by Ben Whedon
A number of polls by legacy organizations have shown a swing toward former President Donald Trump in most key battleground states, while Vice President Harris maintains a lead nationally, but some analysts see a critical disconnect between state and national polls that could suggest that the Republican Party has even stronger foundations.
Harris currently leads Trump by 2.0%. Real clear policy poll averagewith support of 49.1% compared to 47.1%. The figure includes a Rasmussen Reports poll showing Trump with a two-point lead, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showing Harris with a two-point lead, a Morning Consult poll showing Harris with a five-point lead, a Yahoo News poll with the race tied and a number of other polls. . AND New York TimesThe /Siena College poll showed Harris gaining three points.
But pollsters have pointed to a stark disconnect between state-level and national-level polls, with state-level polls increasingly moving toward Trump while Harris seemingly holds steady at the national level. They further observed two consistent patterns in nationwide surveys that appear to vary significantly due to methodology.
Where everything stands
The headlines dominating this week were bombshells Quinnipiac University Studywhich is typically favorable to Democrats, showed Trump leading by 2% in Wisconsin and 3% in Michigan.
“Harris’ post-debate starburst is fading to luster as she enters her final weeks with a slight Rust Belt slip,” wrote Tim Malloy, a poll analyst at Quinnipiac University.
Other studies that are consistent with the norm follow these results and show Trump either tying or leading Harris in these battlegrounds. Survey from Hill/Emerson Collegefor example, he showed that in the Michigan race the tie was 49% in each case. This study found the same result in Wisconsin.
Polling averages currently show that Trump is poised to conquer Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Arizona. For her part, Harris has a slight lead in Minnesota and Nevada. If these results had held, Trump would have easily retained the Electoral College unless there were major unrest. The campaign released its own internal survey in a note Thursday showing Trump winning all seven key battleground states he tracked.
The betting markets also moved decisively in Trump’s favor. Polimarket currently giving him a 55.3% chance of winning, compared to 44.3% for Harris. Just a few days ago, the vice president was the favorite in the race.
“People want America to be strong and there is really no comparison between what Donald Trump has shown us in his four years of his career and what Kamala Harris has shown us [in] her four years as vice president and, you know, her term in the Senate,” Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “So I think when people look at the world through that lens, it’s not surprising that we start to see the polls swing in our direction.”
“Two Universes”
Compared to the previous elections, Trump is in approx a much more favorable position at this stage of the race. Compared to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016, he lost by 5.8% on October 10. Compared to President Joe Biden in 2020, he lost 10.0%. But that total includes several polls showing Trump tied or moderately ahead, as well as most showing Harris with a 3-5% lead.
“There were two universes. 1) A tight race with a marginal advantage for Trump. 2) Ridiculous tropes for a bigger-than-Obama Harris that will never happen.” published by Big Data survey director Rich Baris in response to an Emerson College poll showing Trump with an advantage in Pennsylvania.
This week, NYT/Siena interviewer Nate Cohn outlined a key methodological division leading to some noticeable electoral conflicts such as “weighing of canceled votes”. In this method, polls ask respondents who they voted for in 2020 and weight those results to provide a sample that matches the outcome of the previous election.
He said polls that operate this weighting method more closely resemble the 2020 election results, while those that don’t appear to reflect the 2022 election results. The NYT/Siena College poll does not “weight canceled votes.”
“The Poll Paradox”
While the “weighted by canceled votes” issue may explain the discrepancy between different national polls, it would not explain the apparent discrepancies between state and national data from the same points.
For example, Harvard CAPS/Harris survey director Mark Penn: highlighted what he called the “poll paradox”, noting that “[t]The Times/Siena poll shows Harris up by 3 points nationally (within the margin of error) but losing to Trump by 14 in Florida.
“Newsflash – they both can’t be right. It would be paradoxical if Harris equaled seniors across the country and fell with Floridians,” he added. “Florida has a large concentration of seniors and Latinos, and if Trump wins those groups, he beats Pa., Nevra and Az. State polls and national polls have to be in sync and I can’t say which one is true, but one or both are false.”
Popular vote
Baris also pointed to a stark divide, with polls showing Harris poised to win the popular vote despite performing significantly worse in deep blue states such as California and New York.
Baris, like Penn, pointed to the NYT/Siena poll, but particularly noted Harris’s decline in support in Democratic strongholds. He further accused Times “giving its readers bipolar results for the kopium.”
“Today, more polls show Harris trailing in key states, but also lagging far behind Clinton and Biden in another blue state. “To add to what I said yesterday, it’s simply not possible for PV to win if she’s doing so poorly in New York, Maryland, New Jersey, California, etc. Impossible math.” he wrote.
“I look at what is being covered up as being good for Harris. This is an absolute disaster for her.” Baris wrotein response to Mason-Dixon/Telemundo data showing Harris leading Trump among California Latinos 55% to 35%. Biden, on the other hand, won this bloc 75% to 23%. These numbers represent a 32 percent swing in one of the state’s largest voting blocs toward Trump.
Every group is moving towards Trump
Trump’s apparent momentum in Democratic battlegrounds and precincts comes as other data shows Trump gaining significant ground with Jewish voters, Latino voters and black voters.
For example, an NBC News/Telemundo poll released last month found Harris with 54% support among Latino voters compared to 40% who support Trump. This number represents an 8% augment over Trump’s 2020 results.
Moreover, among Jewish voters, Trump received 50% support among New York Jewish voters, while 49% supported Harris in an August Siena Research Institute poll. Biden led Trump in that group before leaving the race.
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Ben Whedon is a reporter for Just the News.
Photo “Donald Trump” by Daniel Scavino Jr.
