I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The polls will be proven wrong because Democratic turnout will be very high and the polls aren’t capturing many people who don’t answer phones or do online surveys. This is going to be more like 2022.
I really believe this. I think Trump has topped out at 46% and she has considerable room to grow. Polls so a very poor job when turnout substantially exceeds the norm. It will this year. And women will make the difference.
Chris’s data choices are sobering; but beliefs are not necessarily factual, but my beliefs coincide with yours; perhaps it’s the consequences if we’re wrong destabilizing of so
many of our core beliefs, not to mention the junior high school we were led to believe about the city on the hill.
I picked Trump to win in 2016 because I was convinced there were a lot of hidden Trump voters. I picked Biden in 2020 because it was clear people had had enough of Trump. This year, I believe exhaustion with Trump, abortion, the women’s vote and the youth vote will tell.
I agree with you. In two prior elections, Trump got between 46 and 46.9% of the national vote. He won in 2016, because of two minor parties, Libertarian and Green sucking away vote in swing states that thru the election to Trump. That scenario is not in play this election.
I live in PA and I disagree with you completely. Not picking Shapiro won't have a negative affect. And early voting data in the state is good for dems so far. I'm in Lancaster County (the farm-adjacent suburbs, not the City which is always blue) and while I'm seeing a lot of Trump signs, I'm seeing a LOT more Harris and Casey signs than I expected. I think your take on PA is wrong.
I never said that at all - YES, PA is required to win. I'm just saying you're wrong about PA going for Trump and the decision not to pick Shapiro being "disastrous". Do you live in the state? I do, and I'm paying attention. I think there is a VERY good chance that PA is going for Harris.
Shapiro’a unwavering support of Bibi Netanyahu would have caused disaster in Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. People have no clue how many Arab Americans live in those three states and Pennsylvania. She would have gained a modest advantage in Pennsylvania and court disaster in the other theee states.
Do you think more answered phones and did online surveys in 2020? I don’t do any of them, because they always want a donation. It’s a choice between donating or having the survey not be counted. It’s a hoax. I block them. I’ve had so many of these now I just block them without beginning the survey. It’s always a donation request.
Chris - Do you ever feel like Joe Buck? He calls it right down the middle every game but almost 100% of fans are convinced he’s rooting for the “other” team.
Actually, real polling surveys are different from the fake surveys that often are really donation requests. I agree about the latter - how dumb do fund raisers think people are?
Chris. Write stories other than polls. This is ridiculous.
There’s been a lot of data today which indicates Harris is winning in the suburbs, is attracting Haley voters and more women than Trump is winning men. And the 18-40 men he’s going after are a group that likely won’t vote.
Harris is as likely to win in a landslide through the southern states as Trump is.
Polling isn’t real. If no one votes the polls are meaningless. Or if the 1500 people the polling company asks, lie, change their minds or don’t vote the 250 million voting Americans they represent will provide a different result.
This is the thing that gets me. It’s not a science. Democrats for the last 2 years have been over performing in special elections. So the polls for those candidates speculated what would happen in the actual election but were wrong.
The real issue I think is the current need to reduce news stories to their simplest parts in order to keep everyone’s attention in this world of 24/7 news cycles and data overload. So an election story becomes just a horse race on poling data alone. Data on money raised, the nuances of a particular district, policy shifts which move voters from one side of the aisle the other, are ignored. Because stories like that would take too long to write and would be out of date when they were published.
Newsweek is currently pushing a story where Trump has significantly gained ground by 0.3%. lol. That’s what we’ve been reduced to. Trump’s basic rhetoric of “she’s crazy”. Freedom. Guns. Are all very simple messages everyone can understand. Without much cognitive processing. Harris’ I have a Glock. “When we fight we win”, are too.
Hilary Clinton and Rand Paul used to give long wonky speeches on policy no one listened to in 2016. (I did!) It was great politics. Elevated it considerably. But no one could handle it.
We live in a dumbed down world because our brains might explode if it wasn’t. But the simple stories we are subsequently forced to tell are trite, inaccurate, to the point of meaninglessness.
Perhaps this is election fatigue setting in. But I think if I see another “candidate looks doomed” story based on this last hours polling data with nothing else to support it, I will completely lose it lol.
That’s the thing. Trump can’t get out of the margin of error. His debate performance was disqualifying. A majority of women voters, young people, suburban Americans and independents aren’t voting for him. Those are terrible data points which are ignored by your statement and horse race media analysis. It’s not a smart thing to say, doesn’t get at any truth but I’m sure makes you feel good. Is this the dumbest election we’ve ever had? lol
I disagree. She has had an advantage there in each of those states for awhile. Not a big advantage, and maybe not out of the margin for error, but the ugliness of Trump, and the anger of women having their rights taken away by that Mango Menace's hand-picked SCOTUS judges will carry the day.
Also…polling isn’t real is an easy thing to defend unless you believe it actually reflects the number of Americans who don’t have a problem with Trump’s behavior. Which is an indictment of what we have become. Are we really that evil? I just don’t think so.
Trump looks weaker on the weekends than he does during the week as news teams switch to different editorial teams less focused on pushing pro Trump, anti Harris polling data and news stories. It’s very striking and implies that Trump is just a figment of the mainstream media’s imagination. lol Go take a look at the coverage for yourself. Begin with Monday and Tuesday’s news then look at Saturday morning and all the Sunday shows. It’s fascinating.
Arguing that Trump has a good chance of winning is suggesting..or admitting.. that upwards of 80 million Americans are either ignorant, indecent, or both. If that is true, how sad.
Jeff Clabault, it's not going to happen. Americais are too smart to do that.
That desire and hope only exist in some pundits' mind and not in the over 80 million Americans who voted Trump out in 2020. They will be back again in November to block hhim from getting into the White House again
Well, 74 million were last time. And the fact that most consider the race close - that close to have the country wants a man who stole secret documents, is cruel and vicious and plans to go after anyone who disagrees with him, is a convicted felon and been adjudicated for sexual assault - boggles the mind
Last time there were 74 million Americans that voted for Trump, and Trump lost. Since then, he incited a violent mob to attack our capitol, lynch the Vice-President and Speaker of the House, to because he was upset that he lost. He has also taken government property that did not belong to him including sensitive nuclear defense secrets and kept despite court orders to return it. He engaged in plots to remove material so that the government could not find its stolen property. Also, he has been found civilly liable for committing sexual assault on a woman, forcing his fingers inside her vagina, against her will, in a New York department store dressing room. He and his business engaged in fraud to evade the payment of lawful taxes. He was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide pay outs to a porn-star with whom he had an affair.
OR, 80 million plus believe and know our great country is heading in the wrong direction (see right track wrong track polls) and VP Harris, foolishly, said she wouldn’t change anything JB did! O my what a message! Knuckhead Walz provides zero assurance.
Unfortunately I can’t do the polling thing and get anxious and pulled this way that way the other way till the election!!! Won’t is perhaps the answer… there are so many variables to how they poll people AND as allll of the goings on are NOT good for my mental health anyway ( guessing I’m not alone)….um just one more thing to NOT freak out over!!!!! One more thing I absolutely have no control over except to read it and either feel good or feel bad about. Sorry not sorry… thank you for sharing 🥰.
I am totally with you. Polls are already out of dare by the time they are published. Chris, we need to know what Kamala and the other guy are actually SAYING and DOING. Frankly, when your post is full of your charts and maps I don’t even read it.
Me too. The thing is that he (Chris) cherry picks the polls, graphs and charts etc that further his hidden wishes and hopes.That the MAGA cult leader wins) But I know his subscribers are smart enough to see through all that.
This is why I follow people like @cbouzy on Twitter - he's looking at data, not polls and he's confident in Harris. He's confident in Harris in PA. He says daily that Florida is in play. And so far, he's been right a lot.
Chris, all due respect, you're working my last nerve with these poll articles. I know you're busy with lots of other endeavors but please find something else to write about or take a day off and don't write at all. It's just me, I'm sure, but I'm tuning you out, man. Not even reading you anymore, sorry.
Where Biden and Hillary were in whatever polls you are looking at is irrelevant. All of the factors were decidedly different. We need to focus on the here and now. And watch the down ballot races. Those will determine if we have a chance at a functioning Congress.
Exactly. Hasn't Chris been saying for months - and I think most of us would agree - that this election is like none we've ever seen before? Then why would you try to compare it to previous ones?
This is a ridiculous comparison. It was an entirely different situation four years ago. Compare her numbers to Joe Biden's numbers THIS year. She had to pull herself out of a hole, and did, and surged ahead. To compare her numbers to Joe's in 2016 is of no value except for idle speculation.
I shouldn't have been so strident in my initial response. I just think it's an apples to oranges comparison. And you did point out that the situations are different. This year's Yankees aren't the 1927 Yankees, but they could still win it all.
There you go again Cillizza : you are comparing her polling numbers against the 2020 Biden polling numbers that were proven to be bullshit only a few weeks later. Try comparing her current numbers against the actual breakdown of the Biden winning totals. Get back to me then and I might be interested.
I first picked up on Twitter in 2016 what this dudes MO is : “ both siderism “. The only difference 8 years later is that he tries to be less obvious about it.
Love to see the comments. The same people said that the polls were so strong when Pres. Biden was still running and that Chris didn’t really understand what was actually happening. I hope you all are preparing yourselves for a former Pres. Trump second term and really moving this time.
I love Chris’s takes on the polling numbers but I can’t take it anymore. I just try and ignore it all this point. It is driving me crazy. Surely most Americans will come to their senses and vote for Harris when push comes to shove. I pray that we still know the difference between sane and crazy in this country
It was crazy how big a lead Biden had in 2020 compared to how we had to sweat out the week.
If you really want to make your eye twitch, look at Hillary's numbers at this point in 2016.
EDIT: I mentioned this yesterday and maybe I should've made this a mailbag question, but Chris, I am curious you're seeing with the early voting numbers
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The polls will be proven wrong because Democratic turnout will be very high and the polls aren’t capturing many people who don’t answer phones or do online surveys. This is going to be more like 2022.
God I hope you’re right.
I really believe this. I think Trump has topped out at 46% and she has considerable room to grow. Polls so a very poor job when turnout substantially exceeds the norm. It will this year. And women will make the difference.
Chris’s data choices are sobering; but beliefs are not necessarily factual, but my beliefs coincide with yours; perhaps it’s the consequences if we’re wrong destabilizing of so
many of our core beliefs, not to mention the junior high school we were led to believe about the city on the hill.
I picked Trump to win in 2016 because I was convinced there were a lot of hidden Trump voters. I picked Biden in 2020 because it was clear people had had enough of Trump. This year, I believe exhaustion with Trump, abortion, the women’s vote and the youth vote will tell.
I agree with you. In two prior elections, Trump got between 46 and 46.9% of the national vote. He won in 2016, because of two minor parties, Libertarian and Green sucking away vote in swing states that thru the election to Trump. That scenario is not in play this election.
We’ll see. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
Michigan is a tough state. I really believe it will take some serious turnout to do this, but I think that will happen.
Incredibly optimistic. Reality bites.
And it’s going to manifest itself in Pennsylvania. The decision not to pick Shapiro will prove to be disastrous.
I live in PA and I disagree with you completely. Not picking Shapiro won't have a negative affect. And early voting data in the state is good for dems so far. I'm in Lancaster County (the farm-adjacent suburbs, not the City which is always blue) and while I'm seeing a lot of Trump signs, I'm seeing a LOT more Harris and Casey signs than I expected. I think your take on PA is wrong.
If Pennsylvania is lost, you can go to bed. Any failure to understand this fact is not paying attention.
I never said that at all - YES, PA is required to win. I'm just saying you're wrong about PA going for Trump and the decision not to pick Shapiro being "disastrous". Do you live in the state? I do, and I'm paying attention. I think there is a VERY good chance that PA is going for Harris.
Harris will win in PA, so why don't you go to bed! You sound cranky!
That’s what concerns me.
Shapiro’a unwavering support of Bibi Netanyahu would have caused disaster in Michigan, Wisconsin and Georgia. People have no clue how many Arab Americans live in those three states and Pennsylvania. She would have gained a modest advantage in Pennsylvania and court disaster in the other theee states.
Good point. Although, Slotnick is saying Michigan isn’t strong. This is nerve wracking
Do you think more answered phones and did online surveys in 2020? I don’t do any of them, because they always want a donation. It’s a choice between donating or having the survey not be counted. It’s a hoax. I block them. I’ve had so many of these now I just block them without beginning the survey. It’s always a donation request.
Real polls by real pollsters do not ask for donations. Ever.
You would know. You have never published a real poll in your life.
Chris - Do you ever feel like Joe Buck? He calls it right down the middle every game but almost 100% of fans are convinced he’s rooting for the “other” team.
Actually, real polling surveys are different from the fake surveys that often are really donation requests. I agree about the latter - how dumb do fund raisers think people are?
Chris. Write stories other than polls. This is ridiculous.
There’s been a lot of data today which indicates Harris is winning in the suburbs, is attracting Haley voters and more women than Trump is winning men. And the 18-40 men he’s going after are a group that likely won’t vote.
Harris is as likely to win in a landslide through the southern states as Trump is.
Speculating is a mugs game lol
How am I speculating?
These are all your personal fantasies and wet dreams. Get a grip.
Polling isn’t real. If no one votes the polls are meaningless. Or if the 1500 people the polling company asks, lie, change their minds or don’t vote the 250 million voting Americans they represent will provide a different result.
This is the thing that gets me. It’s not a science. Democrats for the last 2 years have been over performing in special elections. So the polls for those candidates speculated what would happen in the actual election but were wrong.
That’s what I mean.
Polling isn't real is a tough thing to defend.
The real issue I think is the current need to reduce news stories to their simplest parts in order to keep everyone’s attention in this world of 24/7 news cycles and data overload. So an election story becomes just a horse race on poling data alone. Data on money raised, the nuances of a particular district, policy shifts which move voters from one side of the aisle the other, are ignored. Because stories like that would take too long to write and would be out of date when they were published.
Newsweek is currently pushing a story where Trump has significantly gained ground by 0.3%. lol. That’s what we’ve been reduced to. Trump’s basic rhetoric of “she’s crazy”. Freedom. Guns. Are all very simple messages everyone can understand. Without much cognitive processing. Harris’ I have a Glock. “When we fight we win”, are too.
Hilary Clinton and Rand Paul used to give long wonky speeches on policy no one listened to in 2016. (I did!) It was great politics. Elevated it considerably. But no one could handle it.
We live in a dumbed down world because our brains might explode if it wasn’t. But the simple stories we are subsequently forced to tell are trite, inaccurate, to the point of meaninglessness.
Perhaps this is election fatigue setting in. But I think if I see another “candidate looks doomed” story based on this last hours polling data with nothing else to support it, I will completely lose it lol.
VP Harris’ candidacy looks doomed in the rust belt swing states…..
That’s the thing. Trump can’t get out of the margin of error. His debate performance was disqualifying. A majority of women voters, young people, suburban Americans and independents aren’t voting for him. Those are terrible data points which are ignored by your statement and horse race media analysis. It’s not a smart thing to say, doesn’t get at any truth but I’m sure makes you feel good. Is this the dumbest election we’ve ever had? lol
I disagree. She has had an advantage there in each of those states for awhile. Not a big advantage, and maybe not out of the margin for error, but the ugliness of Trump, and the anger of women having their rights taken away by that Mango Menace's hand-picked SCOTUS judges will carry the day.
Also…polling isn’t real is an easy thing to defend unless you believe it actually reflects the number of Americans who don’t have a problem with Trump’s behavior. Which is an indictment of what we have become. Are we really that evil? I just don’t think so.
How often we hear that about the polls when it’s bad news for the left.
Dutch, not as often as we hear Donald whine when the polls don't say he's the big winner.
Trump looks weaker on the weekends than he does during the week as news teams switch to different editorial teams less focused on pushing pro Trump, anti Harris polling data and news stories. It’s very striking and implies that Trump is just a figment of the mainstream media’s imagination. lol Go take a look at the coverage for yourself. Begin with Monday and Tuesday’s news then look at Saturday morning and all the Sunday shows. It’s fascinating.
I'd like to see links to these data.
Hey Dutch,
If the erection you get from reading Chris's post lasts more than four hours, make sure you seek out out some medical care!!
That’s good!
Arguing that Trump has a good chance of winning is suggesting..or admitting.. that upwards of 80 million Americans are either ignorant, indecent, or both. If that is true, how sad.
admission....they are amoral and without standards...the aggrieved who refuse to admit their problems and failures are self-inflicted
Jeff Clabault, it's not going to happen. Americais are too smart to do that.
That desire and hope only exist in some pundits' mind and not in the over 80 million Americans who voted Trump out in 2020. They will be back again in November to block hhim from getting into the White House again
Well, 74 million were last time. And the fact that most consider the race close - that close to have the country wants a man who stole secret documents, is cruel and vicious and plans to go after anyone who disagrees with him, is a convicted felon and been adjudicated for sexual assault - boggles the mind
Last time there were 74 million Americans that voted for Trump, and Trump lost. Since then, he incited a violent mob to attack our capitol, lynch the Vice-President and Speaker of the House, to because he was upset that he lost. He has also taken government property that did not belong to him including sensitive nuclear defense secrets and kept despite court orders to return it. He engaged in plots to remove material so that the government could not find its stolen property. Also, he has been found civilly liable for committing sexual assault on a woman, forcing his fingers inside her vagina, against her will, in a New York department store dressing room. He and his business engaged in fraud to evade the payment of lawful taxes. He was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to hide pay outs to a porn-star with whom he had an affair.
The sad part is, none of that matters to the cult faithful. They find a way to rationalize everything.
I agree. Cults and cult members are tough to deal with. But dealt with they must be.
OR, 80 million plus believe and know our great country is heading in the wrong direction (see right track wrong track polls) and VP Harris, foolishly, said she wouldn’t change anything JB did! O my what a message! Knuckhead Walz provides zero assurance.
I don’t buy the polls.
Unfortunately I can’t do the polling thing and get anxious and pulled this way that way the other way till the election!!! Won’t is perhaps the answer… there are so many variables to how they poll people AND as allll of the goings on are NOT good for my mental health anyway ( guessing I’m not alone)….um just one more thing to NOT freak out over!!!!! One more thing I absolutely have no control over except to read it and either feel good or feel bad about. Sorry not sorry… thank you for sharing 🥰.
I am totally with you. Polls are already out of dare by the time they are published. Chris, we need to know what Kamala and the other guy are actually SAYING and DOING. Frankly, when your post is full of your charts and maps I don’t even read it.
Data is a lot more predictive than where Trump or Kamala Harris are on a given day.
Do you really think anyone on Substack believes you and your made up polls??
Go to Xitter, you’ll find more rubes.
Me too. The thing is that he (Chris) cherry picks the polls, graphs and charts etc that further his hidden wishes and hopes.That the MAGA cult leader wins) But I know his subscribers are smart enough to see through all that.
This is why I follow people like @cbouzy on Twitter - he's looking at data, not polls and he's confident in Harris. He's confident in Harris in PA. He says daily that Florida is in play. And so far, he's been right a lot.
Chris, all due respect, you're working my last nerve with these poll articles. I know you're busy with lots of other endeavors but please find something else to write about or take a day off and don't write at all. It's just me, I'm sure, but I'm tuning you out, man. Not even reading you anymore, sorry.
Where Biden and Hillary were in whatever polls you are looking at is irrelevant. All of the factors were decidedly different. We need to focus on the here and now. And watch the down ballot races. Those will determine if we have a chance at a functioning Congress.
Exactly. Hasn't Chris been saying for months - and I think most of us would agree - that this election is like none we've ever seen before? Then why would you try to compare it to previous ones?
This is a ridiculous comparison. It was an entirely different situation four years ago. Compare her numbers to Joe Biden's numbers THIS year. She had to pull herself out of a hole, and did, and surged ahead. To compare her numbers to Joe's in 2016 is of no value except for idle speculation.
I shouldn't have been so strident in my initial response. I just think it's an apples to oranges comparison. And you did point out that the situations are different. This year's Yankees aren't the 1927 Yankees, but they could still win it all.
Idle speculation and his desire to make the faint hearted Democrats more jittery Ed Johnson.
There you go again Cillizza : you are comparing her polling numbers against the 2020 Biden polling numbers that were proven to be bullshit only a few weeks later. Try comparing her current numbers against the actual breakdown of the Biden winning totals. Get back to me then and I might be interested.
Cilliza won't do that because that doesn't support his narrative
I first picked up on Twitter in 2016 what this dudes MO is : “ both siderism “. The only difference 8 years later is that he tries to be less obvious about it.
Taylor Lorenz! Say it ain’t so!
I’m really sad that you’ve chosen to platform that disgusting liar:
https://www.npr.org/2024/10/10/g-s1-27366/taylor-lorenz-leaves-washington-post-after-rift-with-editors
Of all the reporters in all the world, surely you can find someone with more scruples to talk to.
Love to see the comments. The same people said that the polls were so strong when Pres. Biden was still running and that Chris didn’t really understand what was actually happening. I hope you all are preparing yourselves for a former Pres. Trump second term and really moving this time.
Disappointed that you’re going to be on with someone who called Joe Biden a war criminal and then lied about it to her editors. You can do better.
That’s why polling is no good and outdated. She’s going to win big…
I love Chris’s takes on the polling numbers but I can’t take it anymore. I just try and ignore it all this point. It is driving me crazy. Surely most Americans will come to their senses and vote for Harris when push comes to shove. I pray that we still know the difference between sane and crazy in this country
Thoughts and prayers seem to fix everything, especially gun violence.
It was crazy how big a lead Biden had in 2020 compared to how we had to sweat out the week.
If you really want to make your eye twitch, look at Hillary's numbers at this point in 2016.
EDIT: I mentioned this yesterday and maybe I should've made this a mailbag question, but Chris, I am curious you're seeing with the early voting numbers
As for the early voting numbers, the Democrats are as usual outperforming the Republicans so far Sam