is teeing up to be the first Jewish president.

[quote] That’s never gonna happen.

I'll be the first Jewish president.

Step aside, Josh & Jon.

Fox polls are starting to show slippage and it'll continue a bit. Kamala has this.

If Mark Cuban ran as a Democrat for POTUS, I would vote for him.

[quote] Folks, as i have said, in very tight elections, you aren't going to get 100% positive data points to look at, you want to have a majority of data points good news. Today, i looked at 30 new data points which included polls, early vote, etc. 4 of the data points favored Trump, 8 of the data points were neutral, and 16 favored Harris.

[quote] something is off with new quinnipiac poll showing Trump up one. in 2020, Biden won whites with college by 9 points, and lost whites without college by 32 points. in this poll, Harris is winning whites with college by 18 points, and losing whites without college by 29. she should be ahead.

[quote] Folks, like the last few elections, my expectation the results in WI, PA, and MI are going to be within a point or so of each other. they are most likely going to vote as a block i think. and Harris favored to take that block.

I find it disturbing the number of Trump supporters who post sentiments similar to this tweet- basically if you are a Trump supporter DRAG all your family and friends to the polling stations and make them vote.That kinda forgets the vote is their vote and no one elses, they are not owned by the Trump supporter in their family and it kind of assumes other family members will vote the same way as you and are automatically aligned.Theyd do their nut if a democrat wrote or said something similiar.

I’m so goddamned sick and tired of polls. They are flawed and don’t mean anything.

Please, Harris, just win this thing and be done with it.

This probably isn't the thread for you, R35.

I'm so tired of hearing how the Repukes are better for the economy. It hasn't been true since probably Eisenhower. What a joke.

The Economist projects an electoral college tie, 50/50 Better than their last projection which is 56%Trump.

A tie is almost certainly a loss, R38. Let's hope Trump's declining fortunes continue.

Ugh.

R38 is a troll. There is almost no scenario where there will be a tie. Yes it’s possible but the chances are miniscule.

This site has three tie scenarios, all but impossible.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

He’s the former President, “The President” being Joe Biden, although the Fail’s crack team of interns and bots have never been too particular about these details.

Polling error in the national vote for the last 5 US Presidential Elections

R13 it's started with "the 99 percent" and "deplorables". Trump just brought the trend of name-calling your opponent down to his own level.

R47 - I believe it was actually “The 47%”, ironically enough.

[quote] Lots of high-quality polling this afternoon.

[quote] Lots you can cherry-pick but on balance, the model thought it was a hair better for Harris than Trump relative to its expectations. Race remains a true toss-up.

[quote] Whoa North Carolina now #2 tipping point state.

With her husband, John Avlon, running for Congress as a Democrat, I don't know how good Margaret Hoover's Republican sources are, but I like what she's saying.

I know this is a Polls thread but it’s the early voting data like at R46 that’s most valuable right now. R46 that is truly encouraging!

Yes, R52, very encouraging!

Polls? BWAAAAH

Some Gen Z voters don’t mind telling who they voted for. They’re writing in names for president rather than vote for a Trump or Harris.

R54, that not a story about polls it’s about people who lie to people close to them, about how they’re voting. As in a woman who is secretly pro choice lying to hubby/boyfriend about voting for Dump.

I told you bitches we can’t depend on those gen-Z votes. They do stupid shit for clicks and views on social media. That’s all they care about.

[quote] Part II: If Harris wins, the signs were clear as day.

[quote] 1. She has a higher net favorable rating than Trump, & the more popular candidate almost always wins.

[quote] 2/3. Post-Roe: When voters vote, Democrats win. See special elections & 2022 midterms, when Dems did historically well.

[quote] 16K Clark mail came in over night, helping Dems cut GOP statewide lead to 42K, pushing it under 5%. But Republicans still look solid with 2 days left in early voting.

The assumption that all registered Republicans are voting for trump is bizarre post Roe

So I saw Margaret Hoover, lapsed Republican and Mrs. John Avalon, Democratic congressional candidate somewhere on Lawn Guyland, and she said having done two presidential campaigns, that the internal polling is far, far more telling than the public polling and it's not what Republicans want. They spend massive amounts drilling down to get an accurate picture.

Most important, she said:

'I have heard from Republicans that there is concern at the Trump campaign amongst the operatives that actually really do know the political wherewithal that the turnout and enthusiasm numbers aren’t where they need to be,' Hoover said.

A bit more (it came from the Mail but I saw it live and it's accurate, which given the Mail's shameless pro Trump bias is something encouraging, I hope:)

A Republican strategist revealed that internal polling has arrived and operatives inside President Donald Trump's campaign are concerned they 'aren’t where they need to be.'

Margaret Hoover appeared on CNN's The Source Wednesday and told host Kaitlan Collins that early voting numbers point to 'real enthusiasm, which is hard to measure.'

'I think their internals are actually giving them pause,' said Hoover, who worked on George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign and Rudy Giuliani's failed 2008 run for the White House.

A different link below

Folks, look at two pieces of key data.

They’ve done 5 exit polls of people who have voted early. And Harris is winning among that group in the range of 60% to 40%.

Now, look at early voting percentages in the swing states and you’ll see that many swing states have more than 50% of their 2020 total vote already in.

There’s a reason why the Harris campaign leaders are looking very happy and confident these days. They see the data.

As I keep saying, we're going to see a slow shift to Kamala until election day, because:

1. Monetized websites want to keep those clicks coming from anxious consumers to drive ad revenue. 2. Pollsters don't want to be wrong. Their jobs depend on it.

And here’s example of what was posted at R62.

If these stats are close to being right and more than 50% of 2020’s voters have already voted….

R63 Yep, "poll herding" they call it. Get the projections down to as close as possible (margin of error etc.) so they don't look incompetent and mistaken when the election happens. Each poll service filters their samples through projections of likely outcomes from previous elections and other variables. Even the crusty and craven Nate Silver is tweaking his projections now to "no way of knowing".... covering his ample ass.

As a closing guess, I am with R60. 20% of Republican primary voters voted for Haley AFTER she quit. It's only gotten worse since them. So many ex-Republicans and Never Trumpers and still-Republicans reaching out to them. The Kelley "he's a fascist comments" are most impactful with exactly this demographic. Early turnout favoring Republicans? Republicans voting for Harris are going to make her President.

Expanding on the comments from David Axelrod on their shared podcast, John Heilemann said on his own podcast that the Harris campaign has pulled its advertisements in North Carolina & is expected to do likewise in Arizona.

Republicans are in a full-on panic.

R66, did they speculate as to why?

Joe Scarborough said this morning that they're hearing on the ground in PA that the Harris campaign feels very good about the state of the race, but won't talk about it publicly.

She's close in NC and GA and they're swimming in money. Why pull ads?

R66 is lying after they have already been corrected. They did not pull their ads from NC that is a lie. they shifted them to the Raleigh area from the rural areas.

Stop spreading lies on here. It’s deplorable!

Shame on r69 and r71 for believing a post with wild claims and no link.

Do better.

R69, Axelrod just said that Harris was down to five battlegrounds, and that North Carolina & Arizona were no longer considered battlegrounds. Nothing more. Heilemann just said the campaign had pulled ads in North Carolina & was likely to do so in Arizona. No explanation was offered.

R71, she’s not pulling ads in Georgia.

On the Axelrod podcast, one he hosts with Heilemann & Mike Murphy, the sentiment was Wisconsin was the weakest link among the blue wall states & that Georgia & Nevada were seen as insurance policies in the event Trump won Wisconsin. In reality, Georgia, alone, could offset Wisconsin, Nevada, alone, could not.

The did not pull the ad money from NC. Quit lying.

Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just repeating, verbatim, what was said on the latest Hacks on Taps & Impolitic podcasts. I’m on my phone, so I can’t link them.

But Trump has canceled a bunch of stuff like the Penn State game because they know it’s over.

No that is not what they said. They said “shift” the money WITHIN Nc.

We already cleared that up in other threads and the. Someone is going around in other threads repeating this same lie.

They absolutely did NOT say that, R78. I listened last night to the most recent Hacks on Taps, & this morning to the most recent Impolitic (with guests Tim Miller, Sarah Longwell, Bill Kristol & George Conway). And please refer me to the alleged other threads that have “cleared” this up.

R73, I just asked a question to learn more.

You do better too. If you can.

This is a win for the select group of high earning voters. The Economist is no friend of Democrats.

Now that Trump has targeted Latinos, I think he knows the game is over.

Finally, a poll we can all agree is accurate:

R81, actually The Economist hasn’t endorsed a Republican in quite some time. They even weakly endorsed Obama over Romney in 2012. Mitt Romney you’d think would have been their type of GOP’er.

What a beautiful chart R85!

Newsweek, which has been more Trumpy than ever this year, weighs in similarly:

It's almost like treating half the population as brood mares has consequences.

Women voters up 12% in GA is really bad for Trump. A big portion of those women voters are black women.

PA: Democrats Have A Lead of 403k in Early Voting Results

New polls for CNN find Vice President Harris with a 6-point lead over former President Trump in Wisconsin and a 5-point lead in Michigan.

The polls, conducted by SSRS, found Harris leading Trump in Wisconsin with 51 percent support to his 45 percent among likely voters. In Michigan, she led with 48 percent support to 43 percent.

It all comes down to the Female vs Male turnout then. More female turnout, a Harris win; the opposite and it would go to Trump.

As stated upthread, piss off the women in this country at your own risk. They actually turn out to VOTE.

NY TIMES is calling out the fake polls today on the front page. Bravo:

Why the Right Thinks Trump Is Running Away With the Race

Skewed polls and anonymous betting markets are building up Republicans’ expectations. Donald Trump could use that to challenge the result.

The OP is the one LYING about the ads being pulled.

I TOLD YOU he was a defeatist troll.

Yes, you warned us. And you were right!!

The paranoia on this thread is almost MAGA-like. The Hacks on Tap podcast I referenced for Axelrod's comment is the most recent one, Crazier & Crazier. I challenge any of my doubters to listen.

Things will continue to move slowly to Kamala over the next 5 days......

The Impolitic podcast I referenced for Heilemann's comment is the most recent one, The Bulwark Fab Four. Again, I challenge any of my doubters to listen.

r85 Well well well it looks like the chickens have come home to roost after years of promising to and then succeeding in overturning Roe versus Wade has come back to bite them on the bum hard. They've appeased one element of their voter base at the expense of winning it seems.

I TOLD YOU he was a defeatist troll.

For purposes of clarification, is a defeatist troll one who wants Trump to win, or one who doesn't think Harris has a lock on this race, one who doesn't think she is 100% going to win? If the latter, I guess I'm guilty, Tail Gunner Joe. And if my Harris bona fides are actually in dispute, I voted for her on Oct. 7 (in a battleground state, no less) & have contributed this year to both the Biden and Harris Victory Fund. (In fact, I just got a text from Kamala while typing this post.) Also, I refer you to my (other) thread posts: 16, 19, 20, 31, 51 & 58.

Lastly, for the consideration of you & your fellow snowflakes, I once again suggest you create your own thread exclusively for posters who only want to live in an hermetically sealed cocoon.

Notice that the OP TROLL ONLY posts negative things here and has no other history.

Au contraire, R100. I've even provided the receipts. But nice try. And what have YOU done for the Harris campaign?

[quote] Neither Vice President Kamala Harris nor former President Donald Trump has established a clear advantage in the race for the White House in two key Southern battleground states, according to new CNN polls conducted by SSRS.

[quote] Likely voters in Georgia divide 48% for Trump to 47% for Harris, and in North Carolina, Harris stands at 48% to Trump’s 47%. Results are within the margin of error in both states, suggesting no clear leader in either contest.

Top pollster with good results in the critical Michigan. Less so in the not as critical North Carolina.

[quote] Trump leads Harris in North Carolina

[quote] Trump is leading Harris by two percentage points in a new poll by UMass Lowell/YouGov released Thursday.

[quote] Harris leads Trump in Michigan

[quote] In Michigan, Harris holds a slight 4-point lead over Trump, according to the latest UMass poll.

[quote] The survey of 600 likely voters showed Harris leading Trump 49%-45%. Conducted Oct. 16-24, the poll had a margin of error of 4.49 percentage points.

As I was telling a coworker last night, “women don’t forget shit like this. We BOTH know that women will hold on to something for YEARS then drag it up when you think it’s been dead and buried. You’d think these stupid MEN would know that by now. But I guess not.”

She nodded then laughed, “they’re going to learn”.

It feels like it's come down to Pennsylvania again, where it felt like the Blue Wall strategy hung at the beginning of her campaign. I'm leerily optimistic about PA... it's consistently seemed to slightly favour her... but fuck me with a chainsaw I'm wore out.

"In Michigan, Harris holds a slight 4-point lead over Trump, according to the latest UMass poll."

4 points in this cycle isn't slight, hunny.

I heard one pundit today on Sirius saying that this could be another 2000, with Wisconsin playing the Florida role.

[quote] 4 points in this cycle isn't slight, hunny.

Perhaps the reporter's nod to the fact that it's still within the MOE.

I think it is great that Dems are pedal to the metal right up to the close of polls on Election Day.

I felt sinking in 1980 when Reagan won.

I was one of the few who stayed up all night not believing Trump won in 2016.

I did not believe that Obama would win in a racist country.

BUT I think that Kamala will be 51%, minimum, in every state and this will show a Blue nation when there is joy in the morning.

The NYT article linked at R92:

The torrent of polls began arriving just a few weeks ago, one after the other, most showing a victory for Donald J. Trump.

They stood out amid the hundreds of others indicating a dead heat in the presidential election. But they had something in common: They were commissioned by right-leaning groups with a vested interest in promoting Republican strength.

These surveys have had marginal, if any, impact on polling averages, which either do not include the partisan polls or give them little weight. Yet some argue that the real purpose of partisan polls, along with other expectation-setting metrics such as political betting markets, is directed at a different goal entirely: building a narrative of unstoppable momentum for Mr. Trump.

The partisan polls appear focused on lifting Republican enthusiasm before the election and — perhaps more important — cementing the idea that the only way Mr. Trump can lose to Vice President Kamala Harris is if the election is rigged. Polls promising a Republican victory, the theory runs, could be held up as evidence of cheating if that victory does not come to pass.

“Republicans are clearly strategically putting polling into the information environment to try to create perceptions that Trump is stronger,” said Joshua Dyck, who directs the Center for Public Opinion at the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. “Their incentive is not necessarily to get the answer right.”

Last week, the right-wing influencer Ian Miles Cheong shared a survey with his 1.1 million followers on X. The forecast from a new polling company suggested, without sharing its methodology, that the former president would take 74.3 percent of the national vote — a landslide unprecedented in American history.

“Trump is absolutely going to win,” Mr. Cheong wrote. “The data shows it.”

In the final stretch of the campaign in 2020, Republican-aligned pollsters released 15 presidential election polls of swing states. In the same period this year, they have released 37, according to a New York Times analysis of data from the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. Of those 37, all but seven had Mr. Trump in the lead.

That increase comes as the volume of nonpartisan polls — such as those commissioned by major news organizations — have dropped significantly, though they still make up a majority of the polls released. Of the nonpartisan surveys released in the final weeks of this year’s campaign, roughly half showed a lead for Mr. Trump.

And that is counting only polls that are explicitly designated as politically aligned by FiveThirtyEight, which sets a high bar for defining partisan polls. There have been additional polls conducted by firms with a history of favoring Republicans or with a public record of pro-Republican rhetoric that have not been designated as partisan by any of the aggregators.

Other factors have also fueled the perception of Mr. Trump’s strength. Betting platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi that allow people to place bets on election outcomes have seen a spike in Mr. Trump’s favor over the past month — one that does not track with the overall state of the race as captured by reputable polling firms.

That surge appears to have been pushed almost entirely by a very small number of high-value bets from just four accounts linked to a French national. Those accounts have collectively placed $30 million on a Trump victory this month.

Mr. Trump and his allies, including Elon Musk, have nonetheless promoted the betting markets — although they are opaque, largely unregulated and not a scientific way to gauge public polls. Mr. Trump cited Polymarket in a recent speech, saying, “I don’t know what the hell it means, but it means we’re doing pretty well.”

A spokesperson for Polymarket declined to provide comment for this article.

The trend is a continuation from the 2022 midterms, when a similar stream of Republican-aligned surveys late in the cycle — some conducted by two high school students in Pennsylvania — forecast a “red wave” that would deliver large majorities for Republicans in both the House and the Senate. While nonpartisan polls proved to be quite accurate, the partisan surveys were wrong.

This year, the partisan polls have attracted more public scrutiny, and they have generally tracked closer to other polls. In a race this tight, it is possible that their slight tilt toward Mr. Trump will prove to be accurate.

The partisan polls do not appear to be having a significant impact on the polling averages calculated by news organizations, including The New York Times. That is because those groups do not treat all polls equally, and adjust their models to give less weight to surveys from pollsters without reliable track records or with links to a political party. Some polls are excluded from their averages entirely.

One widely criticized poll in October, for example, showed a four-point lead for Ms. Harris among registered voters in Pennsylvania but a one-point lead for Mr. Trump among likely voters. The poll was commissioned by American Greatness, a right-wing media outlet linked to a conservative advocacy group co-founded by Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate.

FiveThirtyEight does not mark American Greatness polls as partisan, but it did take the questionable findings into account and, as a result, its overall polling average for the critical swing state moved only by one-tenth of a point.

ABC News, which owns FiveThirtyEight, declined to make the aggregator’s editorial director of data analytics, G. Elliott Morris, available for comment.

Overall, Mr. Trump has made slight gains in the national polling average over the past two weeks, and the battleground state polling averages have tightened. Still, the race remains uncommonly close.

That has not stopped these polls from shaping the broader narrative in the race’s final stretch. The averages on the popular aggregation site RealClearPolitics, in particular, are widely cited on social media.

Unlike its competitors, RealClearPolitics does not filter out low-quality polls, incorporating results from pollsters with a poor track record that other aggregators reject. It also does not weight its averages. One of its pages displays a map of the electoral college with a winner projected for each state, even those the site currently deems to be tossups.

That “no tossups” map currently shows Mr. Trump winning every swing state except Michigan and Wisconsin.

RealClearPolitics did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Influential accounts have been sharing screenshots of RealClearPolitics’ scarlet-dominated Electoral College map, often paired with images of the Polymarket betting average, which currently shows Mr. Trump with a 65 percent chance of winning.

Two weeks ago, Elon Musk shared the map with his 202 million followers on X, writing that the “trend will continue” and that Democrats are losing. Early voting data, a fickle predictive metric, has also been cited by Trump supporters as further evidence of his impending triumph.

“It’s full spectrum dominance — it’s everywhere you look. You can’t avoid it. It feels good, it looks good, it sounds good,” said Vish Burra, the executive secretary of the New York Young Republican Club.

Simon Rosenberg, a Democratic strategist, is among those who believe Republican-aligned pollsters are “flooding the zone” in order to shift the polling averages and deflate Democrats’ enthusiasm. “It doesn’t have to be by a lot,” he said. “Just enough to turn the map red.”

Mr. Rosenberg has hammered the theme for weeks on his Substack and social media accounts, creating what critics describe as a counter narrative that overstates the impact of partisan polls on the overall averages.

Yet even a slight shift in perception could be enough to fuel claims of a stolen election if Mr. Trump loses — claims the former president and his supporters have already been teeing up.

“We need to make it TOO BIG TO RIG,” Mr. Trump posted on social media on Tuesday, an exhortation that some say underscores the real strategy: to make a loss seem mathematically impossible.

“The main reason you float data like that is because you’re trying to convince your supporters there’s no way Trump can lose — unless it’s stolen,” said Mike Madrid, a longtime Republican strategist who is critical of the former president. “The goal is to set the predicate for the race’s aftermath so you can challenge the result.”

That opinion is shared by a growing faction on both sides of the aisle, who are dismayed to see polls weaponized in a way that could undermine faith in the entire system.

“That’s my main concern,” said Adam Carlson, a data analyst and former Democratic pollster who has been tracking the partisan polls. “People will believe what they want to believe on both sides, but only on one side does that have the chance to lead to pervasive election denial.”

Democrats have also tried using the partisan polls and stacked betting odds to increase their chances, figuring that playing from behind could help turnout and pull a bit more cash from donors’ pockets. Dozens of fund-raising emails from the Harris campaign in recent weeks have promoted polls showing Mr. Trump ahead in battleground states and in the national average; one from this week called the data “deeply concerning” as it implored voters to donate $10.

Others on the left believe that even the polling averages are skewed in Mr. Trump’s favor and that Ms. Harris is actually poised for a surprise landslide, in much the same way that Democrats over-performed expectations in the midterms.

John Anzalone, who was President Biden’s chief pollster in 2020 and still conducts internal polls for Democrats, gave his advice for the election’s final stretch: Ignore the noise.

“Of course people don’t know what to make about the public polls,” he said. “There’s a ton of garbage polls.”

Very interesting that not a single of of those poll aggregators refused to comment. They did not think they would be called out by The NY Times.

They need to respond!!!!

* DID refuse to comment

[quote] That increase comes as the volume of nonpartisan polls — such as those commissioned by major news organizations — have dropped significantly, though they still make up a majority of the polls released. Of the nonpartisan surveys released in the final weeks of this year’s campaign, roughly half showed a lead for Mr. Trump.

That paragraph that is somewhat buried, when it should be part of the lede. Nonpartisan polls “still make up a majority of the polls released”, and as expected with a 50/50 electorate, “half showed a lead for Mr. Trump.” The partisan polls and any other noise, including the NYT article, have no effect on the results of the legitimate nonpartisan polls. The race is a tie and has been for a while.

"Torta" thinks not signing his troll posts means no one can see it's still him.

As these poll threads come to a close: as has been posted a gazzillion times on DL (back to the glory days of Poll Troll) polls are "snapshots" not predictions and their use determining trends, movement, not "static" guesses as to final outcomes.

2-3 weeks ago polls were showing movement to Trump. Last week or so, there is some evidence of movement to Harris. At the end of an election this close the movement at the end it critical. That small number of voters going to polls who haven't quite decided... what direction is the wind blowing. It's trending toward Harris.

r117

Even RCP has Harris up although I suspect it kills them.

Except it doesn’t, R119. It currently has Trump up .5 (48.5-48) nationally, & up 1 (48.5-47.5) in the battlegrounds.

R120

[quote]2-3 weeks ago polls were showing movement to Trump. Last week or so, there is some evidence of movement to Harris. At the end of an election this close the movement at the end it critical. That small number of voters going to polls who haven't quite decided... what direction is the wind blowing. It's trending toward Harris.

No it's not.

At least not according to 538. They now have Kamala down to a 1.2 lead over Trump.

Three weeks ago she had a 2.5 lead over Trump.

RCP, Tipp, Nate Silver all show Kamala on a slide downward over the last 3 weeks.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but that's the way things stand now.

RCP CHANGED several battlegrounds to LEANS Democrat.

^ You keep lying. RCP is not Cook, it doesn't do lean, likely, etc.

OP is trolling hard to diminish the good reports about Kamala’s gains.

I told you so.

R122 r124

^ Bye, you sick fuck, I'm blocking you.

R124 is full of shit

RealClearPolitics' No Toss-Up map—which gives every state a definitive Republican or Democratic lean, even if they are neck and neck—moved Wisconsin from leaning Donald Trump to leaning Harris on Wednesday. The same map shifted the battleground state of Michigan from lean GOP to lean Democratic on Tuesday.

Well r124?

Cat got your tounge?

WELL R124???????

The silence is deafening

This is why posting links will help smoke out the trolls. They don’t rally have a response when called out so clearly.

*** r124 is the OP! ***

I TOLD YOU SO.

R124 was so quick to comment on every post.

Must be bedtime in Moldova

From Barron's today:

Trump Media Stock Halted After Plunge. DJT Rally Falters as Harris Gains in Election Poll.

Trump Media & Technology, the social media company majority-owned by former President Donald Trump, extended its dramatic decline after sharp gains a few days ago. Trading was halted more than once early Thursday to curb volatility, just at it was earlier in the week. Still, those big swings make the stock attractive for speculative investors. Its rise and fall could also partly be down to its status as a proxy for Trump’s chances of winning the White House in the election next week. While his odds have been improving lately, the latest CNN poll shows Vice President Kamala Harris with a significant lead over Trump in the key swing states of Michigan and Wisconsin. In Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state, the two are still neck and neck.

The stock, DJT, was down 12% to $35.34 at Thursday’s close. DJT dropped 22% on Wednesday, its biggest decline since April, but it has still roughly doubled this month. Harris also has a slight advantage as a member of the incumbent party as key economic indicators pick up. Gasoline prices are lower, personal income is up, and overall growth came in at a solid 2.8% for the third quarter.

Election news clearly matters for DJT stock, if only as providing trigger points for traders looking to capitalize on its big swings. The stock hit its highest level since May earlier in the week as Trump opened a clear lead in betting markets. It has also seemed to get a boost from billionaire Elon Musk’s support of Trump. The shares don’t seem to trade on business fundamentals—the company’s revenues don’t justify its current $8 billion market capitalization, even if the possibility of the shares going higher does. However, that also highlights a risk for traders. If Trump loses the election, it isn’t clear what will happen to the Truth Social platform that Trump Media operates. Trump has so far held on to his entire stake, but he now has the option to sell at any time.

Write to Brian Swint at brian.swint @ barrons.com

I honestly believe he will lose. My fear is that he with the support of the SC will steal this election.

R135 I’m over the whole scaredy cat routine. Man up and go volunteer.

In my defense, I have never seen RCP's No Toss Up map. Still cannot locate it on its site. Maybe someone else can find it. And while searching the site, maybe confirm where it has the campaigns in their national & battleground polls.

“ "Torta" thinks not signing his troll posts means no one can see it's still him”

WTF is your problem, you obsessed fucking freak? I’m a lifelong Dem, I’m praying all day every day for a Harris victory, you’ve already harassed me into dropping my handle, I have posted nothing trollish today or ever, and you’re still coming for me.

I wish you the same fate as Trump, and my wish for him is not a benevolent one.

538 , while still having Trump slightly favored, has shown Harris move up in the last two days. As I've said, I'm as much interested in momentum/movement as I am a fixed number.

She's going to win this thing. And then the fight starts.

R137 r138

Agree, R139! My hope is that the fight is lame.

R137 Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You stated your opinion like it’s fact. It’s indefensible. You could have done a little bit of research before spewing nonsense. Lazy bitch.

R139 is the Troll OP.

Waiting for Troll “Torta” to post his next doom and gloom prediction, pretending to be “reasoned.”

R142.

Absolutely R139. There’s a lot to be encouraged by, in the early voting demographics so far!

I wish Tuesday were tomorrow.

[quote]538 , while still having Trump slightly favored, has shown Harris move up in the last two days.

You're wrong.

538 has Kamala on a continuous slide down since late August..

Her lead over Trump is now down to 1.2%.

4 weeks ago it was at 2.8%

Wtf R143? Torta is hardly Smerdyakov. We are all on edge, but let’s save our ire for the actual enemy.

{quote] Just because you haven’t seen something doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. You stated your opinion like it’s fact. It’s indefensible. You could have done a little bit of research before spewing nonsense. Lazy bitch.

Mea maximus culpa. My back was up because this one unhinged poster had just flat-out lied about something else about RCP.

538 has become so increasingly sandbagged by right-leaning polls since mid September, I’ve lost interest in comparing it week to week. It actually had me thinking she was weakening badly, until a few posters elsewhere pointed out the right wing junk polls in its mix. And Nate Silver’s own new site and Substavk are even worse.

R146 The aggregate "what are the odds, who's favored" numbers have edged in Harris's direction the last few days. Right now it's Trump 52 chances out of 100 and Harris it's 47 chances out of 100. A week ago it was Trump 58, Harris 41. That, if my simple perceptions are not failing me, is TRENDING toward Harris.

Not that I don't trust you... but I don't.

R145 r146 r148

^^ Aggregate odds on 538

[quote]538 has become so increasingly sandbagged by right-leaning polls since mid September, I’ve lost interest in comparing it week to week.

By what right-leaning polls?

OP is working overtime for his vodka rations, desperately trying to make it look hopeless for Kamala.

What do these clusters of numbers mean to claim at R140 and R151? Is it a claim that they’re all one poster? I’m one of the posts listed in each cluster, but not any other.

R146 Also the creepy Nate Silver today said yesterday he thought it was Trump, but there's been movement and now he thinks it's a toss up.

Trends.

Ah, found the page. And yes, Michigan & Wisconsin ARE moved to the Harris camp. But our unhinged poster failed to report the most significant part of this map. Of course, RCP wasn't going to move these states to the Harris camp if it signified a looming Harris win. And yes, this RCP map has Trump winning the Electoral College (287-251)!

[quote]The aggregate "what are the odds, who's favored" numbers have edged in Harris's direction the last few days. Right now it's Trump 52 chances out of 100 and Harris it's 47 chances out of 100. A week ago it was Trump 58, Harris 41. That, if my simple perceptions are not failing me, is TRENDING toward Harris.

Polling goes up a down all the time, to establish a TREND you need more than a week of results.

The TREND has been Kamala downward. She was leading over Trump in the "what are the odds, who's favored" numbers for months.

Most people who follow the polling stuff know this but RCP is more than a little Trump-friendly. Caveat lector.

R155 r156 r157 r158 r159

There it is again. The clusters poster. Are you trying to communicate something R160?

I am R155 and R159 but am none of the three in between.

R161, it has something to do with when you've blocked someone. If you reply and include their post, somehow it can show up for you or something, when otherwise you couldn't see the comment. I don't fully understand it, or care to.

R161 it means he's blocked a bunch of posters and now wants to see those blocked posters' posts.

And whoever is going after Torta, stop it. He's one of the good ones.

R162 and r163 explained it nicely. R160 get up off your lazy ass and just look at your Ignored page.

Yes, R159, RCP has gone full MAGA under Trump. And in a saner political climate, one would think its much-cited average of polls - including many Republican pollsters - would've been thoroughly debunked in the aftermath of its wildly off 2022 averages.

Thanks R163. A lot of us are frayed and I can withstand some saltiness, but this poster has been dogging and bullying me for a while now. Without cause.

[quote] Are you trying to communicate something [R160]?

R160 - whom I've now blocked - must be the unhinged poster who's been going off on Torta & me. As I've indicated, I'm honored to be in Torta's company.

R164 my Ignored page has zero content because I don’t use it. I’m a carryover from Old Datalounge where we didn’t have such things.

[quote]Yes, [R159], RCP has gone full MAGA under Trump.

RCP predicted a Biden win in 2020.

And a Hillary win in 2016.

Torts is a proven troll on his own “Look At Me! I’m Back!” thread.

He was very anti-Kamala when he “returned.”

[quote] PM update. This morning's batch of polls was pretty good for Harris but the afternoon was stronger for Trump. All pretty incremental at this point. Still, a gap is opening up between PA and MI/WI, and Harris may need backup plans if the Blue Wall is split.

Bullshit R170. Please stop harassing me. I am 100% Kamala, was overjoyed when Biden passed the nom to her on July 21, said so all over the place on here, and my credit card statement since then shows it.

Repeat: Please stop harassing me.

One good piece of news is that they are virtually tied. If Trump was way ahead in the polls it would be very depressing.

Can't imagine where Biden would be polling at this moment...

R172, maybe you’re like me & hesitant about blocking posters, but I’ve now blocked our unhinged poster, who, from my perspective at least, is just howling at the moon.

Stay hopeful!

We are worming like hell to not get another2016

worming hhahahahahhahha

working...

R172, I agree with the others, just block them. I already had r170 blocked.

1. Torta is great. MVP of these threads.

2. The internet was a mistake.

[quote] her level of support in EPIC-MRA's polls grew by 3 percentage points from where it was in August, and Trump's fell by 1 point and it was the first time the Democrats had a lead in the presidential race in the firm's polls since last November

[quote] Her support among Black voters, a key constituency in Michigan, jumped by 18 points since August, and the poll showed her leading Trump among that bloc 87%-5%, far closer to the level of support Biden received in 2020. Among white voters, she lagged Trump, who had 50% to her 44% but that 4-point margin was closer than the 55%-44% edge Trump had over Democratic President Joe Biden in Michigan with white voters in 2020, according to exit polls.

[quote] And while she still lagged among men, with 42% to Trump's 48%, her support among women grew 5 points from August, with her leading the former president among that typically larger voting bloc 53%-42%.

Harris +2 (50-48) in Pennsylvania.

Harris +3 (51-48) in Michigan.

Harris +2 (50-48) in Wisconsin.

Not all good news from the A-rated Marist poll. Trump's up 2 (50-48) in North Carolina.

We’ll take it.

Marist at R184 notwithstanding, all in all the small shift is good to see. Momentum is going Harris’s way.

And the gender breakout on early voting…! Women ahead of men by 10, 12 points in several of the battleground states. It all feels very possible that, this time, the polls may have underestimated Harris voters and overestimated Trump voters.

Still feeling like there’s that small chance we could be wrong. But the primary feeling is optimism.

R184 that’s a week old poll. Anything recent?

My bad, R187. I thought that the NC poll was part of the release of the other state polls. Nothing more recent from Marist there.

No worries r188. Thanks for the other polls! Makes my morning.

Does WSJ do presidential endorsements?

Asking for a friend (her name is KAMALA)

The Clinton campaign (fairly, based on the polling that kicked us all in the cunt bone) started celebrating too soon, as I recall the weekend leading up to election day. At least Harris can move through the weekend with a humble momentum. This is the time to capture spirit, not to boast. And Joe locked down in a secure location.

[quote]Right now it's Trump 52 chances out of 100 and Harris it's 47 chances out of 100.

538 has been updated this morning to Trump with 53 chances out of 100 and Harris at 47 chances out of 100.

Actually she didn’t r192. As I recall, they saw erosion in their internal numbers going into the final weekend, and canceled fireworks that were scheduled. That’s when I started to get nervous.

Then, on Election Day when it rained like crazy in the Philly area, I got really, really nervous. It was also unseasonably cold.

I'm sorry but I think the polling is wrong. It isn't capturing those who are saying the quiet part quietly. I think there will be another surprise and a marginal to modest Harris win. Something's afoot. He keeps making himself seem even worse. He is so awful enough sensible people, even slightly greedy ones, will say enough of this shit. I recall that awful night and the creeping feeling of dread, which for me started in Florida as its returns started rolling in, and we all started to realize she wouldn't do it. 2024 doesn't feel like that. We're going in afraid this she might not do it. It's the inverse.

I don't predict landslide but most of the indicators, even the ones with a weak pulse, point toward just enough to shut that fucker down once and for all and give it Harris. I think it, but I don't believe it. Maybe by Tuesday it will be both, because Christ knows what that "malodorous mound of month old crab cake, shuffling like a broken animatronic at the Hall of Ineffective Presidents" will do by then.

Something's afoot. I feel it in my waters.

[quote] here is a question i have yet gotten answer to from MAGA/GOP world: if Trump is really tied or ahead nationally and doing better in MI, WI, and PA, then why isn't he doing better in OH, IL, IN, MN, IA, and Nebraska? He should be doing 4 or 5 points better there. Hmmm....

Not sure I entirely agree with Dowd's thinking, but interesting, nonetheless. Although why he includes a blue state like Illinois is beyond me.

Hillary didn't start celebrating too soon.

IIrc, from her book, Hillary herself from the moment James Comey opened his big fat self-serving sexist mouth to announce the re-opening of the email investigation, she carried a terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach knowing those words could very well contribute to sinking her.

When I Imagine what that must have been like for her, those last 10 days of the campaign, to carry that dread feeling, it's too much.

Another pair of differences between Hillary Clinton ‘16 and Kamala Harris ‘24: (1) Hillary was trying to perpetuate Democratic presidency after we’d had 8 solid years of Obama. The pendulum tends to swing, Trump had that advantage. But today not only did Trump serve as president just 4 years ago, but culturally he never went away, not for a minute, from the J6 insurrection attempt to today. So who’s the change candidate, the one offering us a turning page and a new chapter? It does not feel like it’s Trump, in this unique dynamic.

… and (2) Hillary was a less charismatic D nominee following a more charismatic one, and she suffered from the obvious comparison. Trump in 2016 totally outflanked her in terms of venues, enthusiasm, crowd sizes, and seeming vigor. Not so today. Not at all.

r184, it's a red state, women are still lying to their husbands and pollsters.

[quote] Trump's in a better position than he on Oct 1., but we're talking 1 pt on average.

[quote] Bottom line: SOOO CLOSE.

[quote] An average poll miss (3.4 pts) in Trump's direction gives him a blowout electoral college win.

[quote] An average poll miss in Harris' direction gives her a blowout win.

R193 Right now 538 has Trump-Harris down to 51-47. Multiple sources indicate the movement is toward Harris... she may not win, but if you value the movement at the end of an election, you'd rather be Harris than Trump.

[quote] Right now 538 has Trump-Harris down to 51-47.

So the election is a tie, like the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that… and this weekend and Monday and Tuesday.

R202 Lick the finger, put it up in the fresh air, see which way the wind is being. There is statistical movement. It was shifting toward Trump earlier in October. It is inching toward Harris the week before the election. Watching the movement is kind of the whole point for these threads, eh?

When an election is this close and this stable, the polls can’t really tell you anything about which way it’s going to go.

R204 Sure. Which is why there have been 6 threads on polling on DL with over 3200 posts. Sure.

[quote] Which is why there have been 6 threads on polling on DL with over 3200 posts.

That’s evidence of obsession and hysteria, not evidence of any real change in the race.

R206 There's obsession and hysteria here (not the least of which is your trolling). But there's also interesting discussion.

I normally follow the polls. I’m not saying they should be ignored throughout a race, but at this late date, when they have been tied and stable for quite some time, it is pointless to look at tiny swings here and there. The polls are not going to tell you who is gong to win this election. They are telling us it is too close for them to be of any further use.

Fair points R208. Even the polling experts are saying similar.

These 3,000+ posts do reflect something though. This election feels insane because it is. The GOP nominee is an actual sociopath, criminal, a Putin wannabe, and he’s hellbent on revenge. So yeah maybe we’re feeling more than a little desperate to know the unknowable and to please, please be told he will lose.

Four more days…

Harris still not polling well in the AtlasIntel poll.

[quote] Harris leads in only one of the 7 decisive swing states for the Electoral College outcome: Wisconsin. Trump's advantage over his opponent is most significant in states such as AZ, NV and NC. The race is tight in the Rust Belt swing states.

This was posted in one of the prior threads a few weeks ago, earlier in October. It's an excellent read and asks a lot of sensible questions: Noise in the Numbers: The Great Polling Mirage.

AtlasIntel polling has been more Trump-leaning for months now, relative to the polling industry’s average.

Hard to know what to think about that, because they were also a bit more Trump leaning than the average in 2020.. and they were unusually accurate.

But there are credible reasons to believe the 2024 electorate is different than the 2020 electorate. And we’re seeing some possible evidence now with the high % of women vs men in early voting.

Say "cheese", bro.

Garsh, the digital superposition nonsense. A thread about polling devolves into a meta-analysis of why threads about polling are useless. I, for one, am exhausted with the screens in front of me telling me how useless the screens in front of me are - disappointment is so addicting.

The polls underestimated Donald J. Trump in 2016.

They underestimated him again in 2020.

So can we trust the polls this time?

I’m asked this question a lot, and if I only get one quick reply, my answer is simple: no.

No, you can’t trust the polls — at least if you mean by “trust” what I think you do. You can’t safely assume that the candidate leading in the polls is going to win. They’re not exact measurements, and elections nowadays are so close that even an excellent poll could leave someone feeling misled on election night.

But while the polls aren’t so precise that you can trust they’ll nail a tight election, you can’t assume that the polls will badly err again, either, as they did in 2016 or 2020.

Last week, we detailed the best theories for why the polls erred in 2016 and 2020, as well as what pollsters have done to try to improve since. On balance, these changes add up to a case for cautious optimism on better accuracy, but there are no guarantees.

The case for pessimism is serious as well.

The optimistic case for more accurate polls There are two main reasons to be cautiously optimistic that the polls could avoid badly underestimating Mr. Trump yet again.

First, the pandemic is over. There’s serious evidence suggesting the pandemic was a major factor in the polling error in 2020, as many Democrats stayed at home — and responded to polls — while Republicans went about their lives. It would explain why the fixes that pollsters made after the 2016 election proved so ineffective four years later. If so, many polls might be accurate even without any major changes at all.

Second, pollsters have made major methodological changes with the potential to address what went wrong four years ago. Many of the worst-performing pollsters of 2020 have either adopted wholesale methodological changes or dropped off the map. Some have employed a technique called “weighting on past vote,” with the potential to shift many otherwise Democratic-leaning samples neatly in line with the closer result of the 2020 election.

It’s worth noting that there’s a possible contradiction between these two reasons for optimism. Many pollsters have made these changes in hopes of better representing Mr. Trump’s supporters, on the (quite possibly correct) assumption that traditional polling simply can’t reach his MAGA base. But if that assumption turns out to be wrong, it’s possible that pollsters could overcompensate.

Perhaps the very best reason to think the polls might underestimate Kamala Harris this cycle is simply that many pollsters are so concerned — understandably — about underestimating Mr. Trump.

It’s hard to overstate how traumatic the 2016 and 2020 elections were for many pollsters. For some, another underestimate of Mr. Trump could be a major threat to their business and their livelihood. For the rest, their status and reputations are on the line. If they underestimate Mr. Trump a third straight time, how can their polls be trusted again? It is much safer, whether in terms of literal self-interest or purely psychologically, to find a close race than to gamble on a clear Harris victory.

At the same time, the 2016 and 2020 polling misfires shattered many pollsters’ confidence in their own methods and data. When their results come in very blue, they don’t believe it. And frankly, I share that same feeling: If our final Pennsylvania poll comes in at Harris +7, why would I believe it? As a result, pollsters are more willing to take steps to produce more Republican-leaning results.

Over the last month, I’ve written about one such example: weighting on past vote. Many of the blue-ribbon pollsters using this method know it doesn’t go by the book. They didn’t do it in the past, and they’re probably aware that it would have induced polling error over the last half century of survey research. (Among the problems is that a surprising number of respondents are likelier to remember voting for the winner.)

But after the last few cycles, they don’t trust their data to represent some of Mr. Trump’s supporters. Their data may still look implausibly “blue,” and using this method moves their result toward Mr. Trump. They wouldn’t do it otherwise.

Even the pollsters who haven’t taken such heavy-handed measures may still, subtly, be tugged by a decade’s worth of focus on finding the full measure of Trump support. Whenever there’s a choice between two equally defensible paths, they have almost certainly erred toward the right.

The case for pessimism The case for pessimism on accuracy is straightforward: There’s no reason to believe that pollsters can reach enough less engaged and less educated voters, and there’s every reason to believe Mr. Trump still excels among them.

Pollsters have known for decades that less educated and politically disengaged voters are less likely to take surveys. Until the Trump era, this was not a serious problem, as Democrats and Republicans fared equally well among voters with or without a college degree. Democrats, if anything, were the party of less engaged voters, and perhaps that’s part of why the polls underestimated Barack Obama in 2012.

Mr. Trump changed all of this. He made enormous gains among voters without a college degree, and the polls suggest those gains were greatest among lower-turnout voters, helping to explain Democratic strength in special and midterm elections. As a consequence, a decades-old inevitable bias in polling now endangers political polling — and during an era of close elections when errors that would have been routine in the 1970s and ’80s can leave egg all over the faces of pollsters.

It’s hard to see how the pollsters can get out of this one. They can give more weight to the less educated and lower-turnout respondents they do get, but consider: These respondents agreed to take a poll, which in itself may be a sign of a higher level of engagement.

Even weighting on past vote isn’t a panacea. Oddly, one of the worst scenarios for polling is if the pollsters using recall-vote weighting are right — if poll respondents really do accurately remember how they voted in the last election, and have for some time. If so, the challenges in polling must run very, very deep, as the polls in 2020 that were weighted on past vote were just as inaccurate as everything else.

How could respondents accurately recall their vote, but polls weighted on recall vote get it wrong in 2020? Only if Trump voters whom pollsters do get are profoundly unrepresentative — and far more likely to defect than Trump voters overall. Unfortunately, it’s plausible: The highly engaged Trump voters taking polls are probably exactly those likeliest to defect over his conduct on Jan. 6. If so, even the recall-vote-weighted polls might be badly skewed.

It’s even possible that the disengaged Trump nonresponse challenge gets worse. By all indications, Mr. Trump is faring even better among less engaged voters than four years ago. The polling shows it, and it’s easy to see why. The social media environment is more favorable to Mr. Trump, while Democrats are staking the election in part on an issue — democracy — that relies on knowledge of Mr. Trump’s conduct and a strong belief in an abstract value. Meanwhile, the last four years of Democratic overperformances in special and midterm elections suggest that the party’s strength among the most highly engaged voters is greater than ever.

If so, yes, it’s possible the polls could badly underestimate Mr. Trump once again.

Of course, the defenders of the optimistic case could flip all of this around: If the polls show Mr. Trump faring better among disengaged voters, it may suggest they’re finally reaching the voters who have been helping Mr. Trump all along.

We won’t know whether the optimistic or pessimistic case is right until the polls close and the results begin to arrive. We never do.

Cygnal Political has Harris up nationally 50-47.

TIPP has Trump up 1 nationally (49-48).

Kamala Harris is going to be the next president of the United States.

On January 20, 2025, she will become America’s first woman president, America’s first woman of color to be commander-in-chief and America’s first person of Asian heritage to become the country’s chief executive.

Born in late 1964, she will bring the perspective of a new generation to the presidency. Whereas Joe Biden brought the experiences of growing up middle class in the industrial heartland of America, Harris will bring the views of someone who grew up, lived, and worked in the Bay Area of California as it was transformed by Silicon Valley and the onset of the digital era.

Her inauguration will signal a historic watershed in American history, and will also mark the end of nearly a decade during which Donald Trump was a central figure in American politics. He will become an ugly footnote in U.S. history, a name that students will find relegated to “worst presidents” lists and books and articles about corruption.

For students of politics, his rise will be linked to a backlash against irreversible trends in American demographics that will ensure that within just a few years, the majority in the country will look more like Harris than Trump.

She is the future. He is the past. And on Election Day, American voters will embrace that change.

This will all be made possible because, when the final votes are counted in next week’s election, Harris will have outperformed the vast majority of polls and won by a more substantial majority than most commentators expected. Trump will howl and contest the vote. But in the end his conspiracy theories and unfounded legal challenges and intrigues will again be unsuccessful as they were in 2020 and 2021.

The reasons that the pollsters and pundits—who have a pretty lousy record in recent years—will be proven to be wrong again are manifold.

First, Harris has run an exceptional campaign, which she and her team have executed flawlessly. She has not set a foot wrong since Joe Biden announced he would not seek re-election on July 21, from her first efforts to reach out to party leaders in a wave of calls that Sunday afternoon through to her first statement as candidate appearing at the campaign office in Wilmington the next day.

Her first public speeches were suffused with a new energy and vision that was desperately needed in American politics, and her choice of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate was inspired. A flawless convention culminated in a superb speech by her, and she sliced, diced, and julienned Trump like a Veg-O-matic at their debate.

Her recent “closing argument” on the Ellipse in Washington, the site from which Trump launched his coup attempt on Jan. 6, 2021, was a perfectly orchestrated and executed finale of a whirlwind campaign in which she made it crystal clear that she was the president American needed now—that she and this moment were made for each other.

As a consequence of those efforts and of the energy she brought to the race, Harris has also produced concrete results that will soon be recognized to have had a direct and meaningful impact on her victory next week. She raised vastly more money than Trump.

Unlike Trump she did not divert any funds to legal defense funds nor did she distract from fundraising efforts with the sale of Home Fascism Network tchotchkes like golden sneakers, overpriced watches, electronic trading cards or souvenir books. Her money went to supporting a grassroots network many times the size of Trump’s, run by professionals—unlike Trump’s which is being farmed out to the likes of Elon Musk, who knows absolutely squat about politics.

Those funds have helped pay for a campaign that has been distinguished not just by massive rallies and big ad buys but one that has mastered digital media like no other campaign in history, recognizing its new preeminence in delivering news to Americans and in shaping their views. It has also paid for a vast, detailed, well-run campaign that has had the benefitted of unprecedented numbers of volunteers from coast to coast. Trump’s corresponding efforts were a fraction of Harris’ everywhere that matters.

Harris has mobilized a new coalition that will be responsible for her victory, thanks to a massive GOTV (get out the vote) operation, and carefully targeted messages that have tapped into the gestalt of every crucial group of voters with concrete ideas. She has by aided by the support of the historically productive track record of the Biden-Harris administration, and persuasive, timely, often edgy messaging.

As in 2022 and in interim elections before and after, the modeling of pollsters will have been proven wrong because it underestimated the anger of women at the repeal of Roe v. Wade.

Trump’s pick of misogynist troll JD Vance as his running mate, his repeated chest-thumping on Roe and his promise to protect women “whether they like it or not” (a toxic male outlook that has seen him named in accusations of sexual abuse from dozens of women throughout his adult life) have also sent the message that Trump-Vance-MAGA is the most anti-woman ticket in history. Women have noticed and that is why the most striking data from the now over 30 million votes that have already been cast is that the gender gap among voters is approximately 10 percent.

That gender gap is bad news for Trump. Polls have revealed that Harris does much better than Trump with women. But polls may be missing some important women voting groups. These include so-called “ghost voters”—women who are not showing up in models, either because they are from groups that have historically performed differently, like young voters; or they are from traditionally Republican voter groups but will not state publicly who they are voting for due to family pressure but who, in the privacy of the voting booth, will vote for Harris.

Regarding those who have voted Republican in the past but who are crossing over to Harris, the vice president has wisely made reaching out to them a central goal of her campaign. She has won the backing of notable GOPers including both Liz Cheney and her father and hundreds of former Trump campaign officials or GOP officials nationwide.

Harris will win a previously unimaginable number of Republican voters, perhaps 15 to 20 percent of the GOP vote in some states, and that will also come as a shock to political modelers. So too will higher turnout among young voters more broadly and among voters of color.

Since she entered the race, Harris has closed the gap that had Joe Biden lagging Trump by some estimates, and has consistently been tied or ahead of Trump on both national polls and on polls in the seven battleground states.

Polling data that you may hear or see on television or the internet is, however, skewed by as many as 100 polls that have been bought and paid for by Trump supporting entities. According to Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who was one of the few to call the 2022 election right and dismiss the hype about a “Red Wave” that never materialized, independent polls have Harris up nationally by an average of 2.4 percent.

Further, in battleground states, among independent polls, there has been considerable movement toward Harris. In a YouGov poll, Harris is up by 7 in New Hampshire, by 4 in Michigan, by 1 in Pennsylvania and she is just 2 behind in North Carolina. A CNN poll shows Harris up by 5 in Michigan, up by 6 in Wisconsin, up by 1 in Arizona and it shows Pennsylvania a tie.

Rosenberg wrote on his Substack, “Where is the election today? I still think we are up by 2-4 points nationally and in a stronger position in the Electoral College—despite what the averages and forecasters say. The VP is far better liked, and likable, something that matters to late breaking voters. We’ve closed the gap on the economy with Trump—a huge campaign achievement—and the economy itself is doing incredibly well right now. We are closing strong. They are closing ugly, really, really ugly.”

The key point from all of this is that polls are showing Harris up, and the polls are likely undercounting the number of votes she is likely to get. Further, early voting and voter registration data supports this thesis. Consequently, take the past performance errors of pollsters, the likely skewing of their current models, the fact that most polling, donating, volunteering, registration and early voting trends are in her favor and there can be no other conclusion but that Harris is going to win on Nov. 5 and do so by healthy margins.

Further proof of this comes from the fact that Trump is already spinning up lies about “rigged elections’ as he has in the past, most recently, for example with a lament about Pennsylvania. In other words, addled as he is, Trump also knows he is going to lose on Tuesday.

There is one last factor that I believe Harris will win: the good sense of the American people.

The electorate has made mistakes. But it has never had a choice quite as clear-cut as this. This year’s election pits good against evil, the prosecutor against the felon, the career public servant vs. the most corrupt, self-serving official in history, a dedicated patriot against a proven traitor, a joyful warrior against a merchant of hate and division, and a leader of the most successful first term administration in modern U.S. history against a man historians have voted the worst president of all time. I don’t believe the American people will get this one wrong.

That said, I have not garnered the view that Harris will win by exploiting a glitch in the time-space continuum and glancing at the headlines from the day after. I could be wrong. But it will be less likely that I am if you and everyone who reads this and all the people you and they know, get out and make sure this prediction comes true.

Vote Harris.

If you have voted, helped ensure others vote. Help those who can’t get to a polling station get to the polling station. Volunteer. Donate. Help ensure the elections are fair. Do whatever you can to make sure that Kamala Harris not only wins but that she does so by a margin so large that it makes it harder for Donald Trump to challenge it. It probably won’t stop him. But it likely will make the period of wrangling and MAGA lies that will follow shorter and ensure that it be resolved in a way in which, in the final analysis, the will of the American people is realized and the historical turning point I described at the outset comes to pass.

We’re now just going to copy, paste, and post tl;drs from random people if we like their conclusions, instead of looking at poll results?

won't believe any poll until DL's beloved Poll Troll tells me to!!!

Pretty much, R222.

I’d be down for a 2024 Early Vote Results Analysis thread if others want to get it started. That’s where the substance is at this point.

[quote]Right now 538 has Trump-Harris down to 51-47. Multiple sources indicate the movement is toward Harris.

According to 538, RealClear, TIPP, Nate Silver, Andrew Tanenbaum (Electoral-vote.com), Kamala was doing better a week ago..

I don't have access to this article, but I like the subheading:

"The Trump campaign has paused its premature celebration and fallen into sweat mode, as early-voting numbers indicate more women are turning up than men in must-win Pennsylvania, and operatives are bringing out the briefcases for lawfare. “They’re going so crazy here,” says a source."

r226 I thought their argument in recent years was lawfare was bad? More republican cognitive dissonance?

I was wondering why Dump filed a lawsuit in Bucks County to extend the deadline for mail in ballots, and I figured it out. They are massively behind right now, and can’t depend on day-of voting to get them out of the mess they’re in. This is inline with the post at r226.

I don’t think I can take 4 more days.

Trump is going to NC four times before the election. Not a sign of confidence.

R230, NC + GA + PA is the easiest path for Trump. It makes sense for him to try to get an edge in those three states.

Did you all see David Plouffe’s comment today? From X.

“ It’s helpful, from experience, to be closing a Presidential campaign with late deciding voters breaking by double digits to you and the remaining undecideds looking more friendly to you than your opponent.

Close race, turnout and 4 days of hard work will be key. But good mo.”

I like Plouffe, but he’s on Harris’s staff now, so keep in mind.

A Democrat has won NC only once since 1976. Trump shouldn’t have to spend so much of his remaining time there.

Matt McDermott @mattmfm: yougov: 6600 registered voters, oct 25-31:

Harris ahead: Michigan 48H-45T; Nevada 48H-47T; Pennsylvania 49H-46T; Wisconsin 49H-47T.

Tied in Arizona at 48. Trump ahead: Georgia 48T-47H; North Carolina 49T-48H.

Matt Viser @mviser: Senior Harris campaign officials say campaign’s internal data show them winning by double digits among battleground state voters who made up their mind in the last week. Focus groups, officials say, show damage to Trump from Madison Square Garden rally and Puerto Rico comments.

@mattmfm: In 2016, Trump won late deciding voters 48-40% over Clinton. If Harris is in fact winning among late deciding voters that’s a huge problem for the Trump campaign.

Aren’t all these polls now useless given how many people already voted? I voted back in September.

R227 I apologize if I'm being dense, but what does "lawfare" mean?

[quote] Trump is going to NC four times before the election. Not a sign of confidence.

Or he and his team know he’s winning and he wants to get out in front of crowds that love him. Those rallies are then streamed online and on television.

[quote] A Democrat has won NC only once since 1976. Trump shouldn’t have to spend so much of his remaining time there.

Republicans have won PA only once since 1992, but that hasn’t stopped it from becoming a battleground state like NC and requiring so many stops there by Harris. It happens.

R236, “lawfare,” as that word has been used by Trump, means using the long arm of the law against your political opponents.

Nate Silver on the significance of early voting data:

"The early vote doesn't reliably predict results"

Harris has all of the momentum. More seniors voting for her in PA.. More women in PA. More young and diverse new registrations as well.

Polls are swinging in her direction. And there’s no sign yet of a surge of angry young male coming out for Trump yet.

Michael Moore, who famously predicted Trump’s 2016 victory and pooh-poohed the widely- predicted 2022 red wave, is expecting a “blue tsunami” of historic size on Tuesday.

[quote]Senior Harris campaign officials say campaign’s internal data show them winning by double digits among battleground state voters who made up their mind in the last week. Focus groups, officials say, show damage to Trump from Madison Square Garden rally and Puerto Rico comments.

This kind of unhatched chicken makes me nervous as fuck. Why frighten the horses? (Or in this case potentially voting jackasses.)

Two separate tweets on AZ:

“ Trump has a big problem in AZ. Everyday out in the East Valley suburbs Im talking to Republicans who are 100% done with Trump and Lake. Just got out of a class at Lifetime and the ladies were all chatting and the common thread was “we’re Republican and he’s crazy. It needs to stop now.”

“That's exactly what the family is met with yesterday said verbatim "were Republicans, and he's crazy, it needs to stop"

As Trump has been consistently ahead in Arizona polls, I'm going to need to see a lot more than anecdotal evidence to think the state is within reach for Harris.

[quote]Harris has all of the momentum. More seniors voting for her in PA.. More women in PA. More young and diverse new registrations as well.

The PA campaign sign indicator in 2016 turned out to be a good predictor, at least for that election. After this election, maybe one of the non-poll predictors that people have been throwing out will become this year's equivalent to campaign signs.

MIAMI HERALD SHOCK POLL: FLORIDA BACK IN PLAY FOR DEMS

Can someone please post it DL won’t let me attach a link.

Here is the Reddit Link to the Miami Herald article.

Can someone with a sub copy and paste the actual article?

This is huge.

[quote] Michael Moore, who famously predicted Trump’s 2016 victory and pooh-poohed the widely- predicted 2022 red wave, is expecting a “blue tsunami” of historic size on Tuesday.

He also predicted Trump’s reelection in 2020. Let’s not.

Ohio.

The Puerto Rico Research Hub at the University of Central Florida polled about 150 Puerto Ricans who predominantly live in Central Florida through an online survey in the last half of October. They found that 85% of those polled would vote for Harris while only 8% said they supported Trump. Six percent said that they would vote for an alternative candidate. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percentage points.

Previous polling has also suggested that Puerto Ricans in the state broadly dislike Trump, though he did make inroads in 2020 in areas of Florida with large numbers of Hispanics, including people with roots in the American territory.

The researchers said that they received a lot of responses to their poll after the New York City rally and noted the incident’s close proximity to Election Day.

“This might be a call for action for a lot of people that weren’t thinking about voting but now they have a reason to,” said Fernando Rivera, a sociology professor and the Hub’s director. According to the poll, 88% of Puerto Ricans said they had an unfavorable opinion of the former president, compared to five percent who had a favorable opinion. Seventy-two held a favorable view of Harris and 10% held a negative opinion. The researchers noted that despite that there are more than a million Puerto Ricans living in the state, there will likely not be a sizable impact on the presidential election in Florida. Trump is ahead in the state, according to several polls. But they said it remains to be seen whether the comedian’s remarks play a role in states where the race is tight, such as Pennsylvania, home to about 472,000 Puerto Ricans, and North Carolina, which has 130,000.

Worms for brains.

We're getting into silly season if anyone seriously think Florida is in play. The Reddit link does not support that proposition. Only that Puerto Ricans in Florida overwhelmingly support Harris.

"Why Trump Has a More Plausible Path to the Presidency, in 19 Maps"

By Doug Sosnik

"Mr. Sosnik was a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has advised more than 50 governors and U.S. senators."

Can any American posters please tell this British poster how likely it is that Indiana or Montana to flip and do we think Josh Hawley could lose his senate seat? Thank you

Apart from whether Harris can actually win Ohio, the Ohio poll supports the Nate Cohn theory of the case that the Republican Electoral College advantage has (largely) evaporated. Such that Harris can win this election without having to win the popular vote by 3-4%.

if you mean Indiana and Montana will flip from Republican to Democrat..the likelihood is zero.

Can any American posters please tell this British poster how likely it is that Indiana or Montana to flip and do we think Josh Hawley could lose his senate seat? Thank you

Are we talking about the Montana & Indiana presidential race? If so, they are both varying degrees of red, with Montana being ruby red. Neither is being contested by the Harris campaign. Unfortunately, Missouri is also a very red state, so Hawley is in no serious danger.

Harley looks to be way ahead in his race. He has a 10% lead on his opponent.

r258 Thanks for replying.But didnt Obama flip some unexpected states like Indiana , thats why I asked because I am wondering where this elections surprise flips will come from.

Hawley…

r259 Yes the Presidential race. Thanks for replying. Hawley is a real creep.

R261 their won't be any surprise states. Certainly not Indiana.

AZ, NV, GA. NC, PA, MI and WI are the only up for grabs states.

Obama was a much more popular candidate than Harris.

r264 Thanks. I have come across a lot of twitter chatter about Alaska and Ohio being more likely to flip than many realize? I take it you are sceptical of that.

[quote] didnt Obama flip some unexpected states like Indiana , thats why I asked because I am wondering where this elections surprise flips will come from.

He did, but in the context of winning the popular vote by a very healthy 7.2%.

Although parts of Indiana are mainly blue - such as the urban and diverse Marion County (aka City of Indianapolis) and the area surrounding Bloomington (IU territory, very academic), the rest of the state is firmly bright red, both rural, small town and remaining urban areas (smaller cities like South Bend, Evansville, etc).

There was a time when IN was home to strong, nationally prominent moderate Democratic leaders like the Bayh family (Birch and Evan) and well-educated, moderate Republicans (Dick Lugar). But those days are past I'm afraid. IN has also produced two of the weakest and least-liked VPs in US history: Dan Quayle and Mike Pence.

[quote] I have come across a lot of twitter chatter about Alaska and Ohio being more likely to flip than many realize? I take it you are sceptical of that.

Best to be wary of unsubstantiated online chatter.

This isn’t a wave election where a candidate comes in like a tidal wave and takes most of the country with them.

R266 short answer: Now way in hell do those states flip.

r268 r267 Many Thanks for the details.

Really have got my fingers crossed for a Kamala win r269 I am wary but dont personally know enough to understand the likelihood of such a change.Dont most Presidential elections produce at least one surprise flip for the winning party?

r270 Couldnt angry women create a wave?

Florida has 700,000lPRs. Trump won by 300k

The 6 week abortion ban and the PR debacle absolutely puts FL in play.

Talk about the reek of desperation that emanated from my computer monitor as I read that RFK. Jr attempt at damage control at r253.

Bobby and Ethel are both rolling in their graves, Della at r274. Thing is, he's articulate enough that dimwits like some of my family members, who were longtime Kennedy fans, are still supporting him in this election! They still see him as some kind of maverick, cool outsider, who flouts convention as only someone from his background can. It's strange.

As reflects the fact that the Harris campaign has not invested in the state's very expensive media market, Trump is ahead 51.1-44.6 in Florida.

R276 that was before the PR debacle. There are no FL polls since then, except the Miami Herald which identifies enough voters just in that one poll to put Kamala just over the edge for a win compared to 2020.

Why would you ignore this most recent poll in favor or outdated ones?

“97% polled said they'll be voting. 51% are registered Democrats but 85% said they're more likely to vote Democrat. 88% said they view Trump unfavorably.”

The math is there.

I keep saying watch Florida where the numbers come in reasonably quickly that night. It would be hard to flip but if the divide between Trump and Harris surprises, I say that spells good news for the rest of the night.

Then let's see if the campaign invests in Florida these last few days.

“The Reddit link does not support that proposition”

Why would you say that? That’s the entire context of the article and the Reddit post is that very proposition.

And then pointing back to old polls while dismissing this most recent one is….well it could only be that the goal is to depress anticipation or excitement.

Why try to only point out negative outcomes? What is the motivation there? The end goal?

It’s weird and sticks out like a sore thumb. It stinks of an agenda.

“The Reddit link does not support that proposition”

can we get some more elaboration on this?

Because it’s exactly wrong.

“The Reddit link does not support that proposition”

Are we just going to throw stuff like this around now, and with such authority.

The gumption of it all.

My partner is on Reddit the way I'm on Datalounge. The poll threads say the polls make no sense. She has Obama levels of enthusiasm, rock concert rallies, at least part of the Nikki Haley voters, and as others have noted, disproportionate levels of women voting. Something's off with the polls. Meanwhile he's driving garbage trucks around and can't fill red state rallies. Something's not adding up.

Love that 285.

When 100% of the anecdotal accounts are all the same, it has to mean something. Every person is saying the same thing in red area, blue areas… they are done with him.

I've said that for weeks, r285. And add in Abortion and it's gonna be a blowout, and everyone's gonna be shocked.

R265, her enthusiasm level by one poll I saw was a point or two above his 2008 level.

I wouldn’t get excited about Florida. The current Gov has attracted lots of MAGAs to the state. Many people move to Florida to avoid high taxes in other states. They never vote for Democrats.

R281 (and R282) I'm not who you're accusing but I did post the extracts from the Miami Herald article @ R252:

"The researchers noted that despite that there are more than a million Puerto Ricans living in the state, there will likely not be a sizable impact on the presidential election in Florida. Trump is ahead in the state, according to several polls. But they said it remains to be seen whether the comedian’s remarks play a role in states where the race is tight, such as Pennsylvania, home to about 472,000 Puerto Ricans, and North Carolina, which has 130,000."

It is a survey, with 271 responses from a population of 1M+. A representative sample of 1M would draw on about 2,400 responses, balanced to reflect the population. I have linked to the survey for you.

Agree 100% with R285.

[quote] Why try to only point out negative outcomes? What is the motivation there? The end goal?

[quote] It’s weird and sticks out like a sore thumb. It stinks of an agenda.

I post a lots & lots of favorable polls, tweets & articles. While I desperately want Harris to win & look for every bit of supporting data I can find, my "agenda" is also to be an honest broker. My "agenda" is not to blow smoke up people's asses. The underlying Miami Herald article linked in the Reddit post was exclusively about Trump's unpopularity among Puerto Rican Floridians. It did not purport to show that Florida is somehow in play.

“there will likely not be a sizable impact on the presidential election”

Nobody was saying it was guaranteed. We are saying it is back in play.

OK, just you're saying with nothing to back it up, while the experts say it isn't likely. Look, possibly. But not as definitely as you seem determined to believe. We'll know soon enough.

Maybe Harris can squeeze in a trip to Tampa/Orlanodo area and cinch this up.

Or send Obamas and co

It all hinges on PA.

She’s not going to win Florida. Send everyone to Pennsylvania instead.

r296 Are there any big celebrity Floridian democrat supporters who could help?

J LO

Interesting….

Early in-person voting in North Carolina exceeds 2020 total.

Even if it's not likely that she wins Florida (or Iowa or Nebraska where he's polling at 50% under where he was in 2020) it is an overall sign that she's likely doing very well in the real swing states.

r298 Good shout. What about Mandy Moore or Sarah Paulson?

"Early in-person voting in North Carolina exceeds 2020 total"

She's maybe going to win NC. She's driving any enthusiasm. His is below 2020 levels

Sorry, I should say his spread/lead is 50% less.

r298 Bella Thorne Ariana Grande, Fred Durst, Flo Rida Debbie Harry and Pitbull and Ricky Martin are some others that wikipedia says are from or lived in Florida.

Pink , Tina Fey, Kevin Bacon, Sabrina Carpenter, are celebrities from Pennsylvania who could maybe help if so inclined?

Florida has 5% voting “other” up until the 31st. I doubt that will hold.

Just got confirmation today that my vote was counted in Michigan. Hope that means a Harris win.

[QUOTE] It all hinges on PA.

Everything hinged on PA for a decade now. It was always going to come down to PA. That’s why I don’t understand how Kamala passed on the chance to run with that state’s popular Dem Governor as her VP.

R308 VP doesn't matter that much and they like their governor who has only been there 2 years. He's too slick for her. Walz is the perfect second banana.

It was reported Shapiro went in with demands and was deemed incompatible based on his ambition. Same reporting said Harris had learned and accepted it is the subordinate role and sometimes, for good reasons, you're not consulted or engaged or the last person in the room.

I can understand Harris not picking Shapiro for VP. If I was in her shoes and Shapiro is my VP, I’d be too distracted and would want to sleep with him every chance I get when we’re alone have a “meeting”.

We’ve been told for so long that it all comes down to Pennsylvania. But it might just be Wisconsin, instead.

PA has 19 EC votes. Wisconsin 10. Only Ca, Tx, Fla and NY offer more.

Yeah, but what if she wins Pennsylvania & Michigan, but Wisconsin, whiter & less educated, hangs in the balance?

Here's an interactive map, play with yourself. It is easier for her to hit 270 without Wisconsin than without PA. She needs the boost of those 19 seats.

As expected, undecided voters are late breaking to Kamala. Trump is digging his own grave with his increasingly erratic and offensive behavior.

A few decent Wisconsin population areas are close enough to Minnesota that the Walz pick matters.

Not if, R315, as some believe, the blue wall states are her lone path to victory. In that scenario, she could be needing Wisconsin to get her over the top. Even winning the 6 electoral votes of Nevada, perhaps her best Sun Belt option, would not compensate for the loss of Wisconsin’s 10. I heard one pundit on Sirius this week suggesting that Wisconsin could be the 2000 Florida, where the lawyers & journalists encamp for weeks waiting for the winner to be awarded the state’s electoral votes and declared the next president.

Is David Plouffe are only source for the assertion that undecideds are breaking in great numbers for Harris? If so, like R233, I’d be cautious about accepting his word at face value. Campaigns famously try to spin reporters.

OK, wharever, R319. WISCONSIN IT MUST BE!

Debbie downer is stinking up the place.

Trump simulated giving a blow job on a microphone. I would say it’s over for him.

Pollsters have way underestimated the impact of Dobbs because the polls are mostly managed by men. There are lots of signals of a potential blue wave if you look beyond the polls.

A Republican Campaign insider thinks Harris will win.

[quote] Florida has 700,000lPRs.

IPR?

[quote] “97% polled said they'll be voting. 51% are registered Democrats but 85% said they're more likely to vote Democrat. 88% said they view Trump unfavorably.”

Where’s this quote coming from?

Puerto Rickens’ r325

Is there some reason they don’t just ask people who already voted who they voted for, and then take a sample from each battleground county and predict the winner?

Must be a reason they don’t do that.

It all comes down to like 20 counties. 50% of people have voted in some areas, plenty enough sample size.

You don’t see much exit polling or any exit interviewing at all. Are the media companies cheaping out?

It seems we are asking the wrong question at this point.

It should be who have you voted for…not who are you likely to vote for.

I don't think wealthy celebrities have any influence over the struggling middle-class.

Does that include Trump ?

[quote] NV voter update: GOP extends lead to 49 K statewide.

[quote] That's 4.8 percent.

[quote] Rural landslide continues.

[quote] It's now Clark mail or bust for Dems, steep climb.

R333, point granted, Nevada early voting seems like a Trump-friendly result. Not a big gender gap, and R outpacing D by a significant margin.

And.. Nevada brings only 6 electoral votes.

The lack of gender gap in Nevada is an anomaly. The early voting gender gap in most of the other battleground states is big. So many women in PA, MI, WI, NC, GA, AZ have been casting votes AS SOON AS THEY POSSIBLY COULD. It is easy to imagine this helping Harris, and hurting Trump.

r323 Yes some British political commentators and podcasters are saying they think the pollsters are going to have egg on their faces at the size of Kamalas victory.

Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejects Republican effort to throw out provisional ballots.

[quote] So many women in PA, MI, WI, NC, GA, AZ have been casting votes AS SOON AS THEY POSSIBLY COULD. It is easy to imagine this helping Harris, and hurting Trump.

We have to distinguish among the states. A gender gap in the blue wall states may have very different effects than in Georgia & North Carolina, where many more of those women are evangelicals.

I would posit that the gender gap is most meaningful in states more likely to see statewide restrictions on reproductive rights.

Definitely, ElderLez. And R337, that's a good point... of course most of us in here want to see it as "women repudiating Trump" but surely it is a mix. I still think it helps Harris more, though.

I just read that Trump is doing FOUR events in North Carolina over the final stretch. They know he’s in trouble. And it’s delicious.

Exactly R340, they would only be doing that if they thought he was absolutely winning Pennsylvania or absolutely losing Pennsylvania.

And what's been leaked from the two campaigns' internal circles and how they are feeling, says he's not absolutely winning it.

Can't imagine why Ron DeSantis doesn't want anyone to see what's transpiring at polling stations.

[quote] And what's been leaked from the two campaigns' internal circles and how they are feeling, says he's not absolutely winning it.

The Puck article - at least that to which we had access - IS encouraging; what Plouffe tweeted - without any supporting data - may well just be spin.

[quote] Last update: 10:45 a.m., Saturday, November 2. At this point, there’s enough new polling that it’s hard to know exactly what’s influencing the model, but Harris is gaining in our forecast, and it’s converging toward a truly 50/50 forecast. A strong set of YouGov polls, plus a Washington Post poll showing her ahead by 1 point in Pennsylvania, are surely part of the reason why. Her win probability remains ever-so-slightly below Trump’s but is the highest it has been in two weeks.

She’s winning. Thank God.

I am terrified just like anyone else at this point, because we all have 2016 PTSD, especially with the polling.

But where I’m finding a little bit of solace is in looking at how the campaigns are conducting themselves this last weekend. Kamala is all over the place having huge rallies and fighting hard for votes in places she needs as many as possible.

Trump is acting like a doddering old man who doesn’t know where he is half the time, spending time in places he’s not going to win or places he’ll win as long a he has a pulse.

From my memory, that’s the inverse of 2016 (the places he’s spending him, not a reflection of Hillary’s acumen).

In my sample size of one, my 70-year-old stepmother who is friendly with one of John McCain’s sons from his first marriage, has been posting Harris/Walz stuff all over Facebook.

I'm with Nate Silver. She has a 50-50ish chance of winning. Considering where we were in July, that's an impressive feat.

R344 This is, in part, just an effort to cover his ass. No matter who wins he'll be able to say, "well, I said it was close."

Basic political science on elections: at the very end the "undecideds" usually break all in one direction. That is if there are 3-4% undecided it's likely that 3% will go one way, 1% the other. The undecideds won't break in proportions shown by general national polls. There's evidence the undecideds will break for Harris. It makes sense, if you are undecided about Trump there is very little for voters to hear or see something to make the decide, "oh, right, I am voting for HIM." This is why many poll experts have observed Harris has "a higher ceiling" while Trump's ceiling is "baked in", as they say.

Harris for the win. Harris winning PA, WI, MI and at least one of the others (my gut tells me NV and AZ both.)

For what it's worth, hopefully not much, Maggie Haberman was interviewed yesterday and said the Trump camp was very optimistic.

Ugh.

Hmmm

The Trump camp has to say they are optimistic even though they know their own internal polling is showing Kamala surging at the end.

MAGA Haberman is friendly to Trump? Who’s have guessed?

Also, the Trump camp has shed most of the their competent advisors and replaced them sychophants…

Re Kellyanne, girl brush your hair.

[quote] Yes some British political commentators and podcasters are saying they think the pollsters are going to have egg on their faces at the size of Kamalas victory.

They’re wrong.

Chart.

Everyone is waiting for the Selzer poll.

Doesn't Ann Selzer just restrict herself to polling of Iowa?

[quote] For what it's worth, hopefully not much, Maggie Haberman was interviewed yesterday and said the Trump camp was very optimistic.

Because journalism is too hard and makes some people very unhappy, Maggie is just repeating what the Dump campaign TOLD HER TO SAY on media. Closer to the probable truth is that he Dump campaign is shitting bricks over the internal polls BUT because of the sick culture in the Dump campaign they have to pretend things look great because they have been told that anyone who leaks to the media anything but total optimism will be fired and done in Republican politics.

They keep Dump afloat by lying to him and telling him he's doing great because his behavior would grow even more unpredictable and irrational if he knew the truth.

It's the Scientology brand of enthusiasm.. fake but required for the cult

The race is too close to call, but one of the candidates will win, and then their supporters will say, “See, we told you all along that we were ahead.” Both sides are in a position to do that.

The internal polls are positive for him, trust me. The election is Trump’s to lose and deep down everyone knows it. I would love a miracle but the American voter is both stupid and has a very short attention span.

I loathe the whole prediction market and its manipulation by Elon Musk and others, but this is the website of the Northwestern professor who tracks such things. He writes: "The last five days of October saw a 58-electoral-vote movement in the direction of the Democratic ticket. And November 1 saw an additional 39-vote movement in the direction of the Democratic ticket. The Virtual Tout® now has the 2024 election as a toss-up." That's quite a movement in just the past week.

[quote]The internal polls are positive for him

They are not and you have not seen them.

[quote] The election is Trump’s to lose and deep down everyone knows it

No, not everyone knows that or thinks that. It is a turnout election.

[quote] I would love a miracle

Work, not miracles, are required. Voiting and not buying into the kind of dampening shit you are promoting

Near the end of John Heilemann's most recent podcast - Costa & JMart: Road to the White House or Highway to Hell? - he says the smartest Democratic operatives in the three key blue wall states all tell him that if the polls & data are accurate (& the internal/public data is not that different) & it's basically a tie race, that the strength of their ground game is such that "she can win all those states." Alternatively, Heilemann reported them saying, "we're gonna win." Conversely, "they live in fear" that "the polls are wrong, [and] they could easily imagine Trump winning all of them." Due to the reemergence of the "response bias," the race may not really be tied & they could wake up & see that Trump voters have been discounted again.

Costa said that if the women & men who support abortion rights but came out in '22 show up again, Harris "almost certainly" will get elected. But if the Haley voters vote for Trump, Trump wins or "is in a very good position to win."

[quote] They are not and you have not seen them.

Neither have you or anyone else here who keeps saying they’re bad.

[quote] Neither have you or anyone else here who keeps saying they’re bad.

Great, so you admit you have no idea what the internal polls are in the Dump campaign.

So, your agenda of simply throwing a wet towel, proffering information you DON'T HAVE on the hope that Democracy will survive has been revealed for exactly what it is.

The Times's interactive polls page had Trump up 1 in Pennsylvania yesterday. Today they have it tied.

The 538 "who's favored to win" probability model continues to inch toward Harris: Trump 50, Harris 49.

I do think it's all interesting and fodder for those of us who are poll addicts and full of anxiety - and I'll continue to read the and post rants and fumbles here - but I think most of the polls are "herding" to 50/50 by Tuesday so they can claim "we didn't fuck up" in the end.

[quote] Costa said that if the women & men who support abortion rights but came out in '22 show up again, Harris "almost certainly" will get elected.

I mangled that sentence. It should have included "but rarely vote."

The political class is all hedging so they can keep their jobs.

If Dump is threatening to cut loads of government jobs, surely those people would want to vote against him?

Elon Musk is so repulsive. I don’t know who would vote for that.

[quote] If Dump is threatening to cut loads of government jobs, surely those people would want to vote against him?

Most of those jobs are held by people who are residents of DC, Maryland & Virginia, so any further erosion of support there would be of no moment to Trump.

Honestly, the divide between what I hear Haberman say and how many of you interpret it is one of the great mysteries of DL.

[quote] Because journalism is too hard and makes some people very unhappy, Maggie is just repeating what the Dump campaign TOLD HER TO SAY on media.

What Haberman reported about the optimism of the Trump campaign was reiterated by both Costa & JMart in the Heilemann podcast. So the conspiracy is even larger than what some of you even imagined.

All the Arizona polls now say that Trump is definitely winning Arizona. It’s expected to be anywhere from 2 to as high as 8 points. Arizona is officially in Trump’s column.

Because you think Haberman is unassailable truth? That there might be multiple sources of information to review, analyze, critique.... in order look at the current status and eventual outcome of the election?

Haberman has always been mildly annoying to me... her "flat affect" as she reports "inside knowledge" about Trump and his circle is supposed to make us think she is completely neutral. Her whole career for a decade now has been to work this brand of "Trump insider"....she often is the source of important info, but remember she also holds back info for her book and its sale.

Haberman is one, but not conclusive, source on what is happening with Trump and this election.

Arizona was long thought to be Harris's weakest state among the battlegrounds, R375.

[quote] All the Arizona polls now say that Trump is definitely winning Arizona. It’s expected to be anywhere from 2 to as high as 8 points. Arizona is officially in Trump’s column.

On his podcast, Heilemann said that the Harris campaign privately believes that their clearest path to 270 is through the blue wall states.

My anecdotal, mini-statistical sampling:

I live in a Wisconsin, north-central rural area, solidly Republican.

While canvassing this morning to get out the Democratic vote ( we had data that the doors we knocked on were Democratic) we visited with a White male voter who owns a well-known business.

He said, “I can’t think of another 4 years of Trump. His behavior is terrible.”

He told he’s voting Harris Walz. And no he wasn’t blowing smoke up our behinds.

He meant it.

r379, Thank you for doing this work, Della!

I went to vote today and Tesla gps took me to the wrong location which wasn’t even a voting site at all that was nowhere near where I was supposed to go. So then I had to use Google map. Is Elon Musk pulling some shady shit? Does he know I’m a registered democrat somehow? I’ve never had Tesla gps be this wrong. Something fucked up is going on and people need to investigate. I swear I’m not making this shit up.

Tesla is garbage. Sell that shit now.

R382 has a genome abnormality: he is missing the R2D2 irony gene

All the 3 major aggregators just movies things in Kamala’s direction sometime today or several times today.

Yipeeeee!!!

Keep up the good work!!!

The aggregators are useless, at this point. What don’t you get?

[quote] All the 3 major aggregators just movies things in Kamala’s direction sometime today or several times today.

Oh, dear, and you’re full of shit.

Ok, I must have missed it, who are the three major aggregators? Oh and r386 is a troll.

Can confirm r387 re: bad actor286. 🚫

It seems like people have started to wake up in the last week or so. I've mostly been worried about the silent Trump voters, but maybe the silent Kamala voters are going to outnumber them. Please, please, please.

It seems like… nothing. In every election there is a a late shift, invariably on one direction by one or a few points. 3024 the shift is towards Harris.

[quote] Trump has ten stops planned for the final three days starting today: four of them are in NC. This tells me they have poll data that shows they are in serious trouble of losing his red wall.

Repeat, corrected:

It seems like…nothing. As in almost.every election there is a a late shift, invariably in a single direction by one or a few points.2034: the shift is toward Harris

R392 there is no Red wall. You type ill-informed.

for R391

R390/392 is not well oriented to time & space.

R393/394, I was merely quoting Matthew Dowd's very pro-Harris post. Are you a Trump supporter?

No. Neither am I a Dowd. We don’t need endless quoting. If you’re not sharing an original thought, stand down until late Tuesday evening.

[quote]If you’re not sharing an original thought, stand down until late Tuesday evening.

Thank you!

Nate Silver, Saturday, November 2. At this point, there’s enough new polling that it’s hard to know exactly what’s influencing the model, but Harris is gaining in our forecast

“Polls May 'Underestimate' Kamala Harris' Chances—Political Analyst”

Shit like this will make up a few minds, too.

Its's like they're trying to lose but I'm pretty sure it's just the Wild West meets Titanic... no rules, every scam for himself.

^ FYI:

"On the international front, most of the west European countries have rejected water fluoridation including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and Switzerland."

RFKJr is our Raymond Shaw. Ethel was our Mrs. Iselin. They will never know 😉

Even if Kennedy's statement is true, advising local government to do it has no effect. However, I highly doubt that Trump would do it, even if he "promised" it to Kennedy.

R402 have you seen them EU teefths?!

I like fluoride. Though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe fluoride has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!

TFG is in Virginia with three days to go. That makes no sense. (I know nothing he does makes sense.)

God Bless American Flouride!

Selzer poll is about to drop in one hour. THE poll.

[quote] If you’re not sharing an original thought, stand down until late Tuesday evening.

This space is gonna be awfully quiet if we have to rely solely on original thoughts.

We have our share of posters who have autocratic bents.

What's so important about a poll for Iowa?

Selzer poll is about to drop in one hour. THE poll.

The big poll of non-battleground Iowa. I cannot wait.

What are Kamala's chances in Ohio? I so want that Vance fucker to get some blame

The endorsements keep coming.

[quote] What are Kamala's chances in Ohio?

I'm worried sick about whether she can pull the trifecta & nail all three blue wall states. I don't have the luxury of worrying about how she might do in red states.

I can't wait until the defeatist trolls on this series of threads disappear after Kamala wins.

[quote] What's so important about a poll for Iowa?

I trust our Ann Selzer fanboy/girl is just being puckish.

It’s a bellwether poll that tends to predict the winner. Look for Trump supporters to downplay the significance

Kamala three points ahead of Trump in the Selzer poll!

A Ruby red state too.

Wow!!! Forgive me for questioning the significance of this poll. Ann Selzer knows Iowa like the back of her hand, so if her poll show Kamala up, I believe it. A big fuckin' deal.

Meltdowns over at 538 Reddit!

So wait she's up in Iowa?!?

R419 Wow. While it's still problematic for Harris to actually win Iowa, Selzer's work is so respected, and the Iowa demographic whose movement measured is exactly what Harris needs in (the very similar) WI, and possibly MI and PA. Another significant bit of evidence that Harris might sweep the Blue Wall... and more surprises (NC, NV, GA).

A VERY BIG DEAL.

R423 gets it. It doesn’t mean she’ll actually win Iowa. But it sure does mean Trump is fucked in the upper Midwest and with women everywhere.

Two Harry Enten tweets:

[quote] Well that is something.

[quote] Well we know one pollster who isn't herding.

Lol this MAGAS response to the selzer poll shows someone who has consumed far too much kool aide.

[quote] It doesn’t mean she’ll actually win Iowa.

You must not be familiar with the legendary Ann Selzer. She ONLY polls Iowa & her polls are spot-on. She knows her state that well.

How many electoral votes is Iowa?

R429 are you blind? That’s not what this poll means!

She's certainly putting her reputation all on the line. If Trump wins Iowa handily, she's going to be looked at to see what happened.

6 votes

Harris benefits in Iowa by not having been subject to the onslaught of negative ads that those of us in battleground states are seeing 24/7. Is it too late for Trump to launch a media campaign there?

R405 has never been anywhere near any of the countries of the EU.

R427 Just stop —you link to the most asinine of posts. You’re terrible at commenting on an American website, about a U.S. election.

Forest? Trees! …angels ☠️

R434 has never been within 100 metres of satire.

r435 No

In the pre-Des Moines Register poll universe, Harris had no realistic insurance policy if there was to be a Wisconsin crack in her blue wall strategy. If NC, Georgia & Arizona were no longer seen as within reach, winning Nevada's 6 electoral votes would not cut it. But adding Iowa's 6 electoral votes would offset the loss of Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes.

[quote]The poll shows that women — particularly those who are older or are politically independent — are driving the late shift toward Harris.

How wonderful would it be is this becomes the story of the election. And Trump loses by so much the "they stole the election" tactics look as ridiculous as he is.

Dummy. The Iowa poll indicates that the blue wall is likely secure. Which means she doesn’t need Nevada. And which means 6 EC votes in Iowas are extraneous. Does no one here know how demographics trends work across state boundaries?!

For R438

It might show that this time around there's a hidden Kamala vote that pollsters weren't picking up.

Or they've overcompensated giving Trump's numbers more weight in their calculations.

R440 how confident do you feel about the blue wall?

Or that she will get more electoral votes than he will. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Jesus H Christ.

[quote] Another significant bit of evidence that Harris might sweep the Blue Wall... and more surprises (NC, NV, GA).

[quote] The Iowa poll indicates that the blue wall is likely secure.

I think we need to take a step back. As I noted, Harris benefits enormously in Iowa by not having been attacked relentlessly, 24/7, by the Trump campaign and pro-Trump pacs.

Read the fucki g Iowa poll and tell me.

My God. Connect the dots!

R442 It's all speculation. But why did the polls get 2022 so wrong? I've got this feeling that there is a significant chunk of women who have just fucking had it... and they may not be very loud or public about their anger and intensity, and for whatever reason they aren't registering in the usual polls metrics, but they are pissed and they are voting.

Yeah, women are going to save our ass... .again.

R445 that’s not the reason she’s ahead in the Selzer poll. Women are rejecting Trump. White women. ALL over.

The end.

R445 Yes and no. I live in CA and I see constant ads of Harris with Trans folk. I think we could overvalue the amount of ads, there is a saturation point with them I think.

I also see "San Francisco radical" and "She and Biden broke it" and "oy vey, Trump will protect Jews" ads... a lot.

Guys, guys, take the victory. Stop trying to find the bad. This is a sign that the silent Harris voters are voting. If they're voting in blood-red Iowa, then it's happening elsewhere. That's good. Very good.

Maybe, R448. It's possible the other pollsters polling the blue wall states have missed something that Ann Selzer is picking up. But it's also possible, even likely, that Harris's numbers in Iowa would not be what they are if Iowans were privy to anti-Harris ads those of us in battleground states have been seeing non-stop the last two months.

People are getting tired of the anti-Harris ads in battleground states. “Kamala created the border crisis.” Um no, people know that the Vice President doesn’t “create” anything.

Iowa might explain Trump's late push for New Mexico.

[quote] Um no, people know that the Vice President doesn’t “create” anything.

You give voters far too much credit.

R453 And Virginia. VA always trends Repub early in the returns....

I've been saying for a while that too much is made of the undercounted stealth Trump voter but not enough of the possibility that there exists the undercounted stealth Harris voter.

Straight White Males aren't going to announce that they're voting for Harris. But I think the abortion issue is motivating them to vote Harris.

Hope Tuesday is an early night.

How many of the other polling firms are female lead?

Abortion and porn R456.

Dump supporters in 2024 are loud and proud. Every one of them who is voting for him has announced it to everyone they know, has told pollsters, and has a hundred signs in their yard. That wasn’t the case in 2016, which is why then polls underestimated his support then.

This year, it’s the total opposite. It’s the Harris voters who are being quiet.

Dollars to donuts they also claim to be black people or former Democrats when the pollsters ask for their demographics since that’s a thing MAGAts do on-line.

Then the pollsters are like, ok that’s a representative sample.

Nate Silver has spoken:

Last update: 8 p.m., Saturday, November 2. As you’ve probably heard if you follow polling closely, Ann Selzer — our highest-rated pollster — just came out with a survey showing Kamala Harris leading by 3 points in Iowa! Before you get your hopes up too much, another Iowa poll today from Emerson College had Trump ahead by 9 points instead. Still, Harris’s chances in Iowa roughly doubled from 9 percent to 17 percent.

However, the poll had little effect on our topline Electoral College numbers because Iowa has only a 1 percent chance of being the tipping-point state. In the world where Harris wins Iowa, she is probably also cleaning up elsewhere in the Midwest, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin, in which case she’s already almost certain to win the Electoral College. So most of the time, it would be redundant.

Still, to have a prominent, high-quality pollster like this at a time when most other pollsters are herding toward the consensus suggests the possibility that other pollsters could be lowballing Harris.

[quote] The results follow a September Iowa Poll that showed Trump with a 4-point lead over Harris and a June Iowa Poll showing him with an 18-point lead over Democratic President Joe Biden, who was the presumed Democratic nominee at the time.

[quote] “It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” said pollster J. Ann Selzer, president of Selzer & Co. “She has clearly leaped into a leading position.”

Note that Harris campaign had devoted attention to the Omaha area, with its one get-able electoral vote and prime House seat flip; this market includes western Iowa.

[quote] I don't know if the Selzer poll in Iowa showing Harris is up 3, but they were one of the first to catch break for Trump in 2016 in last few days, and they caught over polling of Biden in 2020. I have been saying for two months that polls weren't capturing hidden Harris vote.

I voted today in northern VA and there were two booths (R & D) handing out instructions on who to vote for. Green paper for republicans and blue for democrats. I was waiting in line and the majority of the people were holding the blue paper and a lot of them were white women. Let me tell you how fucking proud I am of my county. There were of course a few voters holding the green paper and they were Hispanic and Black men.

There are no hidden Trump voters. They're all too noisy and obvious.

[quote] Note that Harris campaign had devoted attention to the Omaha area, with its one get-able electoral vote and prime House seat flip; this market includes western Iowa.

Has the Trump campaign had a presence, too?

R455 Until my county (Fairfax) drops an atomic bomb on Trump’s ass.

[quote]another Iowa poll today from Emerson College had Trump ahead by 9 points instead.

Okay, I hadn't seen that. It's misleading to mention only the Selzer poll and not point out the 12 (!) point difference between it and Emerson.

How many of these polls are funded by Elon Must?

You mean Elon Mustn't.

None of them are funded by him.

R469 Misleading? Whachu talking about Willis? No one is saying Harris will win Iowa, just DL and the rest of the fucking internet is shocked by what data Selzer presents and what it implies about the other states.

Welcome to politics.

[quote] Last update: 8 p.m., Saturday, November 2. As you’ve probably heard if you follow polling closely, Ann Selzer — our highest-rated pollster — just came out with a survey showing Kamala Harris leading by 3 points in Iowa! Before you get your hopes up too much, another Iowa poll today from Emerson College had Trump ahead by 9 points instead. Still, Harris’s chances in Iowa roughly doubled from 9 percent to 17 percent.

[quote] However, the poll had little effect on our topline Electoral College numbers because Iowa has only a 1 percent chance of being the tipping-point state. In the world where Harris wins Iowa, she is probably also cleaning up elsewhere in the Midwest, particularly in Michigan and Wisconsin, in which case she’s already almost certain to win the Electoral College. So most of the time, it would be redundant.

[quote] Still, to have a prominent, high-quality pollster like this at a time when most other pollsters are herding toward the consensus suggests the possibility that other pollsters could be lowballing Harris. We’ll have a special edition Model Talk out later tonight with more.

[quote] i don't know this for a fact, but i am willing to bet a ton of pollsters reweighted their polls over the last month because Harris came in stronger than they expected and they didn't want to be wrong again like 2020 and 2016. Thus they missed the hidden Harris vote.

So basically, all the polls are wrong. AS USUAL.

[quote] Folks I am not saying Selzer poll in Iowa is accurate with Harris up 3, but there has been various signs in midwest red states of serious movement to Harris. She is down 5 in Kansas, down 3 in Ohio, and up 12 in Nebraska district 2. something is going on.

[quote]something is going on

It’s called Roe-vember.

That Selzer Poll is a Political Nuclear bomb. Seriously

R475 You Twitter post links aren't working.

I eschew Twitter with every fiber of my being, so I get guilty pleasures to read links here and other media.

Harris on SNL tonight... surely that's worth a couple thousand votes in Madison, Ann Arbor, and State College?

Has Dump announced his 2028 Presidential campaign yet?

R479 made me laugh

[quote] You Twitter post links aren't working.

Thanks for letting me know. It was that possibility that has me also quoting the tweets. The tweets quoted in R473 & R475 are from Matthew Dowd.

R481 The Twitter links work for me.

OP is desperate to diminish any good news for Kamala. Still.

Marist Wisconsin 🔵 Harris +2 Pennsylvania 🔵 Harris +2 Michigan 🔵 Harris +2

Marquette Wisconsin 🔵 Harris +1

Tim Miller, Sam Stein & Sarah Longwell offer their take on the Iowa poll.

NEWSWEEK: Alaska back in play.

Women boomers are going all in voting for Kamala. Keep it up ladies!

Why block people and then go back and see their posts? Either block me or don’t. You can’t have it both ways.

So dramatic with it all.

I've blocked R488. What did I miss?

My shithead boomer sister is a dedicated MAGA fool. Nothing shakes her devotion.

Not a gay son, a young granddaughter. Nothing.

She’s hopelessly devoted to Rump

Just r488 pretending to block people for attention.

It’s been a bad day for the trolls.

r486 - Interesting - When I mentioned that I was coming across people in alaska on social media saying they thought Alaska flipping was a possibility i was told I was ignorant and having a fevered dream!

Laura Loomer’s response to Atlantic article explaining the Trump collapse:

@LauraLoomer The only reason some of President Trump's campaign staff planted a hit piece about me and @alexbruesewitz in @TheAtlantic is because some of his own staff don't even believe he's going to win and they want to have people to blame in the event he doesn't win.

Wrong thread

I TOLD all y’all that Iowa was my surprise flip, but I was ignored.

Listen, those pricks are seeing the same polls and their internals must be fucking brutal. They know.

And they know the ONLY prayer they have is to try everything to stop vote counting, stop the EC from meeting, stop the certification or stop the inauguration.

They’re going to start filing even more lawsuits to prevent people from voting or to prevent votes from being counted.

I wouldn't exactly say Harris down 10 in Alaska means Trump's in any danger there. Although it might portend something more sinister in other states.

The betting markets had me ahead, way ahead, leads nobody has ever seen before. The election was rigged!

Regard r494, I never thought on God and Satan's Green Earth I'd ever find Laura Loomer credible about something, but I find it believable that some on Trump's staff are already setting up scapegoats.

I believe you r496

General election poll

🔵 Harris 49% (+2) 🔴 Trump 47%

Echelon #B - LV - 10/31

All those people who bet on Trump are going to go broke.

Is it too late to change bets to Kamala?

[quote]Is it too late to change bets to Kamala?

If people do rush to bet on Kamala, you'll know it because the odds will change.

R503 clearly does not understand the concept of parimutuel betting.

Excerpt from Political Wire:

…”Now, Selzer is back with another shocker: her latest poll shows Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa by three points, 47% to 44%.

This poll is a genuine bombshell. Iowa has been assumed to be safely red, not even a battleground. No one—not even the campaigns—expected it to be even slightly competitive.

It’s just one poll, of course, and even the best in the business produce outliers. Selzer is extraordinary, but she still works within the bounds of statistical variance.

However, if her numbers are even close to accurate, this election could look very different than the nail-biter many predict. If Harris is truly close in Iowa, it suggests she’ll win the three Midwestern “Blue Wall” states as well.

If she wins those, she almost certainly wins the presidency.

A caveat: There isn’t much corroborating evidence yet, though a Fort Hays State University poll in Kansas recently showed Trump leading in that solid red state by only five points and a Miami University poll in Ohio that shows Trump only up by three points. And Harris looks likely to easily win Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district.

Of course, Selzer might also be wrong. She might just be one of the few pollsters willing to publish an outlier in a field where so many pollsters tend to “herd” toward the consensus.

But if she’s right, she’ll be the first to uncover what many have suspected: That the polls have dramatically underestimated Kamala Harris.…”

I find it fascinating how Ann Selzer is touted as the best in the business, one of the finest out there until she produced this result. Now, it needs to be compared to other polls and it might be an outlier.

Is it an outlier? Maybe. Or maybe everybody can just sit back and have a little hope, instead of trying to turn some good news into bad.

[quote]I find it fascinating how Ann Selzer is touted as the best in the business, one of the finest out there until she produced this result. Now, it needs to be compared to other polls and it might be an outlier.Is it an outlier? Maybe. Or maybe everybody can just sit back and have a little hope, instead of trying to turn some good news into bad.

Who on this thread has tried to turn the Selzer news into something bad?

Most of us are adult enough and sophisticated enough for a clear-headed discussion about these polls and for looking at things from all angles. If that's too much for you, you really shouldn't be here.

Here’s an interesting article from the local NPR station about Issue 1 in Ohio.

Either the shitheel LaRose fucked himself dicking around with the ballot language, or the repug voters are fed up with the gerrymandering, too.

Wonder how many of these people are also voting for Kamala?

Because she limits herself to Iowa, knows her fellow Iowans so well, Ann Selzer’s poll has long been regarded as the gold standard of polls. So I’m going to just take this as all unalloyed good, R506.

Just checked the weather forecast for SW Ohio on Tuesday. 40% chance of rain changing to 90% later in the evening.

Could shitty weather discourage people from voting?

Maybe. That’s why we love what we’re seeing with the early vote turnout.

Please tell me young people are voting for Kamala. Women of all ages are but it would be nice to have others doing it, too.

R493 the article says her best case is still losing by several points. Go back to Stonehenge, or whatever village you live in. My god—

Gen Z is very much for Kamala, no matter how much DL hates the youngins, they're largely voting Kamala and don't want people calling you a fa**ot.

He knows.

This isn’t going to help

This is really sad

He knows, but he still thinks he has a long shot chance because of how 2016 turned out.

[quote]He knows, but he still thinks he has a long shot chance

Fyi, 50/50 is not a "long shot".

When it comes to gambling R518 the house always wins.

Never trust a gambling site on elections. Stick to the horses.

Also has anyone seen a presidential poll out of North Dakota recently?

I was posting the FiveThirtyEight averages for PA MI WI etc in here each Tuesday, but doing so without even a hint of skepticism about the data itself. I’ve stopped because there has been growing cause for skepticism.

We all know how to obtain that info. And FiveThirtyEight is still tightening the national race (now down to just a +1.0 for Harris) they are including a large number of suspect pollsters and obviously Trumpy pollsters.

So this series is called “Poll Thread” and yet there’s this increasing sense that the Industry, collectively, is corrupted.

All the polls are inaccurate. The pollsters see the results they get, and then “correct” for whatever they think the real result should be.

Well, when your north star is Frank Luntz...

I think the pollsters will figure out how to adjust for the anomalies in response eventually. They just aren’t there yet.

R521 r523

New and final NYT Siena poll is out. If it holds, Harris wins even if the tied results in PA and MI hold. They have her slightly up in NC and GA, slightly down in AZ. If she wins without the blue wall, this would be weird but still great,

Oh, and do you don’t have to do the math - NC, GA, and WI gives her 274 electoral votes. 280 if you want to include Iowa!

I appreciate that Nate Silver is calling out pills that show a race exactly tied. Which is statistically impossible (for a sample to draw an exact tie). Plus all the Republican polls are artificially favorable to Trump. Kamala has all the momentum and Trump is deflating fast.

[quote] I appreciate that Nate Silver is calling out polls that show a race exactly tied.

Yes, but people like r526 don’t understand that if a race really is a tie, then some poll results will be higher for a candidate and some lower. The real value is still a tie.

Polls can’t pick up a last minute break for one candidate.

Remember 2016.

R530, that's true, and also we have to remember that the level of early voting is new and unprecedented. A significant % of all voters who will vote in 2024, has *already voted* as of today. It may even be one third. So any hypothetical last minute changes to how the electorate might be feeling, is weakened by the early votes already banked. I'd worry that that might help Trump, except we see who raced out of their homes to vote as soon as possible. Lots and lots and lots of women.

[quote] Latest ABC News poll has Harris up nationally +3, and even better are the internals. Harris is only losing white women by 4, a group Biden lost by 11 in 2020. And Harris is only losing white men by 11, a group Biden lost by 23 in 2020.

Above-referenced ABC News/Ipsos poll. Harris up 49-46 among LVs.

Hey, Ohio, let the old lady go out for a carton of cigs and let her take an umbrella...

Reading this thread is torture.

But I'm caught in its tractor beam and I can't break free.

What does ABC news mean by "a dispirited electorate"? The other sources I see are about high enthusiasm (on the D side; haven't heard much about the R beyond the usual rally-goers). 61% of Harris supporters being "dissatisfied with the choice of candidate" seems dubious given the unprecedented levels of donations, volunteering, rally attendance, early voting by women—all quantifiable.

R536, just as with Biden, there is definitely a share of Harris voters whose primary motivation is defeating Trump.

This election will be The Triumph of the 19th Amendment.

Absolutely. Remember, Halley was getting 30% to 40% of primary votes AFTER she dropped out. Good chance a portion of those voters will vote for Harris. I don’t think party affiliation of early voters tells the story many assume it does. Particularly since women are voting more than men.

There would be poetic justice if the GOP’s cynical embrace of the religious right for power is what destroys the party via a Dobbs backlash

Especially for Trump, R540, someone who cynically became pro-life to become president. And has probably paid for his share of abortions.

[quote] The final Times/Siena polls of the campaign show a dead-heat, with Harris gaining along late deciders in the Sun Belt while the Rust Belt tightens

The pollsters have to do this dead-heat crap to keep lazy voter from staying at home on their couches.

I wonder if Ohio MAGA men will stay home because of the rain and their wives will go "grocerie shopping" on Tuesday?

This election will be The Triumph of the 19th Amendment.

r539 Musk is priming magas on twitter to believe all early registered republicans who have voted early have voted for Trump and that if he doesn't win it cannot mathematically be anything other than a fraud and steal by the dems. He is dangerous.

Not defending NYT Siena, but they don't always try to game their poll to create a horse race. Here's their poll update exactly 4 years ago.... saying Biden up +14 nationally over Trump.

I hope they're wrong this time and that the battlegrounds land more solidly for Harris than they're showing. And once again, early voting results are encouraging. And/but... we're going on clues and vibes here. Both sides are.

[quote]Harris is only losing white women by 4

A number still too high.

[quote] I wonder if Ohio MAGA men will stay home because of the rain

Maybe like Trump at that cemetery in France, they won't want to get their hair wet.

Poor wittle Donald:

Saul Loeb Donald Trump is reportedly losing sleep, battling anxiety, and obsessing over his polling numbers as the GOP nominee hopes to hang his hat on any sign that he will return to the White House.

A campaign official told Axios that Trump is asking more questions and pushing his staff to work even harder to ensure that he will come out ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris on Election Day.

“Trump’s anxiety is evident in his late-night and early morning calls to aides in which he peppers them with questions on how things are going—and whether they think he’ll win,” Axios reported.

And keep the cheeto dust on their fingers.

More:

The former president had some of his fears assuaged after his chief pollster, Tony Fabrizio, released a memo claiming that he was in a better position to win the election than in his previous three campaigns, reported Axios.

However, depending on the data used and the affiliations of the person doing the polling, someone could be “putting their finger on the scale,” as polling guru Nate Silver recently put it.

And Trump reportedly isn’t the only one in his party concerned about the numbers and voter turnout.

If men don’t show up to vote, “Kamala is president,” tweeted Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk. “It’s that simple.”

Rick Klein, ABC's political editor, needs to keep up. Reviewing the new NYT polls "giving" Harris Georgia (16), North Carolina (16), Wisconsin (10) & Nevada (6), he said on This Week that it still comes down to the Harris "must win" states of Pennsylvania (19) & Michigan (15), both tied in the poll. No Rick, if the poll has it right, the 38 electoral votes of Georgia, North Carolina & Nevada would offset the 34 votes up for grabs in Pennsylvania & Michigan.

Tony Fabrizio is a fat pig. He would say anything to keep his job on the Trump Train.

Has anyone made a "Hitlerbunker" video about the Selzer poll yet?

AtlasIntel says Trump is winning the black vote in Wisconsin by 65 to 35!! You know that poll is wildly off and should be dumped in the trash, but FiveThirtyEight will include it.

R545, you are misreading your link. The 14 point lead was from June 2020 polling, but the article has a November 3 update. Look at the captions on the data.

[quote] AtlasIntel says Trump is winning the black vote in Wisconsin by 65 to 35!! You know that poll is wildly off and should be dumped in the trash, but FiveThirtyEight will include it.

It also has Kari Lake up, albeit narrowly, in Arizona. Most odd. And it's not just just 538 that regards this pollster highly. So does the Times & Nate Silver.

[quote] Donald Trump is reportedly losing sleep, battling anxiety, and obsessing over his polling numbers

Good. Let him experience some tiny fraction of the agony he puts the rest of us through doing the same damn things.

AtlasIntel is out of Brazil.

Yeah.

No.

538 says:

[quote]AtlasIntel was the most accurate pollster of the 2020 presidential election in the United States. Atlas polls had an average error of only two points and anticipated election results within the margin of error in all swing states during the worst cycle for the US polling industry in four decades.

And they quote Nate Silver to the effect that Trafalgar was second most accurate. That must be why their results are so respected. But hasn't Trafalgar's reputation fallen since then because of poor results?

[quote] Last update: 10:45 a.m., Sunday, November 3. Just two days to go! A lot of polling out in the morning, but it’s all fairly consistent with our previous forecast. A final set of NYT/Siena swing state polls was good for Kamala Harris but not great — for instance, in showing Pennsylvania as a tie, a race that previous NYT polls had shown as leaning toward Harris. However, she got a mediocre set of state numbers from Morning Consult, considering it’s generally been one of her better pollsters. And our national polling average tightened even further to Harris +0.9, though the model doesn’t care much about national polls at this stage.

[quote] Taken together, the poll shows Harris getting support from 49% of registered voters in a head-to-head matchup, while Trump gets an identical 49%. Just 2% of voters say they’re unsure about the choice.

[quote] Boosting Harris: rising Democratic enthusiasm, a 20-point lead over Trump on the issue of abortion, and an advantage for Harris on which candidate better looks out for the middle class.

[quote] Helping Trump: two-thirds of voters who believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, a favorable assessment of Trump’s presidency — especially compared with President Joe Biden’s current performance — and Trump’s double-digit advantage on the economy and the cost of living.

[quote] Harris leads Trump in our final national survey: Harris leads Trump by 2 percentage points among likely voters, 49% to 47%, down from a 3-point lead in our previous update. Taking into account the survey’s margin of sampling error of 1 percentage point, the candidates could be tied at 48%, or she could be up by 4 points, 50% to 46%.

[quote] Harris garners better coverage ahead of final week: The bulk of likely voters (45%) said they have recently heard something positive about Harris, maintaining the positive buzz advantage she’s held throughout the campaign as it reaches its final weeks. Meanwhile, the bulk of the expected electorate (49%) reported recently hearing something negative about Trump.

[quote] Republicans maintain trust edge on immigration: Similar to the run-up to the 2022 midterms, Republicans are more favored than Democrats to handle the economy, national security, crime and especially immigration. Democrats maintain their trust advantages on health care, entitlement programs, climate change and abortion.

A mega-poll out of Britain (with a methodology that resists the cautionary "herding" of all the other smaller-sample polls) points to a Harris lead (winning AZ, NV, MI, WI, and PA). Earlier in the campaign cycle its polls showed Trump winning... i.e. movement toward Harris at the end.

Interesting that 538 has some of Trump's numbers improving others with Harris improving..

He's now back up to "Trump wins 53 times out of 100" vs "Harris wins 47 times out of 100".

Yet they have Harris in lead in the national polls with a +1 advantage.

TIPP has Trump at a +1 and at RCP with a +0.2 lead.

Half of American voters have now voted.

I miss having the Capital Gang & the McLaughlin Group around this time every four years. I used to keep track of the panelists’ presidential predictions.

This election will be called

The Triumph of the 19th Amendment.

I can’t with these pills anymore. You can’t poll and end up with exact ties.

R569 = Judy posting from the other side.

You can if you herd the polls, R569! Herd, herd, herd!

R564: Eleanor Clift? [italic][bold]WRONG![/italic][/bold]

He knows.

I'm not sure that British poll captured the post-MSG Trump mess, as well as a late-breaking Harris trend (to whatever extent).

He walks like a man on his way to the gallows.

R571 It's easier than herding cats.

[quote]He knows.

Yes.

[quote]INSIDE THE RUTHLESS, RESTLESS FINAL DAYS OF TRUMP’S CAMPAIGN “What’s discipline got to do with winning?” in The Atlantic, By Tim Alberta

If you subscribe to The Atlantic or to Apple News+, very interesting article

New thread.

[quote] Tell me you know you’re losing without telling me you know you’re losing:

[quote] Not much mail overnight -- 10K or so. Dems won big but picked up about 2K. Indies had most votes.

[quote] R lead still over 42K.

“I LOVE THE FARMERS AND THEY LOVE ME.” I still can’t believe this man was president.

Corrected new thread.

R567, Eleanor Clift is a guest on Michelangelo Signorile's show on Sirius every Friday. I still like her commentary.

[quote] It’s worth noting we’ve been seeing great polls for Harris (though not as rosy as tonight’s Selzer) in places like Omaha and Des Moines for months. What do they have in common? Really high shares of white college grads and lower nonwhite shares than other metros.

R535

Aptly put - I can’t look away. You’ve done a lot of door knocking - does that help your psyche or does is create more anxiety due to your investment?

At the end of June, in the afterglow of a debate performance that would ultimately prompt President Joe Biden to end his campaign for reelection, Donald Trump startled his aides by announcing that he’d come up with a new nickname for his opponent.

“The guy’s a retard. He’s retarded. I think that’s what I’ll start calling him,” Trump declared aboard his campaign plane, en route to a rally that evening, according to three people who heard him make the remarks: “Retarded Joe Biden.”

The staffers present—and, within hours, others who’d heard about the epithet secondhand—pleaded with Trump not to say this publicly. They warned him that it would antagonize the moderate voters who’d been breaking in their direction, while engendering sympathy for a politician who, at that moment, was the subject of widespread ridicule. As Trump demurred, musing that he might debut the nickname at that night’s event, his staffers puzzled over the timing. Biden was on the ropes. Polls showed Trump jumping out to the biggest lead he’d enjoyed in any of his three campaigns for the presidency. Everything was going right for the Republican Party and its nominee. Why would he jeopardize that for the sake of slinging a juvenile insult? (A campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said the nickname “was never discussed and this is materially false.”)

Over the next several days—as Trump’s aides held their breath, convinced he would debut this latest slur at any moment—they came to realize something about Trump: He was restless, unhappy, and, yes, tired of winning. For the previous 20 months, he’d been hemmed in by a campaign built on the principles of restraint and competence. The former president’s ugliest impulses were regularly curbed by his top advisers; his most obnoxious allies and most outlandish ideas were sidelined. These guardrails had produced a professional campaign—a campaign that was headed for victory. But now, like a predator toying with its wounded catch, Trump had become bored. It reminded some allies of his havoc-making decisions in the White House. Trump never had much use for calm and quiet. He didn’t appreciate normalcy. Above all, he couldn’t stand being babysat.

“People are calling this the most disciplined campaign they’ve ever seen,” Trump remarked to friends at a fundraiser this summer, according to someone who heard the conversation. He smirked at the compliment. “What’s discipline got to do with winning?”

Trump never did deploy the nickname against Biden in public. Yet the restiveness he felt during that stretch of the race foretold a dramatic shift in the tone and tenor of his campaign. Within weeks, Trump would survive an assassination attempt, Biden would abandon his candidacy, Vice President Kamala Harris would replace him atop the Democratic ticket, and polls would show an election that once appeared finished suddenly reverting to coin-flip status. All the while, Trump became more agitated with what he saw as the trust-the-plan, run-out-the-clock strategy of his campaign—and more convinced that this cautious approach was going to cost him a second term.

Read: This is exactly what the Trump team feared

In conversations with nearly a dozen of the former president’s aides, advisers, and friends, it became apparent that Trump’s feeling of midsummer tedium marked a crucial moment in his political career, setting off a chain reaction that nearly destroyed his campaign and continues to threaten his chances of victory. Even as they battled Democrats in a race that refuses to move outside the margin of error, some of Trump’s closest allies spent the closing months of the campaign at war with one another: planting damaging stories, rallying to the defense of wronged colleagues, and preemptively pointing fingers in the event of an electoral defeat.

At the center of this tumult, people close to Trump agreed, is a candidate whose appetite for chaos has only grown—and serves as a reminder of what awaits should he win on November 5.

Trump decided it was time to take matters into his own hands.

For the first 10 days following Biden’s departure from the race, Trump had listened dutifully as his campaign co-managers—a pair of longtime GOP consultants named Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita—explained that the fundamentals of their strategy remained solid. Nothing dramatic needed to change with Harris taking over the ticket, they told Trump, because she was inheriting the vulnerabilities they had exploited so successfully against Biden. They argued that whatever burst of money and enthusiasm had accompanied her entry into the race would prove short-lived—and warned him against overreacting. Staying the course, they told Trump, was the surest recipe for electoral success.

He went along with their plan—for a while. But every hour his campaign spent attacking Harris as if she were a credible opponent—rather than bludgeoning her as the airheaded, unqualified, empty pantsuit Trump was sure she was—gnawed at the former president. Finally, he ran out of patience. On July 31, during an onstage interview with the National Association of Black Journalists, Trump publicly unloaded the sort of race-baiting barbs that his aides had, up until that point, succeeded in containing to his private diatribes.

“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” Trump told the journalists onstage, eliciting gasps from the audience. “I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

In the days after his NABJ appearance—as staffers scrambled to satisfy their boss’s appetite for pugilism without indulging his racist and misogynistic impulses—Trump began to lose confidence in his team. He had long dismissed the warnings from certain friends, such as his former acting director of national intelligence, Richard Grenell, that Wiles and LaCivita weren’t up to the job. But now he had reason to wonder. With Harris climbing rapidly in the polls and his own favorability numbers slipping, Trump was pondering, for the first time, a shake-up of his team. (Cheung said Trump never considered a change to his campaign leadership.)

In early August, Trump started courting two of his longtime allies and former campaign managers from 2016, Kellyanne Conway and Corey Lewandowski, discussing what it might look like if they rejoined his political operation in a formal capacity. Trump told Lewandowski—who promptly agreed to come aboard—that he missed the “fun,” freewheeling nature of that first run for the White House. He told Conway, meanwhile, that he worried he was being overly “managed” by his current team.

Trump’s conversations with Conway troubled Wiles and LaCivita. They knew that she and Trump were talking more and more frequently; they also knew she loved to take credit for electing him in 2016, and wouldn’t be eager to share accolades with her successors. Conway’s back-channeled criticisms of the 2024 campaign had been subtle but pointed; in an effort to placate her, LaCivita increased her monthly retainer at the Republican National Committee from $20,000 a month to $30,000. But in private conversations, Conway continued to point out the campaign’s shortcomings—especially, in her view, the mistaken selection of Ohio’s Senator J. D. Vance as Trump’s running mate. When Wiles and LaCivita met Trump at a fundraiser in the Hamptons the evening of August 2—having been tipped off that their boss just spent the day talking strategy with Conway at his Bedminster club in New Jersey—the campaign’s top advisers fretted that their days running the show might be numbered. (As The New York Times was reporting on Conway’s visit to Bedminster, Trump called reporter Maggie Haberman and angrily denied that changes were afoot, saying he was “thrilled” with Wiles and LaCivita.)

In truth, the real threat was Lewandowski.

A tough-talking operative who had famously accosted a female reporter in 2016 and later allegedly made unwanted sexual advances toward a Republican donor’s wife, Lewandowski had promised Trump a return to the “killer” vibes of 2016. But the details of his new role were left open to interpretation. Lewandowski believed—and told anyone who would listen—that he would outrank the existing campaign leadership. Trump himself, meanwhile, assured Wiles and LaCivita that Lewandowski would be a utility man, serving as a key surrogate while helping organize election-security efforts and field operations in swing states.

The honeymoon period was nonexistent. Before Lewandowski worked a single day on behalf of the campaign, he complained to friends that Wiles and LaCivita had leaked the news of his hiring in an unflattering light that downplayed his role—and timed it to coincide with when he was traveling and off the grid, unable to speak for himself.

Determined to assert himself, Lewandowski arrived at Palm Beach headquarters in mid-August with designs on running the place. Wiles accompanies Trump nearly everywhere on the trail, and LaCivita, when not joining them, often works from his home in Virginia, leaving Lewandowski with a free hand in Florida. He began taking aside junior staffers and department heads alike, one at a time, informing them that he spoke for Trump himself. He made it known that he would be in charge of all spending, and that he needed people to tell him what wasn’t working so he could fix it. Meanwhile, he began calling the campaign’s key operatives in the battleground states, probing for weaknesses in Trump’s ground game and assuring them that a strategy shift was in the works.

Even as colleagues grew tired of hearing Lewandowski describe himself as the former president’s personal proxy, they realized he wasn’t wrong. His arrival coincided with a marked shift in Trump’s mood and behavior. Gone, suddenly, was the candidate of 2024, who despite all the inevitable outbursts was at least receptive to direction and aware of consequences; in his place, as the summer progressed, was the alter ego of 2016, the candidate who did and said whatever he wanted and ignored anyone who sought to rein him in.

During the week of the Democratic National Convention, the former president shared a social-media post suggesting that Harris had performed oral sex in exchange for career advancement. He denigrated the Medal of Honor, the nation’s top award for military personnel, as less impressive than the civilian Medal of Freedom. He accused Harris of leading a “vicious, violent overthrow of a president of the United States.” He called into Fox News’s coverage of the convention and rambled so incoherently that the anchors cut his line 10 minutes into the interview. (Trump promptly dialed Newsmax to continue talking.) At a rally in North Carolina, after polling the audience about whether he should “get personal” with his attacks on Harris—the crowd responding rowdily to encourage his invective—Trump mused about firing his campaign advisers.

Around that time, Trump was asked by reporters about the tone of his candidacy. “I think I’m doing a very calm campaign,” he replied. “I have to do it my way.”

As Trump was settling on Vance as his vice-presidential pick, one of the arguments he found most persuasive centered on an injection of youthful verve: The freshman senator, then just 39 years old, could complement a running mate four decades his elder with a style and media savvy that broadened the campaign’s appeal. With that promise, however, came a certain peril. Vance maintained an entourage of Very Online influencers who had little experience winning campaigns but lots of owned libs in their social-media mentions. Now some of those right-wing agitators would be joining an operation that was already struggling to keep its principal on message.

Vance’s first two months on the ticket were largely uneventful. His awkward, halting appearances fueled a sense of buyer’s remorse among some Trump confidants, but he made no mistakes of any real consequence. (The talk of “childless cat ladies” preceded his appointment to the GOP ticket, as did his remarks that he “would like abortion to be illegal nationally.”) And then came September 9. It was one day before Trump would meet Harris in Philadelphia for their first and only debate, and Vance, according to people familiar with the situation, was feeling punchy. Over the past several days, the young senator had marinated in right-wing agitprop stemming from Springfield, Ohio, where it was rumored that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets. When Vance’s allies on the campaign learned that he’d already spoken out about related issues in Springfield—how the influx of thousands of Haitian migrants who came legally to fill jobs had stressed the city—they urged him to seize on this conspiracist catnip and turn it into a crusade for the Trump campaign.

One staffer in particular—a young activist named Alex Bruesewitz—helped convince Vance and his team that this was an opportunity to put his stamp on the campaign. Vance agreed. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” the senator posted on X, catching the Trump campaign’s leaders entirely off guard. Figuring there was no use in half measures, Bruesewitz led Vance’s minions in blasting the social-media post around their networks and urging officials on other GOP campaigns, as well as at the Republican National Committee, to join Vance’s assault on the migrant community of Springfield. (Bruesewitz did not respond to a request for comment about this story.)

Most Republicans refused to go along. But Trump himself found the shtick irresistible. Even as he was sequestered in debate prep, word reached him that Vance had amplified the sensational claims about Springfield. The former president’s advisers were bewildered by Vance’s post. Though they went out of their way to avoid any talk of Springfield for the duration of the debate prep, there was an ominous feeling that Trump wouldn’t be able to help himself.

Yet somehow, by the time Trump charged ahead onstage the following night—“They’re eating the dogs; the people that came in, they’re eating the cats”—his campaign was facing a more serious crisis.

Several days earlier, Trump had fielded a phone call from one of his superfans: Laura Loomer. A right-wing agitator best known for racist and conspiracist bombast—she has celebrated the deaths of migrants and called school shootings fake events put on by crisis actors—Loomer had remained one of Trump’s most loyal and vocal supporters even in the darkest moments of his post–January 6 exile at Mar-a-Lago. That loyalty gave her a direct line to the former president. After she had joined the candidate aboard his plane during crucial trips to Iowa and New Hampshire early in the year, campaign officials discussed ways to sideline Loomer without causing a scene. They neutralized a volatile situation at the convention this summer, for example, by providing Loomer with a front-row seat for Trump’s acceptance speech—putting her in close physical proximity to her idol while keeping her far from the VIP area that cameras would be shooting live.

But now, in the first week of September, Loomer was getting antsy. She called Trump and demanded to know why the campaign had been keeping her at bay; why she hadn’t been allowed back on the plane as the Republican nominee toured the country. Trump told Loomer not to worry: He would personally see to it that she was invited aboard the plane for his next trip. Later that day, when Trump relayed this request to Wiles—who, since the beginning of the campaign, had controlled the flight manifest—she registered disbelief. “Sir, our next trip is to Philadelphia for the debate,” Wiles told Trump, according to two people familiar with the conversation. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Wiles knew that nothing good could come of this. Still, after one more round of gentle pushback, she acquiesced. (Even people like Wiles, who have a track record of talking Trump out of certain reckless ideas, learn that you cannot retain a seat at the table if you tell the man “no” one time too many.) Wiles decided that allowing Loomer on the trip was not a hill to die on. Perhaps, she would later remark to friends, it should have been.

When Trump’s jet touched down in Philadelphia on September 10, and photographers captured Loomer disembarking, some of the former president’s allies were apoplectic. Republican elected officials began texting campaign aides demanding to know why she was traveling with Trump. But outside of Wiles and LaCivita, Trump’s own staffers hadn’t known she was on the manifest. They were as bewildered—and furious—as everyone else. (Why Trump’s employees find Loomer uniquely noxious, when their boss consorts with known racists and trafficks in cruel conspiracy theories himself, is a separate question.)

As the night unfolded, with Loomer watching the debate backstage and then joining other GOP surrogates in the spin room, campaign leaders weighed their next move. Yanking her from the plane risked turning the story into something bigger and messier: a jilted Loomer lashing out against corrupt RINO deep-state simps in the aftermath of Trump’s miserable debate performance. Wiles decided that Trump’s special guest would remain on the manifest for the duration of the itinerary. The only problem? They were headed straight from Philadelphia to New York City for a memorial ceremony the next morning, honoring victims of 9/11—which Loomer, naturally, had described as an inside job.

After the cameras showed Loomer standing near Trump at Ground Zero, the former president’s own phone lit up. For the rest of the day, friends and associates and donors dialed his number with a manic urgency. Some read him old tweets that Loomer had sent; others demanded that whoever let this woman aboard the plane be fired. Senator Lindsey Graham asked Trump if he was trying to lose the election. To all of this Trump pleaded ignorance. He began complaining to aides that nobody had ever explained to him, specifically, why Loomer was so toxic. They responded by pulling up Loomer’s most incendiary posts and showing them to the boss. Trump winced at some and seemed unaffected by others. But he agreed, by the end of the trip, that Loomer needed to go. What sealed Loomer’s fate, according to two people who were part of these conversations, wasn’t just her racist diatribes but also her appearance: Trump, who is generally appalled by plastic surgery, was disgusted to learn about the apparent extent of Loomer’s facial alterations. (When asked for comment, Cheung told me, “Laura was a hard worker in the primaries and President Trump appreciates a fighter.”)

Trump regarded the Loomer episode as a one-off nuisance. His advisers, however, feared that something more fundamental had gone amiss. The past month had seen the campaign spiral into a free-for-all. Lewandowski was going rogue. Morale was plummeting among the rank-and-file staff. And Trump himself seemed intent on sabotaging a message—curbing immigration, fighting inflation, projecting strength on the world stage—that had been engineered to win him the election. Privately, Wiles confided to friends that she and LaCivita felt they’d lost control of the campaign.

When she and LaCivita sat down with Trump in the middle of September, Wiles urged her boss to realize just how badly things were going. These recent mistakes could not be repeated; this current path was unsustainable. “We need to step back and think hard about what we’re doing,” Wiles told him, according to several people familiar with the conversation. “Because this can’t go on.”

Trump doesn’t take well to admonishment. Yet the only other time he’d heard Wiles address him like this was in late 2022, shortly after he’d announced his candidacy, when he’d dined with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist, at Mar-a-Lago. Trump seemed to recognize now, as he had then, that he was engaging in self-sabotage. He told Wiles that he agreed: It was time to tighten things up.

Days before departing for that doomed East Coast swing through Philadelphia and Lower Manhattan, Lewandowski had told Trump that they needed to talk. There was information, he said, that the candidate deserved to know.

When they met at Mar-a-Lago, Lewandowski laid it all out. He’d spent several weeks digging into the finances of the campaign, he told Trump, and things weren’t adding up. Far too much money was being spent on programs insignificant to his electoral success, and there had been no apparent oversight of contracts and arrangements that created a windfall for certain campaign employees. Lewandowski told Trump that he’d taken the liberty of bringing in a private consultant—personally escorting this outsider into the campaign’s offices—to study the books. This person’s conclusion, Lewandowski said, was: “Your people are either completely incompetent, or they’re stealing from you.”

Trump seemed conflicted. Nothing angered him more than the idea of being taken advantage of. Then again, if there was one person in politics he’d come to rely upon—one person who, he believed, would never steal from him—it was Wiles. Ultimately, Trump instructed Lewandowski to take his concerns to her.

When Lewandowski did so, on a plane ride that same week, things quickly went sideways. He made no accusations about specific individuals, but shared his belief that certain tactical decisions had been made with big paydays in mind. Wiles told him that she took offense at such conjecture—and that she didn’t need to justify anything to him. Still, Wiles spent the next hour walking Lewandowski through the choices made about vendors, contracts, and costs. When he continued to suggest that things weren’t on the level, Wiles ended the conversation, preferring to focus on preparing Trump for the upcoming debate.

Once the debate was behind them—and with many on the inside fearing that the campaign was falling apart—Wiles sensed that Lewandowski was about to make a move. He had repeatedly gone back to Trump, asking for control over hiring and firing as well as veto power over all spending decisions, which would effectively put him in charge of the campaign. Now he was going all in, telling Trump that Wiles and LaCivita had invested tens of millions of dollars in direct-mail outreach aimed at mobilizing supporters during the early-voting period—money that just so happened to line the pockets of certain campaign staffers, including LaCivita, and that could have been spent instead on television advertising. Lewandowski understood that the only tactical component of campaigning that Trump cared about was TV ads. He was telling Trump not just that he was being stolen from, but that the money in question would have made him ubiquitous on TV.

On September 12, when Wiles told Trump, “This can’t go on,” she added that she wasn’t just talking about Loomer and Springfield. Lewandowski had parachuted into a well-run campaign and rolled grenades into every department, Wiles told Trump, sowing distrust and spreading rumors and making it impossible for her to do her job. “If there’s something you’re skeptical of, something you want answers to, let’s talk about it,” Wiles told her boss. “But if you don’t have confidence in me and Chris, just say so.”

It was an ultimatum. And if Trump struggled with the decision before him—fire Wiles and LaCivita, or keep them and banish Lewandowski—he didn’t let on. Then and there he gave Wiles a vote of confidence. The next day, on the campaign plane, Trump convened Wiles, LaCivita, and Lewandowski around a table in the front cabin, in a meeting first reported on by Puck. He spoke directly to Lewandowski. “We can’t afford to lose these guys,” Trump said, motioning toward Wiles and LaCivita. “They’re in charge.”

Lewandowski knew the fight was lost. “Sir, I’m the only fucking person on this plane who isn’t getting paid to be here right now,” he grumbled, according to multiple people familiar with the meeting. “I’m happy to go back to fucking New Hampshire.”

“No, I want you on TV for me every day,” Trump said. He paused. “And go win me New Hampshire, while you’re at it.”

Lewandowski slapped the table. “You’re not going to win New Hampshire,” he said. “But okay.”

When passengers reboarded the plane for the next leg of their trip, Lewandowski was not on it. Being evicted from the plane is a signature insult in Trump’s political sphere. Lewandowski told friends that he’d planned all along to fly commercial to his next destination; the former president told his traveling aides that Lewandowski’s absence was meant to send the message that dissent would no longer be tolerated. Trump had lost a lot of ground to Harris over the previous month, and victory was possible only if everyone on the campaign fell back in line.

Things appeared to stabilize from there. As September gave way to October, and Harris launched a major media offensive aimed at connecting with voters who still felt no familiarity with her, Trump’s campaign was delighted to cede the spotlight. Wiles and LaCivita believed that every moment Harris spent in front of live cameras translated to more Republican votes. Instead of trying to book Trump onto major networks, where his comments might produce negative news cycles, his team arranged a tour of podcasts, most of them aimed at young men. The effort was led by Bruesewitz, the impulsive young Vance sycophant who maintained an impressive network of right-wing influencers. The strategy appeared to work: For the first three weeks of October, Trump’s internal polling showed Harris’s momentum stalled—measured in both net favorability and vote share—while Trump’s numbers inched upward.

Where’s Selzer’s general election poll?

By the middle of October, Trump was being hounded with requests from Republican candidates for joint appearances—requests that had been conspicuously few and far between just a month earlier. Even vulnerable incumbents, such as Representative Ken Calvert of California, tried to grab hold of Trump’s coattails, campaigning with him in his decidedly purple district. Surveying the narrative shift, Trump’s allies marveled at how simple it had all been. Keeping voters’ attention on Harris—while, to the extent they could, keeping Trump out of his own way—had produced the most significant movement in his direction since her entry into the race.

Not that Trump wasn’t doing his best to muck things up. The 40 minutes he spent onstage in Pennsylvania swaying silently to music prompted aides to exchange frenzied messages wondering whether the audio could be cut to get him off the stage. (Ultimately, they decided, letting him dance was less dangerous than letting him rant.) A week later, back in the all-important commonwealth for another event, he left aides slack-jawed by marveling at the ample genitalia of the late golf legend Arnold Palmer.

Even as the political class settled on Trump as the betting favorite, his allies couldn’t shake a pair of very bad feelings. The first was about ground game: With much of their party’s resources being diverted to legal efforts, the GOP’s field operation was struggling to keep pace with the Democrats. The patchwork strategy left Republicans heavily dependent on outside help. But good help is hard to find. Elon Musk’s canvassing program was fast becoming a punch line in Republican circles. Several GOP consulting firms saw young staffers take short leaves to knock doors for Musk, lured by the enormous commissions he offered. His new system proved easy to game, allowing workers to inflate the number of contacts they reported, and to pocket the rewards. (Musk’s political entity, America PAC, did not respond to a request for comment.)

The more urgent concern, however, was the acrimony that had fractured the Republican nominee’s political operation. Lewandowski had, within a month of his defenestration at 30,000 feet, worked his way back into Trump’s inner circle—and even, at times, onto the plane itself. Wiles had, around the time of their showdown with Lewandowski, told LaCivita that she could no longer deal with the headache of handling the manifest. She charged him with the thankless duty for the remainder of the campaign, making for awkward encounters whenever Trump announced that he wanted Lewandowski to accompany him somewhere.

Even when Lewandowski wasn’t around, his presence was felt. In one instance, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem—with whom Lewandowski was reported to have carried on a romantic relationship (they have both denied this)—boarded the Trump plane after an event and joined the former president for a strategy briefing with his aides. As the candidate received a series of positive updates from the ground—early-voting metrics, state-based internal polling—Noem interrupted to say that the campaign was lagging behind the Democrats in terms of voter-registration numbers. Trump’s aides were stunned: Not only was she contradicting their own data, but those present were convinced that Lewandowski had put her up to it in order to make Wiles and LaCivita look bad. (Noem, through a spokesperson, denied this and took offense at the notion that “she needs a man to put her up to anything.”)

As the race moved toward its conclusion—and as the constellation of helpers and hangers-on surrounding Trump began positioning themselves to take credit or deflect blame—more than a few people close to the candidate were shopping dirt on their internal rivals. A sense of foreboding settled in over the campaign. There was so much bad blood, several aides told me, that something was bound to spill out into the open.

Why do people care so much about Iowa?

Sure enough, on October 15, the Daily Beast published an explosive story alleging that LaCivita had skimmed huge amounts off the top of TV ads, direct mail, and other expenditures, netting him some $22 million from his work on behalf of the campaign and a pair of related super PACs. Multiple campaign sources told me that the nature of these arrangements was exaggerated, and that although LaCivita had made plenty of money—and perhaps more than some people were comfortable with—it was nowhere near that amount. (“Not only is the $22 million number manufactured out of thin air,” LaCivita told me in a statement, “but it’s defamatory.”) His objections hardly mattered: Trump was livid. Even when Wiles tried to calm him down, arguing that Lewandowski had planted the story to eliminate LaCivita, the former president kept fuming, saying the story made him look like a fool and demanding to know why the campaign hadn’t stopped it from being published.

With everyone in the campaign watching to see how their boss would respond to the article, Trump made it known that LaCivita was not welcome on the plane for a planned trip to Georgia that evening. Trump was still beside himself a day later, ranting about the article and telling friends that he’d fire LaCivita—and possibly his entire team—if it weren’t for the PR hit that would cause just weeks out from Election Day. (Cheung denied that Trump was upset by the Daily Beast report, saying, “Everyone recognized it came from disgruntled individuals.”)

LaCivita was abruptly summoned to Trump Tower on the morning of Friday, October 18. There, he found himself climbing into the lead car of the former president’s motorcade, a limousine in which Trump often rides alone to recharge between events. On this occasion, there was another passenger, the businessman Howard Lutnick, who had recently been named a co-chair of Trump’s White House transition team. The three of them made small talk all the way to LaGuardia Airport, as LaCivita waited for the hammer to drop. It felt, LaCivita would later tell several friends, like an episode of The Apprentice: beckoned by the boss, shoved into the limo with a spectator on hand, only to ride in suspense for what seemed like an eternity, believing that at any moment Trump would turn and say, “You’re fired.”

Instead, when they arrived at LaGuardia and boarded the campaign plane, Trump signaled for LaCivita to join him in the cramped, four-seat office at the front of the cabin. As they settled across from each other, Trump reached for a small stack of paper: a printout of the Daily Beast story. LaCivita, in turn, produced a much thicker stack of paper. These were the exhibits for the defense: Federal Election Commission reports, bank-account statements, pay stubs, vendor agreements, and more. For the next half hour, according to several sources with knowledge of the exchange, the two men had it out—profanities flying but voices kept intentionally low—as LaCivita insisted to Trump that he wasn’t ripping the candidate off. Trump, the sources said, seemed to vacillate between believing his employee and seething over the dollar figure, wondering how something so specific could be wrong. Finally, after a couple of concluding f-bombs, Trump seemed satisfied. “Okay, I get it, I get it,” he told LaCivita, holding up his hands as if requesting that the defense rest. He added: “You should sue those bastards.”

Bottom line - the race is still a tie.