Polling is broken, right? Or is it the news? Or all of the US?

“All” might fairly called an exaggeration (though I cop to saying “all non-polling data …” myself). Still … I think it’s instructive to view all this from the point of view of one of the bigger liberal voices putting out 2024 election content: yep, good ol’ Simon Rosenberg, who will never, ever concede a nanometer of ground to Republican pundits.

I’ll convert his paragraphs into a numbered list so that it’s easier to address individual items. From yesterday’s Hopium Chronicles:

Here’s the dispiriting reality Trump and his allies are waking up to today.

  1. Harris continues to lead in national and state polling.
  2. Trump has lost his advantage on the economy in most polls (perhaps because his talking about eating cats and dogs and lying about our recovery efforts?).
  3. Our candidates are far better liked and much more likable.
  4. Their Senate candidates are all underperforming.
  5. Democrats have enormous financial, organizational and enthusiasm advantages, and have been winning elections all across the country since Dobbs.
  6. The House is likely to flip.

As for their closing message, the success of the Biden-Harris Admin has dramatically undermined their central arguments.

  1. The economic news continues to be really positive and America is clearly better off today.
  2. Crime is down,
  3. Border flows are down,
  4. Drug overdoses are down,
  5. Domestic energy production is breaking records.
  6. Their climate denialism has become even more politically untenable.
  7. And their ticket has decided to make their big October play a deranged attempt to disrupt mostly Republican states’ ability to manage some of the most devastating natural disasters in our history - a big play that is now being openly denounced by Rs in these states (my link -b).

A note about Item #1 above: Rosenberg does not accept all public polling as legitimate. Whether that is a reasonable stance is an exercise left for the reader. In any case, this is how Rosenberg presented the current state of polling to his readers in his Tuesday, October 8th column (my emphasis below - b):

We’ve had some pretty shitty NYT polls this year so let us celebrate their new national poll which has Vice President Harris up 3, 49%-46%. This is 3 points higher than their last poll and her largest lead in the NYT poll since she became our candidate …

Here are the latest national polls we’ve received from non-red wave pollsters, Harris-Walz (2 way head to heads, likely voters when available):

  • 51%-45% (+6) Morning Consult (gained a pt since last week)
  • 49%-44% (+5) Susquehanna
  • 50%-46% (+4) Big Village
  • 49%-45% (+4) Research Co.
  • 49%-46% (+3) TIPP/Issues and Insights (TIPP polls for [right-wing] groups)
  • 49%-46% (+3) Data For Progress
  • 49%-46% (+3) Economist/YouGov
  • 49%-46% (+3) NYT/Siena
  • 50%-48% (+2) NPR/Marist
  • 48%-46% (+2) Redfield & Wilton
  • 47%-45% (+2) Reuters/Ipsos
  • 48%-47% (+1) Yahoo/YouGov

We also got a new Detroit News poll showing Harris up 3 in Michigan, 47%-44%, a new St. Anselm’s poll showing her up 7 in NH, 51%-44%, and a new poll in VA showing her up 11, 52%-41%. Remember it was just a few months ago that the Trump campaign told us Virginia was in play.

As I’ve been writing to you polling data continues to be remarkably consistent and stable. The 538 national national polling average is now 48.5%-45.9% (+2.6), very similar to many of these polls above (to account for red wave polls in 538’s averages I toss an extra point into the averages for Dems). The Vice President has a 2-3-4 point lead in national polling, and is closer to 270 in the battleground states. Senate polling is holding, Tester remains a toss-up and House Ds are optimistic about flipping the chamber. It remains a close and competitive election, too close, my friends. As I like to say we are winning the election, but have not won it yet. Winning the election is up to us and dependent on the work we do in the final four weeks of the election.