Official Election Poll Thread: Part 7

Part 6.

[quote] For no particular reason, I’d like to share that it’s a beautiful day, and that I feel exceptionally happy, hopeful, and excited.

I am not comfortable feeling optimistic right now. But I do. Deep down.

So I am now in the process of convincing myself it's actually over, even though I don't think it is, so that I can keep some level of homeostasis. Which, of course, makes no sense. It's truly insane.

But such is how life is days before an election where so much rides on a few states I don't live in.

[quote] Here is why I trust the ABC poll of Harris +3 far more than NBC which has it even: in NBC poll Harris is winning white college grads by 12 points, Biden only won them by 3 in 2020. and non college whites, Harris is losing by 30, but Biden lost by 35. Harris is winning.

Why are non-college whites so stupid?

There is a certain natural selection, r5.

R5 You just answered your own question.

Does Selzer have a General Election poll?

I think she's always focused on Iowa, R8. I could be mistaken. You could always Google it.

No, R7. She only polls Iowa. One reason why her polls are generally so expert.

R10, why then all the other posts showing her presidential and senate polls?

New poll.

If Selzer only does Iowa, what are these?

R13 I don't like PA and MI in a tie. But if all the states wind up as polled by NT Times poll, INCLUDING giving Trump both MI and PA... Harris wins the electoral college 274-264.

Harris is in a better position than Trump.

R13, I hesitate to teach the basics, but perhaps polls of Iowans on senate, governor and president?

A number of non-college whites on this thread. 🙄

How does Trump win Pennsylvania? Oye

R13 smh

I hope you can at least claim to be drunk posting.

Arizona

(Continuation of Tim Alberta article from previous thread)

The air was more or less cleared: Trump has not raised the issue of LaCivita’s pay since, aides told me, save for several episodes of the candidate teasingly—but conspicuously—calling LaCivita “my $22 million man!” Nevertheless, the alliance remains fragile. Less than a week after the détente, CNN unearthed LaCivita’s Twitter activity from January 6, 2021, including his having liked a tweet that called for Trump to be removed via the Twenty-Fifth Amendment. At that point, Trump told several people that LaCivita was dead to him—that he would ride out the remainder of the campaign, but would have no place in his administration or political operation going forward.

That was just fine by LaCivita; he had always viewed himself as a hired gun, and his reservations about working for Trump weren’t exactly a secret. Still, the word that Trump had iced one of his two key lieutenants sent a shiver through the rest of the staff. Many had noticed new faces poking around, asking questions about finances and compliance. With Trump’s suspicions piqued, every staffer, as well as every decision, would be under the microscope through Election Day.

Entering the final weekend of October, I noticed something in conversations with numerous Trump staffers: resignation. They had long since become accustomed to working in the high-intensity, zero-margin-for-error environment created by Wiles and LaCivita. But this home stretch of the campaign hadn’t just been hard and stressful; it had been disillusioning. Several campaign officials had told me, throughout the spring and summer, how excited they were about working in the next Trump White House. Now those same people were telling me—as paperwork was being distributed internally to begin the process of placing personnel on the transition team and in the prospective administration—that they’d had a change of heart. The past three months had been the most unpleasant of their careers. Win or lose, they said, they were done with the chaos of Donald Trump—even if the nation was not.

Standing in the bowels of Madison Square Garden on the evening of Sunday, October 27, an irate group of Trump staffers, family members, and loyalists was looking for someone to blame.

The prime-time show playing out just beyond their corridor had been eight years in the making. Trump, hailed as “the man who built New York’s skyline” by a roster of celebrity speakers, would stage an elaborate homecoming to celebrate his conquest of the American political psyche. It seemed that nothing—not even the $1 million price tag for producing such an event—could put a damper on the occasion.

And then, before some in the audience had even found their seats, the party was over.

The first presenter, a shock comedian named Tony Hinchcliffe, told a sequence of jokes that earned little laughter but managed to antagonize constituencies Trump had spent months courting. One was about Black people carving watermelons for Halloween; another portrayed Jews as money-hungry and Arabs as primitive. The worst line turned out to be the most destructive. “I don’t know if you guys know this, but there’s literally a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now,” Hinchcliffe said. “I think it’s called Puerto Rico.”

The blowback was instantaneous. Elected officials—Democrats, and, before long, Republicans too—blasted the comedian’s remarks. Headlines from the world’s leading news organizations described the event as every bit the hate-fest Republicans had promised it wouldn’t be. Trump aides were blitzed with text messages from lawmakers and donors and lobbyists wanting to know who, exactly, had the bright idea of inviting a comic to kick off the most consequential event of the fall campaign.

In truth, some of Trump’s senior staff hadn’t actually watched Hinchcliffe’s set. The Garden was a labyrinth of security checkpoints and political processions, and the event had barely been under way when he spoke. Now they were racing to catch up with the damage—and rewinding the clock to figure out how Hinchcliffe had ended up onstage in the first place.

Does the Iowa poll lead people to believe that there’s a shift in the rest of the country? Why is it so important?

It didn’t take long to get to the answer: Alex Bruesewitz.

Technically a mid-level staffer—formally a liaison to right-wing media, informally a terminally online troll and perpetual devil on the campaign’s shoulder—Bruesewitz had grown his profile inside Trump’s orbit. The candidate’s appearances on various bro-themed podcasts were hailed as acts of strategic genius. But there was one guest booking Bruesewitz couldn’t secure: He wanted Trump to talk with Hinchcliffe on his show, Kill Tony. When word got around that Trump was looking for opening acts at the Garden, Bruesewitz made the introductions. Trump’s head of planning and production, Justin Caporale, ran with the idea. No senior staff ever bothered to vet Hinchcliffe themselves.

Now, with their grand celebration quickly morphing into a public-relations nightmare, Trump’s allies stewed. Two decisions needed to be made, and quickly: whether to inform the man of the hour about this disaster before he took the stage, and whether to issue a statement rebuking Hinchcliffe and his remarks. Some staffers feared throwing Trump off his game at such a crucial moment, and others argued that showing any weakness would just make things worse. But LaCivita dictated a short statement to the communications team that was blasted out to reporters across the arena, distancing the campaign from Hinchcliffe, while Wiles pulled the former president aside and explained the situation. (Trump, aides told me, was merely annoyed at the time; only after watching television coverage the next morning would he rage about how Wiles, LaCivita, and Caporale had “fucked this up.”)

Backstage at the Garden, in the blur of debate and indecision over damage control, it was Stephen Miller who pondered the bigger picture. (Miller did not respond to a request for comment.) According to two people who were present, Miller, the Trump policy adviser whose own nativist impulses are well documented, was not offended by Hinchcliffe’s racist jokes. Yet he was angered by them all the same: He knew the campaign had just committed a huge unforced error. He believed that Bruesewitz had done profound damage to Trump’s electoral prospects. And, in that moment, he seethed at what this lack of discipline portended for Trump should he return to power.

The irony, apparently, was lost on Miller. He and his colleagues would spend the coming days savaging Bruesewitz for his recklessness when really—as ever—the culprit was a man whose addiction to mayhem creates the conditions in which a comedian who was once dropped by his talent agency for using racial slurs onstage could be invited to kick off the closing event of the election without a single objection being raised.

“If we can’t trust this kid with a campaign,” Miller said to the group, according to one of the people present, “how can we trust him in the White House?”

R23 couldn’t you have just posted a link to the archived version of The Atlantic article?

I like that he posted the article, r24.

Yes, r22.

Because Iowa is mostly white, non college educated and older - like MI, WI, PA and Ohio.

So, the thinking is, if she’s up THAT MUCH in red red Iowa, the other states with similar populations should be swinging more to her than we’re seeing with other pollsters.

An Axios article about the Alberta piece.

If Kamala loses Pennsylvania, we will hear for years and years that she should have chosen Shapiro

Not picking Shapiro is not what would cost her PA, r 28. Damn we have a Shapiro troll too? Give it a rest.

[quote] i don't understand, why aren't MAGA folks including Musk posting about Polymarket anymore??? did something happen? crazy.

[quote] Not picking Shapiro is not what would cost her PA, r 28. Damn we have a Shapiro troll too? Give it a rest.

How do you know? He’s very popular.

And if she'd picked Shapiro and lost, people would say it was because of his pro-Israel comments. So it was damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Israel and Gaza kind of faded as an issue. It was there, of course, but low boil.

One thing you particularly have to give the Harris campaign is they navigated every mine field really well, even on the times they stepped in it, which were few.

This video resonates-- Listen to these former Trump voters and why they are not voting for him... They know their shit. What they say is scary-

R13 those are all within Iowa. How dumb are you?

If you wanna feel good, read all of the Vance tweet. I mean, I don't really know who the hell he is but he talks sense in addition to telling me what I need to hear.

I have resolved that what will happen is now beyond what little control I had.

Like the Queens of England, I am resolved to our fate, whatever it may be.

Elon is already starting the civil war vibes fucking with he MAGA's heads-- They will never believe that Kamala won-

And this offer is ILLEGAL

[quote]I can’t with these pills anymore

I can. More pillssshhh.

Sell your Teslas now. They’re going to be worth nothing after January 6th.

There are a ton of Dump yard signs out in the suburbs of western PA. But there are huge numbers of blouses in these neighborhoods with no signs. I think it’s very possible most of these are “silent” Harris voters.

houses

Resolved or resigned, r38?

Check this out all----Go to 5:10-- something is up--- their numbers. must SUCK- listen to what he says... He has given up--

[quote]Helping Trump: two-thirds of voters who believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction

How many of these people who think “wrong direction” actually think Dump is the cause, and not Democrats?

I think the country is headed in the wrong direction because a felon who committed treason is allowed to run for President instead of being in prison where he belongs.

R47 Yep, digging into those numbers a bit, 50% of Harris voters say "the country is headed in the wrong direction".... 48% of American voters seeking this level of pathology? Our country has a problem? Ya think?

Yes, I've read analyses that a lot of people who answer that "the US is headed in the wrong direction" are thinking of Supreme Court decisions, corporate monopolies, obstructionism in Congress, and and other right-wing trends, and see the Democrats as a correction. I know that's me!

The Dobbs decision = the wrong direction.

The solution? Roe-vember.

Absolutely R47, R48, R49. The question is meaningless in today's deeply divided America without also asking "Do you think one political party is mostly to blame for that? Which one?" You'd find a LOT of Democrats saying wrong direction and that the Republicans are to blame. That wouldn't be a repudiation of the Biden administration at all.

[quote]You'd find a LOT of Democrats saying wrong direction and that the Republicans are to blame. That wouldn't be a repudiation of the Biden administration at all.

That’s a huge reason why these polls are flawed and are not capturing the Harris momentum. They’re making the flawed assumption that all of these “wrong direction” people are Dump voters.

Any thinking Republican who wants to take their party back from trash will vote for Kamala on Tuesday.

[quote] In 2012, the average of the polls had the race dead even between Obama and Romney. NBC last poll had Obama up one. ABC last poll had Obama up 3. He won by 4. This time NBC has race even, and ABC has Harris up 3. I keep saying this race is more like 2012 than 2020 or 2016.

.....the numbers will slowly move to Kamala over the next days until election day.....(broken record)

ABC is predicting a Trump win for the presidency. 61% of Democrats not happy having to vote for Kamala vs only 57% for Trump. I don’t get it either. At any rate it shows you that you shouldn’t go into this expecting Kamala to win. Prepare yourselves.

R50, most of the US has no restrictions on abortion so don’t count on that as a winning issue.

After the fall of Roe the next step is a federal abortion ban.

If Trump loses & Republicans believe the fall of Roe played a big, if not dispositive, role, might even some Republicans join with Democrats to get to the 60 votes needed (assuming the filibuster role remains in place) to get a national reproductive rights bill before Pres. Harris?

I can already prove it.

I mailed my ballot in two weeks ago and have a screen shot of BOE website saying it was received and accepted.

Where do I collect my $1000? And that rancid prick is paying the tax on it, too.

R60, maybe? It's an interesting theory. You could argue a national reproductive rights bill gets the problem out of their hair.

The counterargument is that their pro-life base would never allow electeds to support such a bill.

Americans always end up doing the wrong thing. If they end up getting their heads out of their asses and do the right thing I’ll be pleasantly surprised. They’ve let me down too many times though and it shouldn’t even be close for the Orange Turd.

[quote] Americans always end up doing the wrong thing.

??? Democrats have won the popular vote every time for the last eight elections except for 2004. Republican mishaps were corrected by the elections of Obama and Biden. "Always" is a little absolute under these circumstances.

R65, we win the popular vote because California and a few other states have so many people. The popular vote doesn’t equal the electoral college. I will never forgive nor forget 2004.

If Kamala loses Michigan over the Muslims…

R67, only if they vote for Trump. MSNBC said that the entire Arab/Muslim electorate is only 1% in MI.

And they know that voting for Trump will get them nothing. So, no.

[quote] Last update: 7:45 a.m., Sunday, November 3. A fair bit of polling in the afternoon, some of it pretty middling for Kamala Harris, but also mostly from mediocre and/or Republican-leaning polling firms that tend to herd toward numbers like Trump +1 or Trump +2 and don’t impact the forecast much. A bit more worrisome is a YouGov national poll that showed the race tied — they’ve usually been one of Harris’s better pollsters. Still, Harris got plenty of strong polling from high-quality firms this weekend too, so there’s no real change in the state of the race.

One of the bonuses of a Harris victory (fingers crossed) should be the irrelevance of that increasingly smug numbers-cruncher.

The polls are ALWAYS wrong.

Starting at 3:13, Ann Selzer also talks about her polling of congressional districts. Iowa-1, a seat currently held by a Republican, now shows a big lead, 53-37, for the Democratic challenger. Selzer later talks about Iowa-3, a swing district, held by a Republican is also polling in favor of the Democrat. With all four congressional seats in Iowa currently held by Republicans, this could have implications if the Electoral College ends in a tie.

[quote]If Trump loses & Republicans believe the fall of Roe played a big, if not dispositive, role, might even some Republicans join with Democrats to get to the 60 votes needed (assuming the filibuster role remains in place) to get a national reproductive rights bill before Pres. Harris?

No. They’ll double down on the stupidity. It’s what they always do. We’ve been hearing from them for 20 years that they need to do a post-mortem on why they keep losing, and become more inclusive, and expand their bar, and increase their outreach., and a bunch of other bullshit. Blah, blah, blah. And then they come with even more racist and sexist and homophoboc candidates for the next election. Rinse, repeat.

How the fuck is the vote split evenly?

It’s not. Duh.

We have been engineered to be 50/50. The algorithms have figured us out. 50/50 is perfect split if that is your goal. It keeps the status quo humming along.

[quote] No. They’ll double down on the stupidity. It’s what they always do. We’ve been hearing from them for 20 years that they need to do a post-mortem on why they keep losing, and become more inclusive, and expand their bar, and increase their outreach., and a bunch of other bullshit. Blah, blah, blah. And then they come with even more racist and sexist and homophoboc candidates for the next election. Rinse, repeat.

Maybe that’s what their research is telling them: that close to 1/2 of Americans are stupid pieces of racist shit.

[quote] No. They’ll double down on the stupidity.

It's much easier to suppress the vote and gerrymander the hell out of every red state than to be decent human beings!

There’s no gerrymandering in the Senate, so it would be key to flip the House.

[quote] here is what i find amazing about Nate Silver and others, they accuse the polling world of herding (which i think is happening), then use these herded and manipulated polls to come up election predictions, which of course results in the herding of his analysis and others. Lordy.

TIPP, Emerson, NBC News, and New York Post all indicate a tie, and Yahoo News is close with +1. The two polling firms that have been most favorable to Harris, Ipsos and Morning Consult, give her +3 and +2. I’m inclined to believe that the ones giving Harris extra points will be closer to the actual result, considering historical numbers.

[quote] And then they come with even more racist and sexist and homophoboc candidates for the next election. Rinse, repeat.

Because the inmates are running the asylum.

[quote] Because the inmates are running the asylum.

More illegals, coming from insane asylums.

The majority of Puerto Ricans in Florida are still voting for Dumpster. What stupid people.

The Florida results will be among the first reported. Prepare to be very dispirited, just like in 2020 & 2022.

Nobody expects Harris to win Florida.

The Emerson battleground state polls fit my prediction.

PA Trump +1

MI Harris +2

WI tied (although I’m pretty sure it will go for Harris)

NC Trump +1

The actual margins will vary from this, but it fits who I think will carry each state.

538 still has Trump favored to win. What is their explanation going to be if he loses?

Do you really think Trump is going to win battlegrounds by 1 point? Not going to happen.

[quote] Nobody expects Harris to win Florida.

I know. I'm talking about the margin of Trump's vote.

[quote] 538 still has Trump favored to win. What is their explanation going to be if he loses?

With the race so close, it’s not sticking their neck out if they went with either candidate.

It’s a choice to turn the dials to Trump.

I'm much more optimistic about a Harris win, but see too much irrational exuberance here. Too many imponderables, e.g., the female/male turnout ratio, the turnout of low propensity voters, to be overly confident.

538’s probability figure of near 50% is meaningless. All it tells us is that they think the data tells them the outcome could go either way with almost equal probability.

I don't think they're saying who is favored to win, they are saying that X wins 53 times in their model versus Y who wins 48 times in their model. By framing it that way, they are never wrong.

Where I am right now is I'm still nervous as fuck because I'm a Democrat, and every election is terrifying now, but the Iowa results have shown that there may be a large silent Harris vote that no one has accounted for in polling. I just hope that is the case in all the swing states.

I'm in agreement that Florida will tell us a lot, based on the margin and, as they report on returns in districts and exit polling. Who does what will tell us a lot about the blue wall, I think. Women, older women, white women, Hispanics, etc. etc.

I remember the night Clinton lost... Florida's results were the first ones that gave me a sense - slightly but undeniable - that something was going wrong.

[quote] I remember the night Clinton lost... Florida's results were the first ones that gave me a sense - slightly but undeniable - that something was going wrong.

And in '20, the Florida results seemed very reminiscent of '16. Likewise, the Florida results in '22 seemed to augur the expected red tsunami.

In the latest Hacks on Tap podcast (Girls v. Boys) - dropped yesterday, but likely taped Friday - David Axelrod talks about North Carolina (starting around the 18:00 mark). He notes that Trump is making three stops there "this weekend." The Harris campaign, he adds, "had reduced their buy to almost nothing at the beginning of the week." But "they just threw a million and a half on tv in North Carolina."

[quote] I remember the night Clinton lost... Florida's results were the first ones that gave me a sense - slightly but undeniable - that something was going wrong.

Oh, Geez. I remember James Carville was on CNN. When North Carolina was called for Trump and they talked about how the numbers broke down, I'll always remember the look on Carville's face.

Quietly, with foreboding in his voice he said something like "This isn't good for Hillary" but it was more the look on his face.

My stomach dropped.

R98 Meaning the Harris campaign knows NC is in play?

Not R98, but it take it to mean they saw data that suggested it was worth the spend.

On the other hand, they do have money to burn these days.

We all know NC is in play.

So close... man, what a nail biter. I still can't reconcile the closeness with what we're seeing anecdotally.

This.isn't.fun.

Notwithstanding anecdotes, the Emerson state polls reflect almost exactly what logic and conventional thinking would predict for those states.

Polls include assumptions about who is going to vote. That is their primary weakness. There is no data on who is going to turn out in a Presidential election post-Dobbs. They’re just guessing. Perhaps an educated guess, but still a guess.

Emerson really stands out to me as “Is that herding or what?”

They totally warped their data to serve what they want to serve.

[quote] On the other hand, they do have money to burn these days.

That was always the case. But at the start of the week they had essentially given up on North Carolina. That changed by the end of the week.

I have always been more fascinated by the mysteries of internal polling. What are the campaigns seeing that the public polling does not.

Johh Heilemann said in the last few days that Harris's internals are not very different than the public polling.

R109 is that good or bad?

It's been a close race, R110. And we may be seeing the reverse of '16, when the late polls didn't capture the late movement to Trump.

Good.

One way to judge: they are both focusing last minute travel to the same places. You can infer each side’s internal polling is consistent with what the other sees and with what we see publicly.

[quote] Last update: 11:30 a.m., Monday, November 4. Lots of mediocre pollsters herding today — but amidst the noise, the model liked this update for Kamala Harris. I’m guessing it’s mostly because of this set of YouGov polls, which were good for Harris and from one of the more highly-rated pollsters to release data since our last update.

[quote] Harris is in the strongest position in our forecast since Oct. 18. Obviously, it’s a toss-up, and you shouldn’t care too much about whether the final forecast is 51/49 one way or the other, but it remains genuinely uncertain who will have the nominal lead in our final model run, which is scheduled to post at around 12:30 a.m. tonight. There’s also an outside chance of an interim update before then; we’ll play it by ear.

[quote] Well it's official: the final polls of 2024 project out an electoral map that is the closest since at least 1972 with the leader (Harris) getting 270 electoral votes.

[quote] The polls were tight at the end of 2000 too, but final map projected by the final polls was Gore at 281 votes.

[quote] NEW: per @NBCNews final poll, share of voters who rate their election interest as at least 9 out of 10, by gender...

[quote] Year: Men/Women

[quote] 2008: 79%/78%

[quote] 2012: 79%/80%

[quote] 2016: 76%/77%

[quote] 2020: 84%/83%

[quote] 2024: 74%/80%

[quote] If Harris wins tomorrow, this will be a big reason why.

[quote]On the other hand, they do have money to burn these days.

The why do I keep getting these endless texts about "Things are DESPERATE! We are being MASSIVELY OUTSPENT. We WILL LOSE unless you can rush in $200 RIGHT NOW!"

The Emerson Ohio poll with Trump at +12 seems right, but it also has Moreno at +2. I think Brown will win, maybe by several points.

They need to keep some cash on hand for the massive court challenges the thugs are going to launch in every state he loses.

R110 That’s a bad sigh duh. Most of the polls are showing she’s either tie or down in PA.

pinion writer, hosted a written online conversation on Friday, Nov. 1, with Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer and Republican pollster, and Nate Silver, the author of “On the Edge: The Art of Risking Everything” and the newsletter Silver Bulletin, to discuss polling and politics in the final days of the race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Frank Bruni: Kristen, Nate, thank you for joining me. Election Day is almost here, and still it seems that nobody really knows anything. Democrats fret — that’s their nature. MAGA Republicans strut, emulating their idol. And you two? Nate, because you recently wrote a widely read guest essay for us about your gut auguring a victory by Donald Trump, I want to check on your gut now. Guts change. Has yours?

Nate Silver: Well, the whole point of that article — including the headline — was that I don’t think my gut is worth anything in this case. Many people interpreted it differently, as though I was revealing my super-duper secret real prediction. And I expected that. But your gut feeling a week before the election will mostly be an emotional response or picking up on the vibes through osmosis — Republicans are invariably more confident so that seeps through — and I don’t think either of those things will help you make a better prediction.

Kristen Soltis Anderson: Whenever people ask me who I think will win, and I steadfastly refuse to tell them — because I don’t feel confident we know how this is going to go given the available data — people get very frustrated. It is understandable, we all want certainty. People want to mentally or emotionally prepare for an outcome. They don’t like surprises. And I’m sorry to say, you should continue to mentally and emotionally prepare for a wide range of outcomes.

Silver: For what it’s worth, though, the models have been pretty momentumless lately, whereas Harris had been falling in mid-October. Prediction markets are also shifting more in line with the models, showing a 50-50-ish race. Maybe it’s dawning on people that this is an uncertain and close race.

Bruni: Nate, you bring up that dread 50-50 number. Kristen, you mention frustration. I want to talk about the frustration of this pesky “tie” word. I distrust it. I abhor it. A tie is very, very unsatisfying — and how can it really be? As narrative, the Harris-Trump face-off doesn’t play: Chapter 1, it’s a tie. Chapter 5, a tie. Chapter 10 … a tie! Is that truly possible? Please illuminate. Not just for me but also for many readers like me, please administer some tie therapy — including, if possible, your thoughts on how likely the result could be far from a tie?

Silver: There’s something like a 40 percent chance in our model that one candidate wins all seven battleground states. Since polling errors tend to be highly correlated — if Trump beats his polls in Michigan, he’ll likely also do so in Pennsylvania — even a minor polling error could lead to a relatively decisive result in the Electoral College (whether or not Trump will admit it if he loses, which he almost certainly won’t).

But people want models to be oracular and offer a very precise prediction. And sometimes their value instead is in emphasizing the uncertainty in the contest.

Anderson: Nate’s model is on target. A 60 percent chance that the race is truly fairly close and we are counting well into Wednesday and beyond, but a 20 percent chance on either side that this will be wrapped up quickly with one candidate taking the battlegrounds in short order sounds about right. And that’s what people fail to understand when we throw around the word “tie.” They think it means we are confident it will be a very close race. They think there is certainty that this is neck-and-neck. Pollsters have been trying to be better about communicating about uncertainty this year, but I fear it hasn’t broken through.

Bruni: Because you’re talking about how voters process things, I want to say — I want your reaction to my belief — that the single greatest flaw in our analysis and predictions is assuming voters are armed with accurate information and paying a decent amount of attention. I’ve attended so many political rallies — events that theoretically attracted engaged voters — at which people had no clue about the basic facts of the candidates and the election. We talk of inadequate models: Isn’t the greatest inadequacy a search for rationality in an irrational pool?

Silver: Yeah, even the people who you think would be relatively well informed, like the Wall Street guys I play poker against, often see the world through stylized facts and can get captured by sentiment within their narrow social circles. (These are the guys who thought Michael Bloomberg would be an excellent presidential candidate.) And that’s to say nothing about a swing voter in Latrobe, Pa. It’s a problem for political analysis that the vote is increasingly divided along educational lines, and people who work in journalism and politics are by definition news addicts who largely went to highly selective colleges.

Anderson: This is also why, nearly every single time some kind of controversy happens that I get asked about on cable news — “will this move numbers?” — I’m almost never wrong when I say “probably not.” Most Americans, thankfully, are not on a constant I.V. drip of the latest political news. As one of my focus group respondents in my last Times group of Michigan voters put it, his friends who remain undecided voters are “like a cat chasing a laser pointer” rather than constantly ingesting political news and overthinking things.

Silver: What translates to the ground level is almost unknowable, I think, which is part of why I prefer to rely on polls rather than vibes.

Bruni: OK, Kristen, right now the part of annoying cable-television interrogator will be played by Frank Bruni. Do you believe that any developments over the past few weeks or past few days — Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, say, or Biden’s “garbage” comment, or something else — could have a real effect on this perpetually tied election? Is there maybe a 2024 analogue to the 2016 James Comey intrusion or some Comey Lite incident? Again, I know you two are, honorably, data people, but still. Work with me there.

Anderson: The very strongly held views people have of Trump have anchored this race in place. There’s so little that will change how people feel about Trump because they’ve heard it all before and decided how they feel about it.

Silver: The Madison Square Garden rally was correlated with quite a lot of Google search traffic both for Trump and for the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe. So maybe it broke through just a little bit. But we’re talking about plausible polling movement of a tenth of a point or a quarter of a point, almost certainly not more than that. Even things like his criminal conviction and the assassination attempt against Trump didn’t move the polls very much — maybe by half a point to a point at most. Even Biden’s debate, possibly the most consequential debate of all time, only moved them by about a few points or so.

Anderson: The trouble with a race that appears close and unmoving is that nothing matters, but also everything matters. If it truly is close, and the “garbage” comments motivate 1,000 more marginal Trump voters to turn out who might have otherwise not bothered, or turn off 1,000 Puerto Rican voters in Latrobe, that’s a shift that would be imperceptible in a poll but could be decisive if this is close as it was in Florida in 2000 (where it came down to an unbelievably small number of voters).

(This part of the NYT article should go before R122)

Silver: The other thing is that the conventional wisdom tends to exaggerate even small polling swings — we went from 55-45 in Harris’s direction to 55-45 for Trump, and people are treating it as though we’ve gone from likely Harris to Trump being a sure thing. The narrative about Trump having momentum was sort of vaguely, loosely true — he’s in a better position than immediately after the debate, for instance — but also grossly exaggerated. Still, Democrats aren’t used to this. In 2008, 2012, 2016 and 2020, they went into Election Day as the clear favorite — wrongly in 2016, of course.

Bruni: I know you two focus on numbers, evidence, what’s measurable, but please tap your wealth of political experience, from close observation over so many years: What one factor, among the many factors in the foreground of this race, do you think could turn out to be much more consequential than we’ve imagined? Venture a best guess, an informed hypothesis. This will be my personal tie therapy from you.

Silver: Well, it’s Trump who’s relying more on marginal, unlikely voters, while Democrats do well with the upscale suburbanites. Those voters can be hard to capture in polls.

Anderson: When the polls have missed in the last few elections, the consensus is that it is because of polls missing some kind of unlikely voter. In 2012, this was a driver of some pollsters’ overestimation of Mitt Romney’s chances. In 2016 and 2020, it was Trump’s unlikely voters who were missed.

Silver: They also might not show up, especially sort of the Theo Von-Joe Rogan younger male demographic. And Harris should have the better ground game, with Trump sort of having turned his over to Elon Musk. It’s probably the difference of at most half a percentage point, but the election could come down to that.

Anderson: When pollsters make decisions about their samples and what weights to apply, they are making an educated guess about what turnout will look like, but it is just that — an educated guess.

Anderson: When pollsters make decisions about their samples and what weights to apply, they are making an educated guess about what turnout will look like, but it is just that — an educated guess.

Bruni: That damned escalator — I’ve never had such issues with a device for human transport.

Silver: He was president before, and although 2020 was pretty hellacious with the pandemic and then widespread social unrest, including Jan. 6, people don’t seem to pin the blame on him — they sort of conflate the timeline and associate Biden with the lockdowns.

Anderson: When Trump left office, Gallup found him leaving with a 34 percent job approval — just abysmal. The disgust with Jan. 6 had left an awful taste in people’s mouths. But then when NBC asked people just a few weeks ago, the retrospective job approval of Trump was 48 percent.

Silver: When Biden-Harris say democracy is under threat, I absolutely agree with them. But they’re in the White House right now and Democrats control the Senate and many of the important swing-state governorships. So this is a tougher and more counterintuitive sell for Harris than it seems.

Anderson: The reality is that America was ready to turn the page from Trump in the last election, thinking that with Joe Biden they would get some kind of calm and normalcy and adults in the room. When that didn’t materialize as they’d hoped, suddenly Trump started looking more appealing again by comparison. That’s how you get someone with all of Trump’s controversies, dark rhetoric and baggage to still have 48 percent retrospective job approval.

Bruni: Nate, pollsters make a lot of choices and assumptions — both when they cast their net for respondents and when they interpret the results — about who will show up to vote. Which choices that they’ve made this election cycle do you think are the most questionable — in terms of voters’ race, gender, age, etc.?

Silver: What’s most questionable is how an extremely high percentage of the polls in the swing states — something like 75 or 80 percent of them — have shown about a 2.5-point race or narrower. Statistically, that’s nearly impossible. You’re supposed to get more outliers when you’re only sampling 800 people at a time. So other than the New York Times/Siena polls, which have consistently published results that deviate from the consensus, I’m not sure we’re getting pollsters’ real opinions anyway. They’re basically just saying ¯_(ツ)_/¯, to use a slightly dated meme.

Anderson: Well, at my firm, we just put out a poll that showed Trump up by five in Pennsylvania — you definitely can’t say we are herding! But the incentive to herd is real. I’ll give you an example. In 2022, my firm put out some polls in the closing stretch that were pretty great. We got a strong rating from FiveThirtyEight under Nate’s time as well as under the new regime. We got the Virginia governor’s race within a point in 2021, did great work in notoriously hard-to-poll Nevada and even got Pennsylvania really close. We also nailed the Georgia governor’s race, but our poll definitely underestimated the size of the Kemp-Warnock vote — voters who went for both the Republican governor, Brian Kemp, and the Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock — and so we showed Herschel Walker ahead. Now, when people want to criticize the Pennsylvania poll, they point to the Walker whiff, rather than any of the other great results we’ve produced.

The reality is even if you’re a good pollster, every so often you get a dud. It’s the nature of what we do. Of our three blue-wall polls, two looked like everyone else’s, and our Pennsylvania one didn’t. I can look under the hood and go, you know, is the gender gap really that small in Pennsylvania? I don’t know if that feels right. But my gut is not a process. Feelings are not a process. You have to have a process and stick to that process and let it fall as it may. If you mess with the process after the fact, that’s herding.

Bruni: Kristen, I can be the purest pessimist you’ve ever met, and even I don’t think there’s any chance Harris loses Pennsylvania by five points. But that poll result makes me want to ask both of you about the vice-presidential picks. When they’re made, we all give our analyses: Helpful! Unhelpful! Never, ever matters! We’ve now had months of JD Vance (God help me, and God help the Childless Cat Ladies of America) and of Tim Walz. With all that evidence, do you think these selections are likely to have any effect, and, Pennsylvania-wise, should Harris have chosen Josh Shapiro?

Silver: As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it’s relatively clear now that she made a mistake. Pennsylvania seems to be lagging a little behind the other blue-wall states. Meanwhile, Walz was mediocre in the debate, and he’s been mediocre and nervous in his public appearances.

Anderson: We tested a hypothetical Harris-Shapiro ballot. She does a few points better on the margin. But it’s all a hypothetical. Take it with the requisite grain of salt.

Silver: The Vance pick was worse, though, and made at a time when the Trump campaign got really overconfident — that was back when Biden was still running and they couldn’t seem to fathom that Democrats would summon the power to replace him, you’d just had Trump shot at in Pennsylvania, and they thought they couldn’t possibly lose. He remains one of the most unpopular running mates in modern history.

Anderson: If Harris wins, people will point to the Vance pick as part and parcel of the boys-versus-girls dynamic that has become the narrative of this election. But I think the Vance pick is more important for what it foreshadows about the future of the Republican Party and 2028.

Bruni: Apart from veep selection, if both Harris and Trump had the ability to turn back the clock to, say, July 22 (the day after Biden dropped out), what one statement/decision/development/etc. would you advise them to take back, in terms of maximizing their chances for victory?

Silver: I can’t for the life of me understand why Harris hasn’t found a way to distance herself from Biden. Maybe gently, but honestly, not-so-gently would work fine, too. When she was asked on “The View” what she would have done differently than Biden, and couldn’t answer — anyone who prepped her for that interview should be fired and never work in politics again. She inherited lots of the Biden staff, which was maybe understandable at the time given that she had to build a campaign overnight and that she wanted to keep the party unified, but she should have taken the opportunity to get a fresh start.

Anderson: As for Trump, if there’s any looking back, I think defining Harris earlier by her 2019-20 era political positions will be the answer. Immediately after the switcheroo at the top of the Democratic ticket, the David McCormick Senate campaign in Pennsylvania dropped an ad that was just a series of Harris’s furthest left views from that era. But it took a little longer for the Trump team to settle on what its message about Harris would be. Too far left? Too much like Biden? And so on. She was stunningly unknown for a sitting vice president.

Bruni: Let’s do an extended lighting round. Top-of-mind, quick answers. On a scale of 1 (it’s hurting Harris badly) to 5 (it’s helping her greatly), how do you think the atypically rushed, compressed nature of her presidential campaign affects her prospects of being elected president?

[quote] Final PBS/NPR/Marist poll shows Harris wiping out Trump’s lead among men. Trump down from +16 among men last month to just +4 now

It’s nice to have that for anyone who wants numbers favorable to Harris. Another poll the same day shows Trump +18 with men, so something for everyone. However, it’s another black eye for pollsters to have such disparities.

Silver: 2. A lot of people thought it would help her and she could ride the momentum straight through to November. But even a three-and-a-half-month campaign is still roughly something like 107 news cycles. The scrutiny did come, and she didn’t really pivot effectively. But she’s also learning how to fly the plane as she builds it.

Anderson: I think it helped more than hurt, so I’d say a 4. Maybe if she’d been on the trail longer, she could have gotten better at the extemporaneous interviews and had time to give voters a firmer sense of who she is in her core — not her list of policies, not her biography, but what her beliefs are about the role of government and the role of America in the world. But ultimately, she benefited from a quick ascension, the rapid unification of her party and then the short runway to the finish line.

Bruni: On a scale of 1 (hurting Trump badly) to 5 (helping him greatly), how significant an effect is Elon Musk in all his bouncing, money-dispensing and curious glory having on Trump’s prospects?

Silver: I’d say a 3. I think Musk has changed the vibes more than the underlying reality. As for the money, both the candidates have more of it than they need, and I’m not sure I’d want Musk running my ground game. That said, Harris hasn’t really found a way to message against it, like by running on a more populist theme that emphasizes Trump’s association with plutocrats and his pay-to-play tendencies.

Anderson: I also give a 3, which is an unsure, because for me the biggest question is whether his turnout machine actually works for Trump or not. The political parties are usually the ground game for their candidates, built up over many cycles and ready to run in election years. This year, Republicans have used more of their party apparatus for things like legal battles, while outside groups like Musk’s are tasked more with turnout.

Bruni: Musk, Jeff Bezos, Joe Rogan, Liz Cheney, Bad Bunny, Beyoncé — we’ve had a spectacular series of cameos in this election. Leaving out Trump’s and Harris’s running mates, name a person whose intersection with this election maybe, just maybe, could have a crucial positive or negative difference? One name.

Silver: I suppose if Rogan were to turn around and unexpectedly endorse Harris, maybe he’d be the one. Otherwise, I don’t think these endorsements matter. Voters are pretty smart at inferring who a given celebrity would endorse anyway, so it would need to be something unexpected. And there aren’t any politicians who are popular enough for it to matter. Maybe Mitt Romney — not that he’s very popular — could at least net Harris some small number of Nikki Haley voters.

Anderson: The Bad Bunny one is the one that is the biggest X factor to me. I agree endorsements don’t mean much. But I find most of my fellow political pundit types don’t have the slightest clue how big a deal Bad Bunny is, which is my first clue that his involvement here at the very end could be undervalued in The Discourse.

Bruni: If you had to pick a surprise winner in one of the Senate races, who would it be?

Silver: The trendy pick is Dan Osborn in Nebraska, but the last two polls have shown the Montana Senate race tightening up again, so maybe Jon Tester has been declared dead prematurely, a little bit like Heidi Heitkamp in 2012. But we’re in much more partisan times now. So I’d need some pretty good odds to bet on him, 4:1 or something.

Bruni: Go, Tester! Maybe, to seal the deal, we have Bad Bunny hop over to Montana.

Anderson: I’ll go out on a massive limb and simply say that in 2014, the public polls dramatically underestimated Larry Hogan’s chances of winning his race for governor in Maryland. The public polls currently show him down by a significant margin against Angela Alsobrooks; to be clear — I’m not predicting he’ll win. But if this year gets really strange and we have the Revenge of the Split-Ticket Voter, who knows?

Bruni: If Harris loses, who is your odds-on favorite to be the 2028 Democratic Party presidential nominee?

Silver: The thing is, Democrats had strong midterms in both 2018 and 2022, so they really do have a deep bench. I suppose I’ll just tick off some of the more obvious names: Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer, Wes Moore or maybe one or both of the Georgia senators.

Anderson: If Harris loses, I imagine there will be a lot of angst about whether Biden should have dropped out earlier and allowed a process to play out, and a lot of pining for Shapiro.

Bruni: Moore has had some very rough patches; I disagree there. Whitmer would be seen in many ways as the exact adjustment from Harris that the party needs, and I’d also love — this is just emotion — to see Democrats nominate a woman for the third time in four cycles. Third time’s the charm, right? (But I’m not at all giving up on the second time!)

Silver: I worry that Democrats will take away the wrong lesson if Harris loses and become almost superstitious about having to nominate a guy. Obviously, we’d want to look at the cross tabs for hints of misogyny and so forth, but I don’t think Harris’s gender is one of the 10 most important factors hurting her. One point I’ve tried to emphasize in my newsletter is that this has been a pretty tough ask of Harris — taking over in midstream, dealing with the effects of high inflation (yes, better now) and high immigration at a time when voters have been extremely sensitive to those things in elections all around the world. And she has to live down both her association with the unpopular Biden and the unpopular left-wing positions she took in 2019.

Bruni: If Trump loses, who is your odds-on favorite to be the 2028 Republican Party presidential nominee?

Silver: Donald Trump.

Bruni: Dear God, no!

Anderson: I think Vance. Donald Trump will be 82 next time. You have to understand the extent to which Republican voters see things like Vance’s debate against Walz, or his combative interviews with news media figures, and go: Yes, that’s what I’m talking about.

Bruni: I think someone like Glenn Youngkin or Brian Kemp. Republicans would have to say: The Trump route was a dead end. Time to adjust.

Silver: I think it might take Republicans a cycle or two to navigate out of the wilderness. Especially if Trump claims the election was stolen, which I assume that he will, the usual autoimmune response might not kick in.

Bruni: Imagine you have a beach vacation flight booked for Nov. 7 (and I hope you do!) but can’t leave unless the election is resolved. What are the odds you get to board your plane?

Silver: Higher than people might assume — 75 percent? Assuming we’re going based on what the networks say — again, I can’t emphasize enough that I don’t expect Trump to willingly concede. (The Electoral College tallying process was tightened up by Congress, and the courts generally didn’t play ball with Trump in 2020, so I don’t think there are legal routes — but I haven’t forgotten about Jan. 6.)

As I mentioned above, though, there’s a 40 percent chance that one candidate wins all seven swing states. And another 25 percent chance or something that one candidate wins six of seven. In most states, the vote counting process should be a little bit faster, especially with fewer mail ballots than in a Covid election. Even elections that were relatively close, like 2004 and 2016, were called by the early morning.

Anderson: How are we defining “resolved”? There are going to be legal challenges no matter how resounding a victory it seems. I’ve been telling my friends, I’m just trying to get to Thanksgiving.

Bruni: Lastly, ​​it’s 12:01 a.m. on election night. What are you drinking?

Silver: I probably won’t be yet, unfortunately — or probably just a coffee — because while we might get a call by 3, midnight is really pushing it. And if that does happen, that’ll mean it’s an unexpected landslide in one direction or another, so I’ll have to start in on my “why polls were so wrong again” story.

Anderson: Midnight? Red Bull. That’s when the number parsing and post-election “what the heck happened” analysis just starts to get fun. I’ll be on air as well. I’ll save the old-fashioned for the flight to the beach vacation.

Bruni: I have a nice bottle of white Burgundy chilled for this. It’s either my celebration, my consolation or my get-me-through-another-few-long-days. And it’s wine, not bourbon, so I can stay steady enough to keep typing if still on deadline! Good luck to the two of you and to all our readers. Here we go!

[quote] Silver: As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it’s relatively clear now that she made a mistake. Pennsylvania seems to be lagging a little behind the other blue-wall states. Meanwhile, Walz was mediocre in the debate, and he’s been mediocre and nervous in his public appearances.

This would probably be a key finding in an independent post-mortem if Harris loses. However, would Democrats accept that it was a terrible idea to cave to the party wing that hates Israel?

R130 Yeah, the hindsight is perfect dept. What if Harris carries a larger % of arab amerricans than projected and wins MI and the election? Oh, she avoided a bullet by no picking Shapiro etc. etc.

I believe Harris will win. I won't be surprised if Trump wins, though. I have some consolation, no matter what the results, that Harris has run a near-flawless campaign. If Trump wins it's because America is very ill, not because Harris fucked up.

Republican Frank Luntz on CNN right now... he said Harris has multiple paths to 270. Said as well Trump needs AZ and Nevada but the Latinos could abandon ship after Puerto Rico. He was furious when he called in stupid Trump allowed that to stand.

He said if Harris can carry PA and MI the rest doesn't matter, it's hers.

In the past 96 hours he's seen participation shift in favor of Harris.

In the end he said the split will be between 50,000 and 100,000 votes.

Harris just needs to sweep PA and MI and then nowhere else matters.

R133- THESE are the kind of matematical details that I was curious about.. I can never tell what states are needed to say -fuck the rest- ect- I wish there was every possible mathmatical scenario out there. Like if she takes NC/GA/MI- she does not need PA.

Pennsylvania feels like the lynchpin and also the key state that Trump the Cunt will be refuting...

Thank you for posting this!!! If some miracle happens, and she takes both- or is clearly taking both, we can all stop our planned suicides. I jest.

For me, it seems that Michigan is more likely.

In some ways if she handily wins the blue wall, minus PA (and this allows her the win, I should say)

Trump will have a much harder time fighting it-

Good to hear, R133. Luntz was on MSNBC earlier today, kinda pooh-poohing the Selzer poll, so it's significant that he's saying this.

R133 IF she wins WI. I've seen some uneasiness about WI, though the Iowa poll has helped calm that.

Big - and surprising, to me - news! Jon Ralston is predicting a Harris win in Nevada!

In reading and listening to various commentators, I keep hearing about late-breaking Harris voters and their reasons (e.g. the MSG rally). I'm not hearing anything about late-breaking Trump voters. Is this just my bubble, or are things breaking her way they broke his way in 2016?

That's good news r137, because up until today Ralston had been very bearish on Harris's chances. He seems to have seen the light, or seen some signals in his analysis that led him to make the final call for Harris, by a whiskers edge.

Would someone shit in the mouth of the “she should have picked Shapiro” troll

[quote] Harris just needs to sweep PA and MI and then nowhere else matters.

That’s patently false.

R138 An analysis I've heard from multiple people in the last few weeks:

who doesn't know Trump? whose opinions about Trump aren't already established?

Harris, even given her resume of US Senator and Vice President hit the American Public Sphere in July as pretty much a stranger to American voters.

Given those two truths, "undecided" voters are likely to break for Harris. If you weren't already for Trump and you just couldn't vote for Harris you're likely to not vote at all...

[quote] Given those two truths, "undecided" voters are likely to break for Harris. If you weren't already for Trump and you just couldn't vote for Harris you're likely to not vote at all...

There will be some “better the devil you know” voters.

[quote] Silver: As a founding member of She Shoulda Picked Shapiro, I think it’s relatively clear now that she made a mistake. Pennsylvania seems to be lagging a little behind

And what if WI and MI were secured only because of the choice of Walz? I swear, if Kamala wins one of the not inconsiderable benefits will be the irrelevance of the pepper formerly known as Poblano.

I suddenly feel incredibly calm. Trump is toast. It’s going to be a blowout.

I'm entirely too traumatized by 2016 to think anything is in the bag.

R146 hoping you’re typing on a quick break from door-knocking.

Who has time in this last 24 hours to worry? There’s still doors to knock, phones to bank. You have too much free time.

Very unusual split in the forecasts. The polls and those reading them see everything as neck-and-neck with possible late movement toward Harris, though maybe not enough to get the swing states. People on the ground knocking doors, people looking at early voting data, and certain polls like Selzer's are much more bullish on Harris.

R148 The mindset now is PTSD-drenched and warped: if PA is "tied" in projections, we assume that mean Trump will win. Even if we point to "late breakers" moving toward Harris.

Watch this- I believe this guy. WATCH- it's good- R146 and everyone else

The angry Puerto Ricans in PA and elsewhere are going to kick Trump hard in his cunt bone. All thanks to a comic picked by JD Vance’s friend.

Rick Wilson (at r150), like or dislike him, has been a guiding light during this entire election cycle. I'm going to miss his barbed and hilarious tweets after all of this is over.

I needed that, R150. Glorious!

I wouldn't count on Wilson going away. They'll harangue Trump til he's dead.

R126 thanks for posting that,

Now I know some of you probably think I am kooky to keep bringing this up, but I do think there is a, if not coordinated at least trendy, demographic misidentification in the poll responses. And this new result is just bizarre unless you rely on that explanation. Why would male voters move so dramatically towards Kamala and yet the race tighten among women? I’d wager about half of that gain in men is because magat men are claiming to be women. The “as a black woman” magat liar nonsense is infecting the poll results.

I really hope Rick Wilson is correct. His intense hatred of Trump is the thick filter I have to watch him through, however.

I'm going with optimism over hatred, and light over dark. Go Kamala. Bring the jamala home tomorrow.

It’s over …he will get AZ. She will get the Blue Wall plus 3 out of 4 among NV, NC, GA and IA.

I still think its odd that these poll-interpreters seem to take no account of Dobbs and Jan. 6, which were driving forces in the '22 and '23 elections. They seem to treat them as irrelevant, and leap back to the 2020 election as some kind of template. Does this jibe with the early results they're seeing? Given the high proportion of women voters I would have thought the opposite.

[quote] I suddenly feel incredibly calm.

It’s nice. It makes DL less unpleasant when people are calm. I fear what this site will be like if Trump wins.

Rick Wilson is 100% mercenary. Who knows what he really believes? He fights for whatever his financial backers want him to.

Rick Wilson knows the repubs and the MAGAs. I trust his inside info on that stuff. If he says The campaign is in freefall, it's in freefall

JD Vance has to be in the top 3 worst VP picks ever.

^The trolls aren’t getting the night off… I still have gaps in the posts here. Thankfully they’ll be gone after tomorrow.

Hopefully someone can keep me from jumping off the ledge, but the early vote totals in Pennsylvania, compared with the 2020 results, is giving me some heartburn. In '20, Democrats had about a 1,080,000 edge (1,702,484 - 623,404) over Republicans in returned ballots. Biden ended up winning by 80,500+ (3,458,229 - 3,377,674), with about 50% of his total coming in early voting. This year, the Democrats margin is only about 410,000 (995,674 - 586,764). Why should I not be overly concerned?

The 2024 numbers.

Because democrats voted by mail in 2020 because of COVID.

R164, maybe some of those early votes in 2020 were pandemic-influenced? Maybe some of the voters in that 2020 total are back to being election day voters? I don't know.

R164, could the discrepancy just come from the fact that in 2020 Trump was telling everyone to vote on Election Day and NOT early, whereas this year he's telling his followers to vote early? Harris at this point probably has a half-million-vote lead on Trump (most of the votes from Democrats + a good percentage of the independents' votes).

This year late-deciders are breaking toward Harris. Many of those will vote on Election Day.

In 2020 my friends and family (except for two people) voted by mail. This year half of us voted by mail and half of us are voting in person. Those voting in person are doing so because of the shenanigans Dump pulled in 2020 when he declared himself the winner early Wednesday morning.

(We’re all voting for Kamala btw.)

Magic 8 ball: he will get AZ. She will get the Blue Wall plus 2 out of 4 among NV, NC, GA and IA.

Thanks! Maybe, as anticipated, it's also a function of voter turnout not matching the record 2020 turnout.

I'll have what R171 is smoking.

[quote] The national picture: Harris's lead in @CookPolitical's final polling average is 48.7%-47.8% (0.9 pts). Harris lead is back up to 80%-15% w/ Black voters, while Trump has gained slightly w/ men, white voters and 18-29 year olds in the final month.

Yeah, R173, I haven't heard any Democratic pundit post-Selzer poll who has said they actually believe Harris will carry Iowa.

Fox is calling it for Trump, natch.

R164, a caller on Dean Obeidallah's show just said there's been some sort of campaign among PA Democrats to hold off until Election Day to preempt any "red mirage" tomorrow evening.

It's only anecdotal, R177, but I'll take it.

People may like his prediction, but could any decent person not loathe this horrible person? An ego bigger than Trump’s.

R175

171 didn’t say she would win Iowa. You can read for ye self, yes?

^ are you that dumb to think the Harris camp organized a plan: “don’t vote til the very last minute”?”

Well… I just posted elsewhere that half of my family and friends are voting tomorrow, whereas only two voted in person in 2020. All Dems by the way. The reason is because of the shit Dump pulled declaring himself the winner in 2020.

For R177^

[quote] I haven't heard any Democratic pundit post-Selzer poll who has said they actually believe Harris will carry Iowa.

No one is going to put their own credibility that far out there.

Omg I’m losing it. I posted the same thing further up. I need a bottle of vodka. Make that two bottles. No, eight.

So R182 you are that dumb. Good luck.

I will add to the tail end of Rick Wilson's video at r150 - if the traitor and his team have put into action or WILL put into action any plan to overturn the election, either by getting assholes to refuse certification, or submitting fake electors (again), or having Johnson refuse to seat the new House members, this is a fucking CONSPIRACY and every last motherfucker in on this is culpable for it.

And there will not be a spinless Merrick Garland dragging his feet about it, either.

R186 I voted by mail, turd. But I totally support anyone who wants to vote on Election Day.

Which is not the point made earlier. Read the thread Turd.

R189 I have no fucking clue what you’re taking about. I can only judge your comment with regard to my post. And you can’t think of anything more clever than turd? That was MY insult.

Read the thread numbnut—you can read. At least I thought so. 😵‍💫

R191, unfortunately I have OP blocked, he’s a troll. So I can’t read the thumbnail. What’s that got to do with anything anyway? And again. No fucking clue what you’re talking about. Someone mentioned anecdotally that people were voting for Kamala same day, not early, due to Dump’s shenanigans in 2020 and I shared that members of my family were doing so after voting by mail in 2020. Geez it’s not rocket science.

Girls, girls! You are both trailer turds!

The red mirage only happens if Dems vote by mail, not early voting.

Adding this kind priests message here as well-

Thankya r193! At last, a post that makes sense.

Pennsylvania - 2024 General Election - Election Eve 2

📥 1,830,246 votes cast

🔵 DEM: 1,014,744 - 84.5% returned 🔴 GOP: 602,601 - 84.2% returned 🟡 IND: 212,901 - 75.4% returned

Early voting is very tough in PA r194. I think only a couple of places per county. But honestly I’m not sure, I just know there are very few places in PA to vote early in person. You’d think I should know it being a resident, but I vote by mail.

Some of those GOP ballots are going to be for Kamala.

R197's post- How the fuck are those numbers bad?

If we are losing PA I can close down my laptop and just wait for the dicatorship-

R199 Exactly. The percentage of Repubs voting for Harris has to be higher than the number of Dems voting for Trump.

Early vote (in person and mail) is complex. Nevada early vote was being pointed to as proof how well they Repubs were doing there, but today John Ralson, political guru of NV (with a long series of accurate predictions) looked at early vote and said that it looks like a Harris win.

Harris has got this. But hell, this is exhausting.

T think those PA numbers are brand new late tonight so maybe that poster was fretting overs older numbers?

Looks good to me.

I feel so stupid believing polls that showed trump ahead in AZ and GA and NC. She’s going to win all three comfortably. I knew I should have went with my gut.

AZ?? R203- I don't see that one...

Ok then just be “shocked” on Tuesday then. No skin off my back.

Between the IA poll, Trump's sparser crowds, Latinos pissed off, and the known mixture of women, seniors, independents, Haley voters, young/first timers breaking for Harris, I don't see how some of these tight polls are right. Trump electorate is narrower and monolithic.

Hard to parse this logically. Is it indeed herding by polls so they all take partial blame but not one is really lambasted?

[quote] unfortunately I have OP blocked, he’s a troll.

Ha. Lots of gaps in this thread for R192 (including this post). Judge my trolldom for yourself by checking out some of my other (many, many) posts in this thread: 2, 4, 10, 20-21, 23, 27, 30, 54, 60, 63, 72, 79-80, 83, 98, 111, 113-115, 122, 135, 137, 139, 164, 172, 174, 175 & 178.

Alas, there is this (@ 93) for the hanging judge that is R192:

[quote] I'm much more optimistic about a Harris win, but see too much irrational exuberance here. Too many imponderables, e.g., the female/male turnout ratio, the turnout of low propensity voters, to be overly confident.

I am nervous because CNN is nervous about low black voter turnout in Pa.... God PLEASE save this country

I don't know if GA has best in nation early voting, but their implementation of it must rank highly. From what everyone I know there has said, it couldn't be easier. A lot of time (including a couple of weekends) and locations for in person voting, plus easy voting by mail. What's up with PA?

R192 so you admit you missed the context of the post you derided…. Thank you for acknowledging that fact.

R181, the radio caller didn't say the Harris camp organized the plan, let alone that it was "don’t vote til the very last minute." They said there was a lot of encouragement among PA Democrats on social media to vote on Election Day rather than early or by mail, in order to offset a "red mirage." Since you're so much smarter than I am, you must know that PA is prohibited by state law from counting mail-in ballots until Election Day itself, which in 2020 created an artificial sense of a Republican advantage for much of the evening.

When you think about it, all Trump had to do is turn into a benevolent Santa Claus and promise to bring the country together and sing Kum-ba-ya. But he couldn't even fake it. He always chooses hate.

R211 is now Frasier Crane?!

Caller, what’s your problem? …Dr. Crane, I’m stupid.

I certainly did miss it r210,I still don’t know what you’re crowing about 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

As a man, I'll do my part to close the gender gap tomorrow—but it won't help T-Rump.

R215 emoji? Really?!

R217, ummm… is this your first one ever seeing one?

Emoji: a small digital image or icon used to express an idea, emotion, etc. "emoji liven up your text messages with tiny smiley faces"

Yes—by tween girls.

The first results come in at midnight. We need an **official election thread” to get started with the first results. It’s like an hour away.

Who wants to do the honors?

R220 what crazed time zone are you in?

Oh wow, I forgot r220. Isn’t there a small town somewhere where everyone votes at midnight?

Ahh, you’re gonna play the Dixville Notch card. Ok—

R222 Dixville Notch, New Hamshire

Trump will not win Pennsylvania.

My Upper-Middle-Class neighborhood in the Lehigh Valley is replete with Harris/Walz yard signs. That is but one example.

More importantly, that "island of garbage, Puerto Rico" punchline is going to knock out Trump/Vance. A blunder of the first order in this heavily-Latino area. The hardcore Republican Pennsylvania Dutchies won't know what hit 'em.

And that's not even noting that WE WERE BLUE IN 2020.

Oh, Trump will win his share of counties (the coal regions of Carbon and Schuylkill; the forested "hunting" counties that border NY state; the might-as-well-be-Ohio-or-West-Virginia SW territories; Lancaster and Berks, where he spoke today), but he will lose enough (e.g., Lehigh, Northampton, Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh proper) to lose the state.

I created a thread… it might be too early but since the first results are due soon, we should have a place to cheer on our gal.

With only six registered voters left and a 100% tally for Biden in 2020, Dixville Notch has lost whatever minimal meaning it had in the past. There's no contest and no suspense.

It used to be ruby red!

R227 Huh? There was never any suspense or contest. It always went Republican because, well, New Hampshire. It's a cartoon-like ritual, a meme before there were memes. Kissing babies. Eating regional food. Being on local news. Watching the Dixville Notch vote.

r229, Biden received all 5 votes in 2020, so not always Republican.

You’re young & dumb^

Damn. I was ready to go to bed and now I'm staying up for the midnight voting stupidity.

I see that some towns in Vermont can start voting as early as 5am, and then real statewide voting starts in some states at 6am.

Thank you r226

Dixville Notch Register pollster J. Off Seltzer got it wrong this time.

Last Nate Silver simulations revealed.

Out of 80,000 simulations, Kamala Harris won in 40,012 (50.015%) cases

R229, Biden won 100% of the vote; Hillary won it 2:1.

[quote]What's up with PA?

Republicans control the state Senate, and have blocked most efforts to reform/improve early and mail-in voting which have been put forth by the Democratic House and the Dem Governor.

Meanwhile, Farage gives his two cents. I wonder why he felt compelled to say this?

[quote]My Upper-Middle-Class neighborhood in the Lehigh Valley is replete with Harris/Walz yard signs.

OMG the Pennsylvania Yard SIgn Troll is back—in Democratic form!

Laura Benanti as Melania (voting for Kamala Mamala).

R239, I am no such Thang! 😅 🪧🪧🪧🪧🪧

I went to vote early today before a car appointment, but the line was already very long at 7:15 a.m., so like MacArthur, I shall return. 🗽

🌊🌊🌊🌊

I don’t know why Ohio and Florida are included in this list, but in the battleground states, it’s a jump ball at the end.

Re: Dixville Notch, someone posted in another thread a tweet saying that all 6 voters there are registered Republicans who all voted for Haley in the primary. If so, their even split today doesn't bode well for Trump (if such a minuscule sample bodes anything at all).

Four are Republicans, two are Independents, R243.

But they all went for Biden in 2020.

Oops, you're right, R244. But they're all evidently R-leaners who went for Haley in the R primary and are now split. I hope some similar math applies to Haley primary voters elsewhere (on one of these threads someone was linking to Neil Sinhababu predicting that would happen).

They’re Rs who voted for Biden . So Trump picking up votes is a bad omen for Harris. Of course, it’s all pretty meaningless.

R247, do the six who voted today include the five who voted in 2020? This year they all voted in the R primary; in 2020 they all voted in the D primary—and there are supposed to have been demographic changes during the pandemic.

R247, we don't know if they are all the same voters from 2020. I'm sure some are, but it's possible that others weren't there four years ago. At least one wasn't, because there were five in 2020 and there are six this year. What we do know from several articles is that four are registered Rs and two are independents. We know that there were four men and two women. We know that at least one of the men (R) voted for Harris. I watched the proceeding last night and one of the women was recording the votes. On the first vote for Harris, she said "I never know how to pronounce this name." So I would speculate that she was a Trump vote.

In other words, I don't think we can extrapolate anything for the overall election from this small sample of six.

In other words, I don't think we can extrapolate anything for the overall election from this small sample of six.

Are you sure about that? Nate Silver ran the model 80,000 times…and every time Donald won Dixville Notch he also took the Electoral College.

What is Decision Desk rated?

When did fairweather Nate Silver switch over his prediction to Harris? Hmph.

538 also changed their prediction to Harris being favored to win. I think Kamala wins all battleground states except Arizona.

R252 Last night. Last minute.

So many of the polling services have herded as close to 50/50 as possible... covering their ample asses. I think the outcome is uncertain, but I'd love to see a Harris win of 5-6% to expose (again) how broken our polling systems are.

And it's Lucy with the fucking football... the polls are increasingly garbage, and in 2026 and 2028 I'll be there again, ready to kick off. Maybe AI will do better... or maybe AI will kill us all and we'll never need to vote again.

Breath, wait, don't give in to the anxiety.

If after reading this you want to snark back "we're just having fun", it really doesn't look like it.

So as an alternative to driving yourselves mad today trying to read the tea leaves about things like Dixville Notch, at least consider this: it is all bs until the polls close.

[quote]every time Donald won Dixville Notch he also took the Electoral College.

Well, he didn't win it this time. So there's that.

It feels like pollsters are using old media methodology in a new media world. Is it taking them so long to catch up because methods need to be updated through peer-reviewed methods and best practices in academia?

That's like saying my knees ache, it's gonna rain.

Dixville Notch tells us nothing but old wives tales. Come on, guys. Butterfly McQueen did this panic thing way better.

LOL at the Daily Mail prediction of a blowout win by Trump.

Some people want polls to be crystal balls, but that just isn't possible. Polls can only be as accurate as the people being polled and how close the pollsters' educated guesses are. The media amplifies the very politically vocal among us, but most Americans don't talk about politics or put signs in their yards. We just won't know until we know. Go Kamala!

Again, how is Decision Desk rated?

Guam? This guy is a Republican shit wad but does this mean anything?

I get polled regularly by YouGov and I can tell you a lot of my answers have to do with how well the questions are worded, what mood I am in, and how closely I am paying attention to it. I always say I’m voting for Harris, but do I consider myself a Liberal or a Strong Liberal? Do I think Harris is Progressive or Very Progressive. Who do I think will win the election? (Depends on which day you ask me) What is the one issue I think is most important? I have to choose just one from a list of very important, and not necessarily unrelated, issues. Pretty sure I don’t pick the same one every time. All the questions are strictly multiple choice, of course.

Are polls accounting for Republicans who won’t vote for Harris or Trump? I hear people saying they will leave the President vote blank while choosing Republicans for every other office on the ballot. Are those people accounted for or aren’t there enough of them to matter?

Sounds good to me.

[quote] Re: Dixville Notch, someone posted in another thread a tweet saying that all 6 voters there are registered Republicans who all voted for Haley in the primary.

New Hampshire has a closed primary, so to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary you have to choose that party’s affiliation, at least temporarily. It makes sense that people would want to vote in the GOP primary this year, both actual Republicans and Democrats wanting to vote against Trump. It’s not clear from the primary, or the party affiliation people chose to vote in the primary, what these voters’ actual party preference is. The general election is a better indicator.

[quote] Polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight has suddenly named Vice President Kamala Harris its favorite to win the White House, on Election Day, for the first time since October 17.

[quote]But, in an update on Election Day, Harris came out as the favorite, winning 50 times out of 100 over Trump winning 49 times out of 100.

I had to laugh when read the second line. Great spin by Newsweek on what is still a 50/50 race.

R254 almost all the polls are bullshit. Most of the people involved with them are trump supporters and/or GOP members. They are lying about the results in the hopes that democrats will see them and not bother to vote

R254 almost all the polls are bullshit. Most of the people involved with them are trump supporters and/or GOP members. They are lying about the results in the hopes that democrats will see them and not bother to vote

Sorry about the double posts

R267 The aggregator has been showing a Trump win for weeks... slowly moving in Harris's direction in the last few days. Finally shifting to Harris as favored, even at 50/49 is evidence of the movement to Harris.

We heard you the first time. And you extrapolate what some pollsters do to all posters, which is factually incorrect.

[quote]New Hampshire has a closed primary, so to vote in the Republican or Democratic primary you have to choose that party’s affiliation, at least temporarily. It makes sense that people would want to vote in the GOP primary this year, both actual Republicans and Democrats wanting to vote against Trump.

Pennsylvania has this same primary setup. That’s why I’m taking the large numbers of Republican early-voting ballots with some skepticism. Many of those he might be Harris-supporting Democrats who changed their registration to R in order to vote in last April’s Republican primary for Haley.

Decision Desk, which was the first one to call it for Biden, is calling it for Trump.

R274, what in the fuck are you talking about?

R274 You are high (giving you the benefit of the doubt). Decision Desk has said zilch ... "calling it" meaning a poll? ha ha aha ha ha...

Link, please R74

Decision Desk is giving Trump the edge in this election. But in 2020 they were "the first one to call it for Biden" the Friday AFTER election day—they were assessing the votes left to be counted in PA, not the pre-election polls.

Can you provide a link to this article or opinion, R278?

Ignore the troll.

Yes, R279, you can find the information on Decision Desk's history easily by googling, e.g. on Wikipedia:

[quote] Decision Desk HQ was the first major election reporting organization to call the 2020 United States presidential election for Joe Biden.[1] The call was made shortly before 9 a.m. ET on Friday, November 6.[8] It made this call after projecting that Biden's lead in outstanding mail-in ballots from Pennsylvania left incumbent Donald Trump with no realistic path to win Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes. McCoy told Vox that the great majority of mail-in ballots from Pennsylvania were from heavily Democratic areas around Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. According to McCoy, Biden was winning the mail-in vote in those areas by a margin large enough to make his lead in the state insurmountable.

I assume you can find the information on Decision Desk's current prediction (they give Trump a 54% chance to win).

Poll conducted Saturday-Sunday.

[quote] “Harris leads Trump among independents (+13), women (+12), those older than 65 (+19), suburban voters (+6), large city voters (+20), and young women (+35). Trump, on the other hand, leads Harris among first-time voters (+8), the under 30 vote (+2), men (+6), small city voters (+4), the rural vote (+19), Hispanics (+5), and young men (+39),” reports John Zogby, Senior Partner.

[quote] Trump has made inroads with the Black vote (19%), and Harris looks like she has sealed the deal with independents who are concerned about the economy and the border. Take note, 7% of these unaffiliated are still undecided,” says Jeremy Zogby.

[quote] “I’m particularly struck by the 74-point gender gap separating young men and young women. The notable education gap is 32 points between those with a college degree and those without. According to John Zogby, the key takeaway is “a serious demographic realignment between the two parties appears to be taking place.“

All- Can you let me know when shit gets LIT!!!! Like around what time will some things become clear tonight. I am crawling out of my skin---

Just an idea? 6 PM , 8 PM....

Allegedly the NC results will be some of the first firmer results or counts to come in. Watch how NC goes - if Harris outright wins, it's over. If she loses but by a very small margin - as is expected - she's still in it. If she loses or is losing by a larger-than-expected margin, cue the funeral horns.

Only five more hours until first results released,

Georgia is the key state among those states with polls closing at 7, R283. That's the earliest poll closing. North Carolina's polls close at 7:30.

So 7PM shit gets real... THANKS ALL

Yes r286 but I'm not sure that GA will be the bellweather that NC will be. Trump is expected to win GA. Results from both states will come in roughly the same time, I'll be keen to watch both.

r287, thank Pacific Coaster who have to figure out what times you East Coaster are talking about.

But five hours is five hours.

I am cautious optimistic about Harris’s chances in N.C.. we have a new, very young, very energetic, very charismatic party chairwoman who ran on, and has for the last two years worked at, fighting in every county no matter how red or how rural. They worked to get a Domecrat to run in every race they could, no matter how likely it was that they would win, and has run a fantastic get out the vote campaign. I have a friend who lives in a rural, cherry red district and he had three different in-person visits, all from Democrats, to try and engage him.

R290- You have alot of out of staters from Dem states moving in too...

R291, to the urban centers for tech jobs, yes, but we have just as many retirees moving to the mountains and the coast who are just as republican.

I say this as someone who has a thick southern accent and dresses like a farmer or hunter most of the time. You wouldn’t believe what some of these transplants will say to me because they assume I’m a good ole boy who will agree with them.

My usual response is that we’re glad they came and increased our property values but that I hope they go back to where they came from when their money runs out.

Very good points R292- I did not think of that... I am similar but from New England. I love looking like a Carharrt wearing MAGA. (I am guilty of Trucker Hats too LOL)

I led myself into a political conversation with a client from Tennessee because I knew that I could get away with it

It was horrifying. I posted here a few months ago about this.. I could not UNHEAR what he said. It was bad.

R293, recap please. I want to warm my hands on the embers of their dying hopes.

I believe the pro-Kamala movement is powered by the Anyone But Trump movement. They see she's a decent, intelligent, enthusiastic person and it's like, "Let's roll". People are so tired of him, regardless of politics.

Good? Bad?

Those are great polls for Harris r296, they show her winning the EC. Not vouching for their accuracy, as I've never heard of them before.

I'm surprised by Michigan. I've always thought of it as a state full of bigoted, low IQ hillbillies who went north "to find happiness within the automobile industry" but ended-up sinking into rust belt poverty- with no way out.

R291 whereas those moving into AZ and NV trending more conservative…

[quote] They see she's a decent, intelligent, enthusiastic person and it's like, "Let's roll".

My lawyers will be in touch.

Hahaha r300, you oldtimer - beat me to it!

R298 Michigan was originally French, and its original American settlers came from New England. Add that to the Great Migration to Detroit and Saginaw/environs. That’s why Michigan has also been a bit different from WI and IL, for example.

Also a strong Dutch Calvinist influence.^

I heard good things from Phila (anecdotal). How is Atlanta, Pittburgh, Columbus doing?

[quote] Are polls accounting for Republicans who won’t vote for Harris or Trump?

Early vote totals can only account for political affiliation.

Polls are supposed to count total votes for each candidate and are not determined by political affiliation. In years past, Trump had 'silent' support and that's why polls underestimated his support.

I had nothing to do with this.

Ew, disgusting MAGA-manicure.

[quote] I'm surprised by Michigan. I've always thought of it as a state full of bigoted, low IQ hillbillies who went north "to find happiness within the automobile industry" but ended-up sinking into rust belt poverty- with no way out.

Since 1988, Michigan has only gone Republican in a presidential election once, in 2016. Moreover, Michigan hasn't elected a Republican to the US Senate since 1994. And before that guy, a one-term Senator, the last Republican elected to the Senate was in 1972, the year Nixon won 49 states.

Is Trump blowing Jesus?

[quote]Are polls accounting for Republicans who won’t vote for Harris or Trump?

In Nevada, the Oracle of Nevada reported that Republicans are down 2000 voters from 2020.

Are Republicans, who are shamed by the criminal Nevada GOP, slapping blood on their lintels and staying home, hoping all this must pass?

Did their wives go out "shopping" today.

Well, Mika needs to have the Oracle of Nevada on later this week to explain.

And remember the 2026 Midterms begin tomorrow.

Don’t repeat yourself^. You’re good already.

Start your own thread, R311.

So the well-rated, but unknown, AtlasIntel poll nailed it.