2 data points isn’t exactly a lot. Plus, in most of the Republican primary states this year, the polls greatly overestimated Trump’s support, which (IIRC) did not occur in 2016 (rather it was the opposite). So something may be different in 2024 that’s leading to Trump getting more support in polling than in reality. This (and the many Democratic over-performances in recent special elections) would be in line with my hypothesis that polls are failing to reach a significant chunk of the populace (my guess is young, tech savvy people) who are very strongly opposed to Trump.
(my emphasis to focus the response)
Regarding specifically the 2016 and 2020 general elections, you are correct.
Regarding several other elections, both national (2018 and 2022 mid-terms) and state-level (e.g. recent special elections, abortion referenda), there actually has been under-representation of Democratic votes in the polling.
Yeah, really. “Why can’t everyone be as clear-eyed and objective as I am in relaying what my gut tells me?”
The real political strategists in the MAGA camp (which includes the Russians) want the controversy and dysfunction to continue, period.
This is plausibly explained by low Trumper turnout, in off-year elections, mirroring the low polling participation rate of Trump supporters. I’m not saying I’ve got super-firm evidence for the last sentence, but it is plausible.
I have not come across a plausible explanation for why 2024 should be different, in term of Trump polling undercount, than 2016 and 2020.
Trump’s support was way overestimated during the primaries this year. In contest after contest, his challengers (usually Haley) did way better than expected, and he did worse. At least by my memory – I don’t have the numbers at my fingertips. This wasn’t so in 2016. There may be something different now that’s overestimating Trump’s support.
I can make up lots of stories, I just don’t have any confidence they’re true.
For example, polling houses are very aware of the fact that previous general elections underestimated his support and explain it not by “shy Trumper” but by a systemic demographic tendency for Trump supporters to decline participation. Maybe they are now overcompensating for that effect?
It could be. We just have no evidence of such.
I agree. It’s all guessing right now. It’s guessing to say Biden staying is would be the best thing, and it’s guessing to say he should get out and get behind Harris. All we can do right now is guess.
Sure they do. But that doesn’t mean that the controversy is unjustified. Merely stamping the boot down and saying, “Biden is the nominee, deal with it!” isn’t going to win hearts and minds.
Plausibly, Trump is likely locked in to around 46.5 - 47.0 percent of the voters in the 2024 general election. There are a lot of inputs for that: Trump’s popular-vote percentages in 2016 (46.1) and 2020 (46.8); his rolling aggregate in RealClear Polling (vacillating between 44.6 and 47.8, with the mean for the year around 46.5); July 2024 polls via FiveThirtyEight sticking firm around 43% - 44%.
Now, I’m aware that’s popular vote, not Electoral College counts. I’m merely using the popular-vote poll results to demonstrate that Trump’s popular-vote percentage is apparently baked-in at a certain level. In popular-vote polling, he never quite arm-wrestles Biden’s hand down to the table – he never jumps out to a 55% poll result, say. Trump’s support, plausibly, is firmly-buttressed but inelastic.
Now, fair or not, I’m going to look at different polling figures for Biden – battleground state-level polls that FiveThirtyEight incorporates into their state-level predictions (because fewer state-level polls are done, I have to go back to the beginning of June to have a decent sample). A common theme is that the state polls have something like 8-15 percentage points dedicated to either other third-party candidates or to “undecided”. Trump’s battleground-state percentages,meanwhile, are about in line with his national polling
Pennsylvania
Michigan
Wisconsin
Even in battleground states that FiveThityEight currently projects Trump to carry, Trump’s poll results aren’t better – Biden’s are just lower and the “third-party/undecided” percentages are higher:
Georgia
Arizona
Nevada
North Carolina
Now. To me, it’s plausible that there’s still an underlying “never Trump, but not Biden yet” component in the polling. That is, Biden’s poll numbers aren’t capturing some percentage of voters that will still vote “Biden” when push comes to shove in November. In answering a poll, it costs nothing to beg off of Biden. Once it’s November 5th … you’ve made the effort to get to the voting booth, the curtain’s drawn, you know you’re in a battleground state, you already know you very much don’t want Trump in office – the calculus is very different.
I believe it’s plausible that the last-minute calculus shifts end up favoring Biden because it’s demonstrated to my satisfaction that his support is more elastic than Trump’s. Or it can be viewed from the opposite perspective – that Biden’s non-support is mushier.
Simon Rosenberg writes the following that’s in the same spirit as my post above (my emphasis):
A fundamental source of my optimism [regarding Biden’s chances - b] is that when voters in the US and Europe have had to vote in recent years - not answer a poll - voters keep choosing something other than fascism. The underperformance of the public polls of the European and French right in recent months is very similar to what we’ve seen here in the US since Dobbs, including in the GOP primaries this year where Trump underperformed - not overperformed - public polling in state after state. American voters have been voting against MAGA and fascism since 2018, and I believe they will do so again this November.
I was responding to a post that suggested that the MAGA preference that Joe stay in the race should tell us he’s toast. If the enemy wants something, it’s not to your benefit.
My take is that the enemy will be disappointed if the controversy runs out of gas, period. Like most of us, they have no fucking idea who their ideal opponent would be.
This is the strongest article I have come across, from a public interest (not electoral) standpoint, making the case that Biden should resign or drop out:
Wilson Didn’t Resign. The World Suffered
This is not as megalomaniacal as Trump saying he will end the Russo-Ukrainian War before taking office, but it is goes in that bad direction…
More:
This article reminded me that Wilson sought a third term but was blocked by Democratic Party leaders. Yes, the Republicans won anyway. This reinforces my idea that it isn’t enough to not run – Biden needs to make Harris the incumbent, as Wilson needed to elevate Marshall. Yes, I know, Democratic Party leaders cannot even get Biden to drop out, so that’s hopeless. This looks bad for America and the world.
“Who’s gonna be able to hold NATO together like me?” sounds eerily similar to Ginsburg’s words. When urged to retire, she kept saying, “Who can you find who is like me?”
Decades of training via media that has had Fairness laws removed, the absorption of news departments into entertainment divisions, and the artificial “balancing” of sides in an effort to gain readers/viewers…which makes the stockholders happy.
I find it rather amusing that the best some can manage to do is “But 1968.” Which, of course, required some combination of an unpopular war, a draft, the assassination of RFK, the assassination of MLK Jr., idiocy from Daley, riots, and a bad choice in Humphrey.
I’ll agree with the first part: there is a firm not Trump vote that will definitely vote.
The not Biden vote? That “yet” is optimistic. From the polling we’ve got those undecided unengaged voters are more likely to go Trump than Biden this time. They are not the anti-fascist voters. They may not love Trump but they are if anything more ready to be done with Biden. They aren’t voting for Trump yet is potentially more accurate. They are the classic wanting to vote for change voter, and while neither of these two old white men born in the 40s are really change, one is more of the same than the other by virtue of incumbency.
I don’t take much comfort from the French elections: the Far Right won far more votes than either The New Popular Front or Macron’s centrist group did. It’s like an electoral college win, because the Left and the Center worked together the Left won the most seats. Good. But reading that as a rejection of the Right is over optimistic.
Yeah, I don’t look to the MAGA team for intelligent analysis.
There is a reliable not Trump vote. It is calcified. There is a reliable Trump vote. Also calcified.
Can the Biden of today pull enough of the remaining group into his orbit and get them off their asses and into the voting booths? Or is the prospect of today’s Biden doing that grim enough that he gives someone other than another white man born in the ‘40s a go, someone who those voters can see as change that is not fascism.
I’ve seen this mentioned several times in recent P&E posts, but have not seen the underlying data. While I don’t want to put you on the spot for a cite, I’d like to place a general appeal to this thread’s readership for assistance in finding out on what the quoted idea is based. Even a hint of a keyword to search or a specific writer or pollster helps.
I will also Google and try to find it myself.
I think there’s also a boy who cried wolf problem for the Democrats. I’ve been told ever since I was first eligible to vote that “this is the most important election ever”. Yet for a lot of people, very little changes for the good and often things stayed the same or got worse, but not catastrophically. If the only thing keeping death and destruction away is this election, just like the last half dozen elections, either it’s not actually a crisis or the whole system is so screwed that why won’t 2028 be the most important election ever? Or 2032? And so on.
Something quick and dirty – and recent (July 8) – from the YouGov polling outfit:
Over the past year and a half, engaged voters, and registered voters as a whole, have been effectively tied in their intent to support Biden or Trump in the 2024 election. Among disengaged voters, however, 36% on average have said they support Biden over the past year and a half, whereas 40% of them have supported Trump. (Still about a quarter going with “other” or “not sure” - b)
… Since Trump’s guilty verdict, net intent among disengaged voters to vote for Biden over Trump has increased by 16 points, essentially erasing Trump’s advantage among the politically disengaged. Support for Biden relative to Trump already was near a campaign low point immediately prior to the conviction. So it is unclear whether the verdict increased support for Biden over Trump among the politically disengaged, or if this is merely a reversion to the average for this group of voters that is already volatile.
Not sure I can read this past the paywall, but the New York Times ran this headline towards the end of May: The Shaky Foundation of Trump’s Lead: Disengaged Voters.
A month later (about a week before the Atlanta debate), MSNBC and NYT did report the following based on some of NYT’s Nate Cohn’s work: Less engaged voters are leaning toward Trump. That could spell disaster in swing states.
That’s sufficient … I know where the idea came from and which sources support it.