I think democrats will meaningfully outperform relative to the polls. The polls just don't line up with everything else. Virtually all signs outside of polling point to a solid Harris victory.

I think afterwards, there will be a lot of pollsters saying things like, gee, I guess we over-adjusted or under-sampled or failed to capture the enthusiasm or our likely voter model is wrong or something something we'll get it right next time.

On the other hand, maybe the polls are accurately reflecting the various voter suppression efforts....

TwilightZone

(28,834 posts)

8. The chairperson of the Harris campaign says that the race is extremely close,

Reply to unblock (Reply #5)

Tue Oct 29, 2024, 04:18 PM

Oct 29

all of the swing states are in play, and "This truly is a margin of error race."

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100219623770

But, she's also optimistic about the outcome. She presumably has more information than the rest of us. Do you suspect she's wrong about it being close?

Her analysis of early voting is certainly positive - more Rs early voting, but they are voters who were going to vote anyway; many of the voters on our side were on the lower end of the "likely-to-vote" scale, which is excellent news.

unblock

(54,242 posts)

10. the campaigns have incentives to spin the race as close, in order to motivate people to vote.

Reply to TwilightZone (Reply #8)

Tue Oct 29, 2024, 04:35 PM

Oct 29

i'm not saying they are wrong, it's pretty easy for state races to be within the margin of error because they usually don't sample enough within a single state to get a small margin of error. 3% is large and 4% is huge in any reasonably close race. basically, the winner has to be 95% likely to win in order to be outside the margin of error. they can still be 90% likely to win and it's inside the margin of error.

moreover, there are different factors when translating polls to votes. it's going to be a turnout election, so regardless of who is a bit ahead or behind when you ask them in a poll, i think democrats will clobber republicans by simply turning out in much larger numbers.

the pollsters don't have a great way of predicting this, i think they largely rely on previous turnout percentages for each demographic. but if a larger percentage of women (e.g., "thanks" to dobbs) vote compared to historical norms, that alone could have a great impact on the race.

i'm pretty much at the point where i think polls are largely useless in terms of estimating where the race is at. they don't take voter suppression or turnout motivation into account, and these days the "approval" ratings are very stubborn, but likeliness to vote is much more volatile. that's where the game is, that's what the campaigns are mostly about, and the polls largely miss it.

TwilightZone

(28,834 posts)

11. Internal polls are a completely different animal.

Reply to unblock (Reply #10)

Tue Oct 29, 2024, 04:49 PM

Oct 29

Different methods, different levels of organization, much more detailed and specific, turnout models and data, and so on. And historically pretty solid. One can sometimes tell when they come in to play because campaigns shift focus from states that look close but really aren't, to others that may appear safe, but similarly are not.

Some campaigns talk about them a lot, but I've seen very little of that from the Harris campaign.

Sure, the campaign has reason to say it's close, but the fact they're hitting certain states hard in the closing days leads me to believe it's a reality, at least in states like PA.

Many here and elsewhere talk about the hidden women's vote that isn't being reflected in the polls, and it will be curious to see if that proves to be real. I doubt that the campaign wouldn't be aware of it at this point, and least where the impact on early voting is concerned. Guess we'll know in a week or so.

Fiendish Thingy

(18,816 posts)

7. We don't make anything of the polls

Reply to HagathaCrispy (Original post)

Tue Oct 29, 2024, 04:10 PM

Oct 29

We ignore them.

Metaphorical

(2,346 posts)

9. The polls and $5.50 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks

Reply to HagathaCrispy (Original post)

Tue Oct 29, 2024, 04:30 PM

Oct 29

My suspicion - the MoE on the polls is probably large enough to drive a truck through, and aggregating does you no good when you flood the zone with heavily weighted polls. I don't think a Harris win is guaranteed, but I also think that there are too many open variables at this point to realistically determine where the electorate sits, especially in the EC. I think Pennsylvania is likely a win for Kamala Harris, Wisconsin may be, Michigan probably will be. Georgia could be a tossup, but for that matter Texas and Florida COULD be a tossup. I don't think it's going to be a blowout, but I also don"t think that Trump's going to win even the EC.

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