Agree with all this wholeheartedly.
Wait…what?
I’m thinkin’ simple typo. In my head I read it as “Almost all the indicators outside of polling are positive though”. And it’s hard for me to argue with that take.
For Trump to win, he either has to do better than he did in 2020, or Harris has to do worse than Biden in 2020. I don’t think there’s a single piece of evidence that suggests either one of these are true, and there’s plenty of evidence (despite the polling that shows a very tight race) of the opposite – that Harris has more resources and more enthusiasm than Biden '20, and Trump has less of both, and less of his own energy, than Trump '20.
If the polling is mostly right, it will be a close race, perhaps with a slight edge to Harris. We’ll find out in a few weeks if the polling is right.
Yeah. Not typo just poorly worded. The “not polling” indicators, they’re almost all positive. IMHO.
The polling is literally the only thing that makes me think this election is close at all. If I hadn’t seen any polling I would think Harris was running away with the election.
Remember 2016.
I don’t even know where Nate Silver posts, but he has Nevada now 1.9% for Kamala. Apparently.
What 2016 and other recent elections have shown this isn’t really a place you want to be. If a candidate is underachieving in the polls based on conventional wisdom, they tend to underperform the polls on election day. My theory on this is pollster are humans, so they tend to make decisions in favor of the candidate they think will do relatively better, and the polls skew that way.
I don’t really think that is the case here though, but mostly because I disagree with the premise that all of the non-polling data favors Harris. There are lots of things like unpopular incumbent, voter registration data, mediocre economics numbers, electoral college tilted against her…) are at best okay for Harris.
Biden was overperforming by polling but won by a much narrower margin, underperforming on Election Day. Hard to know how to read midterms but I read it as an underperforming polls and over performing on Election Day. I am not seeing the pattern you see anyway. I see polls as only able to predict within several points either way.
Hard to know how to factor the incumbent factor when one was the immediate past president and the driver of the last several cycles, and one part of a current administration but not the actual incumbent. It is polling but by polling she scores more as “agent of change” here. She’s the turn the page choice.
Voter registration data has been noted and personally I am convinced by the argument that it is a lagging indicator. And how many of the swing states have registration by party?
The economic data has in fact not been bad, but more importantly the public is starting to believe that. Economy though is still the important issue to many and for unfathomable reasons Trump does score higher here. And he has repeated lies enough that the public is concern about the dangers of immigrants.
The polling again - seems to show a smaller EC tilt than last two cycles. But we will see.
He’s got a Substack, and you have to subscribe if you want to see his actual prediction model. But the polling averages are free on the same page. He currently has MI/PA/WI/NV all >1% for Kamala, NC/GA <1% for Trump, and AZ >1% for Trump. Dunno about the prediction model, because I’m not subscribed. I’m quite leery of his connection to Polymarket and his punditry has never been above average, but his weighted polling averages are probably still close to the best of the polling aggregators.
I think Biden was probably polling around expectations so i don’t think that one shows anything. The clearest examples were Clinton and the “red wave” year where the conventional wisdom wasn’t really in line with polling and the results ended up being that polling was skewed too much towards conventional wisdom. Obviously is a small sample size so could be just noise.
And yes you can argue each of those points and there are areas where Harris clearly has the advantage (cash, special elections) but I don’t think it is fair that all the non-polling data is positive. I think it just as mixed a bag as a the polling.
He was up by roughly eight and a half points. I certainly had no expectation that he should be doing that well. You did? To me that was clearly him over performing expectations in the polls and then coming to back to reality on Election Day.
HRC yes.
Red wave year? Polls were pretty much right on. The narrative of a Red Wave was for clicks cherry picking a few GOP
partisan shops results but NOT supported by the polling and click worthy because it was not what had been expected otherwise.
I do not claim “all”; I do claim most. And to me the critical bit is unfortunately subjective: that she is a stronger candidate running a better campaign than Biden 2020 while Trump 2024 is weaker with a worse campaign than Trump 2020. The only flip side to that is that while the intensity of his support is less than it was, so is the intensity of the wanting to vote against him. But if Biden beat him as a weaker candidate then Harris likely will. Gut maybe, but polls will be unable to be say more than up down by three or more, so I’m going with that gut.
People have (unfortunately) short memories. In 2020, there was very much a “jesus-fucking-christ-I-am-so-sick-of-this-guy” mentality across the country, much of it due to his botched response to the pandemic, but also just his insane blatherings pushed out with the Presidential bully pulpit every day. A lot of that sentiment propelled Biden’s victory. Biden was the “return to normalcy” candidate and many, many people were hungry for that.
But those days are gone. Those memories are faded or vanished. The pandemic is not top of mind. In short: people have forgotten what a shitshow the Trump presidency was, so I don’t think the same conditions apply as in 2020. I absolutely can see Harris getting less votes than Biden. In fact, it may be inevitable given his historically high numbers. 2024 is not 2020 redux.
I don’t necessarily agree she is a better candidate than Biden from 4 years ago. Better then current Biden clearly, but Biden was a solid candidate in 2020. We was well liked and pulled the party together. Plus Harris is running as a quasi unpopular incumbent vs Biden who was running against an unpopular incumbent. I agree Trump is worse, but his popularity numbers are better than 4 years ago, so that might not be a universally held opinion.
There is truth to this. When Trump asks if people are better off than they were 4 years ago, people can’t remember how bad things were 4 years ago. It’s almost like it was so bad that people have just chosen to forget it so that they can move on with their lives.
Personally, I’d say that the issue is that the Democrats have never hit Trump on his lies to Republicans.
CNN made a lot of money pushing how Rightwing and Conservative Trump was but, in reality almost everything his administration did was leftwing once you got past the headlines and facade initiatives.
He announced that he was going to build a wall to keep the Mexicans out. In reality, he never built more than a few feet of wall, but did increase the number of temporary worker visas - and thereby the number of people liable to overstay their visas and become illegals. He never pushed for e-verify, never tried to prosecute people that hired illegal workers.
Trump defunded police departments that employed the use of things like chokeholds. He decreased the length of prison sentences for drug and violent offenders.
His favored economic policy supports socialist unions.
His favored defense policy is weak and timid.
He was friends with Epstein and the Clintons. His favorite historic president was the founder of the Democratic party.
During his Presidency both the Left and the Right spent 4 years selling Trump as the ultimate right-wing strongman, despite all evidence to the contrary. They didn’t sell him as he actually was: A guy who’d say one thing and do the exact opposite - just like every other lying liar of a politician.
That failure has left the aura of perfection for everyone who wanted to own the libs. That chaos you mention was not the flaw, it was the feature. Continuing to sell that image, even though it was a lie, is what may bring Trump back to the White House.
For every one thing that you might point to indicating that Trump is a Republican, there’s 8 saying that he just wants to be famous and have a position that delivers to him rubes to huckle, and 3 saying that he leans Lefty.
“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.
- Harris continues to lead in national and state polling.
- 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?).
- Our candidates are far better liked and much more likable.
- Their Senate candidates are all underperforming.
- Democrats have enormous financial, organizational and enthusiasm advantages, and have been winning elections all across the country since Dobbs.
- The House is likely to flip.
As for their closing message, the success of the Biden-Harris Admin has dramatically undermined their central arguments.
- The economic news continues to be really positive and America is clearly better off today.
- Crime is down,
- Border flows are down,
- Drug overdoses are down,
- Domestic energy production is breaking records.
- Their climate denialism has become even more politically untenable.
- 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.
He was about 54 disapprove to 42 approve four years ago. Today 53 to 43. Each had up down some. Pretty much the same I guess.
But yes it is a subjective call.
Okay running through these.
- Is polling data, so not really relevant to non-polling data discussion, but the fact he ignores that 538 calibrates their data vs pollster reliability and house affects and adds a point to the dems is enough to not take him seriously. On the state polls that is some serious cherry picking. Also for what is worth Tester is very much an underdog to retain his seat and not a toss-up.
- Hey another reference to polls from the guy who doesn’t like polls. Guess he only likes the ones that support his conclusion.
- True
- Most are, but I’m not sure how that is relevant to Harris vs Trump. Also again underperforming in the polling data which he wants to argue is otherwise unreliable.
- Yes Financial though super pacs have enough money that I’m not sure anyone will really be short on cash. Organization I think the dems are putting more resources into it, but the republicans have shown some resourceful in the past. Enthusiasm is hard to tell, special elections are a plus but is also a different electorate than a general election.
- House is a toss-up
- Real disposable personal income is down a bit from 4 years ago, so I don’t think that is at all clear. The stock market is good and GDP is okay, but between lingering affects of inflation, housing prices, and a somewhat challenge job market, it is unclear that this is a positive for Harris.
8-11 are all good, but I’m not sure the perception among voters are there
12 Is probably true.
13. Is probably not something that is going to influence voters given history.
So some are good for Harris, some are neutral, and some aren’t relevant. And of course he is only picking items where he thinks Harris has the advantage. Nothing here demonstrates that the polls are unlikely to undercount Harris.